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LIFE OF STERNE












1I
I




14-IL F   LI41FEF
OF
LAUREN*CE S TERN*E
BY
AUTHOR OF ' THE LIFE OF GARRICK,
'THE LIVES OF THE KEMBLES, ~BOZLAN'D' ETC.
i/IT/I I- IPOATR.41f1
I N TWO VO LU MES
VOL. I.
DOWN'J'Y C\ CO.
21 YORK ST., COVENT GARDEN, LONDON




NOTE
The present work is founded on a previous life
of Sterne by the same author. It is in great part
rewritten and contains much fresh material.
February i896.




3nscribet
TO THE
REV. WHITWELL ELWIN
RECTOR OF BOOTON, NORWICH.








PREFACE


MANY years ago I wrote an account of Sterne, the first
attempt that had been made at supplying a life of the
great humorist. The materials were scanty enough,
but I was fortunate in securing a large number of
unpublished letters and other important matter. I
was still more fortunate in receiving the advice and
assistance of my old and valued friend the late Mr
John Forster. The Rev. Whitwell Elwin, his friend
and mine, an acute and accomplished critic, and the
author of what is the best account of Sterne, also
helped me with a number of useful suggestions and
profuse references, such as only one of his vast
reading could supply.
Many years, as I have said, have elapsed since the
appearance of this work, and, as was to be expected,
a quantity of fresh materials, letters and other MSS.
have come to light. I have now almost entirely reix




PREFA CE
written the book, which may be practically considered
a new life. Letters of Sterne are scarce and costly,
yet I have gathered here a great number of new and
interesting documents hitherto unpublished. I would
point particularly to the long and interesting letter in
which Sterne vindicates himself from the charge of
neglect of and cruelty to his mother; to the extracts
from the strange journal kept for Eliza; to the
'characteristical' notes in the Halifax school book;
and to many other curious records.
I have been obliged, however, to modify the too
favourable opinion I entertained of Sterne's life and
character, and am constrained to admit that Mr
Thackeray's view-harsh as it may seem-had much
to support it. Yorick's Journal which I have read
hrough carefully, is fatally damaging; exhibiting a
repulsive combination of Pharisaical utterances and lax
principle. This would seem to show that Mr Sterne
was something more than the mere 'philanderer' he
described himself to be.  Mr Elwin was long ago
constrained to adopt the same view.  Indeed, it
may be always fairly presumed that licentious writing
is almost certain to be followed by life and practice
as licentious.
x




I'REFA CE


Many critics and writers of eminence-Mr Carlyle,
M. Taine, Mr Elwin, Mr Traill-have tried to analyse
Sterne's style and methods, contrasting him with
Rabelais, Cervantes, Fielding and Dickens.  The
truth is, our author was so capricious and even
fragmentary and disorderly in his system that comparison is impossible. The writers just named were
really 'monumental' in their handling of their characters, and completed their labour before issuing it to
the world. Sterne sent forth his work in fragments,
and often wrote what was sheer nonsense to fill his
volumes. He allowed his pen to lead him, instead of
he himself directing his pen. The whole is so incomplete and disjointed that cosmopolitan readers have not
the time or patience to piece the various scraps together.
But, as I have shown in the text-and this, I am
convinced, is the true view-he has given to the world
a group of living characters, which have become known
and familiar even to those who have not read a line
of Tristram. These are My Uncle Toby, Mr and
Mrs Shandy, Yorick-his own portrait-and Dr Slop.
There are choice passages, too, grotesque situations
and expressions which have become part of the language. Mr Shandy, I venture to think, is the best
xi




PREFA CE


of these creations, more piquant and attractive even
than My Uncle Toby, because more original and more
difficult to touch. It is in this way that Sterne has
made his mark, and may be said to be better known
than read.
A great deal has been written on the false and overstrained sentiment of his pathetic passages such as in
the 'Story of Le Fever,'' Maria of Moulines,' 'The
Dead Ass,' and other incidents. No doubt these
were somewhat artificially wrought, but it must be
remembered they followed the tone of the time.
His exquisite humour is beyond dispute, the Shandean
sayings, allusions, topics, etc., have a permanent hold;
and, as they recur to the recollection, produce a complacent smile, even though the subject be what is
called ' broad.' No better type of his humour could be
given than the one quoted by Mr Elwin,-' "I have left
Trim my bowling-green," said My Uncle Toby. My
father smiled. " I have also left him a small pension."
My father looked grave.' In this stroke there is not
merely humour, but a deep knowledge of character.
I would refer those who would enter on a critical
study of Sterne's writings to Mr Elwin's searching
article in the Quarterly Review (Vol. XCIV.), to Taine's
xii




PREFACE
well-known criticisms, to Mr Traill's little account in
the ' English Men of Letters' series, founded ostensibly
on my Life of Sterne, and to M. Paul Stapfer's
Essay, also founded on the same work. There is
also an elaborate examination of the book in the
Revue des Deux Mondes by an eminent Frenchman.
PERCY FITZGERALD.
ATHENAEUM CLUB,
February I896.


xiii








CONTENTS
CHAP.                                      PAGE
I. CHILDHOOD AND SCHOOLDAYS,..    I
II. DR JAQUES STERNE AND HIS NEPHEW,.     15
III. LOVE-MAKING AND MARRIED LIFE,.       22
IV. AT SUTTON,....   28
V. ' DR SLOP,'...   49
VI. CATHEDRAL QUARRELS,....   58
VII. A SERIES OF LETTERS,...     8I
VIII. A SECOND LOVE-' DEAR, DEAR KITTY,'    102
IX. 'TRISTRAM' WRITTEN AND PUBLISHED,      I I I
X. PETTY ANNOYANCES,..             120
XI. VISIT TO LONDON,....       126
XII. FAME AND HONOURS,....      137
XIII. YORICK'S SERMONS,..  I58
XIV. TRISTRAM AT HIS DESK,....178
XV. A SECOND LONDON VISIT,                  185
XVI. MR STERNE GOES ABROAD,..  201








LIFE OF STERNE
CHAPTER I
CHILDHOOD AND SCHOOLDAYS
IN one of his more familiar passages, Sterne thus speaks
of his family:-'This is the reason,' he says, 'that...
for these four generations we count no more than one
archbishop, a Welsh judge, some three or four aldermen,
and a single mountebank.' The archbishop was a notable prelate-of the Welsh judge but little or nothing is
known. But the term 'mountebank' was often applied
to the humorist; indeed, he once chose to be painted
in that character.
Archbishop Richard Sterne* was an ardent loyalist, and
took the side of the King in the Civil Wars. He sent the
college plate to His Majesty, for which he was seized by
Cromwell and imprisoned. He endured much persecu* Born, 1596; master of Jesus College, Cambridge, 1633;
Bishop of Carlisle, I660; translated to York, 1664; died, i683.
VOL. I.                                A




LIFE OF STERNE
tion, being hooted and stoned by the crowd, and actually shipped in a collier to be sold-it was so believed
-as a slave to the Algerians. Escaping this fate, he
attended Laud to the scaffold. When the good times
returned he was, of course, rewarded for his constancy
and trials. He, later, assisted in revising the Book of
Common Prayer, and has been suggested as one of the
many authors of The Whole Duty of Alan. When he
died, Burnet wrote of him with some bitterness that 'he
was a sour, ill-tempered divine, and minded chiefly the
enrichment of his family. He was suspected of popery.'
Of the archbishop's thirteen children, the eldest, Richard,
was established at Elvington in Yorkshire, and had
married a Yorkshire heiress, Miss Jaques, daughter
of Sir Roger Jaques. The Sternes, indeed, were well
connected on all sides, being allied with the Rawdons
and other high county families. From another son, John,
was descended the Irish branch, connected with the
Hills of Kilmallock. Of the thirteen, the one we are
most interested in is, of course, Roger, described by
his son Laurence as 'a lieutenant in Handasyd's
Regiment,' or the 22d. We also find his name in the
34th or Cornwallis's, so he may have served in both corps.
As all readers know, he saw much of the Flanders
wars, and his little son heard many a story of these
stirring times, which he put into the mouth of Uncle
Toby and his Corporal Trim. A short time before his
death, after a lapse of nigh fifty years, these childish
recollections came vividly back to the Reverend Laurence,
and he drew up for his daughter a short and tolerably
2




CHILDHOOD AND SCHOOLDA YS


accurate sketch of his early life. If 'jerky' in style, it
is a very dramatic bit of narrative, and tells us all that
is wanting.  'Roger Sterne,' he begins abruptly, 'was
married to Agnes Hebert, widow of a captain of good
family. Her family name was (I believe) Nuttle, though
upon recollection that was the name of her father-in-law,'
(how characteristic this; he would not pause to correct
or re-write his first statement), 'who was a noted settler
in Flanders, in Queen Anne's wars, where my father
married his wife's daughter (N.B.-He was in debt to him),
which was in September 25, 1711, old style.   This
Nuttle had a son by my grandmother-a fine person of
a man, but a graceless whelp-what became of him I
know not. The family (if any left) live now at Clonmel
in the South of Ireland.'
From this we gather that the improvident lieutenant
actually married when on campaign-married a widow,
too-and under pressure. ' N.B.-He was in debt to him.'
The son makes a natural mistake in calling Nuttle her
father-in-law, whereas he was merely her stepfather.
The name may have been Herbert, but there is a French
name Hebert. I am inclined to think that this lady was
herself of foreign extraction from the later troubles she
brought on her son, and the sort of hysterical persecution
she subjected him to. In Sterne's face, too, there was
something of a foreign cast.
One daughter had been born abroad, and another
child was expected when the regiment was ordered to
Clonmel, the war being now over.
'At which town,' goes on the little story, 'I was born.
3




LIFE OF STEA'NE
November 24th, 1713, a few days after my mother arrived
from Dunkirk. My birthday was ominous to my poor
father, who was, the day after our arrival, with many
other brave officers, broke, and sent adrift into the wide
world with a wife and two children.' The Shandean
touch here-' our arrival '-will be noted. The elder was
Mary; 'she was born in Lisle, in French Flanders,
July Ioth, 1712, new style.' (Mr Sterne must have had
his family Bible open before him as he wrote):-' This
child was most unfortunate; she married one Wimmins
in Dublin, who used her most unmercifully, spent his
substance, became a bankrupt, and left my poor sister to
shift for herself, which she was able to do but for a few
months, for she went to a friend's house in the country
and died of a broken heart. She was a most beautiful
woman, of a fine figure, and deserved a better fate.
'.. The regiment in which my father served being
broke, he left Ireland as soon as I was able to be carried
with the rest of his family, and came to the family seat at
Elvington, near York, where his mother lived. She was
daughter to Sir Roger Jaques, and an heiress. There we
sojourned for about ten months, when the regiment was
established, and our household decamped with bag and
baggage for Dublin. Within a month of our arrival,
my father left us, being ordered to Exeter, where in a
sad winter, my mother and her two children followed
him, travelling from Liverpool by land to Plymouth.
(Melancholy description of this journey not necessary to
be transcribed here.) In twelve months we were all sent
back to Dublin. My mother, with three of us (for she
4




CHILDHOOD AND SCHOOLDA YS
lay in at Plymouth of a boy, Joram), took ship at Bristol
for Ireland, and had a narrow escape from being cast
away, by a leak springing up in the vessel. At length,
after many perils and struggles, we got to Dublin. There
my father took a large house, furnished it, and in a year
and a halfs time spent a great deal of money.'
The regiment now known as Chudleigh's Thirty-fourth
-that officer having succeeded Colonel Hamilton-was
reformed in Dublin. We have the list of officers now
before us, with even the uniform they wore.The colonel was Chudleigh, the lieutenant-colonel,
Whitney, the major, Charles Douglas: the captains
were Hayes, Dawes, Doige, Moore, Matys, Shelton and
Pyott: the lieutenants, Sanbeyeres, Yard, Cooksay,
Brereton, Hamilton, Tremaigne, Batten, Phillips, White,
Hayes and Ford:   the ensigns, Sirck, Roger Sterne,
Sutton, Shaddy, Bilson, Parker, Price and Wickham.
Only an ensign, after all his campaigns and wanderings!
They wore a tri-cornered hat, a full-skirted, scarlet coat,
turned up with the brightest yellow facings, a scarlet
waistcoat, white trimmings and white gaiters.*
In Dublin he presently found many of his name. Here
was the Bishop of Dromore, Enoch Sterne, later Swift's
friend, with Henry Baker Sterne, both clerks to the
Parliament.  On Ormond quay we find the firm of
Nuttall & M'Guire, the former possibly a connection of
the ensign's wife.
'In the year 1719,' goes on the story, ' all unhinged again,
the regiment was ordered, with many others, to the Isle
' From War Office Records.
5




LIFE OF STERNE
of Wight, in order to embark for Spain in the Vigo
Expedition. We accompanied the regiment, and were
driven into Milford Haven, but landed at Bristol, from
thence by land to Plymouth again, and to the Isle of
Wight-where I remember we stayed encamped some
time before the embarkation of the troops-(in this
expedition from Bristol to Hampshire we lost poor Joram
-a pretty boy, four years old, of the small-pox). My
mother, sister and myself remained at the Isle of Wight
during the Vigo Expedition, and until the regiment had
got back to Wicklow in Ireland, from whence my father
sent for us. We had poor Joram's loss supplied during
our stay in the Isle of Wight by the birth of a girl, Anne,
born September 23d, 1719. This pretty blossom fell at
the age of three years, in the barracks of Dublin; she
was, as I well remember, of a fine, delicate frame, not
made to last long, as were most of my father's babes.
We embarked for Dublin, and had all been cast away by
a most violent storm, but through the intercessions of my
mother, the captain was prevailed upon to turn back into
Wales, where we stayed a month, and at length got into
Dublin, and travelled by land to Wicklow, where my
father had for some weeks given us over for lost. We
lived in the barracks at Wicklow one year (I720) when
Devijeher (so called after Colonel Devijeher) was born;
from thence we decamped to stay half a year with Mr
Fetherston, a clergyman, about seven miles from Wicklow, who, being a relation of my mother's, invited us to
his parsonage at Animo. It was in this parish, during
our stay, that I had that wonderful escape in falling
6




CHILDHOOD AND SCHOOLDA YS


through a mill-race whilst the mill was going, and of
being taken up unhurt. The story is incredible, but known
for truth in all that part of Ireland, where hundreds of
the common people flocked to see me. From hence we
followed the regiment to Dublin, where we lay in the
barracks a year. In this year, 1721, I learned to write,
etc. The regiment, ordered in 1722 to Carrickfergus in
the North of Ireland, we all decamped, but got no
further than Drogheda, thence ordered to Mullingar,
forty miles west, where by Providence we stumbled upon
a kind relation, a collateral descendant from Archbishop
Sterne, who took us all to his castle and kindly entreated
us for a year, and sent us to the regiment at Carrickfergus, loaded with kindnesses, etc. A most rueful and
tedious journey had we all, in March, to Carrickfergus,
where we arrived in six or seven days. Little Devijeher
here died; he was three years old. He had been left
behind at nurse at a farmhouse near Wicklow, but was
fetched to us by my father the summer after. Another
child sent to fill his place, Susan; this babe too left us
behind in this weary journey.'
All which is a most piteous story, and yet dramatic. The
poor ensign must have been well-nigh crushed and heartbroken as he dragged about his family from place to place,
pausing only for some fresh addition to his burdens. The
little Laurence's wonderful escape from the mill-wheel
was, curiously enough anticipated in the case of his greatgrandfather, who, we are told, 'playing near a mill, fell
within a clow. There was but one board or bucket
wanting in the whole wheel, but a gracious Providence
7




LIFE OF STERNE


so ordered it that the void place came down at that
moment, else he had been inevitably crushed to death.'
His descendant probably enough transferred this accident
to himself, though his account had all the particularity of
personal recollection-the people crowding to see himand which is truly national.
It was now determined to put Laurence, who was
about eleven years old, to school. At Halifax, close
to Heath, was a free grammar school, founded by Queen
Elizabeth, principally for the benefit of children from the
parish and district of Halifax; but the master was
allowed to take a number of pupils to board, not upon
the foundation. At this school was young Tristram
'fixed' by  his father.  The choice was natural.
We find 'Richard Sterne, Esquire,' in the year 1727,
one of the governors. Squire Simon had been buried
in Halifax Church; and young Laurence could be fairly
placed upon the foundation, as a child of the parish.
Laurence, then eleven years old, must have brought
with him learning sufficient 'to read English, and to be
promoted to the Accidence,' according to the quaint provision of the charter.
His master was Mr Thomas Lister.
'The autumn of that year, or the spring after, I forget
which,' goes on the story, 'my father got leave of his
colonel to fix me at school, which he did near Halifax with
an able master with whom I stayed some time.'
This compliment the master well-deserved, for at least
his judgment and sagacity, witness this instance.
'I remained at Halifax till about the latter end of that
8




CHILDHOOD AND SCHOOLDA YS


year (1731), and cannot omit mentioning this anecdote
of myself and schoolmaster.  We had had the ceiling
of the schoolroom new whitewashed-the ladder remained there. I one unlucky day mounted it and wrote
with a brush in large capital letters LAU. STERNE,
for which the usher severely whipped me. My master was very much hurt at this, and said before me,
that never should that name be effaced, for I was a
boy of genius and he was sure I would come to preferment. This expression made me forget the stripes I had
received.' No doubt the master saw here some ardour
for reputation.
The boys too, could admire the spirit of their daring
companion. A Colonel Longridge, who came to the
school shortly after Sterne left, saw the inscription still
uneffaced. There were then traditions among the boys
of the lad's cleverness and wit. Some of his sayings even
were repeated.  The schoolroom still remains with the
great oak beam across the ceiling on which the name had
been inscribed.
Many years ago there was placed in the writer's hands
an interesting 'curio,' no other, indeed, than one of
Laurence's school-books. Its title was Synopsis Corzmunium Locorum ex Poetis Latinis Collecta, and more
characteristic evidence of the erratic character of the boy
could not be imagined. It was a soiled, dirty book, every
page scrawled over with writing, sketches, repetitions of
his own name and those of his fellows-' L. S., 1728,' the
letters being sometimes twisted together in the shape of
a monogram. On the title-page, in faint brown char9




LIFE OF STERNE
acters, was written, in straggling fashion, the owner's
name: 'Law: Sterne, September ye 6, 1725.' We
find also some of his schoolfellows' names, such as
' Christopher Welbery,' ' John Turner' (a Yorkshire
name), 'Richard Carre, ejus liber," 'John Walker,' with
'Nickibus Nonkebus,' rorum rarum,' etc. There is a stave
of notes, with the ' sol fa,' etc., written below, and signed
'L. S.' Then we come on this:-' I owe Samuel Thorpe
one halfpenny, but I will fiay him to-dazy.' On another
page we read 'labour takes;banes,' 'John Davie,' ' Bill
Copper,' the latter, no doubt, a school nickname. But
on nearly every page of this dog-eared volume was some
rude drawing or sketch done after the favourite schoolboy rules of art. One curious, long-nosed, long-chinned
face has written over it, ' This is Lorence,' and there is
certainly a coarse suggestion of the later chin and nose
of the humorist. There are owls, and cocks and hens,
etc., a picture of 'A gentleman,' and several, as we
might expect, of soldiers, one, especially, in the curious
sugar-loaf cap seen in the picture of the ' March to
Finchley,' with the wig and short-stock gun and strap.
We find also some female faces, early evidence, perhaps,
of our hero's later tastes. Then we come on the words
'A drummer,' 'A piper,' and this compliment, 'puding
John Gillington.' Sometimes the name which figures
everywhere is spelled ' Law: Sterne-his book.'
Mr Thackeray, who had no love for Sterne, describes
him  at this period fancifully enough:-'Yonder lean,
cadaverous lad, who is always borrowing money, telling
lies, leering at the housemaids, is Master Laurence
IO




CHILDHOOD AND SCHOOLDA YS
Sterne, a bishop's grandson, and himself intended for
the Church.  For shame, you little reprobate! But
what a genius the fellow has! He shall have a sound
flogging, and as soon as the young scamp is out of the
whipping-room give him a gold medal. Such would be
my practice were I Doctor Birch, and master of the
school.'
A morning paper, published long after, when he was
grown up and famous, furnishes a bare line or so in reference to this school time. At school,' it runs,'he would learn
when he pleased, and not oftener than once a fortnight.'
While he was at the school the sad news of his father's
death reached him. It overtook the worn and weary
soldier in the midst of fresh wanderings. 'To pursue
the thread of my story,' his son writes, 'my father's
regiment was, the year after, ordered to Londonderry,
where another sister was brought forth-Catherine, still
living, but most unhappily estranged from me by my
uncle's wickedness and her own folly. From this station
the regiment was sent to defend Gibraltar at the siege,
where my father was run through the body by Captain
Philips * in a duel. (The quarrel began about a goose).
With much difficulty he survived-though with an impaired
constitution, which was not able to withstand the hardships it was put to for he was sent to Jamaica, where
he soon fell by the country fever, which took away his
senses first, and made a child of him, and then, in a
month or two, walking about continually without com* Philips' name occurs in the list of officers in Chudleigh's
regiment as Christopher Philips.
II




LIIE OF STERNE


plaining, till the moment he sat down in an arm-chair
and breathed his last, which was at Port Antonio, on the
north of the island. My father was a little, smart manactive to the last degree in all exercises, most patient of
fatigue and disappointments of which it pleased God to
give him full measure. He was in temper somewhat
rapid and hasty, but of a kindly, sweet disposition, v oid of
all deszgn, and so innocent in his intentions that he
suspected no one, while you uigrht jhave cheated hi;m fen
times in a day if nine had not been sufficient for your
purpose. My poor father died in March, I731.'
This sketch, in spite of its disjointed style, is as
masterly as anything in his efficient writings. But how
clearly the underlined passages show from what original
my Uncle Toby was drawn.
The whole sketch of the father's nature is happily
embodied in the 'most patient of fatigue and disappointments' of which he had, indeed, the fullest measure. No
doubt there were many instances told in the family of his
simplicity and amiable credulousness. It was on this
element of character that the writer seized, and he wrote
up and elaborated it in his own admirable fashion.
Another side of the character-the patience of suffering
and hardship-was given in the story of Le Fever,
whose pathetic end came about exactly harmonious with
that of the poor lieutenant.
Many years ago, Mr Ball, writing in Macmillan's
Magazine, gives an account of Preston Castle in Hertfordshire. He adds this speculation as to the original
of my Uncle Toby:I2




CHILDHOOD AND SCHOOLDA YS
'In the day of Laurence Sterne,' he says, 'the owner
of Preston Castle was a certain Captain Hinde, who was
at once the old soldier and the country gentleman. My
father, who lived near the village of Preston, was told by
the late Lord Dacre, of The Hoo, in Hertfordshire, that
this Captain Hinde "'was Sterne's Uncle Toby." My
father ascertained that the fact was well known to the
Lord Dacre of the "Tristram Shandy" period, and had
been transmitted in the Dacre family from father to son.
His lordship added, that a very old man named Pilgrim,
who had spent his young days in the service of Captain
Hinde, might be found some few miles from The Hoo.
My father sought an interview with Pilgrim, the venerable
patriarch of a lonely little village, and in the course of a
long conversation gathered evidence which clearly traced
my Uncle Toby to a real-life residence at Preston Castle.
Pilgrim, in his youth, had an uncle who was butler at
The Hoo, some five miles from Preston. This uncle
well remembered the famous Mr Sterne as one of Lord
Dacre's visitors, and once heard him conversing with his
noble host about "Tristram Shandy."
'" My Uncle Toby was drawn from life," said Mr Sterne.
"It is the portrait of your lordship's neighbour, Captain
Hinde."
' Pilgrim told of the sayings and doings of his old master.
Captain Hinde was a veritable Uncle Toby. He gave
an embattled front to his house-the labourers on his
land were called from the harvest-field by notes of the
bugle, and a battery was placed at the end of his garden.
'He had the most extraordinary love for all living
I3




LIFE OF STERNE


things. Finding that a bullfinch had built her nest in
the garden hedge, close to his battery, he specially
ordered his men not to fire the guns until the little
birds had flown. To fire these guns was his frequent
amusement, but he would not allow a sound to disturb
the feathered family.'
Lord Dacre certainly was a friend of Sterne's, and on
the whole I think we may accept the theory that Sterne
grafted on the sketch of his father these particular
humours of Captain Hinde. It is clear that his father
would have no opportunity of exhibiting such pleasing
eccentricities.


14




CHAPTER II


DR JAQUES STERNE AND HIS NEPHEW
BY the time Laurence left Halifax School, he was close
upon nineteen.  The position of the widow and her
children were almost critical. She had, however, wellto-do connections, one of whom took care of Laurence.
Some pittance, however, must have been left to her, for
I find that in August i8th, I732, she took out administration in the Irish Court, in which instrument her
name and those of her three children, Maria, Catherine
and Laurence, are given.
His cousin, Richard Sterne of Elvington, now, as he
says, 'became a father to me, sent me to the university,
etc.'-the odd 'etcetera' standing for much more kindly
aid in the shape of money.  He was entered at Jesus
College,* Cambridge, and his tutor was Mr Cannon.
On July 6th, 1733, he obtained a sizarship, and on
July 30th of the following year he was elected scholar on
Archbishop Sterne's foundation-of course, a sort of
family compliment. The only one of his college friends
whose name has reached us was John Hall Stevenson,
* Dr Corrie, the master, long since dead, kindly furnished me
with the details connected with Sterne's residence here.
15




LIFE OF STERNE


who was also to obtain celebrity for his loose writings.
"Twas there,' says Sterne, 'that I commenced a friendship
with Mr H-      which has been most lasting on both
sides.' He was 'a gay spirited youth,' according to
Mr Cole, the antiquary.  'Tom  Hall I recollect well
at college, where he was an ingenious young gentleman,
and very handsome.' It is odd that he does not recall
his more brilliant and equally 'ingenious' companion.
In a letter, lornzino Post memoir, it is stated that 'he
read a great deal, laughed more, and sometimes took
the diversion of puzzling his tutors. He left Cambridge
with the character of an odd man, who had no harm in
him, and who had parts, if he would use them.' It was
at Cambridge that he had the first of those pulmonary
attacks-the breaking of a blood-vessel in his chestwhich clung to him steadily all the rest of his life. He
had a narrow escape, and recollected it long after. And
it must be borne in mind, when we come to weigh any
shortcomings, what frail, feeble frames his parents
furnished to their young family; and how he only, and
the scapegrace sister, as she may be called, escaped
shipwreck out of all the Devijehers, Jorams, and the rest,
that put out to sea with him. On the 29th of March,
1735, he matriculated, and in the January of the following year he took his Bachelor's degree,
On the 6th of March, 1736, the Dr Richard Reynolds,
Bishop of Lincoln, was ordaining deacons at Buckden,
in Huntingdonshire, and among the candidates was a
thin, spare, hollow-chested youth, with curiously bright
eyes, and a Voltairean mouth, who had come from Jesus
i6




DRi JAQUES.S'TERNE AND HIS NEPHEW
College, Cambridge. The name of the new deacon was
Laurence Sterne, B.A., from Yorkshire. Previously, his
University had granted to him the usual testimonials for
Orders, which were dated on the 28th of February, 1736.
Finally, at the quaint and almost Shandean town of
Chester, it may be mentioned in anticipation, that on
2oth of August, I738, he was ordained priest, by Dr
Samuel Peploe, then Bishop of Chester, and became the
Reverend Laurence Sterne.
Through the interest of his uncle, Dr Jaques Sterne,
a person of great importance, political and local, our
new clergyman was appointed to a vicarage close to
York. Ordained on August 2oth, he was, on the 25th, inducted into the living of Sutton on the Trent; it was in
the gift of Archbishop Blackburne. In July I740 he took
his Master's degree. In this year, his uncle also obtained
for him a Prebend in York Cathedral, worth about f40 a
year; with this he also held the minor Prebend of Pocklington, worth only;1Io. But he had a house in Stonegate, near the archbishop's palace, where he could come
'into residence.' *
York was then a pleasant city to live in, with a theatre
that had some reputation; families came 'for the
season,' and there was plenty of winter gaieties, and
balls at the Assembly Rooms.   No place, however,
could be more full of local jealousies and political turmoil.
Much of this was owing to a leading character of the
* The late Mr Durrant Cooper, F.S.A., furnished me with
these and many other important details. He possessed Sterne's
letters of ordination which are now in the British Museum.
VOL..               17                 3




LIFEt OF STERNE'
place, the Dr Jaques Sterne alluded to. Jaques Sterne
was one of the sons of Simon Sterne, and next in order
to the late Roger Sterne. He was named Jaques after
Sir Roger, the father of the heiress. He figures in the
fierce election contests of the day, was a strong 'no
popery' man; he was, as I have said, a great pluralist.
He was a Canon Residentiary, a Prebendary, and Precentor of York Cathedral-the precentorship coming
to him in the year I735, by way of guerdon for the
election services of the preceding year. He, was, besides,
Rector of Rise, and Rector of fIornsea-cum-Ritson in
the East Riding-offices slender, it must be confessed, in
their emoluments, but still acceptable.  ly-and-by, in the
year I746, came the Archdeaconry of Cleveland, and, ten
years later, he was Prebendary, of I)urham, and, in 1750,
Archdeacon of the East Riding.
There are some letters preserved of this persevering
churchman's, which show in an amusing way how eager
he was in prosecuting his interests when any opening
offered. He thus wrote to one of his political patrons:MY LORD, —The Archbishop of Canterbury having some
time ago applied to your Grace in my favour, for succeeding Dr Hayter in his Prebend at Westminster, when it
should become vacant by his promotion, I hope your
Grace will pardon my application, upon Dr Hayter's
present promotion. I am very sensible it does but ill
become me to mention to your Grace how often, and at
what a vast expense, I have, for a number of years, been
using my best endeavours for promoting His Majesty's
13




DR JAQUES STERNE AND HIS NEPHEW
service in this country. But I hope your Grace will the
more readily excuse my naming it, since I was so happy
as to hear your Grace express your approbation of my
behaviour, when you acquainted his present Grace of
Canterbury, then Archbishop of York, how the Deanery of
York was disposed of, and was pleased to add, that though
I could not receive that mark of the King's favour, yet
that some other was intended for me. There is no doubt
but your Grace will have many applications for this
Prebend, but if your Grace is inclined to honour me with
your notice at this time, there can't long be wanting an
opportunity, from Dr Manningham's ill state of health, of
distinguishing any other person whom your Grace is
pleased to think of also.-I am, my lord, with all duty,
your Grace's most obedient, humble servant.
'YORK, Oct. the 14th, 1749.'
The obsequious divine used some ingenious arts to
propitiate the man whom he was importuning.
'MAY IT PLEASE YOUR GRACE,'-he wrote to the Duke
of Newcastle-' The Vicarage of Alborough is become
vacant, which I made my option some time ago, that I
might secure a clerk agreeable to your Grace in your
own borough. I shall await your Grace's commands, and
I am, my Lord, with all duty, your Grace's most obedient
humble servant,                 JAQUES STERNE.
'BATH, May 13, 1750.'
We find that a few months later the minister was
pleased to accept this form of compliment: —
I9




LIFE OF S7ERNE


' AM  LORD,-In obedience to your Grace's commands,
which were signified to me by the Archbishop of York,
Mr Goodricke, the clerk whom  Mr William  recommended has been collated to the Vicarage of Alborough.
I take the liberty of acquainting your Grace with this
instance of my duty, and shall continue to make the
same living my option, that, if any future occasion offers
itself, I may have again the honour of receiving your
commands about it.-Being, my Lord, your Grace's most
dutiful and most obedient servant,
JAQUTS.;   S T1: l1N i.
' YORKI, Nov. 10, I750.'
It was foolish of the nephew to quarrel with so valuable a patron. But Laurence was too independent or
perhaps too mercurial to become a mere creature or tool.
' My uncle and myself,' he tells us, 'were then upon
very good terms, for he soon got me the Prebend of
York; but he quarrelled with me afterwards, because I
would not write paragraphs in the newspapers. Though
he was a party-man, I was not, and detested such dirty
work, thinking it beneath me. From that period, he
became my bitterest enemy. By my wife's means I got
the living of Stillington. A friend of hers in the south
had promised her, that if she married a clergyman in
Yorkshire, when the living became vacant he would
make her a compliment of it.
'I remained near twenty years at Sutton, doing duty at
both places.  I had then very good health.  Books,
painting, fiddling and shooting were my amusements;
as to the 'Squire of the parish, I cannot say we were upon
20




DR JAQUE S ST'ERNE AND HIS NEPHE W
a very friendly footing, but at Stillington the family of
the C —s (Crofts) showed us every kindness, 'twas most
truly agreeable to be within a mile and a half of an
amiable family, who were ever cordial friends. In the
year I760, I took a house at York for your mother and
yourself, and went up to London to publish my two first
volumes of Shandy. In that year Lord Falcomberg presented me with the curacy of Coxwould, a sweet retirement
comparison of Sutton. In sixty-two I went to France
before the peace was concluded, and you both followed
me. I left you both in France, and two years after I
went to Italy for the recovery of my health, and when I
called upon you, I tried to engage your mother to return
to England with me-she and yourself are at length
come, and I have had the inexpressible joy of seeing my
girl everything I wished her.
I have set down thesetparticulars, relating to my family
and self, for my Lydia, in case hereafter she might have a
curiosity, or a kinder motive, to know them.'
Thus concludes the quaint and vivacious little sketch
which we could wish longer.




