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DATE OF ISSUE

DATE OF ISSUE

DATE OF ISSUE

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®&&=rmr
'• ' -y ' '"'yii'r/;
DLOPRSO'U
—
Form No. 4
THE WORKS OF
LAURENCE STERNE
IN TWELVE VOLUMES

T IMITED TO ONE THOUSAND
REGISTERED SETS, OF WHICH
THIS IS NUMBER  Z.Q 

. Laurence Sterne. After a Painting by Sir
Joshua Reynolds

THE WORKS OF
LAURENCE STERNE

VOLUME ELEVEN

THE LIFE

OF

LAURENCE STERNE

PERCY FITZGERALD
Volume I
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY WILBUR L. CROSS

©

THE JENSON SOCIETY
PRINTED FOR MEMBERS ONLY
MCMVI

Copyright, 1904, by
J. F. Taylor & Company

PRESSWORK BY
THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, V. S. A.

CONTENTS

I. Childhood and Schooldays.
II. Dr Jaques Sterne and His Nephew.
III. Love-making and Married Life.
IV. At Sutton. .....
V. *Dr Slop.' 
VI. Cathedral Quarrels.
VII. A Series of Letters.
VIII. A Second Love — ' Dear, Dear Kitty.'
IX. Tristram' Written and Published.
X. Petty Annoyances.
XI. Visit to London.
XII. Fame and Honours.
XIII. Yorick's Sermons. .
XIV. Tristram at His Desk.
XV. A Second London Visit.
XVI. Mr Sterne Goes Abroad.

PAGE 5
27 395183
99
133
165
179 193
205 223
255
287 299325

ILLUSTRATIONS
Laurence Sterne (after a Painting by Sir
Joshua Reynolds)  Frontispiece
Crazy Castle  Page 68

INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION

STERNE was among the first of our men
of letters to be exploited by the press.
The public, naturally enough we should
think nowadays, was very curious to know
what manner of man was that who had
written a book quite unlike any other they
had ever read— how he lived, how he looked,
and what he said; and information was forth
coming from the hacks of literature who very
likely had never seen him. There was, for
example, — to mention again what has been
described and printed in another place — that
first strange notice* from the pen of Dr.
John Hill, a notorious London quack-doctor,
who must have interviewed Sterne's friends
in town for anecdotes half-fact and half-fic
tion. And after his death Sterne became
the theme of more imaginary biography in
a larger style. A wit of some ability, who
signed himself " Tria Juncta in Uno,
* Letters and Miscellanies, Vol. I.

INTRODUCTION
M.N. A., or Master of No Arts," launched
two Shandean volumes under the title of
The Koran, wherein Sterne is made to talk
much of himself in the way of an autobiog
raphy. The author of Tristram Shandy,
according to the fiction, tells the reader all
about his relations with his uncle Jaques,
and whence were derived my uncle Toby,
Le Fevre, and other characters in the gal
lery of eccentrics. And finally he defends
his jests and outspoken style and sets forth
his literary plans, now that author and pub
lic have become tired of Shandeism. There
was to come a ' ' primmer, ' ' a little book for
the instruction of the nobility and gentry in
right conduct; and then a rival to Raleigh's
History of the World — "an historical account
and description of all the several great epochas
of the world, from the creation to the confla
gration.'1'' As a specimen of what might be
done in the final chapters of such a book,
Yorick is made to describe the Last Day
when the firmament shall be melted down.
The Koran has been several times printed
among the works of Sterne. So late as
1853, it was translated into French by
Alfred Hedouin, who had no doubt that it

INTRODUCTION
was genuine Sterne. The Revue des Deux
Mondes congratulated the translator on the
discovery of this interesting autobiography.
The author of The Koran, it is now clear,
was one Richard Griffith. He betted with
a friend that he could write a book that
' ' would pass current on the world as a
writing of Mr. Sterne," and he won (so he
said) the bet.*
At the request of Sterne's widow and
daughter, John Wilkes, the politician,
undertook the authorized life of the great
humorist. According to the plan that seems
to have been agreed upon, John Hall-Ste
venson was to collaborate with him; and
Lydia Sterne was to place in their hands
her father's correspondence and adorn the
work with original drawings. Needless to
say, the Life and Correspondence of the Late
Rev. Mr. Laurence Sterne — as the work
would doubtless have been called — never
materialized. In the years that followed,
Wilkes was overwhelmed with public affairs,
when out of prison; and Hall- Stevenson, too
indolent for sustained literary effort, stopped
* Consult Griffith's Shandean essays entitled Something New
(1772).

INTRODUCTION
work, after piecing together a few biograph
ical scraps for a preface to his Continuation
of Yorick's Sentimental Journey. Lydia
Sterne — now Mrs. Medalle — alone remained
faithful to the undertaking. In 1775, she
published her father's correspondence and
the brief memoir of himself that he set
down out of love for "my Lydia." The
title ran: Letters of the Late Rev. Mr.
Laurence Sterne, to His Most Intimate
Friends, with a Fragment in the Manner of
Rabelais. To Which are Prefix' 'd, Memoirs of
His Life and Family. Written by Himself.
It would be difficult to find in the range
of literary biography a more shiftless piece
of work. How different it is, for example,
from that done by Mrs. Barbauld for Rich
ardson! Mrs. Medalle had at hand the most
intimate materials. The scant memoir of
Sterne's early life down to the publication
of Tristram Shandy might have been sup
plemented easily by information from Mrs.
Sterne, Hall- Stevenson, and numerous friends
at York and in London. The letters covering
the period of Sterne's fame might have been
woven into a continuous narrative, but no
care was taken in the arrangement of them

INTRODUCTION
and they tell no story. To increase the
chaos, the names of Sterne's friends therein
mentioned were at best indicated by an
initial or two, and they were usually re
placed by stars or dashes. Except for a
slight continuation of the memoir and a
few notes to the letters added to the col
lected edition of Sterne's works in 1780,
not much more was to be known about the
great humorist until after the middle of the
nineteenth century.
I have not forgotten, of course, the "prefa
tory memoir" to Sterne's works that Sir
Walter Scott wrote for Ballantyne in 1823.
It is a striking sketch on the paradox that
Sterne is "one of the greatest plagiarists,
and one of the most original geniuses, whom
England has produced." The sketch is bril
liant in color, no doubt just because Scott
had few details to build upon. It may aid
our insight into the personality of Sterne,
but it offers very little new knowledge. To
be sure, Scott stretched out his narrative
with a most interesting account of La
Fleur, the gay valet of Sterne in the senti
mental travels through France and Italy.
La Fleur, so it is said, married a girl at

INTRODUCTION
Montreuil much resembling Sterne's Maria,
and afterwards took a public house at Calais.
The dead donkey, the heart-broken Maria,
the grisette at the glove-shop, the fille de
chambre, " so pretty and petite," are all
declared to be no invention of Yorick's.
Doubtless this is so, but the details that
Scott gave cannot be true. Scott found
them in a miscellany of anecdotes called
An Olio (1814), by William Davis, the bib
liographer. Davis, we are asked to believe,
met La Fleur at Calais and received direct
from him the story of the valet and his
master. The bibliographer must have been
imposed upon by a smart lackey who knew
how to play himself off on credulous Eng
lishmen. As years went by, the figure of Sterne
receded more and more into the past and
the unknown. By the middle of the nine
teenth century, there remained little more
of Sterne than the tradition of a very un-
clerical parson who had written a book or
two that no one should read. " In my
youth," wrote the elder D'Israeli in 1840,
"the world doted on Sterne. * * * Forty
years ago, young men, in their most face-