CHAPTER III


LOVE-MAKING AND IMARRIED LIFE
MR STERNE, who was destined through life to be eminent
in what are called 'affairs of the heart,' had not been
long in York before he fell in love. The lady of his
affections was MIiss Elizabeth Lumley, and in his autobiography he gives this sketch of the affair. 'At York I became acquainted with your mother, and courted her for
two years. She owned she liked me, but thought herself not
rich enough, or me too poor, to be joined together. She
went to her sister's in S —, and I wrote to her often.
I believe then she was partly determined to have me, but
would not say so. At her return she fell into a consumption, and one evening that I was sitting by her with an
almost broken heart to see her so ill, she said, " My dear
Lawry, I can never be yours, for I verily believe I have
not long to live, but I have left you every shilling of my
fortune." Upon that she showed me her will. This
generosity overpowered me. It pleased God that she
recovered, and I married her in the year 1741.'
Miss Lumley-' My L.' as she is called in the letterscame from Staffordshire, where she had a small property.
Her father was Rector of Bedal. She is said to have had
a 'fine voice' and a good taste in music. Some forty
22




LOVE-AL4K'ING AND MARRIED LIFE
)years later, his daughter published her father's love
letters to her mother, and incurred much censure for
her ' indelicacy' in so doing. But it should be said that
Mrs Sterne herself had stipulated that if any letters of
her husband were published these should be included.
This daughter introduces them with this odd apology,'In justice to Mr Sterne's delicate feelings, I must here
publish the following letters to Mrs Sterne, before he
married her, when she was in Staffordshire. A good
heart breathes in every line of them.'
The intimacy of the lovers was fostered by the aid and
sympathy of a true confidante. This lady-who in some
way recalls the gloomy mediatrix between Dora and
David Copperfield-is only known to us as 'The good
Miss S.'
Her friend had a sort of rustic retreat outside York-'a
little, sungilt cottage on the side of a romantic hill'-to
which he had given the fanciful name of ' D'Estella.' It
was decorated with an abundant growth of 'roses and
jessamines.' At other times Miss Lumley had 'lodgings'
in York, where she resided by herself, and gave little
'quiet and sentimental repasts' to her lover. 'Fanny,'
the parlour-maid of the lodgings, who used to wait at
these quiet and sentimental repasts; and she, with Miss
S, unknown to posterity, makes up the quartette of
actors in the lovesick little piece. Long, long afterwhen Mr Sterne had lived nearly all his life-it would
seem as though the memory of these days had come
back to him pleasantly, for he christened one of his
Shandean characters 'The Curate D'Estella.'
23




LIFE OF STERNE


\hen Mr Sterne came to York for his term  of residence he lived in rooms in Stonegate. Long aftersome thirty years after the humorist's death —a young
and struggling actor, the first Charles IMathews, found
himself in York, a member of 'Tate Williams's company.
With his wife, he was lodgling in an old house in Stonegate which was known to be the house which Sterne
occupied when he came to stay in York. The local
tradition was that he had written his Tris/r,-m Shandti
here, but this, of course, was hardly likely.  It was
difficult, however, to find a tenant for these quarters, as
they had the reputation of being haunted; but the actor
and wife, being very poor, could not afford to despise the
accommodation, which was excellent and eke cheap. On
the first night of their occupation, as the Minster clock
tolled midnight, they were startled by three vivid knocks
on the panel, and this visitation continued every night,
until they at last became quite accustomed to it. No
examination, however minute, could discover the cause;
it at last ceased, and, curiously enough, simultaneously
with the death of an old strolling actor named 'Billy
Leng,' who lodged in the house. It turned out that
this man, being bedridden, every night when he heard
the Minster clock, used to strike three blows with his
crutch on the floor to summon his wife to attend on
him.
For two years it went on. They were as 'merry and
as innocent as our first parents in Paradise, before the
archfiend entered that zndcscribable scene,' when suddenly it went forth that ' My L.' must return forthwith
24




LOVE-AMAKING AND LMARRIED LIFE
to Staffordshire, to her sister Lydia, afterwards married
to 'The Rev. Mr Botham, Rector of Albany, in Surrey,
and Ealing, in Middlesex.' For, from being 'as merry
and as innocent as our first parents,' they are on a sudden
reduced to the depths of an utterable anguish.
The way in which his emotions effected Mr Sterne, if
his own account be not exaggerated, was a little serious.
Miss Lumley came out to 'D'Estella' to have one last
look, and as soon as she had retired and the last farewells were exchanged, he took to his bed, 'worn out by
fevers of all kinds.' The confidante, Miss S, 'from the
forebodings of the best of hearts,' was not far away, and
seeing him in this miserable condition, wisely insisted on
his making an effort, and getting up and coming to her
house. Her presence had an odd, even comic, effect
on Mr Sterne's feelings.  'What can be the cause,
my dear L., that I never have been able to see the face of
this mutual friend but Ifeel myself rent in pieces?' He
was induced to stay with her an hour, during which
'short space' he seems to have grown almost hysterical,
for he 'burst into tears a dozen different times,' and was
visited 'with affectionate gusts of passion.' In this
critical state Miss S5-   was presently 'constrained to
leave the room and sympathise in her dressing-room;'
which delicious expression stands for a whole world of
sentimental distresses and associations.
She returned, however, shortly, and thus addressed the
agitated lover,-' I have been weeping for you both,' said
she, in a tone of the sweetest pity, 'for poor L.'s heart I
have long known it,' and proceeds to administer other
25




LIFE OF STERNE
shapes of consolation. Comforted, yet not cured, Mr
Sterne could only 'answer her with a kind look and a
heavy sigh,' and then withdrew to the absent Miss
Lumley's lodgings, for he had found a sort of dismal
relief in promptly hiring them on her departure. The
maid ' Fanny,' however, was in the secret of his state, and
had prepared a little supper. ('She is all attention to
me,' he wrote to his mistress.) But he could only 'sit
over it with tears. A bitter sauce, my L., but I could
eat it with no other.' The memory of 'the quiet and
sentimental repasts' rose up before him. The moment
she 'began to spread the little table' his heart fainted
within him. 'One solitary plate, one knife, one fork, one
glass!' said he, in despair. 'I gave a thousand penetrating looks at the chair thou hadst so often graced,
then laid down my knife and fork, and took out my
handkerchief and clapped it across my face, and wept
like a child. I do so this very moment, my L.; for as I
take up my pen my poor pulse quickens, my pale face
glows, and tears are trickling down upon the paper, as I
trace the word L.' Then Mr Sterne brings once more
'Fanny' upon the scene, ' who contrives every day bringing in the name of L.' Then a little artfully relates a
number of personal matters that 'Fanny' had remarked
in him, or mentioned to him; how 'she told me last
night, upon giving me some hartshorn' (how skilful this
stroke!) 'she had observed my illness began on the very
day of your departure for S; that I had never held
up my head, had seldom or scarce ever smiled, had
fled from all society; that she verily believed I was
26




LOVE-MAiKINGG IND AL4RR'IED LIFE


broken-hearted, for she had never entered the room, or
passed by the door but she heard me sig/z heavily; that
I never ate or slept or took pleasure in anything as
before.' Mr Sterne, than whom none knew well how to
perform on that difficult instrument, woman's heart, felt
that a little satisfied vanity would predominate over
sympathy with his sufferings.
The fate of these love letters is a curious one. They
were preserved for over twenty years. Mr Sterne kept a
regular letter book, making copies of all his own. Not long
before his death, being engrossed with what was to prove
his very last grande passion, 'ambling it along on his
haunches,' he turned back to these old effusions and copied
out the more effective passages to send to his new mistress!
Miss Lumley at last gave way. As we have seen, she
fell into a consumption, and sitting with him one evening
showed him the will in which she had left him all her
fortune, telling him,-' My dear Laury, I can never be
yours, for I verily believe I have not long to live,' etc.
'This generosity,' says the lover, naively enough, 'overpowered me.' We might be inclined to think that up to
this time he had been what is called 'shilly-shallying.'
Overpowered as he was, he ought never to have forgotten
this handsome treatment. After which, the marriage took
place accordingly in the cathedral, as we find from the
registry.'
* " Mrs Elizabeth Lumley of Little Alice Lane, within the close
of the Cathedral on 30th March 1741, Easter Monday-Elizabeth,
daughter of Rev. Robert Lumley, Rector of Bedal, County York,
by Lydia, widow of T. Kirke, died about I772.-'egister."
27




CHAI)TER IV


AT S UTTON
WE next find Mr Sterne and his bride established at his
Sutton Vicarage. It was a pretty spot, with a musicallysounding name, stretching along tile banks of the
Derwent in an irregular street of nearly a mile longElvington, too, was but a pleasant walk away; andmost acceptable charm of all-York, with its good society
in mansions and 'coffee-houses,' within easy riding
distance.
Now was to begin the serious business, as it was to
prove in his special case, of working out the grand
problem of nuptial life-the solving of those puzzling
riddles 'in the married state,' of which, as Mr Shandy
assured his brother Toby, 'there are more asses' loads
than all Job's stock of asses could have carried.' ' Nature,
as he says in another place, 'which makes everything so
well to answer its destination' still 'eternally bungles it
in mating so simple as a married man.' The pair were
certainly ill-matched, but then, where was the wife that
would have matched Parson    Yorick?  He   was a
mercurial, crazy being, passionately fond of pleasure,
quick, brilliant in his ideas, ready with jest and epigram;
28




A T SUTTON


whereas it is clear that Mrs Sterne was a sober, matterof-fact 'body,' literal in her thoughts, and not at all
'keeping up' to her lively husband.
There cannot be the slightest doubt that he drew her
in, Mrs Shandy though, of course, the obstreperous,
argumentative Shandy must naturally have suggested
such a partner were it only to ' bring him out.' ' She
had a way, 'Mrs Shandy had,' and that was never to
refuse her assent and consent to any proposition my
father laid before her, merely because she did not understand it, or had no idea to the principal word or term of
art upon which the tenet or proposition rolled. She contented herself with doing all that her godfathers and godmothers promised for her, but no more; and so would go
on, using a hard word twenty years together, and replying
to it too, if it was a verb, in all its moods and tenses, without giving herself any trouble to inquire about it.'
'I wvish,' says Mr Shandy, raising his voice, 'the whole
science of fortification at the devil, with all its trumpery
of saps, mines, blinds, gabions, fausse-brays-!'
' They are foolish th/ings,' says Mrs Shandy.
'Not that they are, properly speaking, Mrs Wadman's
premises,' said Mr Shandy, partly correcting himself,
'because she is but tenant for life.'
' That makes a great diference,' says Mrs Shandy, with
placid assent.
'In a fool's head,' replied Mr Shandy.
Nothing can be happier than this stroke.
Many years ago the late Lord Houghton described to
me a pen-and-ink drawing he had somewhere picked up,
29




LIfE OF STE /A'N
an extraordinary caricature of a lady with a masculine
face, an enormous chin and hooked nose, a very unpleasant-looking thing. She wears a sort of lace bodice
with a broad ribbon round her neck and bow behind.
The point of the matter is that below are written in
Sterne's recognisable hand, these words: —'11, s Sferne,
wife of Sterne.' In the corners is 'J'igrzric Fccif.' Mr
Sterne was fond of sketching, but this effort of his art
has a rather ugly significance. The sketch seems to have
passed to the Bailiff of Guernsey, who allowed M. Paul
Stapfer to have it engraved for his etude, 'Laurence
Sterne, sa personnc, ct ses ouvrage.' Nathanial Hawthorne mentions that he saw in a shop in Boston-the
English Boston-a pair of portraits of Mr and Mrs
Sterne, and adds that he thought the lady disagreeablelooking.  At the first all went harmoniously enough.
The lady had musical tastes, the vicar played on the
bass viol and she accompanied him, which prompted
him to this absurdity-a comic imitation of tuning the
'cello,'Ptr-r-r-ing - twing-twang - prut-prut.  'Tis a
cursed bad fiddle! Do you know whether my fiddle's in
tune or no? Trut-prut. They should be fifths. 'Tis
wickedly strung-tr-a-e-i-o-u-twang-. The bridge is a
mile too high, and the " sound-post" absolutely down, else
-trut-prut-. Hark! 'tis not so bad a tone. Diddle,
diddle, diddle, diddle, dum-twaddle-diddle, tweedlediddle, twiddle-diddle, twoddle-diddle, twuddle-diddleprut-trut-krish-krash-krush.'
He said long after, as to matrimony, ' My wife is easy,
30




A T SUTTON


and I should be a beast to rail at it.' By that time,
however, the poor lady had found that it was useless
to be anything else but ' easy.' He found Sutton a dull
place enough.
Long after, when laying his book at Mr Pitt's feet, he
tells him that the quarter of England whence it comes is
'a by-corner of the kingdom,' and that the house in
which it was written was 'a retired, thatched house.'
When he brought home his bride, he found his parsonage sadly out of repair. The 'retired, thatched house,' in
the 'by-corner of the kingdom,' had been handed over to
him in no very habitable condition, and much outlay had
to be incurred before the pair could settle themselves
comfortably. The chimneys were decayed, and the flooring, thatch and plastering needed restoration generally.
When the business was done, the vicar went into his
vestry, opened his registry, and made the following truly
Shandean entry:' A. Dom. I741.
~.  s.
Laid out in sushing the house,...  2 o o
'In stuccoing and bricking the hall..    4 6 o
'In building the chair-house,.         5 o
'In building the parr. chimney,...   o o
'Spent in shaping the rooms, plastering, underdrawing, and
jobbing, God knows hozw mrch!'
Another entry runs:'In May I745, a dismal storm of hail fell upon this
town, and upon some other adjacent ones, which did
considerable damage both to the windows and corn. Many
3I




LIFE OF S7ER',\'E
of the stones measured sir inches (/) in circumference.
It broke almost all the south and west windows, both of
this house and my vicarage at Stillington.
'L. STERNIE:.
Not content with this prodigy, he later sets down
among the marriages and births, another marvel
'Hail fell in the midst of summer (a lare es c  fi p:igon's
egg, which unusual occurrence 1 thought fit to attest
under my own hand.                  L. STE RNE.'
These must have been Shandean jokes. This parish
register was also the receptacle for his horticultural
notes.
' MDM. -That the Cherry Tices and Espalier Apple
Hedge were planted in ye gardens, October )e 9th, 1742.
Nectarines and Peaches planted the same day. The pails
set up two months before.
'I laid out in ye Garden, in ye year I742, the sum of
~8, I5s. 6d.                         L. STjIERNE.'
And in I743, we have another entry:' Laid out in enclosing the orchard and in Apple Trees,
in ye year I743, /5-. The Apple Trees, Iear and Plumb
trees, planted in ye Orchard ye 25th day of October,
J743, by                            L. STERNE.'
He took a great interest in farming, and made many
32




A T SUTTON


experiments himself. He was a good neighbour as will
be seen from the following. A clerical friend had hay
to dispose of, and Yorick thus exerted himself:'I have taken proper measures to get chapmen for it,
by ordering it to be cried at my two parishes; but I find
a greater backwardness among my two flocks in this
respect than I had imagined.' This was owing 'to a
greater prospect of hay and other fodder than there was
any expectation of about five weeks ago. It is with the
uttermost difficulty, and a whole morning's waste of my
lungs, that I have got sufficient men to bid up to what
you had offered-namely, twelve pounds.' 'I have put
them off,' he says, 'under retence of writingyou word,
but in truth to wait a day or two to try the market and
see what can be got for it.' *
It has always been accepted that the sketch of
Yorick was intended for himself. During his life, indeed,
he was often called Yorick. Yorick's parish was his
own, and the little oddities and incidents he describes
must assuredly have taken place at Sutton; the
Shandean humours-particularly the patent given to
the midwife.
And well might his sturdy flock be surprised at the
lean, lanky, and pale-faced figure, who seemed utterly
without 'stamina' in the chest. In that curious face
* See Gentleman's Magazine, vol. 63, pt. II, p. 587. This
letter is not included in the published collection. There are
many spurious letters-witness those in the European Magazine
-so feebly and clumsily done as to ensure detection at a glance.
But this ' Hay' letter bears the Sterne 'cachet' unmistakably.
VOL. I.                33                  c




LIFE OF STERNE
there could scarcely be said to be cheeks, but rather
sides to the face with a long, Voltairean mouth,
which stunted away at an angle, and a piquant
nose.
Yorick was often to be seen riding, and 'had made
himself the country-talk by a breach of all decorum;
and that was in never appearing better or otherwise
mounted than upon a lean, sorry jackass of a horse,
value about one pound fifteen shillings, who, to shorten
all description of him, was full brother to Rosinante.'
Clearly another parish association, which ushers in that
droll sketch of the universal request in which was this
clerical nag: how at last, being wearied out with midnight expresses from parishioners for the use of his horse
to fetch medical aid, and having lost many good steeds
rom these charitable loans, he was in self-defence driven
to the device of keeping some wretched, worn-out hack,
not worth the borrowing.
It is wonderful how one of his delicate frame and
figure could have so long stood the rough blasts and
trying climate of Yorkshire. He had miserable health
and may be said to have been always fighting off
consumption. Something was radically wrong with his
chest. At Cambridge he had 'broken a vessel in his
lungs,' while the Yorick of the story was subject
to 'an asthma' (which he 'caught by skating against
the wind'), and to 'a vile cough.' Perhaps, after all, the
rude but stimulating breezes and healthful air of Sutton
and Coxwould were of service, and gave strength to
that weak and ill-put-together frame.
34




AT SUTTON


With the 'squire of the parish'-Squire Harland-he
was not on good terms; nor is one of his pattern of
mind, delighting in sly and concealed humour, likely
to be ever acceptable to the rude boisterous 'Westerns'
of a country district. Far more suitable is an abundance
' of a mysterious carriage of body to cover the defects of
the mind'-Tristram's translation of the French mot for
gravity-the best clerical garment that can be put on.
Among a few select friends, that 'life, and whim, and
gaiet6 de caur' must have made the Parson of Sutton a
delightful companion; but with the many-headed of the
district-the dull, the starched, the unnoticed, the illnatured-these were dangerous qualities. 'For with all
this' he 'carried not one ounce of ballast; he was utterly
unpractised in the world, and at the age of twenty-six
knew just about as well how to steer his course in it as
a romping, unsuspicious girl of thirteen.' No wonder,
then, that the 'gale of his spirits ran him foul ten times
in the day of somebody's tackling;' and as 'the grave
and more slow-paced were oftenest in his way' it may be
well conceived how much the mischief was complicated.
He beguiled an hour with writing sometimes poetry,
often a sermon or essay. A characteristic specimen of
his verse has been carefully preserved at Coxwould.
These lines are in the quaint manner of the older devotional poetry, and in some way recall the tone of the
'Soul's Errand.'*
* The Rev. Mr Scott, late the incumbent of Coxwould, kindly
favoured me with a copy of these lines.
35




LIFE OF STERNE


TIHE UNKNOWN~.
Verses occasioned by hearing a Pass-Be/l.
By ye Revd. Mr S1-N.
I larke my gay E'rd yt solemn Toll
Speaks ye departure of a soul;
'Tis gone, yt'S all we know-not where
Or how ye unbody'd soul do's fareIn that mysterious (3 none knows,
But 0 alone to w1" it goes;
To whom departed souls return
To take their doom to smile or mourn
Oh! by wt glimmering light we view
The unknown ( we're hast'ning to!
God has lock'd up ye mystic I'age,
And curtained darkness round ye stage!
Wise 8 to render search perplext
lIas drawn 'twixt yS (~ & ye next
A dark impenetrable screen
All behind wch is yet unseen!
We talk of 8, we talk of Hell,
But wt yy mean no tongue can tell!
Heaven is the realm where angels are
And Hell the chaos of despair.
But what yese awful truths imply,
None of us know before we die!
Whether we will or no, we must
Take the succeeding ( on trust,
This hour perhaps or Frd is well
Death-struck ye next he cries, Farewell,
I die! and yet for ought we see,
Ceases at once to breath and beThus launch'd frn life's ambiguous shore
Ingulph'd in Death appears no more,
36




AT SUTTON


Then undirected to repair,
To distant (is we know not where.
Swift flies the 12, perhaps 'tis gone
A thousand leagues beyond the sun;
Or 2Ce IO thousand more 30c told
Ere the forsaken clay is cold!
And yet who knows if Frnds we lov'd
Tho' dead may be so far removed;
Only ye vail of flesh between,
Perhaps yy watch us though unseen.
Whilst we, yir loss lamenting, say,
They're out of hearing far away;
Guardians to us perhaps they're near
Concealed in vehicles of airAnd yet no notices yy give
Nor tell us where, nor how yy live;
Tho' conscious whilst with us below,
How much yms desired to knowAs if bound up by solemn Fate
To keep the secret of yir state,
To tell yir joys or pains to none,
That man might live by Faith alone.
Well, let my sovereign if he please,
Lock up his marvellous decrees;
Why shd I wish him to reveal
Wt he thinks proper to conceal?
It is enough yt I believe
Heaven's brightr yn I can conceive;
And he yt makes it all his care
To serve God here shall see him there!
But oh! wt Os shall I survey
The moment yt I leave ys clay?
How sudden ye surprise, how new!
Let it, my God, be happy too- *
* When the French critic M. Stapfer was in England some
five-and-twenty years ago, a Guernsey friend of his-vice37




LIFE OF STERNE
It will be recollected that Mrs Sterne had a kind friend
'in the south' who had made her a promise that if she
ever married a Yorkshire clergyman, if the living became vacant he would made her a compliment of it.
This was Stillington, which lay conveniently near to
Sutton.
It was in the gift of Lord Fairfax, of that famous
Fairfax family with which Mr Sterne was already connected by ties of marriage. This nobleman had estates
in Kent, which would answer to the character of the
' friend of hers in the south.'
president of St Elizabeth College in that island-showed him an
essay of Sterne's which belonged to a York lady. This was a sort
of meditation on the plurality of worlds, no doubt suggested by
Fontenelle's essay on the same subject. It is written in a pleasing, natural style, and the topics are set forth in rather parable
way. It is addressed to a friend of his, Mr Cook. From the
style alone, and the various allusions-to the orchard for instance,
which was the scene of his meditation-and the handwriting,
there can be no doubt of its authenticity. Sterne's handwriting
is unmistakable, and can be recognised at once by anyone
familiar with autographs; and this piece was duly compared
with specimens of Sterne's handwriting, and was admitted by all
to be his. In one of his Sutton entries, it will be remembered,
he speaks of his orchard. The essay is of some length, and
I am tempted to place some characteristic extracts before the
reader:'So far I had indulg'd ye extravagance of my fancy when I
bethought myself it was bedtime, and I dare swear you will say
it was high time for me to go to sleep.
'I went to bed accordingly. From that time I know not what
happen'd to me, till by degrees I found myself in a new state of
being, without any remembrance or suspicion that I had ever
existed before, growing up gradually to reason and manhood, as
I had done here. The world I was in was vast and commodious.
38




AT SUTTON
In due course the vacancy came, and the good friend
presented Amanda's husband. In April, 1743, the Rev.
Richard Musgrave and the Rev. Richard Levette had
died, which caused a vacancy in the prebendal stall of
Stillington. Attached to the stall was an incumbency,
only a short distance from Sutton, worth forty-seven
pounds a year. There was besides a profit rent of a
house in York, amounting to the moderate sum of one
pound six-and-eightpence.   On the I3th of March the
formal mandate for his induction was issued. He had
thus become a sort of small pluralist, holding three preThe heavens were enlighten'd with abundance of smaller
luminarys resembling stars, and one glaring one resembling
the moon; but with this difference that they seem'd fix'd in the
heavens, and had no apparent motion.  There were also a set
of Luminarys (A) of a different nature, that gave a dimmer light.
They were of various magnitudes, and appear'd in different
forms. Some had ye form of crescents; others, that shone
opposite to ye great light, appear'd round. We call'd them by
a name, wch in our language wd sound like second stars.
Besides these, there were several luminous (B) streaks running
across ye heavens like our milky way; and many variable
glimmerings (C) like our north-lights.
'After having made my escape from the follies of youth, I
betook myself to the study of natural philosophy. The philosophy there profess'd was reckon'd the most excellent in ye
world and was said to have receiv'd its utmost perfection.
After long and tedious study, I found that it was little else than
a heap of unintelligible jargon. All I could make out of it was,
that ye world we liv'd on was flat, immensely extended every
way.
It will be seen that these speculations are very much in the
strain that was then fashionable, and is something after the
pattern of Rasselas.
39




IFE 01 STERNE


bends and three rectories.*  Nothing could be more
convenient.  It was but two miles or so away from
Sutton; by a little stretch of speech, it might be almost
considered in the same parish. It was so happily situated
that he could perform service at both places of a Sunday
without inconvenience; and Stillington Church, where
he preached, was justly admired as an elegant specimen
of Gothic. Old Sutton Church still shows the dark oak
pews (old-fashioned, closely grained as marble, and
black as ebony) where Mr Sterne's parishioners sat and
hearkened to him. And its roof is supported by files of
oaken pillars, instead of stone or marble, against which
the ancients of Mr Sterne's congregation leaned their
heads and dozed tranquilly.
In the year of the Rebellion, 1745, Mr Sterne found
himself in his vestry making a couple of entries of much
more interest than anything connected with hailstones
or espaliers.  He wrote:-' Baptized in 1745. Oct. ye
ist.-Born and baptized Lydia, the daughter of the
Reverend Mr Sterne and of Elizabeth his wife,
daughter of the Rev. Mr Lumley, late Rector of
Bedel.'
He had to make a more distressing one on the next
day.  'Burials, I745. Oct. 2.-Lydia, daughter of Mr
Sterne, Vicar of Sutton.'  This was Lydia the first,
another Lydia coming later.  The name was that of
Mr Sterne's sister.
Nearly twenty years of this life were to pass by
* On the 3d of March a dispensation had been granted to him
to hold these various livings together.
40




A T SUTTON
before Mr Sterne became known to the world. This
seems but a late flowering and a long interval for a man
of genius to devote to such homely duties.  But, as
it will be seen, our vicar contrived to live in sufficient
bustle, hurrying constantly into York, dining and stopping with neighbours.  He had many friends, while
the intrigues and factions of York furnished him with
plenty of excitement.
It will be remembered that he met at Cambridge the
loose and clever John Hall Stevenson, the owner of Crazy
Castle, and writer of Crazy Tales. As he was Sterne's
fast friend-companion, perhaps, for the friendships of
the dissolute are not very fast-some account of him
may be found interesting. About that time Dr Carlyle,
the writer of some entertaining memoirs, was at the
'Granby' at Harrogate, where the two gentlemen were
who pleased him much-' hands of the first water,' a friend
styled them. This was Mr Hall and Colonel Charles
Lee, an American, who were both intimates of Yorick.
Hall appeared to be a 'highly-accomplished and wellbred gentleman.' A few days later they all sat up drinking
together till six in the morning.
Skelton Castle, known as Crazy Castle, rose from the
edge of a dull and solemn lake, by a succession of
terraces, fortified like bastions, on the topmost platform of which the old castle rambled away, to the right
and left, in a succession of low cloisters, propped up with
buttresses, breaking out in the centre in a large clump
of building. At one end was a tall, square, sturdy tower,
on the other rose a thin clock-turret, with a rusted
41




LIFE OF STERNE


cupola (such as are to be seen in old Belgian countryhouses), surmounted by a conspicuous weather-cock. This
picturesque but disorderly pile is said to have dated from
the fifteenth century.
The turret, with its rusted cupola and weather-cock
was a conspicuous object in the Shandean landscape.
It furnished innumerable jokes and allusions to Mr Sterne
and his friend.
Mr Hall was born in 1718, and was thus but five years
younger than his friend Mr Sterne. It has been seen
they were at Cambridge, and belonged to the same
college, where Hall was a fellow-commoner. Unfortunately, he fell into the ways of the fashionable professors
of vice. The orgies of the 'Twelve Monks of Medmenham' were then attracting not so much reprobation as
curiosity, and it is believed that this 'ingenious young
gentlemen ' was one of the unholy brotherhood.*
With this godless fraternity has Mr Sterne's name been
associated, and certainly without warrant.t At the same
time it must be conceded that, by his close fellowship with
these merry but abandoned men, he has fairly laid himself
open to the charge of partnership in their transgressions.
And there is a Latin quotation in Tristram, which has
perhaps never been noticed, but which shows that, through
* Such as are curious about the manners and habits of this
strange society may consult the New Foundling Hospital for
Wit, where there is a description of the 'Abbey' by Mr
Wilkes; also Johnstone's Clirysal, with the key given in Davis's
Olio.
t See an entertaining Topographical Article in the Quarterly
-on Berkshire.
42




AT SUTTON


his friend Hall, he was familiar with one of the secretpasswords, as it were, of this Medmenham Society.* Mr Hall
had travelled much, and had taken the necessary degree,
by making the Grand Tour many times. But unfortunately for his reputation, the course his reading took, and
the society into which his ideas led him, seem to have
hopelessly depraved his tastes, even below the degraded
standard then fashionable with men of the world; and,
in the year 1762, he so far outraged public decency as to
put forth a collection of metrical stories, entitled Crazy
Tales, which Mr Elwin, the late accomplished editor of the
Quarterly, has most justly described as 'infamous.' But
it is more surprising that, in 1795, an editor should have
been found to undertake the pious office of collecting these
uncleanly remains, assisted by 'the worthy representative
of the author's family, John Wharton, Esquire, of Skelton
Castle, Member of Parliament for Beverly,'-who, ' with
the utmost liberality and politeness, presented the publisher with corrected copies of the greater part of these
works.'
It is well known that it was in the library at Skelton that
Sterne made most of his Pantagruelis studies. It was
well stored with those rare and curious oddities, written
after the pattern of Rabelais, which, however, were not
rare then, or were not sought for as they are now. Here
he primed himself for Shandy. I will not say a word for
these curios, save that it must be borne in mind that the
coarseness and grossness of three centuries ago was re* See Tristram Shandy, vol. v. chap. 36, beginning-'An
observation of Aristotle's,' etc.
43




LIFE OF STERANE
garded simply as humour, as a truthful statement, or, as
we say, calling a spade a spade.  Among the lowest
classes there are allusions and statements common
enough, but accepted as a matter of historic or literal
statement, but which would shock ears polite. On these
volumes, such as the rare S'crces of IBouchet, Mr Sterne
browsed; here he found the nasal literature, as it might
be, and many a queer, comic story, which he later
'adapted' for Shzandy.*
Sterne liked Crazy Castle. From many quarters of the
Continent his heart, untravelled, fondly turned to the old
walls. He delighted in the print of it on 'Crazy Tales,'
done by Stevenson himself; and far away, at Toulouse,
looks at it 'ten times a day, with a quando te aspiciam.'
He honours the man 'who has given the world an idea of
our parental seat.;' 'Oh,' he breaks out, 'how are you all
at Crazy Castle?' He was always scared at the notion
of the sacrilegious masons, and pleaded hard and
comically for the old Shandean mansion. 'But what
art thou meditating with axes and hammers?.... thou
lovest the sweet visions of architraves, friezes, and pediments, with their tympanums.'
During the life of Hall Stevenson this intervention was
successful. It existed, safe but dilapidated, until the year
1788, when a grandson of Mr Hall, who had become a
Wharton, was seizedwith thefatal pestilence of pullingdown
and setting up. The unholy work was carried out wholesale, and with a sort of steady frenzy. The magnificent
* Dr Ferrier actually came upon the copy of the Series which
Sterne had used at Skelton.
44




A T SUTTON


wooded glen which lay, as in a bowl, was flooded, the
woods mercilessly cut down, and the strange rococo series
of terraces barbarously levelled. The modernisers did
their work with fury; not a stone. was spared-not even
the huge, square Norman tower, almost unique in the
kingdom.
Mr Sterne always writes to him in a strain specially
affectionate and confidential, and altogether different from
what he adopts to others. To him he discloses every
thought freely. ' I long to see thy face again! he writes,
again and again. Even Mrs Sterne relished this companionship, and, though frowning, could not but enjoy
his company. 'She swears you are a fellow of wit,
though humorous,-a funny, jolly soul, though somewhat splenetic, and (bating the love of woman) as honest
as gold.' If they talked together in the same droll,
Cervantic fashion in which they do in their letters, their
company must have been entertaining indeed.
He figures in Shandy as Eugenius. He was sometimes
visited by a sort of hypochondriacal humour, which usually
preyed on him when the wind was in the east. When
Crazy Castle was full of company, it was no surprise, of
some sharp morning, to find their host absent, and suffering a moody imprisonment in his room, so long as the
wind was in this obnoxious quarter. His humour was
known and accepted without astonishment. Upon the
quaint, old-fashioned clock-tower was a weather-cock,
which was in full view of Eugenius's room; and when he
rose in the morning, his first glance was at the fatal arrow,
and its direction regulated the destiny of the day. This
45




LIFE OF STERNE


was a favourite subject for standing jests between them.
To this friend Mr Sterne could be as Shandean, when
scribbling, as he was to the public when spinning
Tristram.  'Touched with thee (sensibility),' writes
Yorick in his Sentimental Journey, 'Eugenius draws
my curtain when I languish-hears my tale of symptoms,
and blames the weather for the disorder of his nerves.'
Once, when Crazy Castle was full of company, and the
Shandean carnival rife, the wind suddenly veered round
to this unlucky quarter, and with the usual results. The
owner imprisoned himself close in his room, spoke of
'death and the east wind as synonymous,' and by no
persuasions could be got to stir from his chamber. But
the arch-humorist, his friend Laury, was staying there,
and to him a Shandean notion presented itself. He
sought out an active urchin of the place, encouraged him
overnight, by a sufficient bribe, to scale the weather-cock
tower, and tie down the arrow, in a due-west direction,
with a strong cord. Early next morning the captive
looked forth dismally from his ' square tower,' and joyfully observed the change; hurried down, ordered his
horse, and took a smart ride, 'execrating east winds:'
Hall Stevenson was Hall Stevenson again! But a few
days later the cord broke, and he relapsed.*
At a distance this friend seems always solicitous about
this dangerous flaw in his character, and is always ready
with cheering words and suitable encouragement. 'I
rejoice from my heart down to my reins,' he writes from


* This device is also related of the ingenious ' Tom' Sheridan.
46




AT SUTTON


Toulouse, 'that you have snatched so many happy and
sunshiny days out of the hands of the blue-devils. If we
live to meet and join our forces as heretofore, we willgive
these gentry a drubbing, and turn them for ever out ot
their usurped citadel. Some legions of them have been
put to flight already; and I hope to have a hand in dispersing the remainder the first time my dear cousin sets
up his banners again under the square tower.'
At his castle, Hall established a society which was called
the ' Demoniacs,' one of the usual drinking clubs.
Of the ' Demoniacs' was the Reverend Robert Lascelles,
one of the Harewood family-a sort of joker in orders,
quite after Mr Sterne's own heart-a Cervantic priest.
He was known among the brotherhood under the style
and title of 'Panty, which was complimentaryto his powers
of humour, but scarcely to his cloth-'Panty' being a
familiar contraction from 'Pantagruel,' one of Rabelais's
heroes. He is rarely forgotten in Mr Sterne's letters to
the Abbot: ' Greet Panty most lovingly on my behalf.'
' Saluta amicum Panty meum, cujus literis respondebo.'
Zachary Moore was another of the company, though
scarcely so steady a member of the order as some of the
rest. 'Who after associating with most of the great
personages of these kingdoms,' says a scornful epitaph
that was made upon him-'who did him the honour to
assist him in the work of getting to the end of a great
fortune, was exalted, through their influence, in the fortyseventh year of his age, to an ensigncy, which he actually
enjoys at present in Gibraltar.'
There was also belonging to the society a very eccentric
47




____


LIFE OF STER'NE


character named ' William Hewitt,' more familiarly known
as 'Old Hewitt,' who died the year before Mr Sterne
died.  Readers of Smollett's Peregrine, will recollect
a foot-note devoted to his praises.  He is described
as ' a sensible old gentleman, but much of a humorist.'
Another of these merry men was one alluded to as
'Don Pringello,' an architect, which name is clearly a
disguise for Pringle. The person who is alluded to as
Cardinal S,' in Mr Sterne's remembrances at the
close of his letters, was 'great Scroope,' a well-known
Yorkshire name. He sends his love frequently to 'the
two Colonels,' one of whom was Colonel Hall, a relation
of the host; the other possibly the Colonel Lee whom
we saw figuring at Harrogate.
This was not very edifying company for the Vicar of
Sutton. It will be recollected that, in the story Eugenius
is always put forward as giving sound advice to his friend,
begging of him to conform more to the ways and humour
of those about him. Eugenius was always prophesying
that his enemies would certainly be too much for him-in
which forecast he showed sagacity-outlived his friend
many years, and was long known as 'Crazy Hall,' and
the Eugenius of Sterne. One who saw him in the year
1775, and was struck by the 'odd, thin figure in a dark
scratch wig-the more remarkable as everybody's hair
was then powdered.' The same eccentricity broke out
in other members of the family, and in one of the
histories of Cleveland there is to be found a very amusing
account of an odd lady, whose strange ways were well
known through the country.
48




CHAPTER V


'DR SLOP'
THE cathedral society at York had naturally attraction
for the Vicar of Sutton. We find in his Shandy what
are certainly personal sketches of his brother canons
and other officials, who are disguised in Didius, Kysarcious, etc. Among these was a medical practitioner
of some practice and celebrity, named Burton.  He was
born at Colchester, June 9th, I710, and took his degree
at Rheims and Leyden. He married Mary Hewson,
January 2d, 1734.
This personage had many trials in his course, but the
most serious of all was that of being exhibited to his
contemporaries as Dr Slop.* The people of York were
well accustomed to that 'little, squat, uncourtly figure,
of about four feet and a half perpendicular height, with
a breadth of back and a sesquipedality of belly which
might have done honour to a sergeant in the Horse
Guards, waddling through the dirt upon the vertebrae of
a little diminutive pony.' He was often seen on the
* Dr Belcomb assured Dr Ferrier that the luckless physician
always bore this nick-name.
VOL. I.              49                  D




LIFE OF STERNE


Yorkshire bridle-roads, strangely mounted, hurrying
away to assist the ladies of 'Tom O'Stiles,' or 'John
Noakes,' in their illnesses; familiar, too, in the City of
York, in other directions besides his profession-and
odious as a fly in the political ointment to the high
apostles of loyalty who ruled the city.*
Romney was at this time a pupil of Steele, an
indifferent portrait-painter, who was then travelling
from town to town as 'an itinerant dauber.' He came
to York about the year 1754 or 1755, and his studio was
often visited by the Vicar of Sutton. But Mr Sterne
took more notice of the work of the pupil than of the
master, and, with a discrimination which did credit to
his judgment, praised and encouraged the youth who
showed such promise. Such patronage, we are told,
helped on Romney (who had just then made an imprudent
marriage), but excited the jealousy of the master,
'Count Steele,' as he was called; for there were numbers
'who echoed Mr Sterne's opinions.'
This promising youth must have known by appearance
the strange doctor, who was then one of the public
characters of the place; and long after, when he came
to paint many subjects from Tristramz Shandy, he could
scarcely have shut out the memory of the accoucheur's
peculiar figure. There are therefore fair grounds for
assuming that his picture of Dr Slop is in some respects a likeness.t He is there represented as some* Dr Belcomb also assured Dr Ferrier that this tradition was
long kept alive in York.
t See Life of Aomnzey.
so




'DR SLOP'
thing actually deformed, with a gross head and
face disproportioned to his shapeless body-a really
comic figure, and yet with something odious and
venomous.
The accoucheur, however, was an antiquarian of much
learning and research-witness his great tome of the
Yorkshire 'Monasteries.'  He was both F.R.S. and
F.S.A.  With much industry he had collected a vast
mass of papers on Yorkshire antiquities, which near the
close of his life he disposed of to receive an annuity for his
wife. He made excavations, opening mounds-' Dane's
Hills,' at Skepwith and other places. He had studied
medicine abroad under Boerhaave. At one time he
'broke' for the large sum of 500ooo. He had unluckily
written that 'five-shillings book' in midwifery, garnished
with appalling plates, in one of which was depicted the
author's own invention of a forceps-'the author's New
Extractor' as he described it, which was furnished with
claws, a 'steel slider' and jagged teeth. We know the
ridicule with which both book and forceps were treated
in Shandy. It was a work really in advance of its
time, being stored with practical cases and examples,
without the useless speculation which disfigures most
medical treatises of the day. Long after his death, it
received a posthumous tribute in the shape of a French
translation, and in its new shape the famous plates were
introduced to the French 'chirurgien-accoucheurs.'
The 'five-shillings book' was entitled, An Essay
Towards a Compjlete New System, and is ushered in by
complimentary letters from various learned societies.
5I




LIFE OF STERNE


Even in this inappropriate domain he contrives to bring
in a sort of political protest. 'This approbation,' he
writes in his preface, 'of different societies is no less a
satisfaction than an honour done me, as it will certainly
be a means of depriving those who abound wiith ill-nature,
envy, and detraction of their greatest pleasure.'
There was a Scotch Dr Smellie, distinguished also in
Dr Burton's branch of the profession, who had attained
notoriety by the invention of a 'wooden' forceps, and
various ingenious bits of mechanism, representing the
human figure, on which he used to lecture to his students.
Dr Burton, in addition to his other quarrels, became
embroiled with this professor, whom Mr Shandy clearly
alludes to under the name of 'Adrianus Smelvogt,' and
who had introduced to the public a petrified child, which
he called 'Lithopaedus Senonensis.' Dr Smellie, however,
fell into the mistake of taking the description, ' Lithopedus
Senonensis,' for the proper name and country of some
learned medical pundit, and actually quotes him in his
list of authorities. Mr Sterne has given the mistake
immortality in a note:-' Mr Tristram Shandy has been
led into this error, either from seeing Lithopadus's name
of late in a catalogue of learned writers in Dr -,' or by
mistaking Lithopaedus for Trinecavellius, from the too
great similitude of the names.'
He also wrote a work on the 'Non-naturals,' a topic
which was a favourite with Mr Shandy.
Dr Slop, as we know, is represented as a Catholic, and
as a very disagreeable specimen of that faith. It is not
quite clear, however, what his creed was. In this dedica52




'DR SLOP'
tion to Archbishop Herring, he certainly speaks of
'your warm attachment to our laws and religion,' and 'of
the days of ignorance, superstition and slavery.' And
in a letter to Dr Ducavel, he writes of the Archbishop of
Canterbury as being 'so deservedly at the head of our
Church.' He was at least considered a Jacobite and a
favourer of the proscribed religion.
He incurred the enmity of Dr Sterne, who persecuted
him relentlessly. This arose from his opposing the Archdeacon on the great ' infirmary question.' During the
crisis of I745, a subscription was set on foot for defence
purposes, to which Mr Sterne gave /io-a large sum for
a poor vicar-and his uncle ~5o. News had come that
the Highlanders were on their road to York, and there
was much alarm. Dr Burton asked leave to go out and
secure some moneys of his, a proceeding that excited
suspicion.  Dr Sterne had him brought before the
Recorder, where he 'made a blustering, often in such a
hurry with hasty fury, that he could not utter his words;
he perfectly foamed at the mouth, especially when I
laughed and told him that I set him and his party at
defiance.' He was, however, committed to York Castle,
under a warrant signed 'J. Place and L. Sterne.' *
The latter then drew up a newspaper paragraph, which
he had inserted in Lloyd's Evenzig Post, announcing
that there was the greatest satisfaction at the arrest,
which, however, was not the case, as the physician was
very popular.  Any violent and irregular proceedings


* Burton's narrative-Liberty Enzdagered.
53




LIFE OF STE'.NE
followed on the part of Dr Sterne, who signed many
warrants against his victim. It was later stated that he
had even suborned witnesses. The luckless doctor was
sent to London, kept in prison for a year, and at last discharged, much suffering in person and pocket.  Lord
Carteret addressed a letter of reprimand to the clergyman for his excess of zeal, and the corporation refused
to grant him their freedom. In I75I, the doctor got into
another squabble with Mr Thomson, at a city feast, when
he refused to drink some extra-loyal toast. This led
to a pamphlet in which he was charged with 'popish'
tendencies. We hear of him at a ball at the Assembly
Rooms, where he fell and sprained his foot. He died in
I772, having survived his enemy, the author of Sihandy,
some few years.
It seems extraordinary that Sterne should have drawn
him with so much personality. Living, as he was, in the
same city, or close to it, his situation would have been
awkward and almost unendurable. Such gross ridicule
seems all but incredible, and could only have been
prompted by a sense of security, for the poor doctor had
so many enemies to deal with that he would have
thought his caricatures the most harmless'i We might
speculate, was he the author of the paragraph sent by his
uncle's direction to London? This is likely enough.'
Meanwhile our Vicar was now pursuing his course,
enlivening the dull round of parish work with social engagements. A jest of his at this time, uttered at one of
the York coffee-houses, has been preserved. A young
fellow had been flippantly inveighing against the clergy,
54




'DR SLOP'
dwelling on their hypocrises, and turning to Mr Sterne,
asked if he did not agree with him. In reply, Mr Sterne
began to describe a favourite pointer of his own, but
which had the trick of flying at every clergyman he met.
The other in necessity asked him how long he had the
trick. 'Ever since he was a puppy,' was the reply. This
was not specially brilliant, but was smart and was repeated.
The loss of the first Lydia was now supplied by the
birth of a daughter, which we find entered in the Sutton
register:-' Baptised I747. December Ist.-Born and
baptised Lydia, daughter of the Rev. Mr Sterne and
Elizabeth his wife.' This was Lydia the second-both
parents having a penchant for the name-who was to
prove as mercurial and wayward as her father.
He was now gaining reputation as a sort of 'star
preacheder,' and was invited to preach at York on 'showy
occasions.  Two of these deliverances deserve notice.
One was a charity sermon for the Bluecoat Schools of York.
Good Friday, in the year 1747, was the rather strange
day selected; and the sermon itself was the first work of
Mr Sterne's that appeared in print. It is also curious as
being the token of his affection he selected to send to one
of the earlier objects whom he distinguished with his
attentions. The subject was-' The Case of Elijah and
the Widow of Zarephath considered: A Charity Sermon, preached on Good Friday, April 17, I747, in the
Parish Church of St Michael-le-Belfrey, before the Right
Honourable the Lord Mayor, Aldermen and Sheriffs, at
the Annual Collection for the Support of Two Charity
Schools.' The text was the miracle of the barrel of meal
55




LIFE OF STEWRNE


'that wasted not,' and the cruise of oil that did not 'fail.'
The Shandean handling, as applied to sermons, was to
appear some years later in the 'Assize Sermon.' Reasoning on the natural expectance of the widow, that the
prophet would recompense her son, he says naively,'Many a parent would build high upon a worse foundation!' When the prophet began to pray over the dead
child, that it might be restored to life, he says quaintly, -
'He was, moreover, involved in the success of his prayer
himself'-passages which have quite the old divinity
flavour. Then describing the scene where the child is
restored to life, his taste for painting breaks out, and he
pictures for his congregation the various figures of 'the
piece.' 'It is a subject one might recommend to the
pencil of the greatest genius, and would even afford
matter for description here.' He hints presently at a
very good inducement to Christian charity-viz., that ' So
quickly sometimes has the wheel of Fortune turned round,
that many a man has lived to enjoy the benefit of that
charity which his own piety projected.' He then entertains his audience with ' an anecdote of Alexander, the
Tyrant of Pheres,' which 'antiquity has preserved;'
and, drawing the picture of the churlish, uncharitable
man, brings on 'the Great Master of Nature,' and the
quotation, not so well worn then as now,' The man that hath not music in his soul,' etc.,
-declaiming it as he had no doubt heard it declaimed
upon the York boards.
But far more important was the 'Assize Sermon,'
56




'DR SLOP'


delivered before the Judges.  He was chaplain to the
High Sheriff-'Sir W. Pennyman, Bart.'-so   that it
was probably an official duty.
Seven or eight years later, when he was getting his
Tnrstram puppets in order, he found his brochure, and the
happy notion occurred to him of preaching it once more,
not to assize judges and lawyers, but to a more humorous
congregation, consisting of Dr Slop, Mr Shandy, and my
Uncle Toby. The notes and interruptions being thus ingeniously fitted to the sermon (which was written long
before), and the sermon itself not being originally intended
for such adornments, show how very dramatic in their
character were those serious compositions, and how they
held in themselves, at a moment's notice, as it were, all
the elements of Shandean comedy. ' Can the reader
believe,' says Yorick, with a pardonable effrontery, that
'this sermon of Yorick's was preached at an Assize, in the
Cathedral, before a thousand witnesses, ready to give
oath of it, by a certain Prebendary of that church?'
An evidence of the respectable size of the congregation.
To this second appearance we owe many delightful
strokes of satire. How excellent the touch with which it
opens, in reference to that questionable tone with which
some divines introduce their text. 'For we trust we have
a good conscience.'-Hebrews xiii. i8. 'Trust? trust we
have a good conscience!' On which ' quoth my father,'
very happily, ' you give that sentence a very improper
accent, for you curl tup your nose, man, and read it with
such a sneering tone, as if the parson was going to abuse
the Apostle.'
57




CHAPTER VI


CA:THE DRAL QUARREI.S
DURING the course of his long residence at York and at
his parish, his relations with his redoubtable uncle were
of an uncertain, unsatisfactory kind, until at last a fierce
quarrel broke out. The nephew, as we have seen, was
under serious obligations to him, and owed his fortunate
start in life to his patronage. The cause of the quarrel,
it will be recollected, was that he would not write party
paragraphs in the papers. 'Though he was a party man,
I was not. I detested such dirty work.'
All the same, however, he would seem to have done a
good deal of work in this way for his uncle, for in one of
his letters he gives as a reason for writing Tristram, that
he was tired of employing his brains for other people's
advantage. "Tis a foolish sacrifice I have made for some
years to an ungrateful person.' This is likely enough the
true reason of the breach. The ungrateful person had
refused some guerdon and his dependant had struck work.
Further, Sterne himself was exactly not correct in boasting himself no party man, for he took part in the cathedral
58




CA THEDRAL QUAA'RELS
dissensions, wrote pamphlets on his own account, etc.
But it will be seen that there was a family quarrel raging
between uncle and nephew.
This hearty dislike of Dr Sterne's was also inflamed
by their somewhat constrained association in the cathedral
work. The uncle, however, exhibited his animosity without the least regard to propriety. He, in fact, persecuted the unfortunate Laurence, and tried to injure him in
many ways.   In one instance, he exhibited a spite and
malevolence that seems incredible, and the incident is
worth describing as a specimen of the little quarrels and
intrigues of the cathedral circle.
It was customary, when one of the canons or prebendaries was prevented taking his turn of preaching,
to allow him to engage a substitute, which put a few
pounds in the pocket of some of his poorer brethren.
The Rev. Laurence, having already shown talent in this
line, was occasionally applied to. It is unconceivable that
his uncle should have interposed to prevent his benefiting
by this meagre aid.  In a letter of bitter complaint
addressed to Archdeacon Blackburn, author of a book that
made some noise, The Confessional, all the curious
phases of the incident are set out in a very natural, unaffected way:SUTTON, Nov. 3, 1750.
'DEAR SIR, -Being last Thursday at York to preach
the Dean's turn, Hilyard the Bookseller who had spoke
to me last week about Preaching ys, in case you should
not come yrself told me, He had just got a Letter
from you directing him to get it supplied-But with an
59




LIFE OF STERAE
intimation, that if I undertook it, that it might not disoblige your Friend the Precentor. If my Doing it for
you in any way could possibly have endangered that, my
Regard to you on all accounts is such, that you may
depend upon it, no consideration whatever would have
made me offer my service, nor would I upon any Invitation have accepted it, Had you incautiously press'd it
upon me; And therefore that my undertaking it at all,
upon Hilyards telling me he should want a Preacher, was
from a knowledge, that as it could not in Reason, so it
would not in Fact, give the least Handle to what you
apprehended. I would not say this from bare conjecture,
but known Instances, having preached for so many of
Dr Sternes most Intimate Friends since our Quarrel
without their feeling the least marks or most Distant
Intimation, that he took it unkindly. In which you will
the readier believe me, from the following convincing
Proof, that I have preached the 29th of May, the
Precentor's own turn, for these two last years together
(not at his request, for we are not upon such terms) But at
the Request of Mr Berdmore whom he desired to get
them taken care of, which he did, By applying Directly
to me without the least Apprehension or scruple-And If
my preaching it the first year had been taken amiss, I am
morally certain that Mr Berdmore who is of a gentle and
pacific Temper would not have ventured to have ask'd
me to preach it for him the 2d time, which I did without
any Reserve this last summer. The Contest between us,
no Doubt, has been sharp, But has not been made more
so, by bringing our mutual Friends into it, who, in all
60




CA THEIDRAL QUARRELS
things, (except Inviting us to the same Dinner) have
generally bore themselves towards us, as if this Misfortune had never happened, and this, as on my side, so
I am willing to suppose on his, without any alteration of
our opinions of them, unless to their Honor and Advantage. I thought it my Duty to let you know, How this
matter stood, to free you of any unnecessary Pain, which
my preaching for you might occasion upon this score,
since upon all others, I flatter myself you would be
pleased, as in genl, it is not only more for the credit of
the church, but of the PrebendY himself who is absent,
to have his Place supplied by a PrebY of the church when
he can be had, rather than by Another, tho' of equal merit.
'I told you above, that I had had a conference with
Hilyard upon this subject, and indeed should have said
to him, most of what I have said to you. But that the Insufferableness of his behavour (sic) put it out of my Power.
The Dialogue between us had something singular in it,
and I think I cannot better make you amends for this
irksome Letter, than by giving you a particular Acct of it
and the manner I found myself obliged to treat him whch
by the by, I should have done with still more Roughness
But that he sheltered himself under the character of yr
Plenipo: How far His Excellency exceeded his Instructions you will percieve (sic) I know, from the acct I have
given of the hint in your Letter, wch was all the Foundation for what pass'd.  I step'd into his shop, just after
sermon on All Saints, when with an air of much gravity
and importance, he beckond me to follow him into an
inner Room; no sooner had he shut the Door (sic) but,
6i




LIFE OF STERNE


with the aweful solemnity of a Premier who held a Letter
de Cachet upon whose contents my Life or Liberty
depended-after a minuits Pause,-He thus opens his
Commission. Sir —My Friend the A. Deacon of Cleveland not caring to preach his turn, as I conjectured, has
left me to provide a Preacher,-But before I can take any
steps in it with regard to you-I want first to know, Sir,
upon what footing you and Dr Sterne are?-Upon what
footing!-Yes, Sir, how your Quarrel stands?-Whats
that to you?-How our Quarrel stands! Whats that to
you, you Puppy? But, Sir, Mr Blackburn would knowWhat's that to him?-But, Sir, dont be angry, I only want
to know of you, whether Dr Sterne will not be displeased
in case you should preach-Go look; I've just now been
preaching and you could not have fitter opportunity to be
satisfyed.- I hope, Mr Sterne, you are not angry. Yes, I
am; But much more astonished at your Impudcnce. I
I know not whether the Chancellors stepping in at this
instant and flapping to the Dore, did not save his tender
soul the Pain of the last word.
'However that be, he retreats upon this unexpected
Rebuff, takes the Chancellr aside, asks his Advice, comes
back submissive, begs Quarter, tells me Dr Hering had
quite satisfyed him as to the grounds of his scruple (tho' not
of his Folly) and therefore beseeches me to let the matter
pass, and to preach the turn. When I-as Percy complains in Harry ye 4-. All smarting with my wounds
To be thus pesterd by a P'opinjay,
62




CA YHEDRAL QUARRELS
Out of my Grief and my Impatience
Answerd neglectingly, I know not what. for he made me mad
To see him shine so bright & smell so sweet
& talk so like a waiting Gentlewoman
--  Bid him be gone & seek Another fitter for his turn.
But as I was too angry to have the perfect Faculty of
recollecting Poetry, however pat to my case, so I was
forced to tell him in plain Prose tho' somewhat elevated
-That I would not preach, & that he might get a Parson
where he could find one.
'It is time to beg pardon of you for troubling you with
so long a letter upon so little a subject-which as it has
proceeded from the motive I have told you, of ridding you
of uneasiness, together with a mixture of Ambition not to
lose either the Good Opinion, or the outward marks of it,
from any man of worth and character, till I have done
something to forfeit them. I know your Justice will
excuse.
'I am, Revd Sir, with true Esteem and Regard of wcl
I beg you'l consider this letter as a Testimony,
yr faithful & most affti
' Humble Servt
'LAU: STERNE.
7'.S.
'Our Dean arrives here on Saturday. My wife sends
her Respts to you & yr Lady.
'I have broke open this letter, to tell you, that as I was
going with it to the Post, I encountered Hilyard, who
desired me in the most pressing manner, not to let this
63




LIFE OF STERNE


affair transpire-& that you might by no means be made
acquainted with it-I therefore beg, you will never let
him feel the effects of it, or even let him know you know
ought about it-for I half promised him,-tho' as the
letter was wrote, I could but send it for your own useso beg it may not hurt him by any ill Impression, as he
has convinced it proceeded only from lack of Judgmt.
'To
'The Reverend Mr Blacburn,
'Arch-Deacon of Cleveland,:lt Richmond.'
There is an impetuosity and controversial vehemence
in all this, which shows that our divine was at this time
much more of 'a party man' than he was inclined to
admit. In the later and more notable portion of his
career he was much more gentle, and his contact with an
admiring world seems to have softened his nature. The
correspondence, however, reveals a regular picture of the
life in a cathedral town; for we are shown a bookseller
arranging the 'turns' of the preacher, and actively trafficking in them according to favour or prejudice. The result,
however, proved that the bookseller was justified in putting his questions. He was in terror of Dr Sterne's wrath,
as will be seen from the following letter:' SUTTON, NOV. 12, 1750.
'When I set pen to paper in my last there was much
less of spleen at the bottom of my Heart than there was
of desire (as I hinted then) to have your good opinionyou tell me I have that, and I assure you there is no
64




CA THEDRAL QUARRELS
Man's I am prouder of:-How much I am sure it will add
to what little reputation I have, I will not offend you by
declaring; I am certain that a Person who could drop so
modest a hint of the little importance he was of can be no
good judge of the matter, and as it will be impossible to
convince him of it, I must rest satisfied with showing him
at least what a price I set upon it by my endeavours on
all occasions to keep and improve it.
'As for the future supply of any of your vacant turns
you may be assured I should be willing to undertake them
whenever you want a proxy, and if you have no friend
you would choose to put up, you would even do me a
favor to let me have them-I say a favor, For, by the
by, my Daughter will be Twenty Pounds a better Fortune
by the favors I've received of this kind from the Dean &
Residentiaries this Year, and as so much at least is
annually & without much trouble to be picked up in our
Pulpit, by any man who cares to make the Sermons.
You who are a Father will easily guess & as easily excuse
my motive.
'I was extremely sensible of how much I owed to so
friendly a wish, when you told me last summer how glad
you would be to promote a Reconciliation, which had
the rapidity of my conference given me the least leisure
to have thought on, I could not have uttered so undeserved and fast a reply as I did (what is that, &c.) which
though directly meant as a rebuke to Hilyard, Yet I am
even sorry the expression escaped me. It was my anger
and not me, so I beg this may go to sleep in peace with
the rest which I never had an inclination or even a power
VOL. i.               65                E




LIFE OF STERNE


to remember, had you not desired it.........' etc., etc.,
etc.
His uncle soon found out what was going on, and
interposed.  For malignity and family animosity his
letter can hardly be matched. He wrote:'Deccem. 6, 1750.
'GOOD MR ARCHIDEACON,-I will beg leave to rely
upon your Pardon for taking the Liberty I do with you
in relation to your Turns of preaching in the Minster.
What occasions it is, Mr Hildyard's employing the last
time the Only person unaccefptable to me in the wZhole
Church, an ung,rateful and unworthy nephe7w, of my own,
the Vicar of Sutton; and I should be much obliged to
you, if you would please either to appoint any person
yourself, or leave it to your Register to appoint one when
you are not here. If any of my turns would suit you
better than your own I would change with you.... *
This letter is endorsed'Mr Jaques Sterne-representative of his nephew Yorick,' and mentions of the Popish nunnery at York.t
At this juncture there now reappears upon the scene
Sterne's mother, the widow, with her daughter, to
persecute her son, the unhappy Vicar of Sutton.  One
of the most unfortunate, as well as the most undeserved
* This later portion is lost, but refers to the well-known convent at Micklegate Bar which I)r Sterne had attacked. These
interesting letters are in the Museum.
t The ' Popish nunnery' still flourishes and is one of the most
important institutes of the city. I may add that an aunt of
my own lived and died there.
66




CAT 7HEDRAL QUARRELS
of the calumnies upon Sterne's name, was the one that
he had been a bad, undutiful son, and had left his mother
to starve, while he indulged in beautiful sentiment. This
gross charge has been always accepted chiefly owing to
a thoughtless passage in one of Walpole's conversations
with Mr Pinkerton,-' I know from indubitable authority
that his mother, who kept a school, having run in debt,
on account of an extravagant daughter, would have rotted
in a jail if the parents of her scholars had not raised a
subscription for her. Her own son had too much sentiment to have any feeling. A dead ass was more important to him than a living mother.'   Byron put this
epigrammatically, and thus helped the circulation of the
story, saying that 'he preferred whining over a dead ass
to relieving a living mother.' And Mr Thackeray, in
our time gave renewed vitality to the tale.*
It will be seen that all Mr Walpole learned upon his
'indubitable authority' was the simple facts of Mrs
Sterne's distress, and the subscription raised for her.
It was quite consistent with this that her son might have
assisted her. If he did not at all, or to the extent that
was necessary, it must be considered that he was a poor,
a very poor parson, struggling to support his own family.
Even the 'deep sentiment' that it so ridiculed with the
* Thackeray, who was nothing but a novelist, until he
chose to turn historian and employed the late Mr Hannay to
collect his facts for him, shows equal prejudice and ignorance
in dealing with Sterne. He found him a capital subject for the
cheap 'clap-trap' utterance that would ' take' in a public lectureroom, and he was at once scornful and sarcastic on poor Sterne's
devices. Yet Thackeray's own writing is often quite open to
such a charge.
67




LIFE OF STERNE
contrasted sketch of the dead donkey, were actual
elements which, after all, would have helped him to
make a little money, were he disposed to give relief.
Fortunately, however, we have materials for an almost
complete vindication of Mr Sterne, in the shape of a
letter of inordinate length, addressed to his hostile uncle,
in which he states his whole case. It shows that he was
worried and persecuted past endurance by the importunities of this most unreasonable of parents, for whom
he had done everything that was reasonable.
'My motive for offering to send my wife rather than
myself, upon this particular business, being first merely
to avoid the occasion of any plot which might arise
betwixt you and me upon anything foreign to the Errand,
which might possibly disapoint the end of it, and
secondly as I had reason to think your passions were
pre-engaged in this affair, or that the respect you owed
my wife as a gentlewoman would be a check against
their breaking out; and consequently that you would be
more likely to give her a candid hearing which was all I
wished, and indeed, all that a plain story to be told without Art or Management could possibly stand in want of.
As you had thought proper to concern yourself in my
Mother's complaints against me, I took it for granted you
could not deny me so plain a piece of Justice, so that
when you write me word back by my servant " you desired
to be excused from any conference with my wife, but that
I might appear before you." As I foresaw such an interview with the sense I had of such a treatment was likely
to produce nothing but an angry expostulation (which
68




CA THEDRAL QUARRELS
could do no good, but might do hurt), I begged in my
turn to be excused, and as you had already refused
so unexceptionable an offer of hearing my defence, I
supposed in course, you would be silent for ever after
upon that head, and therefore I concluded with saying
"as I was under no necessity of applying to you, and
wanted no man's direction or advice in my own private
concerns I would make myself as easy as I could with
the consciousness of having done my Duty, and of being
able to prove I had whenever I thought fit and for the
future that I was determined never to give you any
further trouble upon the subject." In this resolution I
have kept for three years and should have continued so
to the end of my life, laying open the nakedness of my
circumstances, which for aught I knew was likely to
make me suffer more in the opinion of one half of the
world than I could possibly gain from the other part of
it by the clearest defence that could be made.
'Under the distress of this vexatious alternative I went
directly to my old friend and College acquaintance, our
worthy Dean, and laid open the hardship of my situation, begging his advice what I should best do to extricate
myself. His opinion was that there was nothing better
than to have a meeting face to face with you, and my
Mother, and with his usual friendship and humanity he
undertook to use his best offices to procure it for me.
'Accordingly about 3 months ago he took an opportunity of making you this request, which he told me
you desired only to defer till the hurry of your Nunnery
cause was over.
69




LIFE OF STERNE
'Since the determination of that office, he has put you
in mind of what you gave me hopes of, but without
success; you having (as he tells me) absolutely refused
now to hear one word of what I have to say. The denying me this piece of common right is the hardest measure
that a man in my situation could receive, although the
whole inconvenience of it may be thought to fall as intended, directly upon me, yet I wish Dr Sterne a great part
of it may not rebound upon yourself. For why, may any
one ask, why will you interest yourself ina complaint against
your Nephew if you are determined against hearing what
he has to say for himself?-and if you thus deny him every
opportunity he seeks of doing himself justice. Is it not
too plain you do not wish to find him justified, or that
you do not care to lose the uses of such a handle against
him? However it may seem to others, the case appearing in this light to me it has determined me contrary to
my former promise " of giving you no further trouble "-to
add this, which is not to solicit again what you have
denyed me to the Dean; (for after what I have felt from
so hard a treatment, I would not accept of it, should the
offer now come from yourself.) But my intent is by a
plain and honest narrative of my Behaviour, and my
Mother too to disown you for the future: being determined since you would not hear me, face to face with my
accusers, that you shall not go unconvinced, or at least
not uninformed of the true state of the case.
It is not necessary for my Defence to go so far back as
the loss of my Father, yr brother, whose death left me at
the age of i6 without one shilling in the world, and I
70




CA THEDRAL QUARRELS
may add at that fiize, without one friend in it except my
cousin Sterne of Elvington, who became a father to me
and to whose protection then I chiefly owe what I now
am; for as you absolutely refused giving me any aid at
my father's death, you are sensible.  I should have
been driven out naked into the world, young as I was, to
have shifted for myself as well as I could.
'It is not necessary, I say, for my defence to go so far
back, nor do I recall it to your memory by way of
recrimination for any seeming cruelty of yours towards
me then (for the favours I received after gave me reason
to forget it), and besides, I think your were the best judge
of what you had to do in such a case, and were only
accountable to God and your own conscience. But I
previously touch upon this particuler for the sake of a
single reflection which I shall make and turn to my
account bye and bye.
' From my father's death to the time I settled in the
world, which was eleven years, my mother lived in
Ireland, and as during all that time I was not in a
condition to furnish her wcifh money, I seldom heard
from her, and when I did the account I severally had
was, that by the help of an embroidery school that she
kept, and by the punctual payment of her pension, which
is ~20 a year, she lived well, and would have done so to
this hour had not the news that I had married a woman
of fortune hastened her over to England. She has told
you, it seems, "that she left Ireland then upon my express
invitation." This, it seems, was not the case. Her son
"represented to her the inhumanity of a mother able to
7I




LIFE OF STEARNE
maintain herself, thus forcing herself as a burden upon a
son who was scarce able to support himself without
breaking in upon the future support of another person
whom she might imagine was much dearer to me." In
short, I summed up all those arguments with making her
a present of twenty guineas, which with a present
of cloathes, etc., which I had given her the day
before.'
'In the year 44 my sister was sent from Chester, by
order of my mother to York, that she might make her
complaint to you, and engage you to second them in these
unreasonable claims upon us.
'This was the intent of her coming, though the pretence of her journey (of which I bore the expenses) was to
make a month's visit to me, or rather a month's experiment of my further weakness. She stayed her time or
longer, was received by us with all kindness, was sent
back at my own charge with my own servant and horses,
with five guineas which I gave her in her pocket, and
a six and thirty piece which my wife put into her hand
as she took horse.
' My wife and self took no small pains, the time she was
with us, to turn her thoughts to some way of depending
upon her own industry, in which we offered her all imaginable assistance, first by proposing to her that, if she would
set herself to learn the business of a mantua maker, as
soon as she could get insight enough into it to make a
gown and set up for herself, that we would give her ~30
to begin the world and support her till business fell in,
or, if she would go into a milliner's shop in London, my
72




CA THEDRAL QUARRELS
wife engaged not only to get her into a shop where she
should have ~Io a year wages, but to equip her with
cloathes, etc., properly for the place; or lastly, if she
liked it better, as my wife had then an opportunity of
recommending her to the family of one of the first of
our nobility, she undertook to get her a creditable
place in it where she would receive no less than ~8 or
~o1 a year wages, with other advantages. My sister
showed no seeming opposition to either of the two last
proposals till my wife had wrote and got a favourable
answer to the one and an immediate offer of the
other.
'It will astonish you, sir, when I tell you she rejected
them with the utmost scorn, telling me I might send my
own children to service when I had any, but for her
part, as she was the daughter of a gentleman, she would
not disgrace herself, but would live as such. Notwithstanding so absurd an instance of her folly, which
might have disengaged me from any further concern,
yet I persisted in doing what I thought was right, and
though after this the tokens of our kindness were
neither so great nor so frequent as before, yet nevertheless we continued sending what we could conveniently
spare.'
'It is not usual to take receipts for presents made, so that
I have not many vouchers of that kind, and my mother has
more than once denyed the money I have sent her, even
to my own face, I have little expectation of such acknowledgements as she ought to make.  But this I
solemnly declare, upon the nearest computation we can
73




LIFE OF STERNE
make, that in money, cloaths, and other presents, we are
more than  90o poorer for what we have given and remitted to them. In one of the remittances (which was the
summer my sister's visit), and which, as I remember,
was a small bill drawn for ~3 by Mir Ricord upon Mr
Baldeso, after my mother had got the money in Chester for
the bill she peremptorily denied the receipt of it.  I
naturally supposed some mistake of Mr Ricord in directing. However, that she might not be a sufferer by the
disappointment, I immediately sent another bill for as
much more, but withal said, as Mr Ricord could prove
his sending her the bill, I was determined to trace out
'iZho had got my money, upon which she wrote word back
that she had received it herself but had forgot it. You
will the more readily believe this when I inform you, that
in December 47, when my mother went to your house to
complain she could not get a farthitng from me, that she
carried with her ten,guineas in her pocket which I had
given her but two days before. If she couldforget such a
sum, I had reason to remember it, for when I gave it I did
not leave myself one guniea in the house to befriend my
wife, though then within one day of her labour, and under
an apparent necessity of a man midwife to attend
her.
'What uses she made of this ungenerous concealment
I refer again to yourself. But I suppose they were the
same as in my sister's case, to make a penny of us
both.
' When I gave her this sum I desired she would go and
acquaint you with it, and moreover took that occasion to
74




CA THEDRAL Q UA RRELS
tell her I would give her ~8 every year whilst I lived.
The week after she wrote me word she had been with you,
and was determined not to accept that offer unless I would
settle the ~8 upon her.
"Tis an absolute falsehood, and even so far from probability, that the character which both you and Mrs
Custobadie had given me and my wife of her clamorous
and rapacious temper, made us live in perpetual dread of
her thrusting herself upon us.
'I do remember, sir, when I married I acquainted you
that Mrs Sterne refused to have her own fortune settled
upon her, and wished for no better security than my
honour; to which you then answered, "I was the more
bound to take care that the Lady should be no sujferer by
such a mode of her cofidence." She never shall through
my fault; though she has through my misfortune and that
long train of difficulties and drawbacks with which you
know I began the world, as, namely, the whole debt of my
school education, cloathing, etc., for nine years together,
which came upon me the moment I was able to pay it.
To this a great part of the expense of my education
at the University, too scantily defrayed by my Cousin
Sterne, with only ~30 a year, and the last out of my
Wife's fortune and chargeable upon it in case my wife
should be left a widow. This she added was your particular advice, which without better evidence I am not
yet willing to believe; because though you do not yet
know the particulars of my Wife's fortune —you must know
so much of it, was such an event as my death to happen
shortly, without such a burden as this upon my widow and
75




LIFE OF STEm'ArE
my child, that Ars Sterne would be as much distressed and
as undeservedly so as any widow in Gt. Britain; and
though I know as well as you and my Mother that I have
a power in law to lay her open to all the terrors of such a
melancholy situation-that I feel I have noh ower in equity
or in conscience to do so; and I will add in her behalf,considering how much she has merited at my hands as
the best of wives, that was I capable of being worried
into so cruel measure as to give away hers and her
child's bread upon the clamour which you and my Mother
have raised-that I should not only be the weakest but
the worst man that ever woman trusted with all she
had.
'In what light she represented so much affection and
generosity I refer to your memory of the account she
gave you in her return through York, But for very
strong reasons I believe she concealed from you all that
was necessary to make a proper handle of us both, which
double game by the bye, my mother has played over
again upon us, for the same purposes since she come to
York, of which you will see a proof bye and bye.
'The very hour I received notice of her landing at
Liverpool, I took post to prevent her coming nearer me,
stayed three days with her, used all the arguments I
could fairly to engage her to return to Ireland and end
her days with her own relations, which I doubted not
would have the effect I wanted. But I was much mistaken, for though she heard me with attention, yet as
soon as she had got the money into her pocket, she told
me with an air of the utmost insolence "That as for
76




CA THEDRAL QUARRELS
going back to live in Ireland, she was determined to show
me no such sport; that she had found I had married a
wife who had brought me a fortune, and she was resolved
to enjoy her share of it, and live the rest of her days at
her ease, either at York or Chester."
'I need not swell this letter with all I said upon the
unreasonableness of such a determination, it is sufficient
to inform you that all I did say proving to no purpose I
was forced to leave her in her resolution, and notwithstanding so much provocation, I took my leave with assuring
her "That though my Income was strait I should not forget I was a son, though she had forgot she was a
mother."
'From Liverpool, as she had determined, she went with
ny sister to fix at Chester, where though she had little
just grounds for such an expectation, she found me better
than my word, for we were kind to her above our power,
and common justice to ourselves, and though it went
hard enough down with us to reflect we were supporting
both her and my sister in the pleasures and advantages
of a town life, which for prudent reasons we denied ourselves, yet still we were weak enough to do it for 5 years
together, though not without continual remonstrances on
my side as well as perpetual clamours on theirs, which you
will naturally imagine to have been the case, when all that
was given was thought as much above reason by the one,
as it fell below the expectations of the other.
'I convinced her that besides the interest of my wife's
fortune, I had then but a bare hundred pounds a year;
out of which my ill health obliged me to keep a curate
77




LIFE OF S7ERATL
that we had moreover ourselves to keep, and in that sort
of decency which left it not in our power to give her
much; that what we could spare she should as certainly
receive in Ireland as here; that the place she had left
was a cheap country-her native one, and where she was
sensible 20o a year was more than equal to 30 here,
besides the discount of having her pension paid in
England where it was not due, and the utter impossibility
I was under of making up so many deficiencies.
' The false modesty of not being able to declare this,
has made me thus long to pay and my Mother, and to this
clamour raised against me; and since I have made
known thus much of my condition as an honest man,
it becomes me to add that, I think I have no riqht to
apply one shilling of my Income to any other purpose
but that of laying by a provision for my wife and child:
and that it will be time enough (if then) to add somewhat to my Mothers pension of f20 a year when I have
as much to leave my Wife, who besides the duties I owe
her of a Husband and the father of a dear child, has this
further claim;-that she, whose bread I am thus defending was the person who brought it into the family, and
whose birth and education would ill enable her to struggle
in the world without it-that the other person who now
claims it from her, and has raised us so much sorrow
uppon that score, brought not one sixpence into the family,
-and though it would give me pain enough to report it
upon any other occasion, that she was the daughter of no
other than a poor Suttler who followed the Camp in
Flanders-was neither born nor bred to the expectation
78




CA THEDRAL QUARRELS
of a 4th part of what the government allows her, and
therefore has reason to be contented with such a provision
though double the sum would be nakedness to my wife.
'I suppose this representation will be a sufficient
answer to any one who expects no more from a man,
than what the difficulties under which he acts will enable
him to perform for those who expect more. I leave them
to their expectations and conclude this long and hasty
wrote letter, with declaring that the relation in which I
stand to you inclines me to exclude you from the number
of the last. For notwithstanding the hardest measure
that ever man received continued on your side without
any provocation on mine, without ever once being told
my fault, or conscious of ever committing one which
deserved an unkind look from you, notwithstanding this
and the bitterness of Io years unwearied persecution,
that I retain that sense of the service you did me at my
first setting out in the world, which becomes a man
inclined to be grateful, and that, I am, Sir,
'Your once much obliged though now
'Your much injured nephew,
' LAURENCE STERNE.
'SUTTON ON THE FOREST,
'April 5, I75I. "
* 'Copied by permission of Mr Rob. Cole of Upper Norton
Street from a copy carefully made by some person for Mr
Godfrey Bosvile formerly of Gurthwaite, and bought by Mr
Cole with many other papers of Mr Bosvile, July 25, i85I.
A copy of a letter wrote by Laurence Sterne, author of Tristramn
Shandy, to his uncle, Dr Sterne, April 5, I751.'
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LIFE OF STERNE


It is clear from this that Dr Sterne had taken up the
widow's case, not so much from sympathy as with a view
of harassing and blackening his nephew. He had also,
as the latter says, estranged this daughter by his 'wickedness, and her own folly.'