INTRODUCTION
tious humours, never failed to find the
archetype of society in the Shandy family."
But now, of the three great humorists once
thought sure of lasting fame, only "Cer
vantes," D' Israeli went on to say, "is im
mortal — Rabelais and Sterne have passed
away to the curious." A few years more
and Bulwer-Lytton could steal the striking
incidents of Tristram Shandy, clothe them
with new circumstance, and remain undis
covered. Then followed Thackeray with his
portrait of a "mountebank" and "scamp"
that poured forth "cheap dribble" over
donkeys and old chaises. And the portrait
was accepted as really true. Lytton and
Thackeray mark the time when the great
public had forgotten their Sterne. Read he
was, but mostly by men of letters.
In the meantime some attempt had been
made to reconstruct Sterne as he really was,
from authentic documents. The distinction
of being the first in the field belongs to
Charles Athanase Walckenaer, a French
scholar and scientist of wide contemporary
repute and still remembered. The account
of Sterne that Walckenaer contributed to
the Biographie Universelle in 1825 is indeed

INTRODUCTION
a slight affair when compared with the full
ness of Mr. Fitzgerald. No new knowledge
was given beyond an anecdote or two; but
Walckenaer pointed out the right way for
his successors to pursue. Copious material
for a life of Sterne, he saw clearly, lay em
bedded in the correspondence. Put Sterne's
letters into chronological order, restore the
proper names that Mrs. Medalle left blank
or indicated merely by writing stars ; and
then you have a biography of Sterne. La
menting that he could not perform this ser
vice for Sterne, Walckenaer wrought out of
such knowledge as he had a narrative by far
the most substantial that had yet appeared.
During the next quarter- century, some
fresh facts about Sterne were discovered and
presented to the public. Isaac D 'Israeli, as
has been related elsewhere, saw the letters
of Sterne to Miss Fourmantelle, and five of
them he printed in an essay on Sterne.*
Then came an article in The London Quar
terly Review for April, 1854, giving a sum
mary of all that was then known about
Sterne. The article in question was from
the pen of the editor at that time, the Rev.
* Literary Miscellanies (1840).

INTRODUCTION
Whitwell Elwin. Among Elwin 's many ex
cellent contributions to the Quarterly, this
must be recorded as perhaps the very best.
In the manner of Walckenaer, but on a
larger scale, the entire career of Sterne and
all of his books were reviewed with judi
cious comment by the way. Here for the
first time, Sterne's contemporaries — Gray,
Johnson, Walpole, and Goldsmith — were
cited and quoted for their opinion of Sterne,
the man and author, and a handbook was
consulted for following Sterne in London.
Anent the charge of plagiarism that Scott
insisted upon, it was remarked: "In every
thing which has made his fame — in his char
acters, his style, his humour, his pathos —
there is no more original writer in the
world." Scott took Dr. Ferriar's famous
essay on Sterne's plagiarism without ques
tion. Elwin subjected it to careful exami
nation. Such are the more important sketches of
Sterne that furnish the historical background
to The Life of Laurence Sterne that Mr.
Percy Fitzgerald published in 1864. Com
pared with what was then known of Rich
ardson, Fielding, or Smollett, precise knowl-

INTRODUCTION
edge of Sterne was still scant. He seemed
to defy scrutiny. Walckenaer called atten
tion to the fact that neither Sterne nor his
friends and biographers had ever mentioned
in print the maiden name of Mrs. Sterne.
Who was this Miss L  ? he inquired, and
gave up the search. Elwin thought that the
obscurity enveloping Sterne's twenty years
at Sutton could never be penetrated. Re
ferring to that period, he said : ' ' Not a
single fragment of Sterne's correspondence
appears to have been kept by any one of
his connexions." These are but indications
of the dense ignorance concerning Sterne.
Beginning his work with some preliminary
studies, Mr. Fitzgerald received glad assist
ance from many hands. "Every one," he
said in the preface to the first edition, "was
eager to assist — as though anxious to have
part in what might help to clear the name
of their great countryman. No one seemed
to spare himself in the labour of search,
inquiry, or transcription." And when he
came to state the result, he could justly
say: "As regards materials, the present
Life is, I may say, wholly new — new, in
some twenty letters never before published —

INTRODUCTION
new, in many letters which, though printed,
have been scattered over the wild prairies
of contemporary newspapers and magazines
without indexes — new, in extracts from reg
isters and minute-books — new, in numberless
traits and facts buried in obscure memoirs
of his day. Above all, unexpected light has
been thrown upon Sterne's character, and
many little incidents in his life, by a dili
gent study of his own writings." For the
' ' harsh portrait ' ' from the pen of Thacke
ray was now substituted one in which the
lights and shades were mingled more like
human nature as we all know it. Mr.
Fitzgerald unfortunately never quite forgot
Thackeray; he seemed to think that it was
necessary to contest all that the great nov
elist had said about Sterne — to present, as
it were, a counter portrait, differing in all
respects. In consequence of this strongly
reactionary attitude, he slipped easily over
difficult passages in Sterne's life, excusing
weaknesses and vices and insisting upon the
virtues. The view of Sterne presented by Mr.
Fitzgerald was generally accepted down to
near the end of the century. Bagehot,

INTRODUCTION
Gosse, Traill, Scherer, and a score of other
writers but repeated him in the main. Each
in turn played the part of special pleader.
Had the process of overlooking the vices
for the virtues gone on another step, Sterne
would have been enrolled among the saints.
But Mr. Fitzgerald was to correct the new
tradition that he himself had founded. Even
before publishing the first edition of his Life
of Sterne, he had read in one of Thackeray's
Roundabouts * concerning a strange diary that
Sterne kept for Eliza after the manner of
Swift's Journal to Stella. A "gentleman
of Bath" had placed the precious document
in Thackeray's hands at the time he was
preparing lectures on the humourists of the
eighteenth century. Thackeray still remem
bered the incident and wrote about it, but
he could not recall the name of the ' ' gen
tleman of Bath." Some fifteen years later
Thomas Washbourne Gibbs- — for that was
his name — gave an account of the journal
and other Sterne manuscripts in his posses
sion to a literary society at Bath. Subse
quently all these manuscripts were seen by
* Consult the Introduction to the Journal to Eliza,

INTRODUCTION
Mr. Fitzgerald, who made them the basis
of an article on Mrs. Draper for the Corn-
hill Magazine.* By this time it had become
clear to Mr. Fitzgerald that his portrait of
Sterne needed darker shading. And so he
rewrote the book of twenty years before,
shearing away questionable pages and add
ing much that was new.
It is this new Life of Laurence Sterne
that is here reprinted from the London edi
tion of 1896. Briefer and better in many
ways than the earlier work, it is neverthe
less not without shortcomings. The fresh
manuscript material that led to revision was
not used for all that it is worth. It modified
the biographer's attitude towards Sterne, but
it was not always brought to bear upon ob
scure passages in Sterne's life for clearing up
undoubted mistakes of fact. Mr. Fitzgerald
was also sometimes satisfied, it would seem,
to accept accounts of Sterne manuscripts in
place of direct and careful inspection. Again,
he was unacquainted with the letters of John
Croft to Caleb Whitefoord descriptive of
Sterne's ways in the North just before the
* June, 1887.

INTRODUCTION
country parson came into fame. These York
shire anecdotes,* as I have called them in
the reprint, tell us more about Sterne of
the Sutton period than all else combined.
Besides this, the artistic temperament of
Mr. Fitzgerald is somewhat perplexing to
writers of less vivid imagination. With him
the desire to make his narrative interesting
may be so strong that he becomes inaccu
rate in varying degrees. "It is curious,"
he says, for example, " that three such
famous books as Rasselas, Candide and
Tristram Shandy should have appeared
almost in the same month." Rasselas and
Candide did indeed appear in March, but
Tristram Shandy was then only in the first
stages of composition. It was not published
until December, as the biographer of course
well knew. Akin to this imaginative ren
dering of fact as something better than fact
itself, is a tendency with Mr. Fitzgerald to
fuse in memory different incidents and times.
An instance in point is the description of
Sterne's "last sermon" t — the sermon he
preached before the Duke of York after
* Letters and Miscellanies, Vol. I.
t Vol. II. , Ch. VIII.

INTRODUCTION
"the great races" of 1766. It had been
a gala week in the cathedral city. "The
concourse of people of all sorts during the
race," so ran the account sent up to Lon
don for the newspapers,* "exceeded by far
that of your Cornelys's, which I was at
last winter. The sums won and lost here
must have been immense, for, by a moder
ate calculation, there is left behind for sub
scriptions, lodgings, and necessary expenses,
upwards of 10,000/. Even the Playhouse
(which is the most elegant I have seen out
of London) took above 500/. in the week,
and the night the Duke ordered they took
100/. and upwards. The Ladies, who vied in
splendor with each other, I thought would
never be tired with dancing, for some be
gun on Monday and continued till Saturday
night." After the dancing came Sterne's
sermon. " On Sunday," I quote again
from the newspapers,* "his Royal High
ness the Duke of York went to the Min
ster, where he was received at the West
Door by the Residentiary and Choir, the
Lord Mayor, Recorder, and Aldermen, who
* St. James Chronicle for August 26-28, 1766. The same
article appeared in other newspapers.

INTRODUCTION
ushered him up to the Archbishop's Throne,
where he heard an excellent Discourse from
the Rev. Mr. Sterne." A gorgeous scene
surely, just as it stands, for what may in
deed have been Sterne's last sermon; but
through some confusion Mr. Fitzgerald en
livens the occasion by the presence of "the
young King of Denmark," who "was mak
ing a progress through England " in com
pany with the Duke of York. It was he
and not the Duke, according to Mr. Fitz
gerald, who sat on the Archbishop's throne
in the Minster. ' ' The young King of Den
mark," as one may see on consulting the
biographical dictionaries, was married to
Caroline Matilda, sister to the Duke of
York, in October, 1766, but the marriage
was by proxy. His Majesty kept in Den
mark. The royal progress through England
that Mr. Fitzgerald had in mind took place
in the summer of 1768, some months after
the death of "the Rev. Mr. Sterne."
In reprinting the Life of Laurence Sterne
with this edition of his works, the editor has
interpreted liberally Mr. Fitzgerald's permis
sion to ' ' use my Sterne life in any way that
suits you. ' ' No changes, of course, have been

INTRODUCTION
made in the text except for the correction of
errors that were clearly due to the printer,
and they do not exceed a half-dozen. But
such mistakes in fact as the author has
made or seems to have made are recorded
in footnotes, separated from the author's
own footnotes by brackets. These correc
tions, however, do not extend to the quo
tations from letters and other Sterne docu
ments, which are left precisely as Mr. Fitz
gerald left them. To this plan, however,
one exception has been made. The Latin
letter from Sterne to John Hall- Stevenson,
which was mutilated by the printers beyond
recognition, has been collated with the text
of the first edition. Finally, it has seemed
best to explain some of the more obscure allu
sions, such as those to books and authors now
no longer read by the general public. W. L. C.

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.

Wnscribeo TO THE
REV. WHITWELL ELWIN
Rectob. of Booton, Norwich.

PREFACE

ANY 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 assist
ance 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 ma
terials, letters and other MSS. have come to
light. I have now almost entirely rewritten

PREFACE
the book, which may be practically considered
a new life. Letters of Sterne are scarce and
costly, yet I have gathered here a great num
ber of new and interesting documents hither
to 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 con
strained to admit that Mr Thackeray's view
— harsh as it may seem — had much to sup
port it. Yorick's Journal which I have read
through carefully, is fatally damaging; ex
hibiting a repulsive combination of Phari
saical 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 pre
sumed that licentious writing is almost cer-

PREFACE
tain to be followed by life and practice as
licentious. 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 Rabe
lais, Cervantes, Fielding and Dickens. The
truth is, our author was so capricious and
even fragmentary and disorderly in his sys
tem that comparison is impossible. The
writers just named were really ' monu
mental ' in their handling of their char
acters, 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 cosmopol
itan 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 charac
ters, which have become known and familiar
even to those who have not read a line of
Tristram. These are My Uncle Toby, Mr

PREFACE
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
of these creations, more piquant and attrac
tive 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 pa
thetic 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

PREFACE
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 well-
known criticisms, to Mr Traill's little ac
count 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 emi
nent Frenchman. PERCY FITZGERALD.
Athen^um Club,
February 1896.

LIFE OF STERNE

CHILDHOOD AND SCHOOLDAYS

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 ar
dent loyalist, and took the side of the King
* Born, 1596; master of Jesus College, Cambridge, 1633;
Bishop of Carlisle, 1660; translated to York, 1664; died, 1683.
[The exact date of the archbishop's birth is unknown. He was
elected master of Jesus College on March 7, 1633-4.]

LIFE OF STERNE
in the Civil Wars. He sent the college
plate to His Majesty, for which he was
seized by Cromwell and imprisoned. He
endured much persecution, 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. Es
caping this fate, he attended Laud to the
scaffold. When the good times returned
he was, of course, rewarded for his con
stancy and trials. He, later, assisted in re
vising the Book of Common Prayer, and
has been suggested as one of the many
authors of The Whole Duty of Man.
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 sus
pected 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 an
other son, John, was descended the Irish

CHILDHOOD AND SCHOOLDAYS
branch, connected with the Hills of Kil-
mallock. Of the thirteen, the one we are
most interested in is, of course, Roger,
described by his son Laurence as 'a lieu
tenant 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 viv
idly back to the Reverend Laurence, and he
drew up for his daughter a short and toler
ably 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 cap
tain 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 sutler in Flanders, in

LIFE OF STERNE
Queen Anne's wars, where my father mar
ried 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 improvi
dent lieutenant actually married when on
campaign — married a widow, too — and un
der 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 regi
ment was ordered to Clonmel, the war be
ing now over.
'At which town,' goes on the little story,

CHILDHOOD AND SCHOOLDAYS
' I was born, 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 10th, 1712, new
style.' (Mr Sterne must have had his fam
ily Bible open before him as he wrote): —
' This child was most unfortunate ; she mar
ried one Wimmins in Dublin, who used her
most unmercifully, spent his substance, be
came 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
Elvingtons near York, where his mother lived.