80




CHAPTER VII


A SERIES OF LETTERS
AMONG the canons of York was a Mr John Blake with
whom Sterne was on terms of the greatest intimacy.
They were constantly in council over some trouble or
complication, and we find the Vicar of Sutton often fixing to go into York and meet his friend. Many years
ago Mr Hudson of York kindly placed the whole unpublished correspondence of the pair in my hands.
Letters of Sterne are the rarest of autographs, and but
few are known-I shall therefore give the whole correspondence in this place.
There would appear to have been constant expeditions
to York for dinners, parties and concerts, of which Mrs
Sterne seems to have had her fair share. When her
husband went to Newborough to meet Lord Falconberg,
she went too. The next evening she was 'engaged to
the Cowpers', while he, passionately fond of music, had
set his heart on going to the York concert with his friend
Fothergill.
These conferences seem to have borne some fruit;
and, later, Mr Sterne is glad to hear 'some of the
VOL. I.              81               F




LIFE OF STERNE
rubbish is removed, in order to your edification, which,
I hope, will not be long delayed.' And then we get a
characteristic glimpse of the Sterne conjugal relations.
'I tore off,' writes Mr Sterne to Mr Blake, 'the bottom
of yours before I let my wife see it, to save a lye. However, she has since discovered the curtailment, and
seem'd very desirous of knowing what it contain'dwhich I conceal, and only say 'twas something that no
way concerned her or me; so say the same if she interrogates.' That little 'to save a lye' was plainly a little
awkward secret of Mr Sterne's, and it is curious to find
him writing his friend to tell a lie to 'save a lye.'
These difficulties being accommodated, Mr Blake was
anxious to see his friend at his house in York; and Mr
Sterne having, in some way, incurred the enmity of some
of the parties in the affair, writes a practical and sensible
explanation of the motives for declining.
DEAR BLAKE,-It is not often, if ever, I differ much
from you in my judgment of things, therefore you must
bear with me now in remonstrating against the impropriety of my coming just at this crisis. You have happily
now concluded this affair, wch has been so often upon the
eve of breaking off, and my coming would be the most
unseasonable visit ever paid by mortal man. Consider in
what light Mrs Ash and Miss must have hitherto look's
upon me, and should it ever come to light that I had
posted over upon this termination of yr differences, I
know it would naturally alarm them, and raise a suspicion
I had come over to embroil matters. Things being
82




A SERIES OF LETTERS


already settled, 'twould be thought I could have no
other errand. But you seem to have a forboding of the
same evil by yr desiring me to come privately. I have
weighed the point wth my wife a full hour, and she
thinks we should not stake the disgust yt may possibly be
given upon the chance of my coming being kept a secret;
for if I come to-night I must stay all night, wch will discover it. If, to-morrow morning, both roads and streets
will be full, as 'tis Martinmas day, and I declare I would
not have my being with you known over the way for fifty
pounds. I know you will do me the justice to believe I
would run 7 times as far any other road to do you a 7th
part of the kindness you ask. But I verily believe, wch,
by the by, makes me easy at heart, in my present staying
at home, that you will do as well without me. If I can
be of service, it must be in case some unforseen objection
shd arise in either party, when you may whistle me to
you in a moment's warning. However, my dear friend,
if, after all, you think it necessary for you that we should
have an hour's talk, I will give up my own judgmt to yrs,
and come over early to-morrow morning, tho' I rather
wish, as does my wife, you would be ruled by us; and
depend upon yr own good abilities, wch, I'm sure, are
sufficient to carry you thro' now with safety and honor.
I send my service to no mortal soul-and pray command
yr people to say nothing of yr lad's being here to-day. I
wish to God you could some day ride out next week, and
breakfast and dine with us, wch, if you do, it would be wise,
in my opinion, to make no secret of it, but tell the ladies
you are going to take a ride to Sutton, to carry the
83




LIFE OF STERNE


welcome news to yr friends, that every thing was happily
concluded. Dear sir, accept our most hearty congratulations upon it, and believe me.
yrS most truly,
LAUE. STERNE.
'P.S.-My servant is in town to-night, and will be in
town to-morrow, when I will order him to wait upon you.
I had collected all your letters, and burn't them before I
recd yrs.;
Besides some heavy farming operations, he was
concerned for his little girl Lydia, who was 'somewhat
relapsing'-showing symptoms of that asthmatic affection for which he afterwards took her to France. He
was waiting on the Dean, 'Jack Taylor,' and others,
and seems to have had his hands full both at home,
at Sutton, and when he came into York. At this
time too, reappears that poor, tramping Agnes Hebert,
his mother, who has come to York-possibly after the
Irish school bankruptcy-to meet her son, who has, it
may be well conceived, 'much to say to her.' He was
busy even now arranging some of her difficulties, for he
writes, 'I trust my poor mother's affair is by this time
ended, to our comfort, and, I trust, hers.'
Mr Blake's ' distemper,' whatever it was, was, however,
not mending, and again Mr Sterne writes one of his
sensible letters, apparently referring to the marriage of
his friend, full of sound, thoughtful advice, which may be
set out at full length with profit:'MY DEAR FRIEND,-We have ponder'd over the
84




A SERIES OF LETTERS


contents of yrs again and again, and after the coolest and
most candid consideration of every movement throughout this affair, the whole appears, what I but too shrewdly
suspected, a contexture of plots aget yr fortune and person,
grand mama standing first in the dramatis person6e, the
Loup Gar6u or raw head and bloody bones to frighten
Master Jacky into silence, and make him go to bed with
Missy, sui5fierless and in peace-Stanhope, the lawyer,
behind the scenes, ready to be call'd in to do his part,
either to frighten or outwit you, in case the terror of
grand mama should not do the business without him.
Miss's part was to play them off upon yr good nature in
their turns, and give proper reports how the plot wrought.
But more of this allegory another time. In the meanwhile, our stedfast council and opinion is, to treat Wth
Stanhope upon no terms either in person or proxy.
Consider the case a moment-Your proposals (wch I
trust will be soon offered by you to M" Ash in writing)
will either be accepted or refused by her at first sight.
If they are accepted, he is not wanted to be treated
with. If they are rejected, he is the most improper man.
The person call'd in such a case shd be your friend, not
one who will widen the breach and fortify them in their
opiniatre, but a cordial, kind body who will soften
matters and lessen the distance between you. Such a
one is not Stanhope, nor could be in honor either as
their kinsman or council. So I beg leave to repeat it
again, keep clear of him by all means, and for this
additional reason, namely, that was he call'd in either
at first or last, you lose the advantage as well as
85




LIFE OF STERNE
opportunity of an honorie retreat wch is in yr power the
moment they reject yr proposals, but will never be so
again after you refer to him.
'I am, dear Sr,
' most truly yr",
' L. STERNE.'
Presently Mrs Sterne was 'taking a wheel' into York
to dine with Mr Bridges, a pleasant friend of her husband's,
who was Mr Sterne's fellow artist in a characteristic
caricature, to be described later. 'We have 2 gooses for
you,' writes Mr Sterne to his cathedral friend; and later,
sends one of the birds by a special messenger. 'The
bearer,' he writes in his genial way, 'has brought you one
of your gooses, and should have brought myself with it
for company, but that I stay and wait till the afternoon
to see if my poor girl can be left. She is very much out
of all sorts; and our operator here, though a very
penetrating man, seems puzzled about her case. If
something favorable does not turn out to-day about
her case, I will send for Dealtry.' Not, it will be seen,
for Dr Burton, who also had a reputation in York as a
'penetrating' man.
To Mr and Mrs Ash, Mrs Sterne also sent presents
of 'gooses,' and the letter which accompanies the
gift contains what seems to be the only pun of Mr
Sterne's we are acquainted with. It, of course, referred
to that Mr Stanhope, the solicitor, whom Mr Sterne
had before painted in as a sort of arch-villain in the
piece.
86




A SERIES OF LETTERS
' Saturday.
'DEAR SIR,-My wife sends you and Mrs Ash a couple
of stubble geese-one for each; she would have sent you
a couple, but thinks 'tis better to keep yr other Goose in
our Bean Stubble till another week. All we can say in
their behalf is, that they are (if not very fat) at least in
good health & in perfectfreedome, for they have never
been confined a moment; I wish I could say as much of
yr worship-for I fear yr affairs, as heretofore, confine
& keep you in the dark, and if I am any conjurer, you
are at this hour, just where I left you (if you will allow a
pun) STAND HOPEing yourself to death-was there ever
so vile a conundrum? Pray God, that may be the worst
on't, so believe me to be, what I truly am,
'Yr cordially,
'L. STERNE.
'P.S.-As the goose is for yr mistress, my wife says,
you must take the worst and send her the best, & that the
next shall be better.
'I preach on Sunday at the Cathedral. Will you give
me a breakfast, if I get to York early? Or will you be
out of town?'
The earlier letters in the series are concerned with
plans for renewal visits, but Mr Sterne seems to have
been always in a state of unreadiness, and is found
putting off the expeditions he had planned on various
hindrances and pretexts. The friends appear to have
stayed at each other's houses, and the whole turn of the
87




LIFE OF STE RNE


correspondence is easy and agreeable. Mr Sterne's name
for his clerk, 'my Amen,' is quaint enough.
'DEAR SIR,-I see how your affairs approach to such a
crisis, that no friendly office can be witheld by one who
wishes you so well. But let me tell you the state of our
affairs. To morrow we are indispensably obliged to be at
Newborough (Ld F-g's) on Friday my wife has engaged
herself in the afternoon at Cowper's-& I had both set my
heart upon going to the Concert, & sent to engage Mr
Fothergill to meet me there a little after three. However, from eleven that day to three, both me and my rib
are at yr service to club our understandings all together,
and I'm sure we shall all be able in 4 hours to digest a
much harder plann & settle it to yr' and all our wishes;
however, if any our plann should require a 2d consideration
we purpose being at Newbury on Saturday to see yr
Patron pass by, & you will know where to find me in case
a half hours further conference should be wanted: If
after these preliminaries are settled, I can be of use to
you, you know you have no more to do but command me,
& I shall be any day the week following at yr service,
except Munday which is our Appeal day for the Land
Tax.
'We thank you for yr kindness in speaking for Mr
Hungton. (?) But we have plann'd it better.
'All our kind wishes & complimte to you & the ladies,
with service to Mr Lowther,
' Yr very truly.
'L. STERNE.


'SUTTON, July 5, '58.'


88




A SERIES OF LETTERS
' DEAR BLAKE,-I send my Amen to enquire after you,
never yet having been able upon any acct to get to you,
the great confusion of the Election wch I hate as much as
my friend Taylor does, kept me here during that period
-& bad weather, bad roads, not good health, & much
business, will not let me come for so long as I must stay
when I do get to you, wch must be for 2 or 3 days-whether
I will or no, I am forced out of my shell in Xmas week to
preach Innt". I hope all goes on successfully with you &
yr since the age I've had the pleasure of seeing you-pray
let me know it is so, & present all kind respts to Miss
C. &c. Pray tell me how long the Dean stays if you
can-& if Taylor is in Town to whom my best servicesIf you have 3 or 4 of the last Yorks Courants, pray send
one us, for we are as much strangers to all that has pass'd
amongst you as if we were in a mine in Siberia.
' My wife & Lydia send all kind loves to you.'I am truly yours,
' L. STERNE.
'I hope you got yr coat home safe, tho' in what plight
I fear as it was a rainy night & ten o'clock at night
before we reach'd Sutton, oweing to vile accidents to wh1
Journiers are exposed.
{  'Will you be so kind as to forward the note to Mr
Cowpers any time before noon.
There is no         ' I am, dear Sir, Your much
note enclosed. J           'obliged & faithful,
'L. S.`
89




LIFE OF STERNE


' Mfonday.
'DEAR SIR,-I have transacted my Bristol Affair all
but a small point left for yr good nature, wch is to put
letter in the Post to day & pay 5osticte yourself
for it to Mr Oldfield for wch I've inclosed 8d it being
a double letter. If Oldfield sd suspect 3 letters instead
of two you may open it to convince him. But I think
he will take your word, tho' perhaps not a Servant's.
The Express (when God sends it) MonsT Apothecary
will direct as agreed upon between us, & I think I
have put the whole into such a train that I cannot well
miscarry.'
'DEAR SIR,-I should have beat up yr quarters before now, & but for the vile roads & weather, together
with the crsis of my affairs namely the getting down
my crop wch by the way is in danger of sprouting.
However, I will come over at yr desire, but it cannot
be to morrow because all hands are to be employed
in cutting my barly wch is now shaking with this
vile wind-however the next day (Friday) I will be
with you by twelve & eat a portion of yr own dinner
& confer till 3 o'clock, in case the day is fair, if not
the day after, &c., &c. My wife is engaged to dine at
Cowpers the first travelleable day & comes with me.
I think Mr Moor will not expect (wt his letter does not
require) an answer-however, will overhaul yr matter
with all others.
'My wife sends her comps & what is more her wishes
for you in this crisis of yr distemper wch I wish likewise
90




A SERIES OF LETTERS


was well got over. For 'tis full of mystery and I think
cannot end as we all once hoped and expected,
' Believe me, Dear Sir,
'most truly yrs,
'L. STERNE.
5 o'clock.-I beg pardon for detains yr stockings wch
was the Maid's forgetfulness but she has a sweetheart in
her head, wch puts all other things out, this I'm sure you'l
excuse.'
'Sunday Night.
'DEAR SIR,-Not knowing what Day I shall be able
to get to York this week, having Business of so many
sorts to detain me at home, I have order'd my Sinful
Amen to wait upon You, That You might have an
Opportunity of writing in Case you durst trust him a 2a
Time or had Leisure as well as courage so to do. When
I come, I have 4 personages I equally want to see. The
Dean, Jack Taylor, yrself, & my Mother-& I have much
to say to each, How I shall manage all in ye narrow compass of a writers Day, I know not; but when I get to
York, I think my first hour will be with you & so on. I
believe my wife will be at York on Tuesday, to make her
last Marketings for the year. But will dine I dare say
with Duke Humphry, as my girl is somewhat relapsing
& the Mother you may be sure, not a little impatient to
be back;-I wd have wrote on Saturday But in Truth,
tho' I had both Time & Inclination, my Servants had
neither ye one nor the other, to go a yard out of their
Road to deliver it-They having set out with a Wagon
Load of Barly at 12 o'clock, & had scarse day to see it
9I




LIFE OF STERNE
measured to the Maltsman. I have 4 Thrashers every
Day at work, & they mortify me with declarations, That
There is so much Barly they cannot get thro' that speces
before Xmas Day, & God knows I have (I hope) near 80
Qr8 of Oats besides. How I shall manage matters to get
to you, as we wish for 3 months.
'I thank God, however, I have settled most of my
affairs-let my freehold to a promising tenent-have likewise this week let him the most considerable part of my
tyths, and shall clear my hands and head of all county
entanglements, having at present only ten pds a year in
land and seven pds a year in Corn Tyth left undisposed
of, wch shall be quitted with all prudent speed. This
will bring me and mine into a narrow compass, and
make us, I hope, both rich and happy. 'Tis only to
friends we thus unbosome ourselves, so I know you'l
excuse and believe me, yrs,          L. STERNE.
'P.S.-Let me know how your affairs go on, and as
distinctly as I have done mine.'
'SUTTON, Saturday.
'DR   SIR,-This should have come to yr hands
yesterday morng (but was disappointed by a fellow
who promised to call for it) to have desired yr Indulgences for my not being able to keep my word in
being with you as I hoped and intended-nor can we
for our souls leave home this day for reasons I shall
tell you when I see you wch will be very soon, but I
cannot fix wch of the three first days of the week it will
92




A SERIES OF LETTERS
be. It shall be the first in my power, for I want to see
you full as much as you do to see me. In the meantime
we hope 'twil be no Difference to your affairs whether
Munday or Wednesday. My wife I told you is engaged
& as I come alone I take pot luck. God bless &
direct you in the meantime & believe me yrs
' with all respects,             ' L. STERNE.
'To the Revd Mr Blake.'
' DEAR SIR,-It was very kindly done in you to send
me the Letter to Sutton, & I thank you for yt & all
other friendly offices. But for the future you shall not
be at such a trouble unless something extraordinary
makes it adviseable, Because as you will always first
peruse the accts, I am perfectly easy abt what is in
yrs knowing you will do for me as for yrself.  You
perceive That he will write from time to time to give
us a proper preparation in Case the Event shd happen,
upon wch preparation given by him it will be time
enough for us to plann something more particular
than what is done already, & it will be time enough
when he writes me word That He grows worse, to settle
the Matter of the Express with him in my Answer to
that Acct. My wife joins in her kind Thanks to you
with me for this-and I beg you'l
'believe me, yrs,                       L. S.
'P.S.-We decamp'd in such a Hurry on Sunday
morng I could not snatch a moment to run to bid you
adieu. But I know You excuse Formalities, wch by the
by, I am a most punctilious regarder of wtll all. But
93




LIFE OF STERNE
my friends —Ld Carlisle I suppose is not dead tho'
Irrecoverable.
'To The Reverend Mr Blake.'
' DEAR BLAKE,-Tho I know you could not possibly
expect us on so terrible a day as this has fallen out,
yet I could do no less than send over on purpose to
testify our concern for not being able to get to you.
We have waited dress'd and ready to set out ever since
nine this morning to 12 in hopes to snatch any intermission of one of the most heavy rains I ever knew,
but we are destined not to go for the day grows worse
and worse upon our heads, and the sky gathering in on
all sides leaves no prospect of any but a most dismal
going and coming, and not wthout danger as the roads
are full of water. What remains, but that we undress
ourselves.
'Since you left us, we have considered (you know wt)
in all its shapes and circumstances, and the more the
whole is weighed, the worse and more insiduous appears
every step of the managemt of that affair. God direct
you in it, 'tis our hearty prayer, for I am, with my wife
best respects to you,
'truly yours,
'Compt to ladies.                      ' L. S.'
From these letters a good idea may be gathered of
the Vicar's character, which was clearly that of a straightforward 'off-hand' man, with a curious suggestion of
Sidney Smith. No one could associate them with the
hypocritical, whining, sentimental lineaments that Mr
94




A SERIES OF LETTERS
Thackeray strove to draw.  He was certainly, at this
time at least, a hearty, pleasant fellow-good-natured,
too. Witness the strain of this unpublished letter: —
' SUTTON, Wednesday.
'DEAR SIR,-I have sent you a large Quantity of
Pepiermint wh I beg you will disstil carefully for me. I
observe you do not charge anything in yr letter for
the trouble and expense of making the last. I beg
you'l not use any ceremony with this, for I hoped you
would take it in pence. However, you may give Ricord
a single bottle, and if yr own shop is destitute of so
precious a vehicle, I give you leave to do the same
for yourself.'
But he was drawn into a local squabble connected
with the Cathedral, and in which he was to make his
first attempt at satirical writing.
Among the officials of the Cathedral was a certain
Dr Topham, a lawyer, who enjoyed great local practice,
and left a large fortune behind him. A fortune which
his son, later, seems to have squandered in town in
unbounded prodigality. This son was sent to Cambridge
-was put into the Horse Guards-and drove a curricle
with four black horses.* He is better known, perhaps,
as the biographer of Elwes, the miser, but always
took most pleasure in the thought that he had furnished
the occasion of Mr Sterne's first taking up his pen. For
it was he that brought about a tremendous controversy
in the cathedral society.
* Frederick Reynold's ' Memoirs.'
95




LIFE OF STERNE
Dr Topham, in addition to his other offices, had obtained a patent place for himself, and, not content with
this advantage, intrigued to have the reversion of it
secured to this gay son. The Dean, in whose gift it was,
seems to have resisted this pressure, and the result
was a cathedral squabble, fought with all the weapons
of verbal recrimination and pamphlets.
This little scandal broke out in the year 1758, but its
origin dated much further back, to a promise said to
have been given by Archbishop Herring to Dr Topham,
whom Mr Sterne describes as a 'little, dirty, pimping,
pettifogging, ambidextrous fellow, who neither cared what
he did or said of anyone, provided he could get a penny
by it.' He united in his single person this wonderful
combination of offices: -' Master of the Faculties,'
'Commissary to the Archbishop of York,' 'Official to
the Archdeacon of York,' 'Official to the Archdeacon of
the East Riding,' 'Official to the Archdeacon of Cleveland,' 'Official to the Peculiar Jurisdiction of Howdenshire,' ' Official to the Precentor,' 'Official to the
Chancellor of the Church of York,' and 'Official to
several of the Prebendaries thereof.' Yet this rapacious
civilian was not satisfied.
Dr Hutton had but just ascended the throne episcopal, when the pluralist, Dr Topham, began to be very
assiduous in his attentions.  'He had run for eggs,'
says Mr Sterne, telling the story satirically, 'in the town
upon all occasions, whetted the knives at all hours,
catched his horse, and rubbed him down; that for his
wife, she had been ready on all occasions to char for
96




A SERIES OF LETTERS
them, and neither he nor she, to best of his remembrance, ever took a farthing, or anything beyond a mug of
ale.' Trim is the name Mr Sterne gives to this greedy
petitioner-a name which seems to have pleased his
fancy, as he afterwards confers it on a being of a very
different mould, and the direct opposite of Dr Tophani
in all the unselfish virtues.* 'The Patent Place' was
described under the figure of an old Watch-Coat, that
had hung up many years in the church, 'and nothing
would serve Trim, but that he must take it home, in
order to have it converted into a warm under-pctticoat
for his wife, and ajerkin for himself.' The Archbishop,
who appears to have been an easy and compassionate
man, wearied out by importunity, gave the promise
required. Later on, however, he finds that he has been
a little hasty, and that the Patent Place, or Warmz
W,(tch-Coat, was by the terms of its endowment to be
strictly for the benefit of some one connected with the
Cathedral: that is to say, 'to the sole use and behoof of
the poor sextons, and their successors for ever, to be
worn by them respectively in winterly cold nights.' Dr
Hutton then finding he had promised more than was in
his power, sends for Dean Fountayne, and in his presence
explained to 'Trim' how impossible it was for him to
comply with his wishes. The pluralist lost his temper,
'huffed and bounced most terribly, swore he would get
a warrant... but cooling of that, and fearing the
* It will thus be seen that there was a Trim before the
immortal Corporal.  The name is also amongst Shadwell's
dramatis persona.
VOL. J.             97                 G




LIFE O' S7'E'NE
Parson ' (who is put for the Archbishop) ' might possibly
bind him over to his good behaviour, and, for aught he
knew, might send him to the House of Correction-he
lets the Parson alone, and to revenge himself falls foul
upon the Clerk,' i.e., the Iean. This minor embroilment
set on foot the clerical scandal, and the York society
was delighted by an indecent wrangle between the Dean
of their Cathedral and the Official of many Offices.
Dean Osbaldiston was the dignitary who had heaped
'many favours and civilities' upon Mr Sterne, which are
acknowledged in the dedication to that Charity Sermon
preached in the year 1747.  But perversely enough,
unluckily in this very year of the dedication, the 'Very
Reverend Richard Osbaldiston, D.D., Dean of York,' was
translated away from York to a distant bishopric. To
him succeeded Dr Fountayne, on whose side Mr Sterne
was now doing battle.  From this dignitary, the persevering Topham gave out that he had obtained a
promise of a place, which bore the title of 'The Commissaryship of Pickering and Pocklington,' and whose
value was five guineas per annum, and which Mr Sterne
in his satire prefigures under the title of the ' Breeches.'
The Dean publicly denied having made any such
promise; and it was said that an unpleasant altercation took place at the public 'Sessions Dinner' between
the two. Great scandal was the result; the Cathedral
was divided; charges of falsehood and want of faith
were exchanged, and both, appealing to a larger public,
took the field with pamphlets.
Presently, a third quarrel broke out between the Dean
98




A SERIES OF LETTERS
and the Archbishop, which, as may be conceived, raised
much more heat and dust. The affair was about some
point of ecclesiastical discipline, which is hidden away
under the figure of raising or lowering the desk in the
Cathedral. 'The Archbishop,' said Mr Sterne, 'might
have his virtues, but the leading part of his character was
not humility,' and with this Prelate the disappointed
Commissary took part. Fortified by such protection, he
one day snapped his fingers at the Dean.
After this contemptuous rejection of the 'five guinea
emoluments of 'Pickering and Pocklington,' the Deanin Mr Sterne's version of the case-asked if he would
have any objection to let ' Mark Slender' have the office:
that is to say, Dr Braithwaite-who, it will be recollected,
was one of Dr Burton's persecutors. An appeal was
made to his pity. The breeches would scarcely fit Trim,
'who was now, by foul feeding and playing the good
fellow at the Parson's, growing somewhat gross about
the lower parts.' But the fact was, the pluralist expected
better things; 'the great green pulpit cloth and old
velvet cushion,' which would have ' made up the loss of
the breeches seven-fold.' This was the 'Commissaryship
of Dean of York, and Commissaryship of Dean and
Chapter of York.' The Cathedral seemed to abound in
these curious little offices. ' Mark Slender,' or Dr Braithwaite, did not live 'very long to enjoy the profits of his
office; and then 'they got into the possession of Lorry
Slim, an unlucky wight, by whom they are still wornin truth, as you will guess, they are very thin by this
time.' There is no difficulty in identifying 'Lorry Slim,'
99. *.*:*: **'*;




LIFE OF STER~NE


and this insignificant bit of preferment, which made such
a hubbub, shows that he was of consideration with the
higher powers, and a person of importance in the
Cathedral battles.* This special quarrel, too, shows us a
glimpse of his character drawn by Yorick himself, and
which may be added to the personal sketch given in
Tristram.   ' But Lorry has a light heart, and what
recommends them to him is this, that thin as they are,
he knows that Trim, let him say what he will, still envies
the possessor of them, and with all his pride, would be
very glad to wear them   after him.' Still the unlucky
Topham seems to have gotten upon a groove of ill-luck,
for when the ' pulpit cloth' and 'cushion' were presently
taken down, they were given away, not to him, but to
* So far back as the 29th of December, I750, Mr Sterne had
been sworn in as 'Commissary of the 'eculiar Court of Alne
and Totteston' (an office of the same class as the one then in
dispute), and appointed his surrogates. The duties appear to
have been confined to the issuing of marriage licences, etc., and
the emoluments were very insignificant. Thus, from the 8th
of June, 1765, to the 25th of October, 1766, Mr Sterne received
but /2, IS. 4(1. (His registrar, Mr Makley, has an entry in
December, 'Paid Mr Sterne, thus far, /2, Is. 4(1.' And during
seven months of the year in which Mr Sterne died, the returns
reached but to 5s. 4(d. Mr Sterne, however, made his annual
' Visitation of the Clergy and Churchwardens of the Parishes of
Alne, Wigginton, and Skelton,' with great regularity. The
fillowing are the dates:ioth June, I751.           28th July, 1755.
6th July, 1752.            5th July, 1756.
28th May, I753.            25th July, 1757.
Ist July, I754.           30th May, 1758.
After this year he became irregular, and left the duty to his
surrogate. Mr Sutton, the Deputy Registrar, has the original
book with these entries, which he has kindly allowed me to use.
I00?!     i-:




A SERIES OF LETTERS


one ' William Doe,' that is, to Mr Stables, who understood
very well what use to 'make of them.' It may be conceived what a soreness and ferment of parties this
contention for places and disappointment brought about
among the holy men of the Cathedral.
When it came to the 'Session's Dinner' squabblewhich was at Mr Woodhouse's-and the pamphlets were
fluttering in the air, Mr Sterne rushed to the assistance
of his friend, Dean Fountayne, and, sitting down, wrote
his first Shandean Essay. It is pleasantly done, and
though somewhat ponderous in portions of the allegory,
is in his smartest manner; but some of the strokes are
too personal.
No doubt this little petard was shown about as was the
first portion of Tristram. It was about being printed
when the Commissary grew alarmed. The dispute was
accommodated, and the satire put by in Mr Sterne's desk.
The ferment is in itself not without its interest, a
little photograph of the old cathedral life; but more
significant still is it as a solution of the secret of that
persecution of which Yorick bewailed himself as being
the victim. If Mr Sterne suffered, that smart tongue
and ready pen were in part accountable.
At this time he was unfortunately on the worst possible
terms with his uncle. In the Warm Watch-Coat dispute
the pluralist was, of course, on the side of Topham, who
was his own official, and it might have been thought
that his nephew's share may have led to the quarrel.
It was, however, of older standing, and my uncle's 'wickedness'-as he called it-had been at work before I751.
IOI




CHAPTER VIII
A SECOND LOVE-'DEAR, DEAR KITTY'
IN this fashion the years glided away, until we touch the
year I759. And though this time has been marked by a
certain stir and bustle, by local intrigue, and by public
dangers and calamities, still Mr Sterne has hardly
begun to live his life. Yet he is now just forty-six years
old; and that famous 'homunculus,' Tristram, not
thought of.
It was about this time that he was often met with at
Scarborough, whose 'spaw' was then rising into repute
-a place which all through his life he was fond of
visiting. Young Mr Cradock-who was well known
behind the scenes of private theatricals, and afterwards
had his indifferent Epilogue attached to one of Goldsmith's famous comedies-recollected meeting him there.
There was a well-known physician of the place-Dr
Noah Thomas-with whom Mr Cradock used to dine;
I02




A SECOND LOVE —'DEAR', DEAR KiTTY'
and at his table he met Mr Sterne, in such distinguished
company as the Duke of York, the Marquis of Granby,
Colonel Sloper, and Mr and Miss Cibber. Mr Sterne
loved rolling his carriage along the beach, 'with one
wheel in the sea.'
We shall now begin to see 'our hero in what must be
considered his favourite and most effective characterthat of lover, or perhaps philanderer. A notorious and
successful philanderer he always was. ' Let me be wise
and religious, but let me be man.' Here is his professional declaration. 'I nmyself must ever have some
Dulcinea in tmy head.' All this was as candid as it
was true. Through his life he carefully nourished some
gentle passion-it harmonised and allured the soul, and
made him comfortable and happy. Philandering of this
kind causes much distress, however, to the other party
concerned, who feels acutely after the lover has 'cantered
off on his haunches.' Unfortunately, in Mr Sterne's case,
his 'amorous propensities,' as Johnson called them, were
not found within such harmless limits. The Lothario
had much to recommend him      for this role-there
was something attractive in his bearing and talk.
His delicate frame, his odd but brilliant face and
lively talk-wit and  sentiment mingled-all commended him to the fair. There was safety, too, in his
cloth.
With this preface we may draw up the curtain. And
so ' softer visions, gentler vibrations,' shall now visit him;
'the lute, sweet instrument! of all others the most
delicate-the most difficult! how wilt thou touch it, my
103




LIF, E OF S TE RATA
clear Uncle Toby?' And yet how much more 'delicate'
and 'difficult' to deal with here! which is yet a task
most necessary in a life of Sterne, to be now attempted
in all sincerity, and with candour.
At 'Mrs Joliff s, in Stonegate,' only a few streets from
the mansion of Richard Sterne, was nowv residing a
young French lady with her mother. They belonged
to a Huguenot family, who had been forced to leave
France on account of their religious opinions, and had
found their wvay to York. Her name wvas Catherine de
Fourmantelle, and she seems to have been possessed of
much personal attraction.*
The family itself was called 'lBeranger de Fourmantelle,' and once held estates in St D~omingo. An
elder sister remained in France, having conformed to the
established faith. Miss Fourmantelle and her mother
came to York.
To Miss Fourmantelle Mr Sterne was nowv wvriting
ardent letters, addressing them to 'Dear, dear Kitty,'
which documents that lady put by faithfully, and
cherished as Mrs Sterne had put by her treasures, by
this time sad fossils enough. By-and-by they passed
into the hands of 'Mrs Weston,' her friend, who indorsed upon them a little history of the conclusion of
the adventure. Most of them are scarcely more than
flying scraps, indited in Mr Sterne's chronic hurry.
Many are without date, one with a wrong date, whose
* The details of this little episode are derived from the
curious letters Iprinted by the Philobiblon Society, and edited
by the late Mr Murray.
104




A SECOND LOVE-'DEAR, DEAR KITTY'
error is apparent from the context, and all are distinguished by some curious spelling.*
Contemporaneously with this attachment-which, it
may be presumed, like all Mr Sterne's grandes passions,
'was the tenderest ever human wight was smitten with'Mr Sterne was busy with the first portion of famous
'TRISTRAM SHANDY'; and there can be no question
but that by this accident 'Dear, dear Kitty' has received a certain immortality, from being niched into the
eighteenth chapter, under the thin disguise of 'My dear,
dear Jenny.' 'It is no more than a week from this very
day-which is March 9, 1759-that my dear, dear Jenny
-observing I looked a little grave, as she stood cheapening a silk of five-and-twenty shillings a yard-told the
mercer she was sorry she had given him so much trouble,
and immediately went and bought herself a yard-wide
stuff of tenpence a yard.' Mr Sterne was perhaps rather
over-fond of standing in shops, both in Paris and elsewhere, philosophising over the counter with young and
pretty ladies.
He deprecates the construction which York gossip
may put on the business: ' Nor is there anything unnatural or extravagant in the supposition that my dear
Jenny may be my friend-friend!-my friend. Surely,
* It is an interesting question this of the spelling in the last
century.  Dr Johnson and other eminent personages, in their
letters, wrote easily, and it would seem to be that in letter-writing a certain licence was allowed. People seemed to write
according to phonetic rules-words could be written in different
ways without impeachment of spelling. In print only there was
a fixed standard.
105