LIFE OF STERNE
She was daughter to Sir Roger Jaques, and
an heiress. There we sojourned for about
ten months, when the regiment was estab
lished, 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 tran
scribed here.) In twelve months we were
all sent back to Dublin. My mother, with
three of us (for she lay in at Plymouth of
a boy, Joram), took ship at Bristol for Ire
land, 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 half's 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. —
10

CHILDHOOD AND SCHOOLDAYS
The colonel was Chudleigh, the lieutenant-
colonel, Whitney, the major, Charles Doug
las: the captains were Hayes, Dawes, Doige,
Moore, Matys, Shelton and Pyott: the lieu
tenants, Sanbeyeres, Yard, Cooksay, Brere-
ton, 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, scar
let coat, turned up with the brightest yel
low facings, a scarlet waistcoat, white trim
mings and white gaiters.*
In Dublin he presently found many of
his name. Here was the Bishop of Dro-
more, 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 or
dered, with many others, to the Isle of
Wight, in order to embark for Spain in
the Vigo Expedition. We accompanied the
* From War Office Records. 11

LIFE OF STERNE
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 embarka
tion 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 re
mained 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,
12

CHILDHOOD AND SCHOOLDAYS
where my father had for some weeks given
us over for lost. We lived in the barracks
at Wicklow one year (1720) 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, be
ing 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 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 Ire
land, where hundreds of the common people
flocked to see me. From hence we fol
lowed the regiment to Dublin, where we
lay in the barracks a year. In this year,
1721, I learned to write, etc. The regi
ment, ordered in 1722 to Carrickfergus in
the North of Ireland, we all decamped, but
got no further than Drogheda, thence or
dered to Mullingar, forty miles west, where
by Providence we stumbled upon a kind
relation, a collateral descendant from Arch
bishop Sterne, who took us all to his castle
and kindly entreated us for a year, and sent
13

LIFE OF STERNE
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
y/ seven days. Little Devijeher here died; he
was three years old. He had been left be
hind 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 be-
/ hind in this weary journey.'
All which is a most piteous story, and
yet dramatic. The poor ensign must have
been well-nigh crushed and heart-broken as
he dragged about his family from place to
place, pausing only for some fresh addition
to his burdens. The little Laurence's won
derful escape from the mill-wheel was, curi
ously enough anticipated in the case of his
great-grandfather, 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 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,
14

CHILDHOOD AND SCHOOLDAYS
though his account had all the particularity
of personal recollection — the people crowding
to see him — and 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 Eliza
beth, 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 pro
vision 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
15

LIFE OF STERNE
me at school, which he did near Hahfax
with an able master with whom I stayed
some time.'
This compliment the master well- deserved,
for at least his judgment and sagacity, wit
ness this instance.
' I remained at Halifax till about the
latter end of that 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 expres
sion made me forget the stripes I had re
ceived.' No doubt the master saw here
some ardour for reputation.
The boys too, could admire the spirit of
their daring companion. A Colonel Long-
ridge, who came to the school shortly after
Sterne left, saw the inscription still unef-
faced. There were then traditions among
16

CHILDHOOD AND SCHOOLDAYS
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 Com-
munium Locorum ex Poetis Latinis Collecta,
and more characteristic evidence of the er
ratic character of the boy could not be im
agined. 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 characters, 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 ' Chris
topher Welbery, ' ' John Turner ' (a York
shire 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 be-
1/

LIFE OF STERNE
low, and signed, ' L. S. ' Then we come on
this: — '/ owe Samuel Thorpe one halfpenny,
but I will pay him to-day.' On another
page we read ' labour takes panes, ' ' 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 fa
vourite school-boy rules of art. One curi
ous, long-nosed, long-chinned face has writ
ten over it, ' This is Lor ence,' 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 every
where is spelled ' Law : Sterne — his book. '
Mr Thackeray, who had no love for
Sterne, describes him at this period fanci-
18

CHILDHOOD AND SCHOOLDAYS
fully enough : — ' Yonder lean, cadaverous ^
lad, who is always borrowing money, telling
lies, leering at the housemaids, is Master
Laurence 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, fur
nishes 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 over
took 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, or
dered to Londonderry, where another sister
was brought forth — Catherine, still living,
but most unhappily estranged from me by
19

NJ

LIFE OF STERNE
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 Cap
tain Philips* in a duel. (The quarrel began
about a goose.) With much difficulty he
survived — though with an impaired constitu
tion, 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
complaining, 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 man
— active 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,
void of all design, and so innocent in his in
tentions that he suspected no one, while you
might have cheated him ten times in a day
* Philips' name occurs in the list of officers in Chudleigh's
regiment as Christopher Philips.
20

CHILDHOOD AND SCHOOLDAYS
if nine had not been sujficient for your
purpose. My poor father died in March,
1731.' This sketch, in spite of its disjointed
style, is as masterly as anything in his
efficient writings. But how clearly the un
derlined 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 fam
ily of his simplicity and amiable credulous-
ness. 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
* [July, 1873.]

LIFE OF STERNE
this speculation as to the original of my Uncle
Toby:— ' 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
Shady" 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 conver
sation 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
22

CHILDHOOD AND SCHOOLDAYS
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 embat
tled 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 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 23

LIFE OF STERNE
of Captain Hinde. It is clear that his father
would have no opportunity of exhibiting such
pleasing eccentricities.

24

DR JAQUES STERNE AND
HIS NEPHEW

CHAPTER II.
DR JAQUES STERNE AND HIS NEPHEW.
BY the time Laurence left Halifax School,
he was close upon nineteen. The posi
tion of the widow and her children was
almost critical. She had, however, well-to-
do connections, one of whom took care of
Laurence. Some pittance,* however, must
have been left to her, for I find that in
August 18th, 1732, she took out administra
tion 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, t Cambridge, and his tutor
was Mr Cannon.
* [ A pension of 20 1, a year. ]
+ Dr Corrie, the master, long since dead, kindly furnished me
with the details connected with Sterne's residence here.
27

LIFE OF STERNE
On July 6th, 1733, he obtained a sizar-
ship, 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, who was also to
obtain celebrity for his loose writings.
''Twas there,' says Sterne, 'that I com
menced 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 bril
liant and equally 'ingenious' companion. In
a letter, Morning Post memoir, it is stated
that 'he read a great deal, laughed more,
and sometimes took the diversion of puz-
sj zhng 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 chest — which clung to him steadily all
28

DR. JAQUES STERNE
the rest of his life. He had a narrow es
cape, 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 scape
grace 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 matricu
lated, 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 Hunting
donshire, and among the candidates was a
thin, spare, hollow- chested youth, with curi
ously bright eyes, and a Voltairean mouth,
who had come from Jesus College, Cam
bridge. 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 20th of August, 1738,
29

LIFE OF STERNE
he was ordained priest, by Dr Samuel Pep-
loe, 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 20th, he was, on the
25th, inducted into the living of Sutton on
the Trent; it was in the gift of Archbishop
Blackburne. In July 1740 he took his
Master's degree. In this year, his uncle
also obtained for' him a Prebend in York
Cathedral, worth about £40 a year; with
this he also held the minor Prebend of
Pocklington, worth only £10. But he had
a house in Stonegate, near the archbishop's
palace, where he could come ' into resi
dence. ' *
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,
* 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.
30

DR. JAQUES STERNE
could be more full of local jealousies and
political turmoil. Much of this was owing
to a leading character of the 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 com
ing to him in the year 1735, by way of
guerdon for the election services of the pre
ceding year. He was, besides, Rector of
Rise, and Rector of Hornsea-cum-Ritson in
the East Riding — offices slender, it must be
confessed, in their emoluments, but still ac
ceptable. By-and-by, in the year 1746, came
the Archdeaconry of Cleveland, and, ten years
later, he was Prebendary of Durham, 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 prosecut
ing his interests when any opening offered.
31

LIFE OF STERNE
He thus wrote to one of his political pa
trons : —
My Lord, — The Archbishop of Canter
bury 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 pro
motion, I hope your Grace will pardon my
application, upon Dr Hayter 's present pro
motion. 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 ser
vice 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
32

DR. JAQUES STERNE
Grace is inclined to honour me with your
notice at this time, there can't long be want
ing 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 IMh, 1749.'
The obsequious divine used some inge
nious 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 se
cure 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 : — 33

LIFE OF STERNE
' My 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 con
tinue 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 ser
vant, Jaques Sterne.
'York, Nov. 10, 1750.'
It was foolish of the nephew to quarrel
with so valuable a patron. But Laurence
was too independent or perhaps too mercu
rial 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
34

DR. JAQUES STERNE
enemy. By my wife's means I got the liv
ing 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 com
pliment 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 a very friendly footing, but at Stilling
ton 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 1760, 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 Falconbridge
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,
85

LIFE OF STERNE
I tried to engage your mother to return to
England with me — she and yourself are at
length come, and I have had the inex
pressible joy of seeing my girl everything
I wished her.
'/ have set down these particulars, 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.