LIFE OF STERNE


madam, a friendship between the two sexes may subsist,
and be supported without,' etc. Long after, when 'dear,
dear Kitty' had been succeeded by a whole series of
Iulcineas, he recurs to the name again, with a sort of
fond recollection, and addresses to ' dear Jenny' a mournful meditation on death, then within a stride or two of
him.
With this young lady Mr Sterne got through some of
his heavy York hours, drinking dishes of tea, shopping,
sketching, and sending presents of wine. ' MISS,' begins,
the first of these letters, written on a Sunday,* ' I shall
be out of all humour with you, and besides wvill not paint
youripicture in black, which best becomes you,' unless 'a
few bottles of Calcavalla' are accepted, which his man
will ' leave at the (ore.' He will explain the reasons of
this 'trifling present' on Tuesday night, when 'I shall
insist upon it that you invent some plausible excuse to be
at home.' This is signed, 'Yours, YORICK.'
After one Saturday night at ' Mrs Joliff's in Stonegate,
with Mrs Fourmantelle and her daughter, when they had
stayed up very late, Mr Sterne writes the following Sunday
morning to tell her that 'if this billet catches you in bed,
you are a lazy, sleepy little slut,' and proposes to see her at
a Mr Taylor's-the Mr Taylor that figured in the Blake
embarrassments-at 'half an hour after twelve;' and hehas
ordered his man Matthew 'to steal her a quart of honey.'
For the strain of rapture in which portions of the correspondence are couched, it would be unbecoming to offer a
* Two or three of these letters had been seen and printed by the
elder Disraeli.
0o6




A SECOND LOVE-'DEAR, DEAR KITTY'
word of palliation. 'What is*honey to the sweetness of
thee who are sweeter than all the flowers it comes from?'
'I love you to distraction, Kitty, and will love you to
eternity,' with more to the same effect.  There is a
curious expression in one of these letters which shows that
he intended marrying the girl in case of his wife's death.
' I have but one obstacle,' he wrote, 'to my happiness, and
what that is you know as well as I.' Again he appeals to
a higher power-' God will open a dore, when we shall
some time be much more together.' And again: 'I fray
to God that you may so live and so love me as one day to
share in my great good fortune.' Anyone who recklessly
puts himself in so suspicious a situation-however pure
his motives-cannot complain if posterity naturally judges
him by the presumption of ordinary evidence. But for
the feeling which could prompt him to calculate on the
death of his wife, and already settle on her successor,
nothing is to be said. Curious to say, long after he was
making a similar arrangement with the more famous
Eliza Draper.
On the Thursday following arrived the pot of honey
and the pot of sweetmeats, with a dainty letter quite in
keeping, and which reads as quaintly as though it came
from an Elizabethan lover:' MY DEAR KITTY,-I have sent you a pot of sweetmeats and a pot of honey, neither of them half so sweet
as yourself; but don't be vain upon this, or presume to
grow sour upon this character of sweetness I give you;
for if you do, I shall send you a pot of pickles (by way
I07




LIFE OF STERNE
of contrarys) to sweeten you up and bring you to yourself
again. Whatever changes happen to you, believe me that
I am unalterably yours and according to your motto such
a one, my dear Kitty' Qui ne changcra pas que Cel mortrant."
'L. S.'
'Qui ne changera pas que en mourant!' This from the
Reverend M r Yorick! Well may the cynic smile who has
seen the long train of Mr Sterne's ' flames,' in respect of
whom he was 'to change only in death.' 'My witty
widow,' 'Lady P —,' 'Mrs H.,' 'Maria of Moulines,' 'Mrs
Elizabeth Draper, wife of Daniel Draper, Esquire,' the
'Toulouse' lady, and the whole company of grisettes,
which reads like the perfect mille Cl tre of Leporello's
list; for all of whom he was, 'to change only in
death.'
Presently Mr Sterne is sending, not a 'pot of sweetmeats,' but a more serious gift, 'the enclosed sermon,'
which proved to be his Good Friday charity sermon on
Elijah, of which he had, no doubt, some copies in his
desk. He sends it because'there is a beautiful character
in it of a tender and compassionate mind in the picture
given by Elijah. Read it, my dear Kitty, and believe me
when I assure you that I see something of the same kind
and gentle disposition in your heart which I have painted
in the prophet's.' He had the 'pleasure to drink your
health last night, and, if possible, will see you this afternoon before I go to Mr Fothergill's' (Mr Fothergill was
one of the ecclesiastical society-a prebendary, and a
0o8




A SECOND LOVE-' DEAR, DEAR KITTY'


relation of the famous Dr Fothergill's). He is, in conclusion, her 'affectionate and faithful servant, LAURENCE
STERNE.' From this more formal signature as well as
from its more subdued tone, and the reference to the
Elijah sermon, this letter would seem to belong to the
earlier days of their acquaintance.
We must now lose sight of 'Dear, dear Kitty' for a
short time; Mr Sterne being busy with far more important matters-in fact, laying the foundation for his
fame. Miss Fourmantelle shall appear again presently,
when Mr Sterne's letters to her become of far more
value than mere rhapsodical effusions, being written from
London in the first jubilee of his whirl of triumph.
What was the ultimate destiny of ' Dear, dear Kitty'
is not known; but Mrs Weston, the friend before alluded
to, actually took the trouble to indorse upon the bundle
of letters a rather ghastly bit of romance-quite apocryphal —which is only worthy of notice for the purpose of
showing what a curious confederacy there has been to
vilify the memory of the great humorist in every possible way. This sets out that Mr Sterne had paid his
addresses to her for five years, then suddenly deserted
her and married Mrs Sterne.   That by this cruelty
she lost her wits, and was taken over to Paris by her
eldest sister to be placed in a madhouse, in which
gloomy place of confinement she died. Mr Sterne,
however, during some of his pleasant visits to Paris, had
contrived to see her; and with a practical eye utilised
all the sentiment in the situation, working it up effectively in that well-known 'bit,' 'Maria of Moulines.'
I09




LIFE OF STERNE


A reference to a single date disposes of this clumsy
'sensation' scene. Mr Sterne was married in I740;
and we find Miss Fourmantelle, in all her charms,
intimate  with him  twenty years afterwards, viz., in
I760. No one has suffered so much from these fabrications as Mr Sterne. These were some of the weapons
which Eugenius warned him     ' Revenge and Slander,
twin-ruffians,' were to level at his reputation.*
* This positive statement, however, as to Kitty's disastrous
fate, though mixed with error, may 1lc in the main true; and it
may be that on b)eing 'cast off' b)y her admirer-which it would
seem she was, in the first flush of his success-she thus lost her
wits.


II0




CHAPTER IX


'TRISTRAM' WRITTEN AND PUBLISHED
CONCURRENTLY with these pursuits - amatory and
political-the parson of Sutton was busy with what he,
no doubt, then considered pure trifling; but which was
to bear him more fruit than infinite turns of the obscure
wheel of Yorkshire politics. Busy with an ambitious
attempt-a strange, rambling novel, based upon some
of those quaint models with which his mind was stored;
by which, too, his reputation as a satirist might be
increased, and with the introduction of local allusions,
and characters thinly veiled —he was, in short, scribbling
away at TristramZ Shandy.
It seems probable that the work was begun about
the month of January, in the year 1759, and that
the two first volumes of Tristram took about six months
to write and print. He has himself let fall a hint or
two which helps us roughly to estimate his rate of
progress.
Candide, Voltaire's famous romance, had appeared
that year, and Mr Sterne had barely written a few
III




LIFE OF STERtNE


chapters when he broke into an address to Fame,
begging of her, 'if not too busy with MIiss Cunegunde's
affairs,' to look down upon Tristram.* And at the
seventy-seventh page of his first volume he makes a
remark on the 'irregularity' of national temper; which
he says was 'struck out' at the very moment he was
holding the pen, viz., 'On this very rainy day, 'March
26, 1759, between nine and ten in the morning.' Some
thirty pages further back he again marks the time at
which he was writing-'This very day in which I am
now writing this book for the edification of the world,'
which is March 9, 1759 (a week after the time that
'dear, dear Jenny' and he stood 'cheapening a silk ').
Going backwards in a rough fashion, according to this
scale, January would be about the date he began his
first chapter. His fashion of scribbling must have been
quite in character and truly Shandean. He owns to
wearing a special fur cap, and had a fancy for a cane
chair with nobs at the top. He usually wrote very fast,
so that literally his pen guided him, not he his pen;Rand
his way of writing was of that irregular, spasmodic,
disorderly, and even uncleanly kind.)
Even as he wrote he was suffering from his health,
and that affection in his chest to which he was subject
'from the first hour I drew my breath in to this, that I
can now scarce draw it at all.' A 'vile asthma'always
tormented him; that periodic breaking of vessels in the
* It is curious that three such famous books as Rasselas,
Candide and Tristram Shandy should have appeared almost
in the same month.
112




' TRISTR'AM' WRITTEN AND PUBLISHED


lungs was always in ambuscade, as it were, for him.
He had been tempted to try Bishop Berkeley's famous
and fashionable recipe of tar-water.  Mr Sterne had
tried this nauseous remedy, and writes to a female
correspondent of his, that 'it has been of infinite
service.' He gave a York friend Berkeleys Querist and
Swifts Directions to Servants, bound up together, and
put in the beginning a humorous inscription:-' Laurence
Sterne to... with B. Berkeley.... Going through
a course of tar-water for the pleasure committed of
sitting up till three in the morning.'*
Word, too, had gone forth as to the special character
of the work. As originally written, it was a mere local
satire-levelled at well-known persons in York and Yorkshire. Possibly he meant in this way to retaliate upon
Yorick's persecutors. His enemies were not slack upon
such an occasion, and it was well understood that he
'was busy writing an extraordinary book.' He even
knew the parties by name who were working in the dark.
'I shall not,' he writes to Mrs Ferguson, 'pick out a
jury amongst...... and, till you read my Tristram,
do not, like some people, condemn it. Laugh, I am
sure you will, at some passages.' And the 'witty
widow's' laugh was to be, by-and-by, swelled into a
mirthful chorus in which the whole kingdom joined.
It is curious that he should not have thought of
dedicating his book to some powerful protector. Later
on, however, when his London triumph came, and a
* This volume was in the possession of Mr Gray of York.
VOL. I.             I I3              If




LIFE OF STEA/\E


new edition of Trishfraw  was getting ready, he found
reason to change his mind.
Mention has been made of the rumour that got abroad
that the lively Mr Sterne was 'busy writing an extraordinary book,' which shows that Yorkshire and the
town of York was watching his motions. It was of
interest to them all to know that their witty Prebendary
was at work on a comic novel, passages of which had no
doubt been read to a few.
Yet if we may trust a curious letter from a friend of
his, which stole into a magazine, these racy passages
were written under circumstances of deep domestic
trouble. Mrs Sterne was very ill at the time, having
lost her senses by a stroke of palsy, and his daughter
Lydia had caught a fever.
The first instalment  three volumes -was finished
before June, 1759; and was to be no exception to the
destiny which has waited on the entrance of many
famous works into the world. It was declined by the
publishers. Nor was it surprising. In that month he
wrote to Dodsley, offering him the new book for ~50,
about the sum he would have been glad to receive
for the dedication. But the wary publisher declined the
unknown work of an obscure Yorkshire Prebendary,
saying, 'that o50 was too much to risk upon a single
volume, which, if it happened not to sell, would be hard
upon his brother.'
Mr Sterne acknowledged the justice of this objection
in a tone studiously modest, which contrasts amusingly
with his later style, and proposed an arrangement upon
114




TR' ISTRAM' FWRITTEN AND PUBLISHED


a new basis. 'You need not be told by me how much
authors are inclined to over-rate their own productions.
I hope I am an exception.' Then in the same retiring
way he submits this arrangement: 'I propose therefore to print a lean edition, in two small volumes of the
size of Rasselas, and on the same paper and type, at
my own expense, merely to feel the pulse of the world,
and that I may know what price to set on the remaining
volume from the reception of the first.' If the 'lean
edition' (how characteristic this description) should have
'the run our critics expect,' he proposed following up
his success with an instalment every six months. 'If
my book fails of success,' he goes on, 'the loss falls
where it ought to do. The same motives which inclined
me first to offer you this trifle, incline me to give you the
whole profits of the sale (except what Mr Hinxham sells
here, which will be a great many), and to have them sold
only at your shop upon the usual terms in these cases.'
Further, he will have it printed at York, but 'printed
so as to do no dishonour to you, who, I know, never
choose to print a book meanly.' The publisher may
then have objected that the satire was too local. For
Mr Sterne, assures him, he had actually re-cast this
book, cut away all provincial allusions, had made 'the
satire general, notes are added where wanted, and the
whole made more saleable, about I50 pages added; and,
to conclude, a strong interest formed and forming in
his behalf.' *
* See this letter, which embodies the substance of Dodsley's,
in Dr Dibdin's Reminiscences.
'I5




L FE OF STE1RNE


It is not known what terms he did eventually make;
but it seems likely, from what he wrote to a nameless doctor in the first flush of success, that it was a
sort of speculative arrangement, with which, he owns,
he proposed 'laying the world under contribution.'
His book will be read enough 'to answer my design of
raising a tax upon the public'; which seems to hint
that his pecuniary profit was to attend on the sale of the
book.
A bookseller, living in Stonegate, close to where
Miss Fourmantelle stopped, was to exploiter it in
York:   'IMr John Hinxham, successor to the late Mr
Hilyard.' And, at the end of December, in the year
1759, the famous romance of Tristram Shandy came out
at York.
It took the shape of two miniature pocket volumes,
prettily printed in new type, and on superior paper. It
may after all have been printed in London, and by
Dodsley's printer-for type, paper, and general shape
resemble that of a certain Enquiry by one Dr Goldsmith, which was brought out that very year by the
same publishers. Mr Sterne, too, showed his acquaintance with that odd class of eccentric little books, without
name, date, or place of publication-the very foundlings
of the republic of letters-when he sent forth Tristram
under such conditions; for the first two volumes show
nothing on the title but a 'colophon' and a date. The
price was but five shillings for the two.
Those who took the 'ublick Advertiser, in the great
metropolis, read in their number of Tuesday, the first
Ii6




'TRISTRAM' WRlITTEN AND PUBLISHED


day of the year, a modest advertisement of the new
book.
' This day,' it ran, 'is published, printed on superfine
writing paper, and a new letter, in two volumes, price
55s., neatly bound, The Life and Opinions of Tristram
Shandy, Gentleman.  York. Printed for and sold by
John Hinxham (successor to the late Mr Hilyard), Bookseller in Stonegate; J. Dodsley, in Pall-mall; and Mr
Cooper, in Paternoster-row, London; and by all the
booksellers in Great Britian and Ireland.' This notice
appeared once or twice.
It threw York into a perfect commotion. Everyone
in the cathedral town rushed to buy. Within two days,
the bookseller had disposed of two hundred copies, and
the demand increasing. ' The nobility and great folks,'
wrote Miss Fourmantelle, to London, 'stand up mightily
for it, and say 'tis a good book.' Everybody, she said,
was talking of the 'witty smart book'; nor did they
find much to object to in the fact that it was 'a little
tawdry in some places.'
On the last day of the year there was a concert at the
York Assembly Rooms, at which were the 'nobility and
great folks,' and the brilliant Prebendary himself. There
he met the young French 1mnigrde lady, Miss Fourmantelle, and talked with her over the triumph of the
new book, and told how he had sent up some copies to
London. And the next day the young French lady sat
down and wrote to an influential London friend a letter,
whereof the text was the new book, pure and simple.
The London friend is entreated to get it and to read
I 17




LIFE OF STERNE


it, and, above all, to praise it partouz, because his 'good
word in town will do the author, I am sure, great service.'
She owns that the 'graver people say, 'tis not fit for
young ladies to read, so perhaps you'll think it not fit
for a young lady to recommend.' She then tells him
it is by a person whose name is Sterne, and praises him
as 'a gentleman of great perferment, and has a great
character in these parts as a man of learning and wit.'
She half apologises for this warm advocacy, by adding
that 'he is a kind and generous friend of mine, whom
Providence has attached to me in this part of the world,
where I came a stranger; and I could not think how I
could make a better return than by endeavouring to
make you a friend to him and his performance. This
is all my excuse for this liberty, which I hope you will
excuse.' In short, a prettily-written lady's letter. Unluckily for this candid appeal, there was found among
the young lady's papers a draft of this London letter, in
the actual handwriting of 'the great character in those
parts as a man of learning and wit!' The clever Mr
Sterne had written for the young French lady what she
was to send to her friend!
The book, however, was not to need such helps. It
does not, indeed, seem certain that the 'run' began at
once, or, indeed, until Mr Sterne himself came up to
town in March; for it was not until April that notices
of its enthusiastic reception, then rife, were dropped in
letters from London to the country. The second edition,
too, did not come out until the middle of the year. A
month's 'rush for copies' would exhaust a small edition
IIS




' TRISTR4AM' WRITTEV AND PUBLISHED
in these days; and in the memoir, which appeared when
Mr Sterne first came upon town, it is stated that only
a few copies were sent up to London at first, so little
anticipation was there of anything like a serious demand
at Mr Dodsley's establishment.


I19




CHAPTER X


PETTY ANNOYANCES
IN the month of November, before his book appeared,
he had taken a house 'in the Minsteryard' for his wife
and daughter, in order that the latter, being now some
twelve years old, might have the advantage of such
masters as York could afford. She was to begin dancing
forthwith. Mr Sterne said if he could not give her a
fortune, she should at least have a suitable education.
Still, for all this hint at want of means, it is plain that
he was in the habit of treating himself to visits to
London, and had fixed an expedition for the March of
the following year, as soon as the labour of publishing
Tristram should have been off his hands.
It had been scarcely in the hands of the York lieges a
month before the personalities, fancied or real, began to
bear awkward fruit. He was worried by letters of expostulation, and a tide of good advice flowed in upon
him from well-meaning friends. The genus irrtabile of
'our Sydenhams and Sancrados' were specially sore. A
strange passage in the first volume, which has mystified
120




PETTY OFTENCES
readers, was in that day perfectly intelligible, and
resented. 'Did not Dr Kunastrokius,' he writes, 'that
great man, at his leisure hours, take the greatest delight
imaginable in combing of asses' tails, and plucking the
dead hairs out with his teeth, though he had tweezers
always in his pockets?' This, it seems, was pointed at
the celebrated Dr Mead, whose intellects wandered a
little at the close of his life, and whose malady took the
shape of violent senile attachments.  He was in the
habit of sitting for hours together combing the back
hair of his 'flames,' and picking out the short hairs with
his teeth.  'This curious weakness,' says Mr Sterne in
one of his letters, 'was known by every chambermaid
and footman within the bills of mortality.'
There happened to be two country practitioners down
in Mr Sterne's neighbourhood who had been married to
daughters of the famous physician; and charitable
fingers speedily pointed out to them the passage in the
new book reflecting on their relation. These gentlemen,
however, were not too sensitive; and it was stated in the
London papers that 'they were no champions for his
foible, and could meet Yorick without reproaches or
blushings.' But an indignant doctor, a personal friend
of Mr Sterne, wrote promptly to protest against this
outrage on the dead; for Dr Mead was already gathered
to his fathers. He insisted in many letters on the maxim,
De mortuis, etc., and even hinted at 'cowardice'; and to
him the author wrote an indignant justification of many
pages, half serious, and altogether Shandean.
This medical friend, who writes from London, good121




LIFE OF STERNE
naturedly lets his clerical friend in the provinces know
'the general opinion of the best judges, without exception'
upon his book, which is to the effect 'that it cannot be
put into the hands of any woman of character;' a
verdict perfectly just.  Mr Sterne insists that this
view is taken merely from the 'little world of your
acquaintance,' which it most likely was. 'I hope,' adds
Mr Sterne, 'you except widows, doctor, for they are not
all so squeamish; but I am told they are all really of my
party, in return for some good offices done their interests
in the I76th page of my second volume;... but for
the chaste married, and chaste unmarried, they must not
read my book. God take them under His protection in
this fiery ordeal, and send us plenty of duennas to watch
the workings of their humours till they have safely got
through the whole work.' The London doctor, however,
owned, a little grudgingly, that the book would be read
enough 'to answer his design of raising a tax upon the
public.' This was just at the commencement of the
month of February; so that 'would be read enough' was
yet to come.
The picture of Dr Slop was at once appropriated by
nearly every sensitive Sangrado in the district; the
luckless author was waited on by injured members of the
faculty, and called on with remonstrances, and even
threats, to alter the personal strokes and colouring of his
portrait.  The 'ingenious Dr Burton,' at whom  the
wicked sketch was said to be aimed, boldly disclaimed
all consciousness of any resemblance in the picture.
But there were others scarcely so politic. An amusing
122




PETTY OFFENCES
interview is said to have taken place between the author
and one of the injured guild. The latter complained
bitterly of 'the indecent liberties' that had been taken with
his character and person.
'Are you,' asked Mr Sterne, very calmly, 'a man-midwife?' 'No,' the medical remonstrant was constrained
to answer.  'Are you a Roman Catholic?' 'No.'
'Were you ever splashed and dirtied?' 'Yes,' answered
the other eagerly; 'and that is the very thing you have
taken advantage of to expose me.' * This was Shandean,
and must have amused Yorick wonderfully.  But he
composed his face, and strove, with all gentleness, to
reason his visitor out of the notion that any offence was
intended. Finding, however, that this course had no
effect, he is said to have dismissed the sensitive mediciner
with this quiet caution:'Sir, I have not hurt you. But take care; I am not
born yet, and you cannot know what I may do in the next
two volumes.'
He supplements it by a declaration, which we may also
accept as sincere, as to 'the ends proposed in commencing
author;' which were-' first, the hope of doing the world
good by ridiculing what I thought deserving of it, or of
disservice to sound learning;' and secondly, 'I wrote not
to befed, but to befamnous.' Both ends were fortunately
attained. His purse was handsomely lined in the same
proportion as his fame extended.
A clerical friend also wrote to him nervously about
the irregular character of the new book. Mr Fothergill,
* Memoir in the Royal Femzale ffMagazine for 1760.
123




LIFE OF STEA'ArE
a brother functionary of the cathedral, preached daily to
him on the same text. 'Get your preferment first,' said
this clergyman, taking certainly not very high moral
ground, 'and then write and welcome.' All, however,
pressed on him the necessity of a certain amount of
castration, in case the book should run to a second
edition. To these well-meant remonstrances he answered
very patiently, promised some excisions-will 'use all
reasonable caution, but so as not to spoil my book; that
is, the air and originality of it, which must resemble the
author.' And another clergyman, 'a very able critic,'
endorsed this view heartily, adding forcibly that 'that
idea in his head would render the book not worth a
groat.' He denied with reason that he had gone as far
as Swift. 'He keeps a due distance from Rabelais, and
I keep a due distance from him.' Still he was a good
deal scared, and was inclined to give way. He tells his
London medical friend that the propriety of alteration is
even then (30th January) sub judice. He has even been
driven to the project of getting his book put into the
hands of his Archbishop, 'if he comes down this summer.'
But, in truth, it was hard for him to know what to do;
for were there not 'men of wit' and 'sound critics,'
'relishing' most the very passages for whose suppression
the more moral were clamouring? No wonder that,
harassed in this fashion, he should own to being barely
above the level of despair.
There was one bit of consolation to cheer him. Even
at this early date, before the book had time to make its
way fairly, the most skilful actor of the day had penetraI24




PETTY OFFENCES
tion enough to discern its great and eccentric merits.
The famous manager and actor had read it, and was, no
doubt, taken by its wonderfully dramatic character.
Garrick's 'favourable opinion' was promptly transmitted
to the author, though with a certain ungraciousness; the
candid friend who reported it to Mr Sterne hinting that
'he had done better in finding fault with it than in
commending it.'
For these injudicious but well-meant remonstrances,
which certainly took a rough and churlish shape, the
country parson was presently-sooner indeed than he or
the remonstrants were dreaming of-to have satisfactory
indemnity. Tristram Shandy was now in the hands of
the great public of London-it being now close on the
month of March, I760-and he was packing his mails to
go up to London.
Hitherto he had not lived for the world. Neither had
the men and women of fashion, nor the world of
metropolitan politics, nor indeed any of the great
collected coteries, which confer degrees and make
reputations, bestowed a thought upon the obscure Yorkshire cleric. Now all is about to be changed. Now, as
he said in one of his sermons, 'the whole drama is
opened'-the splendid glories of success, and of London
homage, are waiting for him.


I25




CHAPTER XI


VISIT TO IONDON
WHEN the now celebrated author arrived in town his
success was already assured.  'No one,' writes Mr
Forster, (was so talked of in London this year, and no
one so admired, as the tall, thin, hectic - looking
Yorkshire Parson.' It may be questioned, indeed, if
any author in England has since been socially so much
the rage. 'East and west,' it was said, 'were moved
alike.'
He arrived in the first week of March, and stayed for a
day or two at rooms, whose locality is not known, while
he looked out for suitable apartments. 'The genteelest
in town' meant to establish himself ' in Piccadilly or the
Haymarket,' but settled himself before the day was over,
in rooms 'one door from St Alban's Street, in ye Pell
Mell.' Dodsley's, with the 'Tully's Head' over his door,
was in the same street-number sixty-five-just opposite
Marlborough House. It was a genteel quarter: and,
three or four years later, another fashionable clergyman,
I26




VISIT TO LONDON


the Rev. Dr Dodd, coming to London from an obscure
suburban cure, also pitched his tent in Pall Mall.
It may be questioned if those rooms ever saw such a
flood of fine company as then invaded them. He was
not twenty-four hours in town before his triumph began.
It was enough to have turned any ordinary mortal's head.
He was already engaged to 'ten noblemen and men of
fashion' for dinners, which shows that his coming must
have been eagerly looked for. Mr Garrick was the first
to take him by the hand, and overwhelmed him with
favours and invitations. He had been the first, too, to
discover the merits of Tristram.  He asked him
frequently to dine, introduced him to everybody, and
promised 'numbers of great people' to carry the witty
stranger to dine with them. He made him free of his
theatre for the whole season, and undertook 'the management of the booksellers,' and to procure 'a great price.'
No wonder, indeed, that when Mr Sterne was writing
down to the country to his 'dear, dear Jenny' an eager,
agitated account of these honours, he should say
that his friend 'leaves nothing undone that can do
me either service or credit.' Neither was it extravagance of him to add, that he had the greatest honours
and civilities paid him 'that were ever known front
the great.'
Even in this bewilderment he was mindful of his 'dear,
dear Jenny,' and after the exciting day, when he was
alone in his 'genteel' rooms, at ten o'clock, sat down to
write a hurried and joyful letter, rapturously detailing his
triumphs. All the news went to 'Mrs Jolift's, in Stone
127




LIFE OF STEARNE


Gate;' and from that source was, no doubt, filtered
through York.
He tells her that he has arrived quite safe, all except
that 'hole in my heart which you have made.' Unexpected success often imparts a general tenderness to the
style; but it is hard to excuse the very warm tone of these
raptures:-' And now, my dear, dear girl! let me assure
you of the truest friendship for you that man ever bore
towards a woman. Wherever I am my heart is warm
towards you, and ever shall be till it is cold for ever.
There was in York another admirer who, it would appear,
gave uneasiness to Mr Sterne; but to whom dear, dear
Jenny had ordered herself to be denied, thus making Mr
Sterne's heart inexpressibly 'easy,' and causing him to
utter profuse and rapturous thanks.  This person is
darkly hinted at as 'you know who,' and curiously recalls
another 'you know who,' who some years later disturbed
an intimacy of Mr Sterne's with the famous Eliza. He
assures his Kitty that it would have 'stabbed my soul to
have thought such a fellow could have the liberty of coming near you.' He owns that he 'would give a guinea for
a squeeze of your hand.' He does not conclude it until
next day, when he is going to the oratorio:-'Adieu!
dear and kind girl! and believe me ever your kind and
most affectionate admirer. Adieu! Adieu!
'P.S.-My service to your mamma.'
Miss Fourmantelle was too busy to reply; so a few
days later he writes again, still in the same triumphant
strain. Fashionable crowns are still being heaped on
him. He has the same story to tell; his rooms are fill128




VISIT TO LONDON
ing 'every hour' with 'your great people of the first rank,
who strive who shall most honour me.' The following
Monday he had fixed for a busy day, for returning the
visits of all 'your great people' en masse. The current
of dinners was still flowing steadily: Lord Chesterfield
had asked him for that day; and Lord Rockingham, a
young nobleman, who had the art of attaching friends
nearly as strongly as Charles Fox, was to take him to
Court the next Sunday. At the moment he was writing
to ' my dear lass,' the room was full of visitors; still he
made shift to snatch a moment to tell his 'dear, dear, dear
Kitty'-on this occasion three times dear-that he was
hers 'for ever and ever.'
But in that letter, too, was a very important piece of
news, significant enough for the York gossip, yet far more
significant for posterity. ' Even,' he says, 'all the bishops
have sent their comfiliments to me.' Their compliments
to the Parson-author of Tristram. Such encouragement
is sufficient to account for all poor Yorick's future
vagaries. After the tumultuous acclaim of 'your great
people of fashion,' it only wanted the episcopal 'compliments' to make him lose his head. The episcopal
'Benedicite' may be accountable for the seven succeeding volumes of Tristram.
Still there was to be a little drawback. There were
some people in the metropolis who regarded the new-made
reputation with envy. And one morning Mr Garrick
dropped in with what he deemed a droll rumour that was
going round the town. That 'proud priest,' Warburton,
had been appointed to the See of Gloucester early in the
VOL. I.              129                I




LIFE OF STERN.E


year, and his fierce controversies and insolent epithets
were in ever body's mouth. It had been given out that
Mr Sterne was already laying down the lines for his new
volumes; and it was maliciously insinuated, that when
Tristram was old enough to need a tutor, a ridiculous
caricature of the Bishop would be introduced. It was
improbable on the face of it. The sensible author of
Tristram, though the idea appears to have been suggested to him, was not likely to make so false a step, or
to turn what might be a powerful patron into a dangerous
enemy.
Mr Garrick mentioned it lightly, but it annoyed Mr
Sterne terribly. 'It was for all the world like a cut across
my fingers with a sharp pen-knife.' But he assumed an
air usual on such accidents, of less feeling than he had.
' I saw the blood,' he goes on, a little affectedly, ' gave it
a suck, wrapt it up, and thought no more about it.'
He availed himself of his box at Drury Lane that night,
where the great actor 'astonished' him; came home, and
as in the case of all mercurial spirits, with the loneliness
of the night, the little troubles of the day came back on
him. Before going to bed, he sat down, and, at eleven
o'clock, wrote to the actor a truly Shandean epistle-all
dashes and short paragraphs.
'What the devil,' he goes on, comically; 'is there no
one learned blockhead throughout the many schools of
misapplied science in the Christian world to make a tutor
of for my Tristram? Are we so run out of stock that
there is no one lumber-headed, muddle-headed, mortarheaded, pudding-headed chap among our Doctors, but I
130




VISIT TO LONDON
must disable my judgment by choosing a Warburton?'
'This report,' he adds, 'might draw blood of the author
of Tristram Shandy, but could not harm such a man as
the author of the Divine Legation, God bless him; though
by-the-bye) and according to the natural course of descents, the blessing should come from him to me.'
Garrick was the friend of the Bishop, who was therefore
likely to see some of these compliments. Warburton, too,
had some experience of the 'lumber-headed,' 'mortarheaded' crew; and had been in many battles with the
'learned blockheads.' Mr Sterne turned this ugly rumour,
which might have injured another man, into a steppingstone for an acquaintance. 'Pray,' he writes, 'have you
no interest, lateral or collateral to get me introduced to
his lordship?
'Why do you ask? '
'My dear sir, I have no claim to such an honour, but
what arises from the honour and respect which, in the
progress of my work, will be shown the world I owe to
so great a man.'
Garrick was a warm and steady friend. He did not
lose a moment in writing to Warburton; and on the
next day, which was Friday, March the seventh, received
an answer from the Bishop-one of those manly, admirably-written epistles which that strange prelate could
write, and which seem to have a meaning far deeper
than what is expressed. It is valuable, too, as a hearty
testimony of his sincere affection for Garrick, as well as
of the high character of Mr Sterne, which had reached
him by repute.
131




LIFE OF STERNE


'My dear Sir,' it ran, 'you told me no news when you
mentioned a circumstance of zeal for your friends: but
you gave me much pleasure by it and the enclosed, to
have an impertinent story confuted the first minute I
heard it.' Mr Sterne's Shandean note had therefore been
sent under cover, as perhaps he anticipated. He then
goes on-' For I cannot but be pleased, I have no reason
to change my opinion of so agreeable and so original a
writer as Mr Sterne-I mean of his moral character, of
which I had received from several of my acquaintances
so very advantageous an account. And I could not see
how I could have held it, had the lying tale been true
that he intended to injure one personally and entirely
unknown to him. I own it would have grieved me, and
so I believe it would him too (when he had known me
and my enemies a little better), to have found himself in
a company with a crew of the most egregious blockheads
that ever abused the blessings of pen and ink.
'However, I pride myself in having warmly recommended Tristram Shandy to all the best company in
town, except that of Arthur's. I was charged in a very
grave assembly, as Doctor Newton can tell him, for a
particular patroniser of the work, and how I acquitted
myself of the imputation, the said Doctor can tell him.... If Mr Sterne will take me with all my infirmities I
shall be glad of the honour of being well known to him;
and he has the additional recommendation of being your
friend.' He then signs himself with a warmth unusual in
intimacies between bishops and players-' Your most affecionate and faithful humble servant, W. GLOUCESTER.'
132




VISIT TO LONDON
Nothing can be happier than the way in which he puts
the possibility of the rumour being true, and of its result
in Mr Sterne's finding himself in company with 'a
crew of the most egregious blockheads '-which conveys
a delicate hint of Mr Sterne's possible hostility being
even prejudicial to his own interests. What sincerity
there was in the Bishop's patronage, as well as in Sterne's
disclaimer, and what seems the true history of his ' Purse
of Gold' story, will be shown a little later.
All this was crowded into that first week of Mr Sterne's
arrival.
Someway that glorifying him by dinners at this period
seems to have been always associated with his name.
For it was recollected years after, and was even mentioned at a certain dinner at General Paoli's, in the year
1773, of which party was Dr Johnson, Dr Goldsmith, and
Signor Martinelli. 'The man Sterne,' said Johnson, in
his characteristic idiom, 'I have been told, has had
engagements for three months.' This he gave in illustration of what is a truth now, as it was then (ushering it in,
too, with his usual 'Nay, sir'), that any man who has a
name, or the power of pleasing, will be very generally
invited in London.
These social ovations still go on, gathering as they go.
From morning till night his lodgings are 'full of the
greatest. company. The dinner engagements still accumulate. For two days in succession he dined with
Ladies of the Bedchamber. The next.day Lord Rockingham invited him;-(Jaques Sterne, it will be remembered, had done this nobleman some election service).
'133




LIFE OF STE'NE


Then came Lord Edgecombe, Lord Winchelsea, Lord
Littleton, a bishop, and many more.  This sort of
homage was flattering, but something more substantial
was now coming.
Within two days, two pieces of good fortune befell
him. The first took the rather Eastern shape of a
purse of gold; the second was a very fair slice of
Church preferment. The incident of the purse of gold
seems almost unaccountable.
The Bishop of Gloucester, as we have seen, had
responded heartily to his advances; and he may have
been the one 'bishop' who had entertained Mr Sterne
at his table in Grosvenor Street. Warburton was prepared to like him, and was delighted with Trisfram.
But it seems astonishing that his admiration should
have taken the form of a purse of gold. Such largesse
is surprising as coming from a man of his temper and
character; and it seems no less curious that an eleemosynary offering of such a shape should be accepted by
one in Mr Sterne's position. Whatever be the explanation, it must be taken as a token of boundless appreciation of Mr Sterne's merits. By-and-by the whole town
came to hear of it, and extravagant stories and
questionable motives were naturally enough imputed to
both parties in the transaction.
The next day came the other piece of good fortune.
Lord Falconberg, or Fauconberg, as it was spelt, was
then at Court presently to be made a Lord of the
Bedchamber at sixty years of age.   There was a
pleasant perpetual curacy down in Yorkshire, not twenty
134




VISIT TO LONDON
miles from Sutton, in his gift, which happily fell vacant
about this time; and the very day after the shower of
gold descended from the episcopal Jupiter, the living
was offered to Mr Sterne. He did not lose a moment
in writing the glad tidings to 'dear Kitty,' whom the
rush of honours had not quite driven out of his head.
He wrote in a sort of transport, saying that now 'all the
most part of my sorrows and tears are going to be
wiped away.' This, it is to be presumed, was that local
trouble or persecution so often before alluded to and
aimed at in Yorick's Life. He then longs most impatiently to see my dear Kitty,' who was meditating a
journey to London. He adds, that 'I have but one
obstacle to my happiness now left, and what that is
you know as well as I.' A significant declaration.
What that obstacle is, the reader knows as well as Mr
Sterne, or 'dear Kitty.'
How did Mr Sterne obtain this promotion? Writing
to a titled lady friend of his, he seemed to take it as a
matter of debt, saying he had 'done his lordship some
service, and he has requited it.' But there is another
tradition which has passed down from one curate of
Coxwold to another, and is characteristic of Mr Sterne.
When the news of the vacancy reached him, it was said
that he at once waited on Lord Fauconberg, and reminded
him of his old promise to give him the living. The
nobleman looked surprised at this claim, and was, in
fact, utterly unconscious of having bound himself by
any such engagement.  Mr Sterne, however, persisted.
When his visitor was gone, Lord Fauconberg is said to
I35




LIFE OF STERNE
have thought the matter over seriously; and doubtful
whether it would be advisable to support his memory at
the risk of turning on himself the wit and malice of a
Yorkshire neighbour, who, at that moment, had a suppressed pamphlet lying in his desk, and was considered
one of the humorists of London, wisely changed his
purpose, and wrote to Mr Sterne that he was to have
the benefice.
It seems an improbable legend, for which there is no
chapter nor verse, and with but the idlest of traditions
for foundation. But what effectually disposes of the
tradition is, that Lord Fauconberg afterwards used to
persecute him with hospitalities-of which Mr Sterne
was to complain whimsically to his friends. No one
who had been intimidated into a favour would be so
forgiving.


136




CHAPTER XII


FAME AND HONOURS
BEFORE this wonderful month of March was out, every
day of which seemed to bring a new triumph for our
clerical hero, he had been looking forward to the arrival
of 'dear, dear Kitty' in the metropolis. Within that
short span scarcely any man had made such progress,
and he was anxious she should have a nearer view of his
dazzling apotheosis. She was expected in the first days
of April, but wrote to say she could not come until the
seventeenth or eighteenth, which made Mr Sterne sad,
'because it shortens the time I hoped to have stole in
your company when you come.' He then adds with some
sentiment and more indifferent spelling:-' These separations, my dear Kitty, however grievous to us both, must
be for the present.  God,' he adds, 'will open a Dore
when we shall sometime be more together.'
He had been already thinking of setting out for Yorkshire, but could not resist staying for nearly five weeks
more, in order to be present at a great pageant which
was to come off in the second week in May. His patron,
I37




IFE OF STERNE
Lord Rockingham, and the victor of Minden, Prince
Ferdinand, who was now in London receiving ovations,
were to be installed Knights of the Garter down at
Windsor; and Mr Sterne had been invited to go in the
suite of Lord Rockingham.  This distinction was too
tempting to be resisted; so he had determined, nothing
loth, as may be well conceived, to wait until the sixth.
The flood of dinners had not even by that time spent its
fury. He was actually keeping a sort of ledger in which
his engagements were posted up. By the first of April
he was bound for a fortnight in advance.
Many stories went round the town of his wit, his
humour, and his repartees. It was told that the old
Duke of Newcastle had said to him jocularly, 'that men
of genius were not fit for work.' 'I think,' Yorick had
replied, 'that the truth is, they are above work. My
Lord,' he went on, 'men may put any load upon a jackass, but a spirited creature is too good for such labour.' *
By this time he knew the great Sir Joshua, and had
sat to him. The result was a matchless portrait-a head,
indeed, 'such as Reynolds might have painted, mild, pale,
and penetrating;' exquisitely characteristic and unconventional, and almost the best that master had done.
Even in the copies to be found in the cheaper editions of
his books, it was impossible to obscure the animation, the
quiet thoughtfulness, the hint of suppressed Shandeism,
that pervades the face. The attitude so original and
insignificant, is familiar to all; the sly, thoughtful head,
* This, though taken from an old jest book-a very indifferent
authority-has a certain characteristic air that looks like truth.
138




FAME AND HONOURS


leaning upon the hand, whose forefinger is so significantly
pointed. Altogether a great portrait-one of the gems of
Lansdowne House. When the King of Denmark, Walpole's 'puppet of an hour,' was being lionised in London,
the artists got up an exhibition of their choicest works.
It was held in Spring Gardens: and Mr Reynolds,
choosing out four of his best pictures, placed this masterpiece-this 'singularly fine portrait'-as Northcote calls
it, on the list.
This compliment was paid him at the wish of Lord
Ossory, for whom the picture was painted. It later
passed into possession of Lord Holland, after whose
death it was purchased by Lord Lansdowne for five
hundred guineas. It would now fetch many thousands.
Not yet have its delicate tones begun to fade, according to the fatal destiny which waits upon the Reynolds'
works. It was already in the engraver's hands, and the
result was to be a mezzotinto worthy of the painter, and
one of the best of that matchless series which, at the end
of the last century, came from the burins of M'Ardle,
Smith, and many more. Well might Sterne write, that
there was 'a fine print going to be done of me. So I
shall make the most of myself and sell both inside and
out.'
Something more substantial, however, than portraits or
dinners might now naturally be expected. A brilliant prebendary with a host of friends, fashionable and political,
might not unreasonably look for good preferment. That
he had promises, and was confident of success, there can
be no question. He hints it mysteriously to Miss Four139


_ 1,, --- -L-_ --- —---------




LIFE OF STERNE
mantelle, talking to her of his hope that ' she would one day
share in my great good fortune. lMyfortunes will certainly
be made; but more of this when we meet.' There is here
a tone of secret exultation, a secret confidence that his
promotion was made secure; and with some discretionin this age, too, when those who had the appointment of
ecclesiastical offices were not too nice in their selectionit is likely enough that Yorick would have been a dignitary.
But that 'lack of ballast,' and the riot of London pleasures,
were betraying him into what were, indeed, 'follies of the
head, not of the heart,' but still no less fatal to his advancement. Already were his indiscretions becoming the talk
of the town, and his name and books were being spoken
of in the public journals with irreverence and disrespect.
The reaction was, in fact, setting in; and it must be
admitted, he laid himself open to such remarks with a
reckless perversion.
He was to be seen constantly at Ranelagh Gardensa place, it need not be said, which the presence of a
clergyman scarcely suited. And though its charms might
give 'an expansion and gay sensation' to the mind of
Doctor Johnson, which he never before experienced,
such 'expansions' would be eminently perilous to the
weaker moral sense of so flighty an ecclesiastic. To the
Soho entertainments of the questionable Mrs Cornely's,
he repaired later. He was to be seen at Drury Lane,
where Garrick had given him a box, and there the
fashionable amateur, Mr Cradock, was in the habit of
meeting him behind the scenes. He knew the actors,
and was on intimate terms with the actresses, perhaps
I40




FAME AND HONOURS
with Kitty Clive, who acted with such sprightliness, and
spelt so ill. For, some time after, she wrote one of her
pert complaints to Mr Garrick, concerning the stoppage
of her salary, saying, that 'your dislike to me is extraordinary as the reason you gave Mr Sterne for it;'-a
reason which Mr Sterne must have imparted to Mrs
Clive. This braving of the world was almost too bold;
and the town-at that time case-hardened enough, and
more relaxed in its moral tone than ever it was at any
time since Charles the Second's day-affected to be
scandalised. We do not apologise for Sterne, but it is
impossible not to consider those by whom the cry was
raised; for the abandoned Sandwich was, about this
time, the effete guardian of morals in the House,
Warburton was the meek apostle of tolerance, and Wilkes
the accredited guardian of liberty.
He made no pretence of playing the Pharisee, or keeping his movements secret, even from the Yorkshire gossips.
' I saw Mr Cholmondeley to-night at Ranelagh,' he wrote
down to his friend Croft, in a letter full of news. As Miss
Fourmantelle was starting for London, he acknowledges
the receipt of a letter of hers, ' which gave me much pleasure with some pain,' just as he was going off to Ranelagh.
As to irregular 'gentlemen of the gown,' the town must
have been tired of such scandals. There never was such
licence among the shepherds of the flock; or such toleration in the flock for the shepherds. The example of the
laity acted directly on the clergy, and that of the clergy
reacted upon the laity. This joint influence bore with it
an accumulating scandal. There were parsons, like the
I41




LIFE OF STERANE


Rev. Horne Tooke, who flaunted abroad in gold lace and
sky-blue and scarlet, and who apologised to Wilkes for
having suffered 'the infectious hand of a bislop to be
waved over him-whose imposition, like the solp given to
Judas, is only a signal for the devil to enter.' There were
Duelling Parsons, like the Rev. Mr Bate, chaplain to a
cavalry regiment, who 'went out' and was killed in fair
duel; 'a most promising young man,' said the' papers
with commiseration. There were the clergymen known
pleasantly as 'The Three Fighting Parsons'-Henley,
Bate, and Churchill; and 'Bruising' clergymen-like
the one mentioned in Mr Grose's Olio. And a few years
later the story of the unfortunate Dodd was to be in everyone's mouth; as well as that of the infatuated Hackman.
Mr Thackeray here found a subject for his most vigorous
handling; and some pages in the Four Georges are
devoted to a bitter sketch of the clerical manners of that
day. It is a tremendous picture. On such an ecclesiastical background Sterne's follies cannot stand out in
very strong relief. His must be a well-trained, steady
spirit who can resist the prevailing demoralisation of a
whole profession, or, at least, not catch the low tone of his
order. Not that we may accept a taste for moral reading
and wholesome sentiment as a test of moral conduct and
virtuous life; as this is well known to be a curious inconsistency in human character,* and seems to be the answer
* Just as at the obscure places of entertainment known as
'penny gaffs,' where the audience is the worst and most suspicious class of human beings, the finest 'sentiments' are
welcomed vociferously.
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FAMIE.AND HONO URS
to the argument, which has been pressed, perhaps a little
too far; namely, as to this age so heartily relishing the
soft beauties of Goldsmith, and the amiable virtues of the
Pastor of Wakefield. The same age, it is said, that produced Tristram, brought forth also The Deserted Village,
and that perfect and entire chrysolite of romance-'the
story which we read both in youth and in age, and bless
for so well reconciling us to human nature.' But there
are other merits in Goldsmith's Vicar beside its sweet
and pure tone, and a charm beyond that of mere pastoral
innocence - there is a surpassing delicacy of touch,
simplicity, warm geniality, marvellous Dutch painting,
and perfect faith and truth-qualities which every age,
however corrupted, will, more or less, appreciate. And
how, after all, was this exquisite little pastoral welcomed?
As Mr Forster says, it only 'silently forced its way...
The StJamtes' Chronicle did not condescend to notice its
appearance, and the Monthly Review confessed frankly
that nothing was to be made of it.' No doubt it eventually
gained ground and passed through many editions before
its author's death.
Gross as Sterne was, he should not be judged too harshly.
It was difficult for a careless, unsteady mind, such as his
was-unaffected, too, by the least tinge of Iuritanismnot to catch the free, debonnaire tone which he saw everywhere. This, so far, has reference to the manners of the
time, and, as has been insisted on, is ground for indulgence in dealing with Mr Sterne's levities.
The truth is, a coarseness of speech and writing had
long disfigured the conversation and practice of the men
I43




LIFE OF STEARNE
and women of the age, and readers of Fielding and
Smollett will have discovered that a certain forcible
indelicacy of phrase and allusion had become almost
habitual. It will be found from allusions in the public
papers and magazines that girls were allowed to carry
Tristram about in their pockets; and Mr Forster, in a
curious chapter, has shown us how the pious Dr Doddridge did not scruple to read over the Wvife of Bath, to
young Miss Moore, and could laugh heartily at its
humour. Johnson went so far as to say that the same
author was a 'lady's book,' and Goldsmith, always on the
side of morals and virtue, innocently included two gross
pieces by the same hand in a sort of 'Speaker' which he
compiled for a bookseller.
Meanwhile, the York heroine, Miss Fourmantelle, had
not yet arrived in town. She had written to Mr Sterne
to use his influence for some local matter, which would
appear to have failed. It is scarcely a refinement to say
that an almost perceptible change of tone can be discovered
in his answer. The whirl of festivity, the universal adulation, or possibly some other 'Dulcinea,' whose presence
in Mr Sterne's head was a perpetual necessity, had done
its work. 'Never, my dear girl, be dejected; something
else will offer and turn out in another quarter. Thou mayst
be assured, nothing in this world shall be wanting that I
can do with discretion.' He then assured her that she
will ever 'find him the same man of honour and truth.'
But in a few days 'dear, dear Kitty' arrived, and took
up her residence at Mead's Court, St Anne, Soho, and her
presence there, it is to be feared, was rather a little drag
144




FAME AND HONOURS


and hindrance upon the clergyman's lively motions. He
saw her of one Sunday afternoon; then, about the middle
of the week, writes a hurried line saying he could not spare
an hour or half an hour 'if it would have saved my life,'
and that 'every minute of this day and to-morrow is so
pre-engaged that I am as much a prisoner as if I was in
gaol.' He then lays out a possible meeting for Friday.
Sunday until Friday! But a few weeks before he would
'have given a guinea for a squeeze' of her hand and was
momentarily engaged in 'sending out my soul' to see
what she was about, and wishing he could send his body
with it. She was consoled with this comforting speech:I beg, dear girl, you will believe I do not spend anjhour
where I wish, for I wish to be with you always: but fate
orders my steps, God knows how, for the present.-Adieu!
Adieu!'
This is our last glimpse of 'dear, dear Kitty.' The car
of Mr Sterne swept by her. She drops out of view at this
point. She was second in order of Mr Sterne's violent
attachments. Poor 'dear, dear Kitty!'
Warburton, meanwhile, held to him firmly, nor was he
likely to be daunted by public cries. Perhaps the opposition of the crowd roused his controversial spirit. He even
went round the bench of bishops, and recommended the
book heartily to their notice; what was more extraordinary,
he recommended the author also, telling them 'he was the
English Rabelais.' To be introduced in such a character
would seem an odd proceeding, unless, indeed, as Horace
Walpole wickedly insinuates, 'they had never heard of
such a writer!' Again, it must be repeated, such enVOL. 1.             145                K




LIFE OF STERNE


couragement does, indeed, take much of the blame from
off the delinquent's shoulders, and looks very like an invitation to proceed with further instalments of his book.
There are some little trifles which show the strength of
his popularity. There was a new game of cards called
Tristram Shandy introduced, in which 'the knave of
hearts, if hearts are trumps, is supreme, and nothing can
resist his power.' For epicures there was a new salad invented, and christened the 'Shandy Salad.' And, later
on, at the Irish steeplechases, we find horses entered
bearing the name of 'Tristram Shandy.' These are but
straws on the current; but they show how strong the
current was. Gray wrote that 'one is invited to dinner
where he dines, a fortnight beforehand,' so that there was
actually a double competition for the new lion; first, to
secure his presence at a dinner, which was difficult when
he himself was engaged fourteen deep; and then to be
invited to the house where he was engaged to dine. To
sustain this popularity and hold his own among the wits,
he must have had special gifts of liveliness and good conversation. There can be no question but that he imported
a good deal of Shandyism into his conversation, which he
afterwards almost matured into a system, so as to astound
the French noblesse, and make them inquire-but not in
such doubtful French as 'Qui le diable est ce Chevalier
Shandy?' When in special vein he would phrase it,' I
Shandy it now more than ever.'
That his London conversation took the shape of a
pleasant tone of burlesque and grotesque exaggeration,
always amusing if skilfully handled, seems likely from
146




FAME AND HIONOURS


a sort of photograph of one of these dinners which
has been preserved.  He was dining at a fashionable house, where a certain self-sufficient physician
chanced to be of the party, and engrossed the whole
conversation, giving it a medical turn, and discoursing
profoundly of 'phrenitis,' and 'paraphrenitis,' to the
annoyance of host and company. Mr Yorick, seeing the
turn matters were taking, at once struck in, as it were,
in the same key, and began to give an account of a
recent malady from which he had suffered acutely. It
was a cold, he said, which he had caught originally by
leaning on a damp cushion-the various stages and
aggravations of which he proceeded to detail gravely,
and with a happy parodying of the cant terms the professional gentleman had been dealing. He related how
'after sneezing]and snivelling a fortnight, it fell upon
my breast. Howrthey blooded and blistered me!' But,
somehow, he grew steadily worse, for 'I was treated
according to the exact rules of the college. In short, it
came eventually to an adhesion, and all was over with me.'
In this desperate case an ingenious idea suggested itself.
'I bought a pole,' continued Yorick, with due gravity,
'and began leaping over the country.' Whenever he
came to a ditch, he, by long practice, contrived to fall
exactly across the ridge of it upon the side opposite to
the adhesion. 'This tore it off at once.  Now I am
as you see. Come, let us fill to the success of this
system.' Thus pleasantly was extinguished the intrusive
physician.
This story went round the clubs, and got into the
I47




LIFE OF STERNE
papers. The host was given out to be 'the amiable
Charles Stanhope,' and the physician, Dr Mounsey, and
with these names it fluttered down to York. But this
was a mistake, rather an invention of the notorious Dr
Hill-' Bardana' Hill-who was the first to set the story
afloat in his Inspector. He had a grudge against Mounsey, whom he at once cast for the part of the pedant.
There was at this time a very gay prince of the royal
family, Prince Edward, afterwards Duke of York. He
delighted in balls, supper-parties, and music, and was
to die in a few years in a foreign country, of over-dancing at a ball. In London he would get the nobility to
give supper-parties, at which he would stay until three
in the morning. To this royal votary of amusement
was Mr Sterne now presented. Though comparatively
a cheap distinction in London, it was of importance
enough to be written down into Yorkshire. Mr Sterne
saw him at private concerts, where the prince performed
publicly on 'the bass viol.' This, it will be recollected,
was also an accomplishment of the clergyman. With
his usual good fortune, Mr Sterne made an impression,
and 'received great notice' from him. He was even
invited to sup with him.   He must have known
Foote at this time, whom he was to meet again later
at Paris, for he knew Foote's friend, the odd Dr
Kennedy, who frequented playhouses, professionally as
it were, and had himself fetched out by hurried lacqueys,
just as Mr Sawyer had himself called out of church.
In short, this London campaign was one of the most
brilliant ever fought by a successful man of letters.
148




FAME AND HONOURS


Some little trouble of a provoking sort was he now to
know. There was at this time in London a certain
notorious Dr Hill-a strange and versatile quack, whose
name, eyes that glanced over the London Chronicle or
Evening Post were sure to light on in a corner. The
'Elixir of Bardana,' and the 'Essence of Water-dock, in
bottles, 3s. each, sealed and signed by the author,' had
made his name quite as famous as that of more modern
advertising charlatans. He had also rushed into print;
had interchanged epigrams with Garrick; and had a
savage wrangle with the Royal Society. He added to
the ranks of the magazines, whose name was already
legion; and directed the Inspector and Royal Female
Magazine. 'For dulness,' said Warburton, bitterly, in
allsuion to this last, 'who often has as great a hand as
the devil in deforming God's works of the creation, has
made them, it seems, male and female.' And in the
Royal Female Magazine for May the first, appeared a
strange paper-a photograph of the fashionable clergyman-outrageously personal, and laughably flattering, a
curious yarn of truth and falsehood commingled. It was
copied into the London Chronicle and the London
Magazine, and tuned in this key.  'The subject,' it
began, was both 'a favourite and fashionable one.
Yorick is a gentleman, a clergyman, and a man of learning-singular in the highest degree, for he has an infinite
share of wit and goodness.' He is stated to be 'a native
of the field of war, and to add to the whimsicality, born
in the barracks of Dublin.' When his book made its
appearance, he disdained to practise any of 'those
149




LIFE OF STERrNE


common arts' by which 'a book is pushed. A parcel is
merely sent up from the country;' and it was 'scarce
advertised.' ' They have made their author's way to the
tables of the first fpcofile in the kinzgdom, and to the
friendship of Mr Garrick. Fools,' it goes on to say,
'tremble at the allusions that may be made from the
present volumes. Forty people have assumed to themselves the ridiculous titles in these volumes.'
It then dwells on the 'extreme candour and modesty
of his temper.' 'A vain man would be exalted at these
attentions. He sees them in another light.' It then
gives a couple of Yorick's remarks, which were then
going round; how Mr Sterne used to say, pleasantly,
that 'he was like a fashionable mistress, whom everybody
courted because he happened to be the fashion.  And
again, this 'singular creature' said to a friend who paid
him a compliment on his great benevolence,-' I am an
odd fellow, and if you hear any good of me, doctor, don't
believe it.'
More serious, however, was a fresh statement of that
vulgar rumour, which had been to Mr Sterne 'for all the
world like a cut across my finger with a sharp penknife,
but which, in its present broader shape, must have'affected
his sensibility far more acutely. 'And it is scarce to be
credited whose liberali urse has bought off the dread of a
tutor's character in those (volumes) which are to come.'
This was the old club story revived.
It has been mentioned how triumphantly he wrote to
'dear Kitty,' that 'I had a purse of guineas given me
yesterday by a bishop,' when he had been only two or
I50




FAME AND HONOURS


three weeks in town. So odd and exceptional a present,
and coming from so sensitive a being as the new Bishop
of Gloucester, would in itself be quite sufficient to cause
such a rumour.
The whole town seems to have had the story. Walpole
wrote of 'the purse of gold' to Florence; it was alluded
to in newspaper paragraphs.   The quack doctor's
magazine travelled down to York, was read there
greedily, and very speedily a good-natured report was
going round their little coteries, that Mr Sterne himself
had written or inspired the whole. This was quite
characteristic. What specially affected them was a
paragraph relating to a piece of local generosity on the
part of the Vicar of Sutton-ushered in by some outrageous
compliments. 'Everybody is eager to see the author,
and when they see him, everybody loves the man. When
Lord Falconberg gave him the new benefice he found
that his predecessor had left behind him a wife and
family in great distress. The generous Yorick presented
her with ~1oo in hand, and promised a pension for her
life.'
His friends, the Crofts, watchful in his absence, wrote
to him of the rumour, and of how the Yorkshire Mrs
Candours were circulating that he had furnished all the
etails of that complacent sketch. He wrote back and
indignant denial almost the instant he received it. No
wonder he should marvel at the uncharitableness of the
York people, who could 'suppose any man so gross a
beast as to pen such a character of himself.' Such a
tissue of wild stories only 'shows the absurdity of York
I51




LIFE OF STERNE


credulity and nonsense.' The best refutation, however,
was in the blunders and mistakes-' falsehoods' he calls
them-in reference to that 'whimsicality' of his birth ' in
the barracks of Dublin,' which event, as we have seen,
occurred at Clonmel; and more particularly in reference
to that showy act of generosity, the 'hundred pounds'
and pension to the widow of his predecessor-a charity
quite beyond the measure of Yorick's purse.
He takes up the story of the purse of gold, and says,
that 'in this great town no one ever suspected it, for a
thousand reasons,' and refutes it by three arguments:
the improbability of his 'falling foul of Dr Warburton,
my best friend,' by representing him so weak a man, or
for 'telling such a lie of him as his giving me a purse to
buy off his tutorship for Tristram; or lastly 'that I
should be fool enougfh to own I had taken his turse for
such a 5uripose.' * The last was, perhaps, the weightiest
argument of the three. Yet it seems a suspicious, or,
at least, a mysterious transaction. And we have his
own assurance to Kitty that a purse of guineas had
been given him by a Bishop.
The reviewers had now begun to deal with the book.
The Critical Reviewers recommended it to the public
'as a work of humour and ingenuity.' The Monthly
Reviewers do not appear to have dealt with it at all, and
the London Chronicle, and other journals, noticed it
* Most writers-even Mr Watson, in his Life of Bishop
WVarburton-have assumed that there is here a complete denial
of the purse story; but Sterne merely denies the supposed
motive for accepting the purse.
152




FAME AND HONO URS


with a disfavour or commendation, pretty impartially
divided. It was not until much later that they opened
on him without mercy, and turned all such fiercer
sarcasm as their force could supply upon the succeeding
issues of Shandy.  One of these hostile reviews was
conducted by a certain doctor, who wrote novels, whom
he christened Smelfungus. The sharpest shaft of all,
because the wittiest, was to flutter out of the obscurity
of Green Arbour Court; and the Citizen of the World,
in the Public Ledger, was to enter his protest against
this prodigious popularity.  When this pleasantry was
slyly directed against the mere tricks and eccentricities
of Mr Sterne's manner, it was well founded; but such
a lack of appreciation of his genuine gifts, his pathos,
and his humour, of his gallery of original men and
women, seems incomprehensible in one of Goldsmith's
nature. The judgment passed some years later upon
Sterne's social merit-'and a very dull fellow'-would
seem to have been his settled opinion of his literary
gifts also. 'The humour and wit,' says Mr Forster,
'ought surely to have been admitted; and if the wisdom,
and charity of my Uncle Toby, a Mr Shandy, or a
Corporal Trim, might anywhere have claimed frank and
immediate recognition, it should have been in that
series of essays which Beau Tibbs and the Man in Black
have helped to make immortal.' '" Bless me " says the
Bookseller-in this light airy bit of trifling-to the
Chinese traveller, "now you speak of an epic poem, you
shall see an excellent farce. Here it is. Dip into it
where you will, it will be found replete with true modern
I53
* C
~..:..




LIFE OF STERNE


humour. Strokes, sir; it is filled with strokes of wit and
satire in every line." " Do you call these dashes of the
pen, strokes?" replied I; "for I must confess I see no
other." "And pray, sir," returned he, " what do you call
them?. Sir, a well-placed dash makes half the wit of
our writers of modern humour. I bought last season
a piece that had no other merit upon earth than nine
hundred and ninety-five breaks, seventy-two ha-ha's,
and three good things."'  This was excellent fooling.
But in a week or two the Chinese citizen comes back
to the subject, and strikes heavily, and in all seriousness,
at the Rev. Mr Sterne. It is almost the only instance
in the gay and good-humoured letters where he seems to
grow warm and heated in his onslaught. He inveighs
with justice against the freedoms and improprieties
which disfigured Tristram, but for which it was scarcely
fair to pillory Mr Sterne singly; for it is admitted that
'this manner of writing is perfectly adapted to the taste
of gentlemen and ladies of fashion here.' He remarks
how 'very difficult it is for a dunce to obtain the reputation of a wit;' yet, 'by the assistance of this freedom,
this may be easily effected, and a licentious blockhead
often passes for a fellow of smart parts and pretensions;
every object in nature helps the jokes forward, without
scarce any effort of the imagination.' A severe but just
criticism, and admirably hitting off the secret of the
worst portions of Tristram.
With more severity still he dwells on the toleration
with which Tristram was received by the female portion
of the community. He wonders at their so 'bravely
I54?  *
*I *. '




FAME AND HONOURS


throwing off their prejudices;' and not only (applauding,
but, what was far more serious, actually introducing this
free tone into their conversation.  'Yet so it is, the
pretty innocents now carry those books openly in their
hands which formerly were laid under the cushion.'
They are even heard 'to lisp their double meanings
with grace.' If this was indeed the tone of society, it
is scarcely to be believed that Mr Sterne's book was
wholly accountable for it.
Goldsmith was at this time smarting under a neglect
but little creditable to the age. His bitterness is scarcely
surprising; and had the words that follow appeared in
a more influential organ than the Public Ledger, they
would have caused Mr Sterne much annoyance and
vexation.  'However,' Goldsmith goes on:   'Though
this figure is so much in fashion, though professors of
it are so much caressed by the great, those pberfect
judges of literary excellence; yet, it is confessed to be
only a revival of what was once fashionable here before.'
He alludes to 'the gentle Tom Durfey, whose works
were once the subject of polite-I mean very politeconversation.' 'There are several very dull fellows, who,
by a few mechanical helps, sometimes learn to become
extremely brilliant and pleasing.... By imitating a
cat, or a sow and pigs; by a loud laugh and a slap on
the shoulder, the most ignorant are furnished out for
conversation. But, as the writer finds it impossible to
throw his winks, his shrugs, or his attitudes upon paper,
he may borrow some assistance, indeed, by printing his
face at the title-page.' He then falls into a happy
I55




LJFE OF STERNE


burlesque of Mr Sterne's manner:-'The reader must
be treated with the most perfect familiarity; in one
page the author is to make them a low bow, and in the
next to plull them by the nose.... He must speak of
himself, and his chapters, and his manner, and what he
would be at, and his own importance, and his mno/her's
importance, with the most unpitying prolixity, now and
then testifying his contempt for all but himself-smiling,
without a jest; and without wit, possessing vivacity.'
It was not often gentle 'Goldy' grew so warm, or, it
must be said, so undiscriminating. Was it that, besides
his own indifferent opinion of the book, he suspected its
reputation had been made by that cheap process by which
he believed reputations were at that time manufactured
in England? 'A great man says at his table that such a
book is no bad thing-. Immediately this praise is carried
off by five flatterers, to be dispersed at twelve coffeehouses, from whence it circulates, improving as it
proceeds, through fifty-five houses, where cheaper liquors
are sold; from thence it is carried away by the honest
tradesman to his own fireside.'
In Dublin, the new book enjoyed a vast popularity.
It was at once reprinted by that notable publishing
privateer, George Faulkner, who praised it up extravagantly. Mrs Sandford was turning over the books one
day in his shop, and was near buying it, and bringing it
down to Mrs Delany at Delville. ' We were on the
brink of having it read among us,' says that pleasant
lady, with a devout horror. 'D. D.' was 'not a little
offended' with the author, but still, the report of the
156




FA ME AND HONOOURS
Delville coterie on the Irish run of the book is, that, ' it
seems to divert more than it offends;' which is quite
characteristic of the country. In Dublin there were
actually cheap copies, on inferior paper, selling at sixpence-to the great injury of the regular pirates, who
were aggrieved by this invasion of their quasi copyright,
and protested loudly.
The Florentine legation, kept au courant with all that
was new or fashionable in London life by regular advices
from Arlington Street, learnt that in the next case of
books there was to be 'a fashionable thing, called
Tristram Shandy.' But the real opinion of the witty
letter-writer was sent to Sir D. Dalrymple, who, at
Edinburgh, was almost as removed from town talk as
Sir Horace Mann was at Florence. 'At present,' he
writes, on the 4th of April, 'nothing is talked of, nothing
admired, but what I cannot help calling a very insipid
and tedious performance; whose chief merit,' he says,
consists in 'going backwards.' It made him smile 'two
or three times at the beginning,' but, by way of compensation, 'makes one yawn for two hours.'    The
characters are 'tolerably well kept up,' but the 'wit is
for ever attempted and missed.


157




CHAPTER XIII


ORICK'S SERMONS
ALT. this time, while being feasted andfitcd, and 'hurried
off his legs by going to great people,' he had contrived
to snatch a few moments for serious business. A new
edition of Tristram was being sent through the pressno very heavy labour, certainly-and on an April morning
the readers of the Public Advertiser saw under their eyes
that'THIS DAY is published, dedicated to the Right Hon.
Mr Pitt, with a Frontispiece by Hogarth, in two volumes,
price 5s., sewed, THE SECOND EDITION of The Lzfe and
Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman.
'Speedily will be published the SERMONS of Mr Yorick.'
The new Tristram edition had thus two additional
attractions-the dedication to Mr Pitt, and the plate by
Hogarth. The book, indeed, had already a buffooning
sort of dedication, addressed to no one specially; but
that was written at York. Up in London it was different; the successful author, the rising cleric, the friend of
statesmen, and prote'g of bishops, would be ill advised
158




YORICK'S SERMONS


to neglect this mode of increasing his social capital.
Wise in his generation, as he fancied, he selected for
his dedicatee the great patriot minister-and he one day
writes from Mr Dodsley's shop the following note, which
the great commoner thought worthy of being put by
among his papers-at least had not doomed to immediate
destruction:' Friday,
' Mr Dodsley's,
' Pall Mall.'
(Publisher and author, it has been seen, were but a few
doors from each other.)
' SIR,-Though I have no suspicion that the enclosed
dedication can offend you, yet I thought it my duty to
take some method of letting you see it, before I presumed
to beg the honour of presenting it to you next week with
the Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy.
'I am, sir,
' Your most humble servant,
'LAW. STERNE.
The dedication itself was conceived in a warm, admiring strain. He told the minister that the book 'was
written in a bye-corner of the kingdom and in a retired,
thatched house, where I live in a constant endeavour to
fence against the infirmities of ill-health and other evils of
life by mirth.'
This second edition barely stayed the public appetite, for it was exhausted in little more than three
I59




LIFE OF STERNE


weeks.  Four editions were issued before the year
was out.
To engage Hogarth's aid for the illustrations he wrote
to Mr Berrenger, the Master of the Horse, Garrick's
friend, this extraordinary reckless appeal:'You bid me tell you all my wants. What the Devil
in Hell can a fellow want now? By the Father of the
Sciences (you know his name) I would give both my ears
(if I was not to lose my credit by it) for no more than ten
strokes of Howgarth's witty chisel, to clap at the Front
of my next Edition of Shandy. The Vanity of a Pretty
Girl in the Heyday of her Roses & Lilies is a fool to
that of Author of my stamp. Oft did Swift sigh to
Pope in these words: 'Orna me, unite something of
yours to mine, to transmit us down together hand in
hand to futurity.' The loosest sketch in Nature, of
Trim's reading the sermon to my Father, &c., wd do the
Business, and it wd mutually illustrate his System and
mine. But, my dear Shandy, with what face I would
hold out my lank Purse! I would shut my Eyes, & you
should put in your hand and take out what you liked
for it. Ignoramus! Fool! Blockhead! Symoniack!
This Grace is not to be bought with money. Perish thee
and thy Gold with thee! What shall we do? I have
the worst face in the world to ask a favour with, & besides,
I would not propose a disagreeable thing to one I so
much admire for the whole world; but you can say anything-you are an impudent, honest Dog, & can'st set a
face upon a bad matter; prithee sally out to Leicester
i6o




YORICK'S SERMONS


fields, & when you have knock'd at the door (for you
must knock first) and art got in, begin thus: "Mr
Hogarth, I have been with my friend Shandy this morning;" but go on yr own way, as I shall do mine. I
esteem you, & am, my dear Mentor, Yrs most Shandascally, L. STERNE.'
The application was successful, and the new Shandys *
were adorned with a couple of spirited plates by the painter.
For the new edition of the volumes of sermons which
were now to be published, it was reported that he received ~65o. It was so written by Walpole to his friends.
This, however, is a mistake. The original agreement,
dated May g9th, sold many years ago, with other papers
of Dodsley's, set out that for the new editions of
Tristram, and the two volumes of sermons, he was to
receive ~480; a sum, considering they were mere pocket
volumes, widely printed, with dashes, breaks, and other
typographical spasms, was handsome enough.    To
Garrick he appears to have been indebted for this
arrangement, who all through seems to have proved a
fast, active, and useful friend. Not too exaggerated was
that public apostrophe with which he addressed him a
few months later: —'My dear friend Garrick, whom I
have so much cause to esteem and honour (why or wherefore 'tis no matter).'
May came round, and in the second week of that
month was the splendid installation at Windsor, when
* 'Shandy' is said to be a Yorkshire local word signifying
crack-brained,' 'odd,' etc.
VOl. I.              61                L




LIFE OF STERNE


Prince Ferdinand, and the Marquis of Rockingham, a
Yorkshire nobleman, were to receive the Garter. The
ceremony took place on Tuesday the 6th, and on the
Monday they set out, the latter nobleman with a 'grand
retinue.' Mr Sterne was part of his 'suit,' perhaps in the
capacity of chaplain.
The Sermons were now being eagerly looked for.
For the sermon which Corporal Trim had read and
commented on so admirably, and had been preached
before the 'judges of assize,' had struck the public fancy.
'The best thing in it,' wrote Walpole, 'is a sermon;' and
there was a large class of the ' serious' who bought the
'hundred very wise, learned, well-intended productions,
that have no charms for me,' as Goldsmith put it.
Dodsley was not one to let so good an opening pass
by, and a selection from Mr Sterne's Village Sermons
was at press with the second edition of Tristram. On
Thursday, the 22d of May, there was in the Public
Advertiser this singular notice: 'THIS D)AY is published,
in two volumes, price, sewed, 5s. (with a portrait of the
Editor, engraved from a painting by Mr Reynolds), The
Sermons of Mr Yorick, published by the Rev. Mr Sterne,
Prebendary of York. Printed for J. Dodsley.' It will be
remarked, what a Shandean jumble is here of Yorick and
Sterne; and some have leant on him very severely for
what they considered a trick unworthy his position as a
clergyman. They were not introduced under the authorship of Tristram Shandy, but of Mr Yorick, an amiable
clergyman, with whose sufferings and pathetic end all
were familiar.  The fact was, Mr Sterne was better
162