3«

LOVE-MAKING AND MARRIED
LIFE

CHAPTER III

LOVE-MAKING AND MARRIED 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 Miss
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 to
gether. 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
39

LIFE OF STERNE
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 letters — came 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 years later, his daughter pub
lished her father's love letters to her mother,
and incurred much censure for her ' indeli
cacy" 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 in
troduces them with this odd apology, —
' In justice to Mr Sterne's delicate feel
ings, I must here publish the following let
ters 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 confi
dante. This lady — who in some way recalls
the gloomy mediatrix between Dora and
40

LOVE-MAKING
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. 'Fan
ny,' 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 ac
tors in the lovesick little piece. Long, long
after — when Mr Sterne had lived nearly all
his life — it would seem as though the mem
ory of these days had come back to him
pleasantly, for he christened one of his Shan
dean characters 'The Curate D'Estella.'
When Mr Sterne came to York for his
term of residence he lived in rooms in
Stonegate. Long after — some thirty years
after the humorist's death — a young and
struggling actor, the first Charles Mathews,
found himself in York, a member of Tate
41

LIFE OF STERNE
Williams's company. With his wife, he was
lodging 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 Tristram Shandy 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.

LOVE-MAKING
For two years it went on. They were as
'merry and as innocent as our first parents
in Paradise, before the archfiend entered that
undescribable scene,' when suddenly it went
forth that ' My L. ' must return forthwith
to Staffordshire, to her sister Lydia, after
wards 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 exag
gerated, 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 fore
bodings of the best of hearts,' was not far
away, and seeing him in this miserable con
dition, 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
43

LIFE OF STERNE
able to see the face of this mutual friend
but / feel myself rent in pieces ? ' He was
\J 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 S  was presently ' constrained
to leave the room and sympathise in her
dressing-room ; ' which delicious expression
stands for a whole world of sentimental dis
tresses 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 ad
minister other shapes of consolation. Com
forted, 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 pre
pared a little supper. ('She is all attention
to me,' he wrote to his mistress.) But he
44

LOVE-MAKING
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 sen
timental 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 thou
sand penetrating looks at the chair thou
hadst so often graced, then laid down my
knife and fork, and took out my handker
chief and clapped it across my face, and
wept like a child. I do so this very mo
ment, 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 num
ber 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
45

LIFE OF STERNE
ever smiled, had fled from all society; that
she verily believed I was broken-hearted, for
she had never entered the room, or passed
by the door but she heard me sigh 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 pas
sion, '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
[ * Consult the Journal to Eliza. ]
46

LOVE-MAKING
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 hand
some 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 1772. —
Register." 47

AT SUTTON

CHAPTER IV

AT SUTTON

WE next find Mr Sterne and his bride
established at his Sutton Vicarage.
It was a pretty spot, with a mu
sically-sounding name, stretching along the
banks of the Derwent in an irregular street
of nearly a mile long. Elvington, too, was
but a pleasant walk away; and — most ac
ceptable 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 work
ing 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
51

LIFE OF STERNE
'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, passion
ately fond of pleasure, quick, brilliant in his
ideas, ready with jest and epigram; whereas
it is clear that Mrs Sterne was a sober,
matter-of-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 un
derstand 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 god-
* [The sketch given here of Mrs Sterne is not in accord with
what is now known of her temperament. She was far from be
ing a Mrs Shandy. Consult the Letter of John Croft to Caleb
Whitefoord in Letters and Miscellanies.]
52

AT SUTTON
mothers 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 in
quire about it.'
' I wish,' 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 — 1 '
' They are foolish things,' 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 difference, ' 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, 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
53

LIFE OF STERNE
her neck and bow behind. The point of the
matter is that below are written in Sterne's
recognisable hand these words : — 'Mrs Sterne,
wife of Sterne.' In the corners is 'Pigrich
Fecit.' 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 en
graved for his etude, ' Laurence Sterne, sa
personne, et ses ouvrage.' Nathanial Haw
thorne mentions that he saw in a shop in
Boston — the English Boston — a pair of por
traits of Mr and Mrs Sterne, and adds that
he thought the lady disagreeable-looking.
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!
54

AT SUTTON
'tis not so bad a tone. Diddle, diddle, diddle,
diddle, dum — twaddle-diddle, tweedle-diddle,
twiddle-diddle, twoddle-diddle, twuddle-did-
dle — prut — trut — krish — krash — krush.'
He said long after, as to matrimony,
' My wife is easy, 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 ' re
tired, 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
55

LIFE OF STERNE
registry, and made the following truly Shan
dean entry: — 'A. Dom. 1741. £. s. d.
' Laid out in sushing the house,  12 0 0
* In stuccoing and bricking the hall,  4 6 0
' In building the chair-house,  5 0 0
* In building the parr. chimney,  3 0 0
' Spent in shaping the rooms, plastering, underdrawing, and
jobbing, God knows how much/'
Another entry runs: —
'In May 1745, a dismal storm of hail fell
upon this town, and upon some other adja
cent ones, which did considerable damage
both to the windows and corn. Many of
the stones measured six inches (!) in cir
cumference. It broke almost all the south
and west windows, both of this house and
my vicarage at Stillington. L. Sterne.'
Not content with this prodigy, he later
sets down among the marriages and births,
another marvel: —
' Hail fell in the midst of summer as
large as a pigeon's egg, which unusual oc
currence I thought fit to attest under my
own hand. L. Sterne.'
56

AT SUTTON
These must have been Shandean jokes.
This parish register was also the receptacle
for his horticultural notes.
' Mdm. — That the Cherry Trees and Espal
ier Apple Hedge were planted in ye gar
dens, October ye 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
1742, the sum of £8, 15s. 6d. L. Sterne.'
And in 1743, we have another entry: —
' Laid out in enclosing the orchard and
in Apple Trees, in ye year 1743, £5. The
Apple Trees, Pear and Plumb trees, planted
in ye Orchard ye 25th day of October,
1743, by L. Sterne.'
He took a great interest in farming, and
made many 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 him
self:— ' I have taken proper measures to get
57

LIFE OF STERNE
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 expecta
tion of about five weeks ago. It is with
the uttermost difficulty, and a whole morn
ing's waste of my lungs, that I have got
sufficient men to bid up to what you had
offered — namely, twelve pounds.' '/ have
put them off, ' he says, ' under pretence of
writing you 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 pat
ent given to the midwife.
* See Gentleman's Magazine, vol. 63, pt. 11, p. 587. This
letter is not included in the published collection. There are
many spurious letters — witness those in the European Maga
zine — so feebly and clumsily done as to ensure detection at
a glance. But this ' Hay ' letter bears the Sterne ' cachet '
unmistakably. [The ' Hay ' letter has been reprinted in this
edition. It is numbered XX.]
58

AT SUTTON
And well might his sturdy flock be sur
prised at the lean, lanky, and pale-faced
figure, who seemed utterly without 'stam
ina' in the chest. In that curious face
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 par
ish 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 from these charitable loans, he was
in self-defence driven to the device of keep
ing some wretched, worn-out hack, not worth
the borrowing.
It is wonderful how one of his delicate
59

LIFE OF STERNE
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 Cox-
would were of service, and gave strength to
that weak and ill-put-together frame.
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 gaiete de cceur '
must have made the Parson of Sutton a
60