YORICK'S SERMONS
known as 'Mr Yorick,' than as Mr Sterne, and it was
really a pardonable device which deceived nobody. In
a characteristic preface he remonstrates with his public.
He hopes 'the most serious reader will find nothing to
offend him '-in putting this new title to his newer work.
' Lest it should be otherwise, I have added a second titlepage with the real name of the author. The first will
serve the bookseller's purpose, and the second will ease
the minds of those who see a jest, and the danger which
lurks under it where no jest was meant;' and accordingly
in the volume is to be found a separate fly-leaf, for the
benefit of such tender consciences as were liable to be
pricked. Then, pleasantly taking credit for their being
hastily written, and carrying the marks of haste with
them, as evidence of their coming 'more from the heart
than the head,' he prays to God it may do the world the
service he wishes, and winds up with a declaration that
he rests 'with a heart much at ease upon the protection
of the humane and candid, from whom I have received
many favours, for which I beg leave to return them
thanks-thanks.' 'The man's head,' said Walpole, in
one of his charitable humours, ' indeed was a little turned
before, but is now topsy-turvy with his success and fame.'
But this Sermon Preface could scarcely have come from
a topsy-turvy head.  Lady Cowper's testimony may
be accepted as a specimen of the average public opinion.
' Pray read Yorick's Sermons,' wrote that lady to her
friend Mrs Delany, 'though you would not read Tristram
Shandy; I like them exceedingly, and I think he must
be a good man.'
i63




LIFE OF STERNE


Very droll was the equivoque which Mr Sterne related
long after in his Journey, in reference to this very title.
Who was the bishop-one of the first of our own Church, for
whose 'candour and paternal sentiments I have the highest
veneration '-'who said 'he could not bear to look into
sermons wrote by the King of Denmark's jester?' ' Good,
my lord,' said Mr Sterne, 'there are two Yoricks. The
Yorick your Lordship thinks of has been dead and buried
eight hundred years ago-he flourished in Horwendillus'
Court. The other Yorick is myself, who have flourished,
my Lord, in no Court.  He shook his head.  "Good
God!" said I, " you might as well compare Alexander the
Great with Alexander the coppersmith, my lord."  "It
was all one," he replied.'
Mr Sterne thought 'that if Alexander of Macedon could
have translated his lordship, the Bishop would not have
said so.' This is a specimen of his best sketching. We
almost hear and see the Prelate shaking his head and
repeating, ' It was all one.'
The Sermons were introduced in the prettiest garb.
Have you read his Sermons,' writes Gray, 'with his
own comic figure at the head of them?'    Scarcely
'comic,' but showing a store of thought and originality,
much latent humour, and a profound Rabelais twinkle.*
The poet was charmed with them.   He thought they
* Though the publication was spread over some eight years,
there was a uniformity observed in the shape of Mr Sterne's books
seldom met with in other directions. A complete set of the
original editions is rarely to be found, and for the bouquinant
makes a very pretty find.
164




YORICK'S SERMONS
were ' in the style most proper for the pulpit, and show a
strong imagination and a sensible heart.' Dr Johnson,
who could not relish 'the man Sterne,' was not likely to
give a good word to his sermons. Mr Craddock tells
us how a lady asked the Doctor how he liked Yorick's
Sermons. In his rough, blunt way, he answered her,'I know nothing about them, madam!' Later on, the
subject was renewed, perhaps started by one whom he
might have considered to be more competent to deal with
them, and he then censured them with much severity.
The lady, who had not forgotten his plain reply, sharply
retorted,-' I understood, sir, you had not read them.'
' No, madam,' roared the sage, 'I did read them, but it
was in a stage-coach; I should not even have deigned to
have looked at them had Ibeen at lare!' This onslaught
was due to the great critic's temper of mind, for there were
many other works of inferior quality which he deigned to
look at-even enjoy. He was delighted with Blair's correct but feeble sermons. To another lady, the 'vivacious'
Miss Monckton, he was scarcely less civil, when the same
topic was started. She was urging that some of Sterne's
writings were very pathetic, a modified shape of approbation which could scarcely be disputed. Again Johnson broke out, and denied it. 'I am sure,' she said,
'they have affected me.' This left so happy an opening
for a good retort that the huge sage began to smile and
roll himself about before speaking.  'Why, that is
because, dearest, you are a dunce;' which unparliamentary
stroke he afterwards handsomely withdrew, saying, 'with
equal truth and politeness,' 'Madam, if I had thought so,
165




LIFE OF STERNE
I certainly should not have said it.' Posterity has happily
reversed many of these rough-and-ready verdicts.
The moralist someway never forgave 'the man Sterne.'
In his own city of Lichfield, the old animosity to the
Sermons turned up again. One 'Mr Wickens,' whose
books he was turning over, showed him the obnoxious
discourses. The sight of it was like a piece of scarlet
cloth. 'Sir,' roared the Doctor, 'do you ever read any
others?' 'Yes,' answered Mr Wickens, with a little
spiritual vanity; 'I read Sherlock, and Tillotson, and
Beveridge, and others.' 'Ay, sir,' broke out the other,
in a rather imperfect metaphor, ' there you drink the cup
of salvation to the bottom; here you have merely the
froth from the surface.'  But still he could appreciate
him: and he told a friend of Sterne's long after, that it
required all his powers to neutralise the effects of the
humourist's fascinating powers of conversation, upon their
common friends, Garrick and Reynolds.
The correct but prolix author of Clarissa was much
scandalised by the new book. 'You cannot imagine,'
he wrote, 'I have looked into these books. Execrable I
cannot but call them.' And then adds, what reads very
comically for those who shrink back from the weary
and protracted incidents of the excellent Sir Charles
Grandison's life, 'that he has had only patience' to
' run through' a portion of the book. In that same
letter he takes the trouble of copying out the sentiments
of a young lady who has been shocked by the persual of
Tristram, and who ventures on a remarkable literary
prediction. 'But mark my prophecy,' said she, impresI66




YORICK'S SERMONS


sively, 'that by another season it will be as much decried
as it is now extolled. It has not sufficient merit to
prevent its sinking when no longer upheld by the breath
of fashion.' There is a pendant for this forecasting in
Ir Farmer's prophecy, who, a little later, requested his
friend, 'B. N. Turner,' to mark his (Dr Farmer's) words,
and remember that he had predicted, that 'in twenty
years, the man who wished to refer to Tristram Shandy
would have to ask for it of an antiquary.' The person
reporting this in the year 818, adds, with complacent
dulness,-' This was truly p1ropfhetic!'
At length this London carnival was to close, and after
his three months' revel, Tristram must return to rustic
life again, and go back to Yorkshire.
On Sunday, the eighteenth of May, he had the honour
of preaching before the judges-the second time of his
performing that function. He had already bought a pair
of horses for the journey; and in less than a week after
the appearance of his Sermons, was on his road home.
A very different man, it is to be feared. It must have
been a well-ballasted mind that could have stood such a
probation. Such was scarcely Yorick's. The pettings of
the great, the fellowship of fashionable men, the flatteries
of the crowd, must have worked mischief; worse than all,
he took home with him the approbation of his spiritual
superiors. Happy for him if Garrick's remark had been
only in part true:-' He degenerated in London,' said the
actor, wittily, 'like an ill-transplanted shrub; the incense
of the great spoiled his head, as their ragouts had done
his stomach.'
167




LIFE OF STERNE


The sad feature of the whole was that he found
himself compelled to cater, as it were, for the grosser
taste of the public. Tristraim Shandy may be said to have
two spells of reputation. One, during its first publication-the second in the estimation of posterity. There can
be little doubt that its success with the readers of Sterne's
day was owing to the novelty of its coarse suggestions,
even to its broad and low expressions. Remarkable, too,
is the far-fetched, laboured fashion in which such topics
are sought and introduced. There are many pages filled
with what is sheer nonsense, probably meant to fill up
the pages somehow and anyhow. Further, the great
characters had been merelyintroduced, and not elaborated,
as they were to be later. We may conclude, therefore,
that it was the piquant grossness that 'fetched' the
town.
But there was, as I said, a second and fixed period of
fame for him and his book, founded on the humours ot
the four or five leading characters-my Uncle Toby, Mr
and Mrs Shandy, Trim and Dr Slop-these outlines have
become fixed in the public mind, like the incidents and
characters in Don Quixote. These are so clear in their
drawing, and have been so much referred to and quoted,
that they have become known and familiar, even for
those who have never seen or read the book. The
coarseness of Tristram is now little cared for, and taken
as a book, on the whole is thought but heavy reading by
'the general.'
Coxwould, the new curacy, was on the Thirsk high
road, and about sixteen miles from York city; Stillingi68




YO'ICA'S SERMONS
ton, his other charge, lay within six miles' ride, and
Sutton was about four miles beyond Stillington. On
the whole, the 'cure' of all three would not seem to
have been a very laborious duty, especially as the 'souls'
were not very abundant. Still he found it necessary to
subsidise a curate for Sutton and Stillington, and confine
himself wholly to the pastoral charge of Coxwould. 'A
sweet retirement in comparison with Sutton,' he called
it, not very long before his death, when reviewing the
scenes of his many wanderings.  Red tiles and red
brick furnished a warm air of colouring to the place;
and it boasted but a single inn, which was the Ferry
House, close to the river.
It was a long, low house, which was fitted at each
end with two quaint heavy gables, and which rambled
away round the corner into a great, tall brick shoulder
and high, pyramidal chimney, that started from the
ground like a buttress, whose function it indeed served,
and then finished off behind with a low, sloping roof
within a few feet of the ground. When he thought of
that cheerful, red-tiled roof, rustic and old-fashioned,
yet so suggestive of comfort, of the fringe of ivy which
hung over the doorway, and of the diamond - pane
windows of the pretty church, which faced his windows
from the side of the road of the little village, and of
Lord Fauconberg's pleasant park, close by, where he
used to drive-no wonder that, at the close of his wild
Bohemian career, that picture should come back upon
him with a breath of pleasant memories. 'This Shandy
Castle of mine,' he began to christen it within a few
169




LIFE OF STERNE


weeks of his arrival. It soon grew to be 'Shandy
Hall'; and by the name of Shandy Hall it is known to
this day. Behind in the garden was my Uncle Toby's
bowling green-where the mimic sieges of Namur and
Dendermond were carried on with such unflagging regularity-and the arbour, where the author of Uncle
Toby wrote of the summer evenings. Sometimes, when
he is very low in spirits, it becomes what he quaintly
calls 'a cuckoldy retreat.'
His parishioners, it would seem, were scanty enough:
'Unless for the few sheep left me to take care of,' he
wrote later, 'in this wilderness, I might as well, nay
better, be at Mecca.' But this might have been one of
its aqgrrmenzs. Another was the vicinity of Lord Fauconberg and his park, scarcely a mile away: and to visit
that nobleman, he used very often to drive out in a
new chaise, drawn by the London horses, while little
' Lyd' cantered along gaily by their side, on a pony
purchased for her by her indulgent father. There he
found Lord Belasyse, and Lady Anne, to whom his
company was always welcome. Naturally enough then
he would have enjoyed his new habitation. He had no
trouble with Sutton and Stillington; a curate, as I have
said-the Reverend Mr Walker-took care of those
parishes for him.
After his death the house-it was known as Shandy
Hall-was suffered to go to ruin. It had passed, with
the Old Manor House, to the Wombwell family-one
of whom had married Lord Fauconberg's heiress. Sir
George Wombwell, the later owner, has put it in thorough
170




YORICK'S SERMONS
repair. Unluckily it has been thought good to divide
it into labourers' cottages, but the regular outline of the
place is preserved, and on the entrance gate is to be
read:-'Here dwelt Laurence Sterne, for many years
incumbent of Coxwold.    Here he wrote    Tristram
Shandy and the Sentimental Journey. Died in London
in 1768, aged 55 years.'*
The duties of his stall, now so long suspended,
required his presence at York: and for little more than
a fortnight after his return, we find him dating letters
from that city. His first letter is to his Episcopal patron
Warburton, with a present of'two sets' of his sermons.
He did not know the Bishop's address, and therefore
' could think of no better expedient than to order them
into Mr Berrenger's hands;' then takes the opportunity
of making a very earnest and grateful acknowledgment
for past favours. 'The truest and humblest thanks I
return to your Lordship for the generosity of your protection and advice to me; by making a good use of the
one, I will hope to deserve the other. I wish your Lordship all the health and happiness in this world; for I
am your Lordship's most obliged and most grateful
servant,                             L. STERNE.'
He adds in a postcript that he is about 'sitting down
to go on with Tristram, &c. The scribblers use me ill,
but they have used my betters much worse, for which
may God forgive them.' An adroit reference to the
* Not far away, at Amplefurth, is the St Laurence's Catholic
College, which it was jocosely said bore this name in honour of
its erratic neighbour.
I71




LIFE OF STERNE


rough treatment his patron and himself experienced
from 'the scribblers.'
Warburton and Garrick had been already in consultation over our 'heteroclite Parson.' The Bishop,
perhaps, was a little uneasy, lest his indiscreet protfge
should bring his hastily-bestowed patronage into discredit. Garrick was interested in his friend's welfare and
reputation. The donor of the 'Purse of Gold' would
naturally be the most suitable person to take up the
ungrateful office of monitor; and the actor had sent to
Prior Park, by the hands of Mr Berrenger, some 'hints'
as to the erratic behaviour of 'our Parson.' The present
of the sermons furnished an excellent opening, which the
Bishop was not slow to seize.
In a week's time the Bishop replied. It was an
admirable letter, written in the full weighty style to
which that prelate, when he chose, could adapt himself.
A letter, too, skilfully adapted to the strange spirit he
was addressing, and which delicately insinuated advice,
and even reproof, without the cold air of professional
admonishment. 'Reverend sir,' it began, 'I have your
favour of the 9th instant, and am glad to understand you
are got safe home, and employed again in your proper
studies.' An odd remark, considering that Mr Sterne
had just told him that he 'was just sitting down to go
on with Tristram.' 'You have it in your power,' he goes
on, 'to make that which is an amusement to yourself and
others, useful to both; at least you should, above all
things, beware of its becoming hurtful to either by any
violations of decency and good manners; but I have
172




YORICK'S SERMONS


already taken such repeated liberties of advising you
on that head, that to say more were needless, or
perhaps unacceptable.' This was plain speaking. He
then touches on some discreditable panegyrics on
the author of Tristram-'odes as they are called,'
notoriously written by Hall Stevenson. 'Whoever was
the author, he appears to be a monster of impiety and lewdness. Yet such is the malignity of
the scribblers, some have given them to your friend
Hall; and others, which is still more impossible, to
yourself, though the first ode has the insolence to place
you both in a mean and a ridiculous light. But this
might arise from a tale equally groundless and malignant, that you had shown them to your acquaintance in
MS. before they were given to the publick. Nor was
their being printed by Dodsley the likeliest means of
discrediting the calumny.' He then alludes to the little
biographical portrait in 'a Female Magazine' and asks,
'Pray, have you read it, or do you know the author?'
That he really scarcely cared to disguise what was
his private conviction as to these matters, is plain from
the conclusion of the letter. 'But of all these things, I
daresay Mr Garrick, whose prudence is equal to his
honesty or his talents, has remonstrated to you with the
freedom  of a friend.' If these were mere untrue
rumours, how should Mr Sterne merit any such expostulation? And finally, by an admirable panegyric
of the actor, he skilfully points the moral, and indirectly
hints to Mr Sterne a course of conduct which he might
imitate with profit. 'He (Mr Garrick) knows the
I73




LIFE OF STERNE
inconstancy of what is called the publick, towards all
even the best-intentioned of those who contribute to its
pleasure or amusement. He (as every man of honour
and discretion would) has availed himself of the public
favour to regulate the taste, and in his proper station
to reform, the manners of the fashionable world; while
by a well-judged economy, he has provided against the
temptations of a mean and servile debcndence on the
follies and vices of the great. In a word, be assured
there is no one more sincerely wishes your welfare and
happiness than, reverend sir, W. G.'
Making allowance for a natural anxiety to save his
own credit as a patron, by keeping his fprotelg steady, it
must be said again, that this is an admirable letter. It
had been well for this turbulent prelate had he been
always thus temperate.
The following day, from Prior Park, he sent a copy
of his admonition, together with Sterne's letter, to Garrick.
It explains clearly the meaning of his advice. 'I heard,
enough,' he wrote, 'of his conduct in town since I left it
to make me think he would soon lose the fruits of all the
advantage he had gained by a successful effort, and would
disable me from appearing as his friend or well-wisher.
Since he got back to York, I had the enclosed letter
from him, which afforded me an opportunity I was not
sorry for, to tell him niy mind, and with all frankness.... If it have any effect, it will be well for him; if it
have not, it will be at least well for me, in the satisfaction
I shall receive in the attempt to do him service.'
On the 19th, Mr Sterne replied. There is a tone half174




YORICK'S SERMONS
wounded, half-defiant, rather different from the humble,
grateful cadences of the first. He protests he would
willingly 'give no offence to mortal, by anything which
I think can look like the least violation of either decency
or good manners.' Still, at the same time, it is hard in a
work of the riotous complexion of Tristram 'to mutilate
everything in it, down to the prudish humour of every
particular.' ' I will, however, do my best,' he goes on,
'though laugh, my Lord, I will, and as loud as I can too.'
He then clears himself from any participation in 'the
Odes, as they are called;' and there is no reason why
we should not accept this explanation. They were sent
to him in a cover anonymously, and after striking out
some of the grosser portions, he showed them round to
all his friends as 'a whimsical performance.' This would
account for his receiving the credit of their authorship.
Garrick, too, who was skilful at vers de society, had
threatened him with an Ode; and he naturally concluded
that this, was his performance. True, it was in Hall
Stevenson's hand, but their correspondence had been
interrupted for nineteen years, and it was natural that he
should have forgotten its character. But as soon as he
discovered who it came from, he 'sent it back with his
extreme concern a man of such talents should give the
world such scandal.'
He then speaks with genuine feeling of the cruel
onslaughts which had been made on his character and
his works. There is a soreness in his tone which, in
spite of his vaunting declaration that he would 'laugh
loud,' shows that he was deeply wounded.
I75




LIFE OF STERNE


'Of all the vile things wrote against me, that in the
1]emale lIa grazine was the most inimicitioZts. These
strokes in the dark, with the many kicks, cuffs, and
bastinadoes I openly get on all sides of me are beginning
to make me sick of this foolish humour of mine, of sallying forth into this wide and wicked world to redress
wrongs. Otherwise I wish from my heart I had never
set pen to paper, but continued hid in the quiet obscurity
in which I had so long lived. I was quiet, for I was
below envy, yet above want; and indeed so very far
above it that the idea of it never once entered my head
in writing, and as I am ~2oo a )ear further from the
danger of it than I was then, I think it never will.' A
year afterwards Mr Sterne was describing his temperament to a less reverend intimate-' I would else just now
lay down and die; and yet in half an hour's time I'll lay
a guinea I shall be as merry as a monkey, and as mischievous too,.... so that this is but a copy of the
present train running across my brain.' Fame and profit
are not parted with so cheerfully, nor is the ruefulness of
a moment of despondency to be accepted as a true choice.
Even as he wrote the 'mischievousness' and 'merriness'
of the monkey were not far away, and there was surely
balm in the recollection that 'the Bishop of Carlisle
called  yesterday.'  This episcopal patronage  of a
'heteroclite Parson' grows every instant more surprising.
A reply from Warburton, written apparently by the
earliest return post, closes the correspondence.  His
explanation had somewhat warmed the Bishop into
cordiality, who writes in the same happy mixture of
176




YORICK'S SERMONS


advice, compliment, and even irony, which distinguished
the first. It ran: ' It gives me real pleasure that you are
resolved to do justice to your genius, and to borrow no
aids to support it, but what are of the party of honour,
virtue and religion. You say you will continue to laugh
aloud. In good time. But one who was no more than
even a man of spirit would wish to laugh in good company where priests and virgins may be present. Notwithstanding all your wishes for your former obscurity which
your present chagrined state excites, yet a wise man
cannot but choose the sunshine before the shade; indeed,
he would not wish to dwell in the malignant heat of the
dog-days, not for the teasing and momentary annoyances
of the numberless tribes of insects abroad, but for the
more fatal aspect of the superior bodies.' A friendly and
prophetic hint as to his ecclesiastical prospects of preferment, which it were well he had weighed in his 'sweet
retirement' at Coxwould. 'I would recommend as a
maxim to you what Bishop Sherlock formerly told me Dr
Bentley remarked to him, that a man was never writ out
of the reputation he had fairly won but by himself.' A
wholesome truth and effort at remonstrance, which, however, is unlikely to have had any effect upon a character
such as Sterne's was. The whole is creditable to Warburton, who displays a delicacy and moderation surprising
to those familiar with his usual rough free-lance mode of
action, and the portraits done of him by Churchill.


VOL. I.


177


M




CHAPTER XIV


TRISTRAM AT HIS DESK
FAIRLY established at Coxwould by July, he was now at
work on his new volumes. On that ninth of June, when
he sent his sermons to Warburton, he was sitting down to
make a beginning, and he got on rapidly with the work.
But so acutely had he felt the rough handling of the
critics, that before he had written two or three pages, his
thoughts strayed back to his still raw wounds, and the
cruel 'bastinadoes' inflicted by 'the scribblers.' IH
could not resist the temptation of showing his scars to
the world, and dealing with them in Shandy fashion,
possibly to deprecate further rough usage. But he had
not yet learned that the happiest retort against such
attacks was passiveness, or at least the affectation of
indifference. 'Never poor jerkin,' he wrote, 'has been
tickled off at such a rate as it has been these last nine
months together..... pell-mell, helter-skelter, dingdong, back stroke and fore stroke, side way and long
way, have they been trimming it for me.' He then turns
back to the severest of all the attacks, that in the
178




TRISTR'AM AT HIS DESK
A/onthly Review, and addresses them with comic expostulation. 'You, Messrs the Monthly Reviewers, how
could you cut and slash my jerkin as you did?'
A little further on-a few days later in time-he has
still the same bogie before him, and makes an earnest
protest against those pedants of criticism who are 'so
hung round and befetished with all the bobs and trinkets
of their craft, like a native of the Guinea coast; and then
introduces that familiar figure of 'the stop-watch critic,'
who has figured on a thousand platforms since. 'And
what of this new book the whole world makes such a
rout about?-O! 'tis out of all plumb, my Lord; quite
an irregular thing. I had my rule and compasses in my
pocket.-Excellent critic!' He then rambled off into a
curious preface, placed, according to true Shandean
eccentricity, about the middle of the third volume-still
apologetic-still appealing from ' the scribblers '-striving
hard to prove, in a curious mixture of raillery, serious
argument, and illustration, that wit and judgment are not
antagonistic qualities. For the' scribblers' had insinuated,
that whatever might be his pretensions to the one, they
effectually precluded his having any share of the other;
and while sitting at his writing-table, with his 'fur cap'
on, 'dashing and squirting' his ink about on his books
and furniture, he casts his eye downwards upon his cane
chair, fitted with 'two knobs.'
Even while he wrote, his health was sinking below its
usual feeble condition. He talks of his 'weak nerves'
and of that 'vile cough' of his, which visits him with more
than ordinary severity just as he is closing his fourth
179




LIFE OF STE'ANE


volume, while his head 'aches dismally.' These were, no
doubt, the wages of his London campaign. Nor had his
thin, wasted figure gained strength or flesh by that round
of dissipation of which he pleasantly reminds the reader,
hinting the improbability of some state of things 'unless
you were as lean a subject as myself.' Still, he was
furnished with 'that careless alacrity which, every day of
my life, prompts me to say and vrite a thousand things
I should not,' and which, in default of health, made him
feel its want less acutely.
He was now working diligently. By the first day or
so in August-in little more than three weeks-his third
volume was finished, and he was stopping for breath at
the threshold of Slawkenbergius's strange adventure.
Among his London friends was a certain Mrs Fergusson,
to whom he seems to have always written with what he
calls 'the careless irregularity of an easy heart,' and in
the gayest mood of his own natural Shandeism. All his
letters to ladies have more or less of this free humour,
plainly in imitation of Swift's familiar gossiping with
Stella. He wrote to her as 'my witty widow' on the 3d
of August, and has just risen from the last sheet of his
book with brains 'as dry as squeez'd orange,' in which
condition it is hard to think of writing to a lady of wit,
except in 'the honest John Trot style of yours of the 15th
instant came safe to hand,' etc. This 'vile plight I found
my genius in,' inclined him to defer writing until the next
post, in the hope of getting 'some small recruit, at least
of vivacity, if not wit, to set out with;' but on second
thoughts 'a bad letter in season seemed preferable to a
I80




TRISTRAM AT HIS DESK


good one out of it,' and so 'this scrawl is the consequence,
which, if you will bur the moment you get it, I promise
to send you a fine set essay in the style of your female
epistolizers, cut and trim'd at all points. God defend me
from such, who neveryet knew what it was to say or write
one piremeditated word in my whole life.' ' I deny it,' he
goes on, 'I was not lost two days before I left town, I was
lost all the time I was there, and never found till I got to
this Shandy Castle of mine.' He has already laid out a
fresh expedition to London when he means 'to sojourn
among you, with more decorum, and will neither be lost
nor found anywhere.
It was to this very lady he had the year before confided
the secret that he was busy with a novel, adding, 'Laugh
I am sure you will at some passages.' To her he now
reports progress of how far he had gone with the new
volumes. He 'wished to God' he was at her elbow, as
he is longing to read them 'to some one who can taste
and relish humour; this, by the way, is a little impludent
in me, for I take for granted a thing which their high
mightinesses, the world, have yet to determine; but I
mean no such thing, I could wish only to have your opinion.
Shall I in truth give you mine? I dare not, but I will,
provided you keep it to yourself. Know, then, that I think
there is more laughable humour, with equal degree of Cervantic satire, if not more, than in the last; but we are bad
judges of the merit of our own children.'
He was now at work on the companion volume. Not
all his taste for carnivals, and the general frivolities of
society, seems ever to have interfered with settled habits
I8i




LIFE OF STERNE


of curious reading and industrious writing. No wonder
that near the completion of his task he should exclaim
humorously, 'What a rate I have gone on at curveting
and frisking it away, two up and two down, without looking once behind, or even on one side of me. I'll take a
good rattling gallop, but I'll not hurt the poorest jackass
upon the road. So off I set, up one lane, down another,
through this turnpike, over that, as if the arch-jockey of
jockeys had got behind me.... He's flung-he's offhe's lost his seat-he's down-he'll break his neck-see if
he has not galloped full amongst the scaffolding of the
undertaking critics-he'll knock his brains out against
some of their posts..... Don't fear, said I, I'll not hurt
the poorest jackass upon the king's highway.' He then
thinks of Warburton, and the 'story of Tristram's pretended tutor,' and niches in an amende to his patron.
"' But your horse throws dirt-see, you have splashed a
bishop." " I hope in God 'fwas only Ernuiphis," said I.'
In short, so diligently had he laboured, that by the
first week in October such persons as took the London
Chronicle read in their copy of October the 9th, a very
cheering announcement for all Shandeans:'The public is desired to take notice, that the THIRD
AND FOURTH VOLUMES of Tristram Shandy, by the
author of the first and second volumes, will be published
about Christmas next. Printed for R. & J. Dodsley, in
Pall Mall, where may be had:
' i. A New Edition of the two first volumes.
'2. The Sermons of Mr Yorick, published by the
Rev. Mr Sterne, Prebendary of York.'
I82




TRISTRAMI A T HiS DESK


The caution as to the new volumes being from the pen
of 'the author of the first and second,' may have been in
consequence of an impudent counterfeit which had just
appeared-a sham third volume, by one Carr, which for
similarity of type, shape and everything but genius, had
taken in a few readers and some buyers. It will be seen,
too, that Tristram was travelling gaily through successive
new editions; and that in spite of the 'day-tall critics,'
and the 'trimming of his jacket' by the Monthly Reviewers.
For these new volumes Dodsley gave no less a sum than
three hundred and eighty pounds, a large sum considering
the size of the volumes, and an excellent test of the book's
popularity. It was, however, not to be paid until six
months after it had gone to press.
But just now, down at his retirement, he was aspiring
to the full-blown dignity of a Doctor of Divinity. He had
even written a 'clerum' as an exercise. But he wisely
forebore. Perhaps he thought that the title-page of
Tristram Shandy, by the Rev. Laurence Sterne, D.D.,
endorsed though it was by high ecclesiastical authority,
might offend. He did not proceed further than his
'clerum.' It was about this date that he took his share
in that droll pictorial partnership which Dr Dibdin,
the eminent virtuoso (librarian also to the noble
family of Spencers, who were friends and patrons of
Sterne's), heard of when he came to York city long
after, upon his bibliographical tour. Once the Doctor
came to York, and with his friend, Mr Atkinson,
explored  the quaint old city and   its curiosities.
Among other matters Mr Atkinson showed him an old
I83




LIFE OF STERANE
oil painting, rather rudely executed, but characteristic
enough, representing a mountebank doctor and his man,
exhibiting on a platform  in the open street.  The
Bearded Dulcamara shows the face of one 'Mr Brydges,'
a jovial York citizen of Mr Sterne's set-and in the face
of the Doctor's man, who wears a sort of clown's dress,
are to be recognised the features of Mr Sterne. An
exaggerated, but still a good likeness. The whole was a
sort of pictorial jeu d'esprit; it is said that Mr Brydges
sat to Mr Sterne for the figure of the quack doctor,
while Mr Sterne sat to him for the clown. The father
of Atkinson knew Mr Sterne, and had many curious
stories about him, which, like so many other curious
recollections, have, unhappily, faded out. A rough outdoor sketch of Mr Sterne, however, escaped destruction,
and the father remembered well and told his son of the
long, shambling figure-ill-dressed and slovenly-roaming abstractedly through the narrow York streets, talking
to itself, and attended by a little procession of jeering
York boys.


184




CHAPTER XV


A SECOND LONDON VISIT
HE was now in town, and found London in a curious
flutter and confusion. Every eye was on the palace and
its new tenant. Everyone was following 'this charming
young King,' as Walpole called him, and noting his grace
and good nature, 'which breaks out on all occasions.'
About ten days before Christmas Day, he arrived in town
with his Tristram MSS. in his valise. The time is
almost fixed by a fresh advertisement of the Dodsleys,
dated December i9th, announcing that the new book
would be out in the course of the next month-a notice
likely to be given on the delivery of the MSS. to the
printers; and by a letter of Mr Sterne's written on
Christmas Day, the tone of which shows he had been in
London about a week.
From the moment of his arrival, the old carnival set
in. The flood of visitors and reciprocal visitings, feasts,
dinners, politics, with correcting of proofs, left him not
an instant. His dinner list was, as usual, full, and by
a little computation we can discover, that for some185




LIFE OF STEA'NE


where about five weeks he never dined one day at home!
and he was besides afraid 'that matters would be worse
with him.' These dinner testimonials so long sustained
without change or fickleness, must be accepted as the
best testimonials to his wit and spirits and powers of
conversation.
The new Shandys had been read in MSS. to Mr Croft
at Stillington Hall, and were now shown about London
to a selected few. The Crofts, however, had misgivings,
and were naturally nervous about the curious adventure
of Slawkenbergius-the secret significance of which
could not be misunderstood-and Mr Croft wrote him
a sort of friendly remonstrance.  Mr Sterne acknowledged this friendly act very gratefully, but reassured
his 'kind friends at Stillington,' because 'it shifts off the
idea of what you fear to another point,' as the satire 'is
levelled at those learned blockheads, who in all ages
have wasted their time and learning upon points as
foolish.'
In London, however, there were no such scruples.
"Tis thought here very good-'twill pass muster.  I
mean not with all. No, no! I shall be attacked and
pelted either from cellars or garrets, write what I will;
and beside, must expect to have a party against me of
many hundreds, who either do not, or will not, laugh.
'Tis enough if I divide the world-at least, I will rest
contented with it.'
Mr Sterne shared in the general infatuation about the
'charming young king.'   He wrote enthusiastically
about him to his friends at Stillington-how he rose at
I86




A SECOND LONDON VISIT


six for business, rode out at eight 'to a minute, looked
into everything himself, and was determined to stop the
torrent of corruption and laziness.' He was very intimate
with Lord Rockingham, and the witty, 'flashy' Charles
Townshend, with Mr Charles Spencer, and other men
of politics; and writes to his country friends with a
political wisdom and mysteriousness very natural but
highly amusing. 'How it will end we are all in the
dark.' The importance in this last sentence is almost
comic.
Mr Sterne very wisely kept on good terms with his
present ecclesiastical superior, Archbishop Gilbert. Miss
Gilbert was now in London, and to her he paid the
delicate attention of lending some prints, which he bought
for the Crofts. All through he seems to have been in
favour with the bishop who ruled in his diocese.
Tristram, meanwhile, was being hurried through the
press. He wrote to his friends that it would be out on
the twentieth of January: but it, in fact, did not appear
until a week later. On the twenty-seventh, the third and
fourth volumes were published.
This second Shandy instalment was received with a
mixed chorus of cheers and hisses. His prediction about
the attacks and 'peltings' from garret, came true exactly
as he had foretold; but there was compensation in the
handkerchiefs waving from drawing-room windows. One
half of the town abused it with tremendous bitterness,
the other extolled it as extravagantly. It has been said
that its success was not so decided as that of the first
volumes. But writes Mr Sterne, 'the best is, they abuse
IS7




LIFE OF STERNE
and buy it at such a rate that we are going on with a
second edition as fast as possible.' This was written in
the first week of March, so the first edition had been
exhausted in about a month. This was a speedy sale,
for not yet had set in the palmy day when an edition
would be swept off in a week.
The garreteers soon began the storm of abuse. Mr
Griffiths's men led the attack, encouraged by that
indiscreet confession of sensitiveness in his apostrophe
to 'Messieurs of the Monthly Review.' They justified
their previous attack in the coarse, brutal language which
they were accustomed to lavish on Goldsmith and others.
They spoke of Tristram as 'the wanton brat now owned
by its reverend parent.' Other faults might be extenuated,
but the crying sin of the new publication was dulness:
'Yes, indeed, Mr Tristram, you are dull, very dull!' and
the special points of dulness selected, show at least a
curious taste on the part of Mr Griffiths's men. We are
sick, they say, 'of my Uncle Toby's wound in his groin:
we have had enough of his ravelines and breast-works:
we can no longer bear with Corporal Trim's insipfidity.'
If the half of the town that abused the book reflected
this just criticism, Mr Sterne might well console himself.
He was every day growing more and more the fashion.
Mr John Spencer took him down with him to Wimbleton
-that Mr John Spencer who was nephew to the Duke
of Marlborough. Before the month was out, Mr Spencer
was created Lord Viscount Spencer, and was to have
the next Shandy instalment dedicated to him. Then
Charles Townshend had told Mr Sterne, in confidence,
188




A SECOND LONDON VISIT


that he was to be shortly made Secretary at War; so
political interest was gathering fast. How was it that
he could not put these friends to some profit? Now
came Lady Northumberland's 'Grand Assembly,' for
which Mr Sterne hurried up from Wimbleton. Lady
Northumberland had been giving 'Grand Assemblies'
all the season; which Horace Walpole has enrolled
among his festivals of honour.
One of Mr Croft's sons, Stephen, was in the army;
the other became a brother canon of Mr Sterne's in
the Cathedral. With so powerful a friend in London,
who was, besides, intimate with the Secretary at War,
it seemed likely that something might be done for the
military son; and Mr Croft accordingly applied to Mr
Sterne. Mr Sterne writes back in all the flurry and
tumult of his London parties-'I will ask him; and
depend, my most worthy friend, that you shall not be
ignorant of what I learn from him. Believe me ever,
ever yours, L. S.' A week or so afterwards, Mr Sterne
met with an accident. He got a 'terrible fall,' which
sprained his wrist and prevented his holding a pen.
He had in the meantime been thinking over his friend's
business, and having been asked to breakfast one morning by a Mr V., 'a kind of right-hand man to the
Secretary,' he took care to sound him on the matter.
The Secretary's secretary strongly discouraged the
advisability of taking any step just then.
The old York enemies of Yorick were not idle all this
time, and a malicious rumour was presently set afloat
in that city to the effect that the fashionable Prebendary
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LIFE OF STERNE
was 'forbid the Court.' An absurd tale on the face of
it; this species of honourable banishment being confined to the court of the French King. Mr Sterne told
the story to his friends, and it afforded them much
amusement. As he himself put it, he was scarcely of
sufficient prominence to attract so much notice. As for
those about him, he added with a certain pride, ' I have
the honour either to stand so personally well known to
them, or to be so well represented by those of the first
rank, as to fear no accident of that kind.' But it has
been the fate of his 'betters,' who have found that 'the
way to fame, like that to Heaven, is through much
tribulation; and till I have had the honour to be as
much maltreated as Rabelais and Swift were, I must
continue humble, for I have not filled up the measure of
half their persecutions.'
Some comforting balm was this unexpected tribute to
his popularity. Dr Dodd had entertained Peers and
Countesses at the 'Magdalen,' and made effective
appeals to their sensibilities and purses; and the
committee of the last-named charity knew well how
effective would be Mr Sterne's name, when they
requested him to advocate their claims on one
Sunday in the first week of May. The committee,
at one of their meetings, directed a notice to be
inserted in the daily papers, that the Reverend Mr
Sterne was to preach for the Foundlings; and on the
Sunday following the chapel was filled by a large and
fashionable congregation. This was on the 3d of May;
and two days afterwards the treasurer reported to the
I90