AT SUTTON
delightful companion; but with the many-
headed of the district — the dull, the starched,
the unnoticed, the ill-natured — 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 some
times 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 devo
tional 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. [ The Soul's Errand is
the second title to The Lie, a poem attributed to Sir Walter
Raleigh.] 61

LIFE OF STERNE
THE UNKNOWN O.
Verses occasioned by hearing u Pass-Bell.
By ye Revd. Mr St— n.
Hark6 my gay Fr yi solemn Toll
Speaks ye departure of a soul ;
'Tis gone, y* s all we know — not where
Or how ye unbody soul do's fare —
In that mysterious O none knows,
But © alone to wm it goes ;
To whom departed souls return
To take their doom to smile or mourn.
Oh ! by w* glimmering light we view
The unknown O we're hast'ning to !
God has lock'd up ye mystic Page,
And curtained darkness round ye stage !
Wise 8 to render search perplext
Has drawn 'twixt ys O & ye next
A dark impenetrable screen
All behind wch is .yet unseen !
We talk of » , we talk of Hell,
But w' 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 O on trust.
62

AT SUTTON
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 be —
Thus launch'd fm life's ambiguous shore
Ingulph'd in Death appears no more,
Then undirected to repair,
To distant O s we know not where.
Swift flies the % , perhaps 'tis gone
A thousand leagues beyond the sun ;
Or 2ce 10 thousand more 3ce told
Ere the forsaken clay is cold !
And yet who knows if Fr we lov'd
Tho' dead may be so far removed ;
Only yc vail of flesh between,
Perhaps yy watch us though unseen.
Whilst we, y11 loss lamenting, say,
They're out of hearing far away ;
Guardians to us perhaps they're near
Concealed in vehicles of air — •
And yet no notices yy give
Nor tell us where, nor how yy live ;
Tho' conscious whilst with us below,
How much yms desired to know —
As if bound up by solemn Fate
To keep the secret of ylr state,
To tell y11 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
W' he thinks proper to conceal ? 63

LIFE OF STERNE
It is enough y' I believe
Heaven's brightr yn I can conceive ;
And he y* makes it all his care
To serve God here shall see him there !
But oh ! w* O s shall I survey
The moment y' I leave ys clay ?
How sudden ye surprise, how new !
Let it, my God, be happy too — *
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
* When the French critic M. Stapfer was in England some
five-and-twenty years ago, a Guernsey friend of his — vice-
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 pleas
ing, 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 remem
bered, 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.
64

AT SUTTON
Yorkshire clergyman, if the living became
vacant he would make her a compliment of
it. This was Stillington, which lay conve
niently 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.'
In due course the vacancy came, and the
The heavens were enlighten'd with abundance of smaller lumi-
narys 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 yc 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 yc 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 philoso
phy there profess'd was reckon'd the most excellent in yc 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 pat
tern of Rasselas.
[This ' essay,' under the title of A Dream, is reprinted entire in
the second volume of Letters and Miscellanies.] 65

LIFE OF STERNE
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 13th of March the formal mandate for
his induction was issued. He had thus be
come a sort of small pluralist, holding three
prebends 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
* On the 3d of March a dispensation had been granted to him
to hold these various livings together.
66

AT SUTTON
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 1st. — 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, 1745. 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 before Mr Sterne became known to
the world. This seems but a late flowering
and a long interval for a man of genius to
* [Sterne had no sister of this name. But the mother and a
sister of Mrs Sterne were named Lydia.] 67

LIFE OF STERNE
devote to such homely duties. But, as it
will be seen, our vicar contrived to live in
sufficient bustle, hurrying constantly into
iy/ 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 — companions, 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 well-bred gentle
man.' 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
68

Crazy Castle

AT SUTTON
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 clois
ters, propped up with buttresses, breaking
out in the centre in a large clump of build
ing. At one end was a tall, square, sturdy
tower; on the other rose a thin clock- turret,
with a rusted cupola (such as are to be seen
in old Belgian country-houses), surmounted
by a conspicuous weather- cock. This pic
turesque 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 innu
merable 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 col
lege, 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
69

LIFE OF STERNE
curiosity, and it is believed that this 'inge
nious young gentleman' was one of the un
holy brotherhood.*
With this godless fraternity has Mr
Sterne's name been associated, and cer
tainly without warrant, t At the same time
it must be conceded that, by his close fel
lowship 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 his friend Hall,
he was familiar with one of the secret pass
words, as it were, of this Medmenham So
ciety. \ Mr Hall had travelled much, and
had taken the necessary degree, by making
the Grand Tour many times. But unfor
tunately for his reputation, the course his
reading took, and the society into which his
ideas led him, seem to have hopelessly de-
* Such as are curious about the manners and habits of thiJ
strange society may consult the New Foundling Hospital for Wit,
where there is a description of the ' Abbey ' by Mr Wilkes ; also
Johnstone's Chrysal, with the key given in Davis's Olio.
f See an entertaining Topographical Article in the Quarterly —
on Berkshire.
t See Tristram Shandy, vol. v. chap. 36, beginning — 'An obser
vation of Aristotle's,' etc.
70

AT SUTTON
praved his tastes, even below the degraded
standard then fashionable with men of the
world; and, in the year 1762, he so far out
raged public decency as to put forth a col
lection of metrical stories, entitled Crazy
Tales, which Mr Elwin, the late accom
plished 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 representa
tive of the author's family, John Wharton,
Esquire, of Skelton Castle, Member of Par
liament for Beverly,' — who, 'with the utmost
liberality and politeness, presented the pub
lisher with corrected copies of the greater
part of these works.'
It is well known that it was in the y
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
71

LIFE OF STERNE
in mind that the coarseness and grossness of
three centuries ago was regarded simply as
humour, as a truthful statement, or, as we
say, calling a spade a spade. Among the
lowest classes there are allusions and state
ments 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 Serees of Bouchet,
Mr Sterne browsed ; here he found the nasal
literature, as it might be, and many a queer,
comic story, which he later ' adapted ' for
Shandy. *
Sterne liked Crazy Castle. From many
quarters of the Continent his heart, untrav-
elled, 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 hon
ours 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
* Dr Ferrier actually came upon the copy of the Series which
Sterne had used at Skelton.
72

AT SUTTON
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 seized with the fatal pesti
lence of pulling down and setting up. The
unholy work was carried out wholesale, and
with a sort of steady frenzy. The magnifi
cent wooded glen which lay, as in a bowl,
was flooded, the woods mercilessly cut down,
and the strange rococo series of terraces bar
barously 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
73

LIFE OF STERNE
frowning, could not but enjoy his company.
' She swears you are a fellow of wit, though
humorous,— a funny, jolly soul, though some
what 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 hypo
chondriacal 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-fash
ioned clock- to wer 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 direc
tion regulated the destiny of the day. This
was a favourite subject for standing jests
between them. To this friend Mr Sterne
could be as Shandean, when scribbling, as
74

AT SUTTON
he was to the public when spinning Tris
tram. ' Touched with thee (sensibility),'
writes Yorick in his Sentimental Journey,
'Eugenius draws my curtain when I lan
guish — hears my tale of symptoms, and
blames the weather for the disorder of his
nerves. '
Once, when Crazy Castle was full of com
pany, 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 pre
sented itself. He sought out an active
urchin of the place, encouraged him over
night, 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 joy
fully observed the change; hurried down,
ordered his horse, and took a smart ride,
' execrating east winds : ' Hall Stevenson 75

LIFE OF STERNE
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 re
joice from my heart down to my reins,'
he writes from 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 hereto
fore, we will give these gentry a drubbing,
and turn them for ever out of 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 brother-
* This device is also related of the ingenious ' Tom ' Sheridan.
76

AT SUTTON
hood under the style and title of ' Panty,'
which was complimentary to his powers of
humour, but scarcely to his cloth — 'Panty'
being a familiar contraction from ' Panta-
gruel,' 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 com
pany, though scarcely so steady a member
of the order as some of the rest. ' Who
after associating with most of the great per
sonages 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 for
tune, was exalted, through their influence, in
the forty-seventh year of his age, to an en-
signcy, which he actually enjoys at present
in Gibraltar.'
There was also belonging to the society
a very eccentric character named ' William
Hewitt, ' more familiarly known as ' Old
Hewitt,' who died the year before Mr
Sterne died. Readers of Smollett's Pere
grine will recollect a foot-note devoted to
77

LIFE OF STERNE
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 Euge
nius 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
78_

AT SUTTON
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.