A SECOND LONDON VISIT


committee, that 'the collection at the Anthem' amounted
to the sum of ~55, 9S 2d.' * It went round all the newspapers, though they did not know the precise amount,
that 'a large collection' had been the result of Mr
Sterne's appeal.
Early in July this second London Carnival ended, and
Mr Sterne had to return again to Coxwould. Seven
months' absence in the year from cathedral and
parochial duties did not certainly show much clerical
ardour, and supposed a tolerant and indulgent diocesan.
But Mr Sterne seems now to have laid out the future
programme of his life after this pattern: the early portion
of the year to be spent in London, and the last to be
spent at Coxwould, in racing through two Shandy
volumes, meant to be his regular annual contribution,
and to furnish him with the means of supporting his
London campaign. 'I shall write as long as I live,' he
wrote to a lady; and all through his books are promises
of this steady two-volume yield, unless, indeed, 'this vile
cough kills me in the meantime.' It is to be feared,
indeed, that 'the incense of the great,' and his craving
for fashionable pleasures, had completely put all the
serious duties of his profession out of his head.
A worse result still was, that it brought him back to his
village in a state of restlessness and despondency, wholly
unsuited to his office. Almost as soon as he arrived, he
was pining to be back in London again. His friend
* From  the Minutes of the Foundling Hospital. But a
charity sermon for the Magdalens-a far more 'sensational'
charity-brought over a thousand pounds!
'I9




LIFE OF STERNE


Stevenson-with a little malice-had warned him, that
his eyes would be turning back to the promised land.
He just passed through York, and then sat down
and wrote his friend a letter, pitched in the very lowest
key of low spirits. Raw Yorkshire weather had set in,
and 'a thin death-doing, pestiferous north-east wind' was
blowing in a line direct from Crazy Castle turret 'full
upon me.' "Tis as cold and churlish just now as (if God
had not pleased it to be so) it ought to have been in bleak
December, and therefore I am glad you are where you
are, and where (I repeat it again) I wish I was also.' He
should have broken the fall, he thinks, from London,
alas! to country dulness, by walking about the streets
of York for ten days 'before I entered on my rest. I
have not managed my miseries,' he adds, 'like a wise
man; and if God, for my consolation under them, had
not poured forth the spirit of Shandyism into me, which
will not suffer me to think for two moments upon any
grave subjects, I would else just now lay down and die.'
Then he speculates on the humour of his friend at Crazy
Castle, who had also his humours and hypochondriacs. He
may find this letter 'cursed stupid.' But that, 'my dear
Hall, depends much upon the quota hora of your shabby
clock. He presently breaks out-' Curse of poverty and
absence from those we love; they are two great evils,
which embitter all things; and yet, with the first I
am not haunted much.'  Something, perhaps, of Mr
Dodsley's ~65o remained over, though a good deal
must have been swept away in the six months' campaign.  'O Lord! now are you going to Ranelagh
192




A SECOND LONDON VISIT
to-night, and I am sitting sorrowful as the Prophet.
When we find we can by a shifting of places run away
from ourselves, what think you of a jaunt there (to
Mecca), before we finally pay a visit to the Vale of
Jehoshaphat-as ill-fame as we have, I trust I shall one
day or other see you face to face. So tell the two
Colonels, if they love good company, to live righteously
and soberly as you do-and then they will have no
dangers without or within them-present my warmest
wishes to them, and advise the eldest to prop up his
spirits, and get a rich dowager before the conclusion
of the peace-why will not the advice suit both? Par
nobile, &c.'
The two colonels were of the hopeful guild of Crazy
Castle. He then announces that the following morning he will sit down to the fifth Shandy.  I care not
a curse for the critics. I'll load my vehicle with what
goods He sends me, and they may take 'em off my
hands, or let them alone. I am very valorous-and it's
in proportion as we retire from the world, and see it in
its true dimensions, that we despise it-no bad rant!
God above bless you. You know I am your affectionate
cousin,                              L. STERNE.
'What few remain of the demoniacs greet.    And
write me a letter, if you are able, as foolish as this.'
Students of character will see in this reckless, profane
screed, certain signs of a decay and demoralisation.
When two loose men address each in this fashion,
there is evidently a sympathetic reference to pleasures
enjoyed in company.   But there is another letter inVOL. I.              193               N




LIFE OF STERNE


dited to this frire debauche, the date of which we
can pretty nearly fix about this time; for in it he reminds
his friend that he is past forty-or about forty-fiveand it will be remembered they were students at Cambridge together. This precious letter is in Latin, of a
'dog' kind, and very justly excited Mr Thackeray's scorn.
It is necessary to give a few extracts, however disagreeable the task may be. ' I know not what is the matter
with me,' he says, 'but I am more sick of my Twife than
ever, and am possessed of a devil that drives me to the
town, and you, too, are possessed with the same devil,
which keeps you in the desert, to be tentatum ancillis
tuis et perturbam uxore tua-believe me, my Antony,
this is not the way to salvation either present or
eternal, for you are beginning to think of your money,
which, saith St Paul, is the root of all evil, and you have
not sufficiently said in your heart that now is the time
to lave myself and make myself happy and free, and
do good to myself as Solomon exhorts us, who says that
there is nothing better in this life than that a man should
live jollily, eat and drink and enjoy good things, because
such is his portion in this life.' Then he speaks of his
own going up to town-not for fame or for to show himself
off-' Nam diabolus iste qui me intravit non est diabolus
vanus, et consobrinus sans Lucifer-sed est diabolus ama
vindus qui non sinet nec esse solum... et sunc
nurtaliter in amore et sum fatuus, etc.* I am obliged
to omit the rest. This, it must be said, is a shocking
* Yet this letter was printed by his own daughter, who, we
must charitably hope, was ignorant of its meaning.
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A SECOND LONDON VISIT
letter, and becomes worse when we think of the peaceful
pastoral enjoyments at Coxwould, which he was praising
to more decent folk. The clergyman that could write
such stuff as this, must at this time have become quite
depraved.
His wife, Mrs Sterne-lost sight of, forgotten, left behind in all the series of London expeditions; now possibly grown more patient, dowdy, and provincial than
ever-had long dropped out of Mr Sterne's course. She
would have been out of place up in London, among his
fine friends.  It was, in fact, the old, old storyincompatibility; without an effort on either side to aim
at even an artificial compatibility, by which a sort of
harmony is sometimes brought about. On his side, a
taste for town life and pleasures, which made' him look
on London as his settled home, Coxwould as a banishment.  On hers, an apparent apathy, not to say indifference, joined with a disagreeable candour, fatal to
nuptial peace. We can almost hear her speaking:
'As to matrimony,' wrote Mr Sterne at this time, 'I
should be a beast to rail at it, for my wife is easy, but the
world is not; and had I stayed from her a second longer,
it would have been a burning shame-else she declares
herself ha5ppier without me-but not in anger is this
declaration made, but in pure, sober good sense, built on
sound experience. She hopes you will be able to strike
a bargain for me before this time twelvemonth, to lead
a bear round Europe: and from this hope from you, I
verily believe it is that you are so hzgh in her favour at
present.' That is, from the prospect of Mr Hall finding
195




LIFE OF STERNE
an opening for the removal of Mr Sterne for a year at
least.
Yet within a month, when he had started afresh
with his Shandys, and had got more reconciled to his
country life, we can look in at Coxwould on a picture
that seems as domestic as could well be desired; indeed,
almost pastoral in its flavour. His pen was scampering
over the page, his ideas were coming fast. He was
charmed with his work. Some new features in Uncle
Toby's character specially pleased him. "Tis my hobby
horse, and so much am I delighted with my Uncle Toby's
imaginary character, that I am become an enthusiast.'
A pardonable complacency, when we reflect that this
portion of labour contained the exquisite story of Le
Fever, a masterpiece of true feeling and dramatic power.
He was sitting at his table in the centre, 'squirting his
ink about.' 'My Lydia helps to copy for me, and my
wife knits and listens as I read her chapters.' This is a
healthier tone; but still, it will be said, how could he set
a child of thirteen or fourteen to copy Tristram  But
the phrase is 'helps' to copy; and it curiously happens
that this fifth volume, upon which he was then at work,
is about the most harmless of all the Shandys. Any
young lady of the present time might 'help to copy it'
without danger. But the truth is, as will be seen later,
Mr Sterne was jealously tender of all that concerned his
Lydia; and the fact is only noticed here, because it has
been made one of the popular charges against him, that
he was so incredibly corrupted as to put into his child's
hands pages that made grown-up people blush.
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A SECOND LONDON VISIT


She had inherited from him a weak chest, and had now
suffered three winters continuously from a severe asthma.
His own health had not mended. This hard writing,
the stooping over his desk, together with the churlish
Yorkshire winters, could not have fortified the 'fine spun
fibres' of Yorick's chest, which where perpetually giving
way. Preaching, too, was a duty he could not give up,
and which the rector of three parishes would scarcely be
permitted to forego. It was always 'fatal'to him; and
this year he did not suspend that arduous duty. Before
Christmas he was 'very ill' indeed-had broken a fresh
vessel in his lungs, which he set to the account of hard
writing in the summer, 'together with preaching, which
I have not strength for.' He seems to have been at
Death's door, and began to think seriously, as soon as his
two new volumes were off his desk and in the hands of
the public, of trying a holiday in some new scene, which
would be of profit to his health and spirits, and possibly
to his purse. A project of 'leading a bear' across Europe
-of taking a young gentleman of rank and property on
the grand tour-seems to have been in his mind just
now. It was rumoured that his friends, the Northumberlands, were looking out for 'a governor' for their son,
and Horace Walpole had been asked to recommend a
person for the office. But Mr Sterne, after all, was
scarcely the person to be intrusted with the supervision
of youth, and perhaps needed 'a governor' himself.
Later, he himself sketched-and sketched most dramatically-the average type of the men of this class.
On Monday, December the 2ist, came forth Mr
197




LIFE OF STERNE
Sterne's usual Christmas present, the fifth and sixth
volumes of Tristram Shandy, 'price 4s. sewed,' but not
from the hands of the Dodsleys. Becket and De Hondt
were the new sponsors, and he was to have no other
publishers up to his death. We do not know the reason
of this change. But the new volumes were eagerly
welcomed by the public, and here was their author, in
company with them, up in London, once more set free.
A delightful incident always in Mr Sterne's life; and
wistfully looked for with that announcement in the
public newspapers. For it brought vacation-holidaylife itself; and as the books appeared-so, too, as surely
appeared Mr Sterne.
Warburton, down at Prior Park, had read them before
the 27th of the month. Since his letters of advice, we
have not heard of the stormy bishop. But one who could
take his counsel so defiantly as did the 'heteroclite
parson,' who could answer with that independent
speech, ' Laugh I will, my Lord, and that as loud as I
can,' was not likely to be acceptable to such a patron.
Let any one who wishes to know the pattern of man
whom he favoured, turn over the letters of his protdgi,
Hurd, and see how far an abject servility may be carried.
To him Warburton wrote his opinion of the new volumes.
' Sterne has published the fifth and sixth volumes of
Tristram. As to the style and matter, they are about equal
to the first and second; but whether they will restore
his reputation with the publick is another question. The
fellow himself is, Ifear, an irrevocable scoundrel.'
We have, however, Warburton's testimony to their
I98




A SECOND LONDON VISIT


being at least equal in merit to the first two volumes.
Walpole wrote flippantly, they were 'the dregs of nonsense'; this, too, when the 'Story of Le Fever' was
being copied into every journal in the kingdom. There
were few dry eyes as that marvel of true pathos was read.
Noble ladies wrote to Mr Sterne, to tell him how it had
affected them. The famous image of the accusing spirit
was considered all but sublime by Garrick.  These
volumes, however, contained but too many of those
little clap-trap devices with which Mr Sterne had begun
to help himself over chasms, where his own natural
humour had begun to flag. Worse than all, he had
begun to accept typographical extravagances as real
humour-for the whole is sprinkled over profusely with
dashes, stars, imitations of fiddles tuning, wrong pageing
(as though by a mistake of the binder) and a page utterly
blank-a pendant for the black pages which marked
Yorick's death.  Thus we have an odd series of
zigzag lines, like a meteorological registry, and gravely
signed at the corners 'Inv. T. S.' or 'Sculp. T. S.' like a
regular engraving. We have 'dashes' of every length
from an inch long downwards. Still, take them all in all
-dashes, flourishes, and the general miscellany of such
conceits-we can scarcely wish them away. Artificial as
they are, they go to make up the historical character of
the book, and are so many scraps and patches on the
harlequin's jacket. With many weak portions, and a
good deal of what may be called remnilissage, these new
volumes contain some of his happiest scenes. The reception of the news of young Shandy's death-the dialogues
I99




LIFE OF STERNE
between Mr and Mrs Shandy on putting Tristram into
trousers-the story of Le Fever-the elaborations of my
Uncle Toby's military tactics, and the council of war
between him and his lieutenant-are at least equal to Mr
Sterne's best efforts, and should redeem many shortcomings.
In these volumes, too, was found another device to
draw purchasers-the author's signature on the first page
of each volume-a practice which he adhered to in each
of the volumes that followed. This was not even original,
as some reviewers gave out that 'it had been practised by
a certain authoress well-known to the public.' But it was
loudly advertised, and the public were bidden to take
notice-'*** each book is signed by the author.' This
must have entailed much drudgery on Mr Sterne, and
could not have increased the sale materially. If we are
to accept his own statement-one of those unnecessary,
injudicious statements, to which the momentary candour
of Shandeism prompted him-the sale of this instalment
was rather a falling off. Later on, he indiscreetly told
the readers of volumes seven and eight that he had
several 'cartloads' of the two preceding volumes on hand.
He had inscribed these books to 'Lord Viscount
Spencer,' and specially dedicates the story of Le Fever to
Lady Spencer, for which he had no other motive 'which
my heart has informed me of, but that the story is a
humane one.' The books themselves, 'are the best my
talents, with such bad health as I have, could produce,'
and the whole is ushered in by some odd Latin mottoes
-one from Horace, one from Erasmus, and the third
from the decrees of a Council at Carthage.
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CHAPTER XVI


MR STERNE GOES ABROAD
BEARING in mind the conditions under which the new
volumes had been written, it is wonderful they should
have contained any freshness or buoyancy at all. That
last winter's attack had well-nigh cut short Yorick's
career, and all but stayed that stream of volumes which
he hoped would run for forty years. He seems to have
barely struggled through on this occasion, and as he
familiarly tells his readers, when they next met again,
'Death himself knocked at my door.' He owned that
he had a narrow escape, and it did indeed seem marvellous how that spent chest of his could rally from so
many shocks. When he grew convalescent he could
scarcely speak across the table to his friend Stevenson,
and what he spoke of humorously as "' these two spider
legs of mine" (holding one of them up to him)' were
scarce able to support him. These were serious warnings not to be treated lightly. He was himself a little
frightened, and consulted his friend as to whether it
would not be advisable to 'fly for my life.' Eugenius,
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LIFE OF STERNE


if not Hall Stevenson, made his counsel more grateful
by a compliment. "' Then, by Heaven," said Tristram,
"I will lead him (Death) such a dance he little thinks
of.... to the world's end, where, if he follows me, I
pray God he may break his neck." " He runs more risk
there," said Eugenius, "than fiou." 'No wonder the
allusion 'brought blood into the cheek from whence it
had been some months banished.' Mr Sterne seems to
have hearkened to his friend's counsel, and began to get
ready for his travels.
On all sides, the sick Shandean seems to have met
with every kindness and consideration. The new archbishop, Dr Hay Drummond, at once excused him from
all parochial work for a year, or even two years-if
it should be necessary-' humanely,' Mr Sterne adds,
speaking of this indulgence. But a yet more serious
difficulty lay in the way. He was looking to the sunny
south of France to restore his shattered chest, but the
two countries were at war-an insuperable obstacle to
easy continental travelling. It was understood that
peace was not very far off, and many English of quality
had already got as far as Paris-the first division of
their grand tour; and some were staying there for the
season, affiliated to the societies of that brilliant capital.
A little interest would smooth away all difficulties as to
passports; and Mr Sterne, casting about for some
powerful interest, thought of his Tristram dedication and
the great Mr Pitt. The favour was one of no very
special magnitude, but it was graciously accorded, with
'good breeding and good nature,' as he described it.
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MR STERNE GOES ABROAD


The road was now open to him, and he might depart
when he pleased.
His friends, knowing his careless, Shandean turn, must
have thought him ill-suited to travelling alone in a
strange country.  And we may accept that little story
as true, which he tells us of his friend Hall's taking him
aside and asking him how he was situated as to funds.
He had thought of a hurried trip down to Bath, possibly
for the waters; but gave up the idea. He had hoped,
also, to tempt his friend Stevenson to join him. But the
latter was getting his Crazy Tales ready for the press,
and could not go.
Just as he was setting out upon looking over his
finances, he found he was 'twenty pounds short,' and
wrote plainly, and even bluntly, to Garrick, 'Will you
lend me this sum? yours, L. S.' Garrick sent it at once.
But three years after, when Garrick himself was travelling abroad, the actor got very disturbed about this sum,
which he had not as yet been repaid; and wrote home
nervously about it.  'I hope Becket has stood my
friend about what he ought to have received from me
some time ago. I had a draught upon him from Sterne,
ever since he went abroad: pray hint this to him, but
tell him not to be ungentle with Sterne.' Every glimpse
we have of this artist seems to show him in the same
amiable character-yet always tempered with a steady
good sense and firmness.
The very outset of this journey is characteristic. He
confides to us the story of his abrupt departure with a
pleasant confidence, shifting it into the Sentimental
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LIFE OF STERNE
Journey  'I had left London,' he says, 'with so much
precipitation, that it never entered my mind that we
were at war with France; and had reached Dover, and
looked through my glass at the hills beyond Boulogne,
before the idea presented itself, that there was no getting
there without a passport. Go but to/I fe end of a street,
I have a mortal aversion for returning back no wiser
than I set out.' So he got a young French count, whom
he had known in London, to take him in his train as
far as Calais. Mrs Sterne and his daughter were to
join him later at Paris. Finally, all was arranged: and
about Twelfth-day his chaise was at the door. ' Allons."
said I, 'the post-boy gave a crack with his whip, off I
went like a cannon, and at half-a-dozen bounds got to
Dover.'
The regular mail-boats departed, from both sides,
only twice in the week. But small vessels were to be
hired at any time, when the wind served; the exclusive
use of one being secured for about five guineas. He
hurried down to Dover, as we have seen, 'at half-adozen bounds,' and 'never gave a peep into Rochester
Church, or took notice of the dock at Chatham, or
visited St Thomas at Canterbury, though they all three
lay in my way.' He was very ill on the passage, 'sick
as a horse.' 'What a brain! Upside down-hey dey!
The cells are broke loose into one another, and the
blood, and the lymph, and the nervous juices, with the
fix'd and volatile salts, are all jumbled into one mass.'
A faithful description: for the 'Packets' were no more
than open pilot or fishing boats, of small tonnage, and
204




MR STERNE GOES ABROAD


wretched interior accommodation, which, too, was to be
enjoyed at exorbitant and extortionate charges.
Over the incidents of the old posting journeys from
Calais up to Paris hangs a picturesque cloud. They are
full of colour and good scenic effect. The elements are
all gay and pleasant to think on; the long, straight roads,
with the rude-paved causeway in the centre; the interminable files of trees; the old posting-houses, always
welcome; the gay, quaint towns, of which there were but
hurried glimpses; the canals; the snatches of fortification; the women peasants in white caps and sabots,
along the market road; the men peasants, in woollen
liberty caps, blouses, and sabots also; the douaniers,
and the gendarmes, who suggest the drama of 'Robert
Macaire.' We may put in, too, the huge vehicle itself,
built up with mountains of luggage, reeling and swaying;
a hugh, rickety, shabby, yellow argosy, all over dried
dirty mud splashes, which toils up tremendous hills
behind its string of horses, and leaves the music of
bells behind. Wonderful, too, are the Normandy horses,
round, dappled, shining, sprinkled with chocolate, snowy
white, pink-nosed, long-tailed, kicking, lunging recklessly,
shrieking, and biting each other's flanks; flinging their
hind legs over the ropes; in frosty weather crashing
down upon the ice in a living heap, only to be scourged
again to their feet by the terribly sacrilegious being who
sits aloft, holding the reins and discharging imprecations. Picturesque the postilions and estafettes, with
the glazed, shining hats, the gay, embroidered jackets,
and the huge boots, like a species of leathern tub.
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LIFE OF STERNE


Picturesque the motley company of the rotonde, the
coupe', the int/rieur, and the more humble accommodation of the roof; the priests, soldiers, laymen, and
commis-voyageurs, who were lifted,up and set down at
many stages. Picturesque the changing of the Normandy
horses; the halting by night at the Barriere, when the
lanterns flashed upon sleepy faces inside, and gruff
gendarme voices demanded passports.  But, side by
side with the picturesqueness, rises the memory of
grievous and most painful discomfort of weary nights,
acute suffering from the rude stone blocks over which
the heavy machine was dragged, and actual torture from
the cramped position of the limbs; uneasy snatches of
sleep, procured by the agency of the strap that hung
from the roof, and on which the sufferer, leaning his
elbow, sought a temporary relief and a disturbed dream.
The whole economy of this ' service' remained curiously
unchanged up to the days when the Chemin de Fer du
Nord was opened. At this very day we turn into the
old-fashioned inn yard, in the Rue Notre Dame des
Victoires, and see lying up there in ordinary, the yellow
wrecks of these ancient conveyances, in shape and
pattern such as we see them in the prints.
No one was so fitted as Mr Sterne to relish these new
associations.  He had a perfect instinct for all things
French; both in tone, colour and feeling. His account
of his French travels has a marvellous French flavour; is
racy of the air, and colour, and fragrance of French dress
and manners and thought. The change from the rough,
practical Yorkshire life must have been inexpressibly
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MIR STERNE GOES ABROAD


welcome. His sketches of the old towns are dashed in as
oddly and as quaintly as are their projecting gables and
twisted streets.
He entered Calais when it was 'dusky in the evening,'
and left it betimes in the morning, when it was 'dark as
pitch,' so he could see but little of that postern of France.
Later, however, he was to come with his Shandean brush,
and sketch it in. Still, he gives it an amusing descriptive
chapter, founded on 'the little my barber told me of it
as he was whetting his razor.' His Calais chapter, put
together in the true guide-book fashion, is a very pleasant
satire on the crowd of travellers who 'wrote and gallop'd,'
or who even 'wrote galloping,' and deluged the British
public with inventories of all they saw. It is amusing to
see how accurately he has copied M. de la Force's book,
with its meagre guide-book tales about Eustache de St
Pierre, and the number of inhabitants, and convents, and
the exact measurement of the 'great square,' which
'strictly speaking, to be sure it is not, because 'tis forty
feet longer from east to west, than from north to south;'
and how he even leads off with the same antiquarian
flourish of ' CALAIS, Calitium Calusium,' where, however,
with his common inaccuracy in spelling, he has put
Calusium for Calesium.
He got a chaise, and began to post with all speed to
Boulogne. He got to that gay, motley town early on the
morning of his first day in France, and saw from the
windows of his chaise the odd and doubtful miscellany
of his own countrymen, who found it a happy refuge.
The sun was rising and glistening on the bright colours.
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LIFE OF STERNE
of the town as he clattered by, and he marked the speculative glances directed at the new arrival.
These are not many strokes, yet the whole is a picture;
and there is a breath and fragrance which commends
itself to one who will turn back and think of his own first
bright morning in France.
He was gone presently, with fresh horses. "'Geton, my
lad," said I, briskly, but in the most harmonious tone
imaginable, for I jingled a four-and-twenty sous piece
against the glass, taking care to hold the flat side of it
towards him as he looked back; the dog grinned intelligence from his right ear to his left.' And so they clattered
into Montreuil-famous Montreuil of a 'Sentimental
Journey '-than which no town in all France 'looks better
on the map.'
By his Book of French Post Roasv, page 36, he journeyed
' de Montreuil a Nianzpont, poste et demi; di Nampont dt
Bernay, poste; (de Bernay a Nouvion, poste; de Nouvion
da ABBEVILLE, foste.'
At Nampont was the well-known picture of the dead
donkey *;-tobecome famous later; but Abbeville disgusted
him by its wretched inn. At Abbeville, too, he entertained that dismal meditation on the manner of his death,
which he would prefer 'at some decent inn,' where 'the
few cold offices I wanted would be purchased with a few
* I recall the amiable naturalist, Charles Waterton, discoursing by the hour on Sterne, and he used to expatiate on the
scene of the ' dead ass,' declaring that he could write an essay
on it, and that from a naturalist's point of view it was perfect.
He however declared that the notion was copied from Sancho's
ass.
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.MA STERNE GOES ABROAD


guineas,' and not at his own home, among his family; a
wish, it will be seen, but too faithfully fulfilled. All along
his journey he indeed took with him such dismal broodings, over the 'long-striding scoundrel of a scare sinner,'
whom he was flying from. Disgusted with his Abbeville
inn, he was gone at four in the morning. And 'with the
thill horse trotting, and a sort of up-and-down of the
other, we danced it along to Ailly atu Clocers, famed in
days of yore for the finest chimes in the world (Mr
Sterne's own words have a chime of their own-and we
seem to hear the rattling of the harness and the jingling
of the bells)... and so making all possible speed
fromAilly azi Clocleers, I got to Hixcourt;
from Hi.rcourf I got to Pequit^way, and
from Pequzignay I got to An/iens.'
But at night, when the weary traveller was struggling for
a little sleep, a train of comic troubles set in; among
which was 'the incessant returns of paying for the
horses at every stage, with the necessity thereupon of
putting your hand into your pocket, and counting from
thence three livres fifteen sous (sous by sous).' 'Then
monsieur le Curd offers you a pinch of snuff, or a poor
soldier shows you his leg, or a shevaling his box,' all
substantial aids to the rational powers being thoroughly
awakened. Thus, he got on to Chantilly, where he saw
the famous stables of the Prince of Cond6, hurried
through St Denis without turning his head ('richness of
their treasury! stuff and nonsense!')-took a postilion
there 'in a tawny yellow jerkin' At last, late of a
VOL. I.               209                O




LIFE OF STERNE


January evening, at nine o'clock, this 'man, with a pale
face and clad in black,' heard the rough Paris pavement
clattering under his chaise heels, and the whip of the
calimanco postilion sounding 'crack, crack!-crack,
crack!' and saw the 'villanously narrow' streets flitting
by, but dimly lighted, however, and kept saying to himself ' So, this is Paris/-and this is Paris!-humph!Paris! the first, the finest, the most brilliant. The
streets, however, are nasty.' And the pale man in black
was taken, still clattering-still crack, crack!-through
the narrow, winding turns of the Ouartier St Denis-he
looking out with a sort of dazed wonder at what flitted by.
' One-two-three-four-five-six - seven-eight-nine
-ten; ten cookshops! and twice the number of barbers!
and all within three minutes' driving.' A savour, too,
of soup and salad, salad and soup, wafted in at the
window-and the people passing, as well as they can
be made out in the dark by the flare of lanterns at the
corner, seem all to wear swords. This was his first
glimpse of Paris. Most faithful and true to nature is
the description, as those who recall their first entrance
into a strange foreign town will acknowledge.
The Paris of 1762, through which Mr Sterne was
driven the night of his arrival, was the old Paris of the
novels and the theatres; a mass of new glittering
palaces and Places, set down in a huge wilderness of
dark, narrow, winding streets, dangerous alleys, and
culs-de-sac. Apart from the more splendid trophies of
the building, pomp and luxury of the Louis', it was a
tremendous gathering of dangerous 'quarters,' these
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MR STERNE GOES ABROAD


'quarters' being made up of tall, black tenements-old,
crazy and tottering-grim as prisons, and each swarming with a gaunt, squalid, famished population-the
whole caked and crusted together in one corrupt mass.
There were bridges across the Seine: and on those
bridges were crammed together tall, tottering houses,
as in the days of Old London Bridge. All through
those nine hundred streets which Mr Sterne counted,
and which he found so 'villanously narrow, that there
is not room to turn a wheel-barrow,' was a miasma of
frightful odours. He remarked, too, the dim light at
nights - which made those nine hundred streets so
dangerous, for they were lit with some eight thousand
candles in damaged lanterns, which went out every now
and again with a gust, and left all in darkness. He
noted the miserable 'lean horses' which drew the
fiacres; poor broken-down beasts from the stables of
princes and seigneurs.
The social and intellectual state of refined Paris at
this moment was highly curious. Just now had set in
the reign of the philosophers, and that odd affectation of
liberality and democracy which it became the rage to
wear, even among the most exclusive circles, like one
of the new fashionable head-dresses. And though the
Encyclopaedia had been suppressed, the Diderots and
D'Alemberts, and D'Holbachs, fortified by a crowd of
intellectual queens of society, gave laws in many a
salon. But there was a still more propitious tone to
welcome Mr Sterne's arrival. A frantic Anglomania had
set in, which broke out in every way that a mania could
21 I




LIJFE OF,STERANE


manifest itself, taking the shape of monstrous extravagances in hats, wigs, and other articles of dress; also in
a preference for articles of a solid English shape and
pattern; and, more abstractedly, in a passion for English
works of fiction and philosophy, which were translated
wholesale.
Not less welcome was he to the French, than they to
him. He was a Lion to begin with, and above all an
English Lion. I-e was at once, with scarcely an hour's
delay, plunged into the crowd of the wits, philosophers,
deists, actors, courtiers, and abbes.  He was in the
salons in a moment. The doors were thrown open for
him.  His friend Garrick, who was known to many
there, had no doubt stood his sponsor here as he had in
London. But in truth he found hosts of friends already
on the spot. Here was Mr Fox and Mr Macartney,
who afterwards went to China and became Sir George,
and Lord Macartney. and a whole cloud of English of
distinction.' Tristramz, not translated yet, nor to have
that honour for many years to come, had travelled to
Paris before him, and was prodigiously talked of, if not
read. With their characteristic politeness, the new Lion
was at least made to believe that his book was being
devoured by eager Parisians of quality; but of all books
in the world it was least likely to be intelligible to a
Frenchman.
No wonder that he should write home in a tumult of
rapture of the flatteries and distinctions with which he
was welcomed. iHe had been there little more than a
week when the current of dinners began to flow; and he
212




MfR STERNE GOES ABROAD


was already bound a fortnight deep. It was the old
London story over again; but there was here a new
feature, not found in his London programmes-the
'little suppers.' There was the difficulty about his
passports, but when such great persons as the Count de
Limbourgh and Baron d'Holbach had offered the Prime
Minister Choiseul 'any security for the inoffensiveness of
my behaviour in France, which is more than you will do,
you rogue!' it may be conceived everything was soon
made smooth. There seems to have been a difficulty
about his passports, for, as has been mentioned, he had
started before Peace had been formally arranged between
the countries. And very many pleasant scenes in the
'Sentimental Journey '-the journey to Versailles to see
the Minister, and the interview with the Shakspearian
nobleman, who took him for Hamlet's Yorick-must be
shifted back to this first visit. So, too, with his description of the little arts by which he made his way in French
society-how he won over the old Marshal Biron, and
Madame de G., and Madame de Vence, the young Count
de Faineant; and without which he could never have
been invited to M. Popeliniere the great Farmer-General's
concerts.* The Count de Bissie begged that he might be
introduced to him, and when Mr Sterne paid him his
complimentary visit, he discovered him actively reading
Tristram. 'An odd incident,' Mr Sterne calls it, and no
* He merely passed through Paris when on the ' Sentimental
Journey,' and by that time was perfectly at home there. He had
not time, therefore, to be 'making his way ' in society, as he
describes. A later letter, too, shows that it was at this season
that he was attending the Farmer-General's concerts.
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LIFE OF STERNE
doubt flattering, but to a later posterity eminently French.
This nobleman showed him many civilities, and even
allowed him a sort of private admission through his own
apartments, to see the Orleans Gallery. But by the
Baron d'Holbach he was treated with special honours as
Garrick's friend, as well as for his own merits. His
establishment was supported splendidly, his house was
thrown open three days in the week, and was filled with
all 'the wits and the scavans who are no wits.'
To Garrick he wrote with boyish rapture of all these
honours. He was charmed with everything. His health
was marvellously restored for the short time, though he
was ' somewhat worse in the intellectuals, for my head is
turned round with what I see, and the unexpected honours
I have met with here. I-e writes a whole catalogue of
all his doings. He has been to the doctors of the
Sorbonne.  He was just starting with Mr Fox for
Versailles. He had been the night before with Mr
Fox to see Clairon at the Op6ra Comique, in IpfizZnie,
one of her grand parts; and it was natural that one of
his theatrical taste should be enchanted with her
magnificent acting. So delighted was he, that he with
'fifteen or sixteen English of distinction 'joined together
in taking a couple of boxes, which gave them the right of
selecting a special piece for the night. They chose his
cheval de bataille, 'The Frenchman in London,' in which
he was to 'send us all home to supper, hafiiy.' 'Ah,
Preville,' said Mr Sterne, 'thou art Mercury himself.'
So admirable was he in turns and changes of gesture and
actions 'Mercury' would seem to have been a happy
214




IR STERNE GOES ABROAD


personification of his peculiar style.  He must have
known and met Preville often. Later, when Foote and
Sterne were in Paris, the great English actor used to
have the great French actor to supper at his hotel, and
the Frenchman would give imitations of his brethren, to
the great delight of a young fencer, who was also invited.*
The French actor, too, gave suppers to Garrick and
Clairon, and other notorieties.t
Mr Sterne says he could write his friend 'six volumes
of what has passed comically in this great scene these
fourteen days,' and we can accept his statement. We
could wish, too, that even some little instalment of what
had passed so comically, had come down to us in a few
hasty Shandean jottings. He had been introduced to
Mr Foley, of the firm of Foley & Panchaud, whom the
fashionable patronised in banking matters, and found
Foley ' an honest soul.' The banker had of course been
very accommodating to the friend of Mr Fox and of the
'fifteen or sixteen English of distinction.' In short, he
winds up a letter written after one fortnight's stay, in
tumultuous spirits, with a hope, that in a fortnight more
he would 'break through, or retire from the delights of
this place, which in the scavoir vivre exceeds all the
places, I believe, in this section of the globe.'
He was now driving about in state, and was already in
sober black, decently mourning with the Court. And
while at times he drove about in his fiacre-which cost
him a good many livres' hire in the day, and was seen
looking from its window, a pale, thin Englishman in a suit
* Sec Angelo's ' Letters.'  t Garrick's ' Letters.'
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LIFE OF STERNE
of black; at other seasons, we may be sure, he found his
way to the quais, where old books were sold, and began
to bougquincr with his old zest. Mr Heber had a copy of
the Shandean 'Scer'cs,' well thumbed, and with this
inscription, 'L. Sterne, ai Paris, 8 livres.' And when
Mr Wilkes was in Paris, Mr Sterne presented him with
a copy of Barbou's fine edition of Cattdllu, which was
sold with the rest of that gentleman's books.
END OF VOL. 1.


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