79

4 BR SLOP'

CHAPTER V

DR SLOP '

THE cathedral society at York had natu
rally attraction for the Vicar of Sutton.
We find in his Shandy what are cer
tainly personal sketches of his brother can
ons 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, 1710, and took his
degree at Rheims and Leyden.* He mar
ried 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.t The people of York were well
accustomed to that ' little, squat, uncourtly
figure, of about four feet and a half perpen-
* [John Burton was born at Ripon in 1697. He took the degree
of M.B. at Cambridge and that of M.D. at Rheims.]
tDr Belcomb assured Dr Fender that the luckless physician
«i*vays bore this nick-name. 83

LIFE OF STERNE
dicular 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
vertebra? of a little diminutive pony.' He
was often seen on the 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,t 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
* Dr Belcomb also assured Dr Ferrier that this tradition was
long kept alive in York.
t [Exactly 1756-57.]
84

'DR SLOP'
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 Tristram 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.* He is there represented as some
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 antiqua
rian of much learning and research — witness
his great tome of the Yorkshire ' Monas
teries.' He was both F.R.S. and F.S.A.
With much industry he had collected a
vast mass of papers on Yorkshire antiqui-
* See Life of Romney. 85

LIFE OF STERNE
ties, which near the close of his life he dis
posed 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 £5000. He had un
luckily 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 prac
tical 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 intro
duced to the French ' chirurgien- accouch
eurs. '
The 'five-shillings book' was entitled, An
Essay Towards a Complete New System,
86

'DR SLOP'
and is ushered in by complimentary letters
from various learned societies. Even in this
inappropriate domain he contrives to bring
in a sort of political protest. ' This appro
bation,' he writes in his preface, 'of differ
ent societies is no less a satisfaction than an
honour done me, as it will certainly be a
means of depriving those who abound with
ill-nature, envy and detraction of their great
est pleasure.'
There was a Scotch Dr Smellie, distin
guished 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, repre
senting the human figure, on which he used
to lecture to his students. Dr Burton, in
addition to his other quarrels, became em
broiled with this professor, whom Mr Shandy
clearly alludes to under the name of 'Adri-
anus Smelvogt,' and who had introduced to
the public a petrified child, which he called
' Lithopasdus Senonensis. ' Dr Smellie, how
ever, fell into the mistake of taking the de
scription, ' Lithopsedus Senonensis, ' for the
proper name and country of some learned
medical pundit, and actually quotes him in

LIFE OF STERNE
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 Lithopaedus's name
of late in a catalogue of learned writers in
Dr  ,' or by mistaking LithopEedus for
Trinecavellius, from the too great similitude
of the names.'
He also wrote a work on the ' Non-
naturals,' a topic which wras 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, how
ever, what his creed was. In this dedica
tion to Archbishop Herring, he certainly
speaks of ' your warm attachment to our
laws and religion,' and 'of the days of igno
rance, superstition and slavery.' And in a
letter to Dr Ducavel, he writes of the
Archbishop of Canterbury as being 'so de
servedly 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
88

'DR SLOP'
great ' infirmary question. ' During the crisis
of 1745, a subscription was set on foot for
defence purposes, to which Mr Sterne gave
£10 — a large sum for a poor vicar — and his
uncle £50. News had come that the High
landers 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 defi
ance.' 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
Evening Post, announcing that there was
the greatest satisfaction at the arrest, which,
however, was not the case, as the physican
was very popular. Any violent and irregu
lar proceedings followed on the part of Dr
Sterne, who signed many warrants against
* Burton's narrative — Liberty Endangered. 89

LIFE OF STERNE
his victim. It was later stated that he had
even suborned witnesses. The luckless doc
tor was sent to London, kept in prison for
a year, and at last discharged, much suffer
ing in person and pocket. Lord Carteret
addressed a letter of reprimand to the cler
gyman for his excess of zeal, and the cor
poration refused to grant him their freedom.
In 1751, the doctor got into another squab
ble 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 1772, having survived his enemy,
the author of Shandy, 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 awk
ward 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.
90

'DR SLOP'
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 inveigh
ing against the clergy, 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 sup
plied by the birth of a daughter, which we
find entered in the Sutton register: — 'Bap
tised 1747. December 1st. — Born and bap
tised Lydia, daughter of the Rev. Mr Sterne
and Elizabeth his wife.' This was Lydia the
second — both parents having a penchant for
91

LIFE OF STERNE
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 be
ing the token of his affection he selected to
send to one of the earlier objects whom he
distinguished with his attentions. The sub
ject was — ' The Case of Elijah and the
Widow of Zarephath considered: A Charity
Sermon, preached on Good Friday, April
17, 1747, in the Parish Church of St
Michael-le-Belfrey, before the Right Hon
ourable 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 'that
wasted not,' and the cruise of oil that did
not ' fail. ' The Shandean handling, as ap
pfied to sermons, was to appear some years
92

'DR SLOP'
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 congre
gation 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
93

LIFE OF STERNE
Great Master of Nature,' and the quotation,
not so well worn then as now, —
The man that hath not music in his soul,' etc.,
— rdeclaiming it as he had no doubt heard it
declaimed upon the York boards.
But far more important was the 'Assize
Sermon,' 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 Tristram 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 in
geniously fitted to the sermon (which was
written long before), and the sermon itself
not being originally intended for such adorn
ments, show how very dramatic in their
character were those serious compositions,
and how they held in themselves, at a mo
ment's notice, as it were, all the elements
of Shandean comedy. 'Can the reader be-

'DR SLOP'
lieve,' says Yorick, with a pardonable ef
frontery, 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.
18. 'Trust? trust we have a good con
science ! ' On which ' quoth my father, '
very happily, ' you give that sentence a
very improper accent, for you curl up your
nose, man, and read it with such a sneering
tone, as if the parson was going to abuse
the Apostle.'

95

CATHEDRAL QUARRELS

CHAPTER VI

CATHEDRAL QUARRELS

DURING the course of his long resi
dence 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 para
graphs 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
99

LIFE OF STERNE
ungrateful person.' This is likely enough
the true reason for the breach.* The un
grateful 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 dissen
sions, 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 Lau
rence, 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 speci
men 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
* [For coffee-house gossip on the breach, see the Letter of John
Croft to Caleb Whitefoord in Letters and Miscellanies.]
100

CATHEDRAL QUARRELS
of preaching, to allow him to engage a sub
stitute, 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 un
conceivable that his uncle should have inter
posed 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 Book
seller who had spoke to me last week about
Preaching yrs, 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 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,
* [For the complete text, see Letter V. in Letters and Miscella
nies.] 4 101

LIFE OF STERNE
that you may depend upon it, no considera
tion whatever would have made me offer
my service, nor would I upon any Invita
tion 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 Berd-
102

CATHEDRAL QUARRELS
more 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 1
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 things, (except Inviting us to
the same Dinner) have generally bore them
selves 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 mat
ter 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 gen1, it is not only more for
the credit of the church, but of the Pre-
bendy himself who is absent, to have his
Place supplied by a Preb? of the church
when he can be had, rather than by An
other, tho' of equal merit.
' I told you above, that I had had a con
ference with Hilyard upon this subject, and
103

LIFE OF STERNE
indeed should have said to him, most of
what I have said to you. But that the
Insufferableness of his behaviour (sic J 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 irk
some Letter, than by giving you a particu
lar Ace* of it and the manner I found my
self 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 ace* I
have given of the hint in your Letter, w^*1
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, 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 Cleve
land not caring to preach his turn, as I
104

CATHEDRAL QUARRELS
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 know — What'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 Impu
dence. 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 satis
fyed him as to the grounds of his scruple
(tho' not of his Folly) and therefore be-
105

LIFE OF STERNE
seeches me to let the matter pass, and to
preach the turn. When I — as Percy com
plains in Harry ye 4 —
All smarting with my wounds
To be thus pesterd by a Popinjay,
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.

106

CATHEDRAL QUARRELS
' I am, Revd Sir, with true Esteem and
Regard of wch I beg you'l consider this
letter as a Testimony,
'Yr faithful & most affte
' Humble Serv*
' Lau : Sterne.
'P.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 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 use — so beg it
may not hurt him by any ill Impression,
as he has convinced it proceeded only from
lack of Judgm*.
'To ' The Reverend Mr Blacburn,
'Arch-Deacon of Cleveland,
' at Richmond. ' 107

LIFE OF STERNE
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 corre
spondence, however, reveals a regular pic
ture 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 bot
tom of my Heart than there was of desire
(as I hinted then) to have your good opin
ion — you tell me I have that, and I assure
you there is no Man's I am prouder of: —
How much I am sure it will add to what
little reputation I have, I will not offend
108

CATHEDRAL QUARRELS
you by declaring; I am certain that a Per
son 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 Pul
pit, 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
109

LIFE OF STERNE
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 Hil
yard, 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 inclina
tion or even a power to remember, had you
not desired it  ' * etc. , etc. , etc.
His uncle soon found out what was go
ing on, and interposed. For malignity and
family animosity his letter can hardly be
matched. He wrote: — 'Decern. 6, 1750.
' Good Mr Archdeacon, — 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 Hilyard's employ
ing the last time the Only person unaccept
able to me in the whole Church, an ungrate
ful and unworthy nephew of my own, the
* [The conclusion of this letter the editor is unable to dis
cover.] 110

CATHEDRAL QUARRELS
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 un
happy Vicar of Sutton. One of the most
unfortunate, as well as the most undeserved
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,
* This later portion is lost, but refers to the well-known convent
at Micklegate Bar which Dr Sterne had attacked. These interest
ing letters are in the Museum. [The letter, of which Mr Fitzgerald
thought a part lost, is given entire in this edition of Sterne's
Works. It is numbered VII.]
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. [The letter is not exactly endorsed;
but in another hand is written, beneath the date, " Mr Jaques
Sterne, reprobation of his nephew Yorick and mention of the
Popish minnery at York." It will be observed that Mr Fitzgerald
misread the so-called endorsement.] Ill

LIFE OF STERNE
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 Pinker-
ton, — ' 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 sub
scription 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 epigram-
matically, 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 sim
ple facts of Mrs Sterne's distress, and the sub
scription raised for her. It was quite con-
* 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 hira a capital subject for the cheap
'clap-trap' utterance that would 'take' in a public lecture-
room, 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. 112

CATHEDRAL QUARRELS
sistent 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 con
sidered that he was a poor, a very poor par
son, struggling to support his own family.
Even the 'deep sentiment' that it so ridi
culed with the 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 inordi
nate 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 busi
ness, 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
* [This letter, of which only parts with variations from the true
copy are given here, is printed entire from the manuscript in
Letters and Miscellanies. See Letter VIII.] 113

LIFE OF STERNE
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 ser
vant "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 could do no
good, but might do hurt), 1 begged in my
turn to be excused, and as you had already
refused so unexceptionable an offer of hear
ing 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
114

CATHEDRAL QUARRELS
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 resolu
tion I have kept for three years and should
have continued so to the end of my life,
laying open the nakedness of my circum
stances, 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 alter
native I went directly to my old friend and
College acquaintance, our worthy Dean, and
laid open the hardship of my situation, beg
ging his advice what I should best do to ex
tricate 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. 115

LIFE OF STERNE
'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. ' 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 situa
tion could receive, although the whole incon
venience of it may be thought to fall as in
tended, 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 in a com
plaint against your Nephew if you are de
termined 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 ? How
ever it may seem to others, the case appearing
in this light to me it has determined me con-
116

CATHEDRAL QUARRELS
trary 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 nar
rative of my Behaviour, and my Mother too
to disown you for the future: being deter
mined 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
16 without one shilling in the world, and I
may add at that time, 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 sensi
ble. 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
in

LIFE OF STERNE
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 you
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 with 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 hast
ened 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 "rep-
118

CATHEDRAL QUARRELS
resented to her the inhumanity of a mother
able to 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
119

LIFE OF STERNE
time she was with us, to turn her thoughts
to some way of depending upon her own
industry, in which we offered her all imag
inable 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 sup
port her till business fell in, or, if she would
go into a milliner's shop in London, my
wife engaged not only to get her into a
shop where she should have £10 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 opportu
nity of recommending her to the family of
one of the first of our nobility, she under
took to get her a creditable place in it
where she would receive no less than £8 or
£10 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
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CATHEDRAL QUARRELS
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 gentle
man, she would not disgrace herself, but
would live as such. Notwithstanding so ab
surd an instance of her folly, which might
have disengaged me from any further con
cern, 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 conve
niently spare.
' It is not usual to take receipts for pres
ents made, so that I have not many vouch
ers 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 ex
pectation of such acknowledgements as she
ought to make. But this I solemnly de
clare, upon the nearest computation we can
make, that in money, cloaths, and other
presents, we are more than £90 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
121

LIFE OF STERNE
remember, was a small bill drawn for £3
by Mr 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 disap
pointment, 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 who 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
farthing from me, that she carried with her
ten guineas in her pocket which I had given
her but two days before. If she could for
get such a sum, I had reason to remember
it, for when I gave it I did not leave my
self 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
122

CATHEDRAL QUARRELS
concealment I refer again to yourself. But
I suppose they were the same as in my sis
ter'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 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 per
petual 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 hon
our; to which you then answered, "/ was
the more bound to take care that the Lady
should be no sufferer by such a mode of her
confidence." She never shall through my
fault; though she has through my misfor-
123

LIFE OF STERNE
tune 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 educa
tion 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 evi
dence 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 my
child, that Mrs Sterne would be as much
distressed and as undeservedly so as any
widow in G*. 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 no power in equity or in con
science to do so; and I will add in her
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CATHEDRAL QUARRELS
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 pre
vent 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 mis-
125

LIFE OF STERNE
taken, for though she heard me with atten
tion, 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 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 my sister to fix at Chester,
where though she had little just grounds
for such an expectation, she found me bet
ter than my word, for we were kind to her
above our power, and common justice to
126

CATHEDRAL QUARRELS
ourselves, and though it went hard enough
down with us to reflect that we were sup
porting both her and my sister in the pleas
ures 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 con
tinual 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; 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 £20 a year was
more than equal to 30 here, besides the dis
count of having her pension paid in England
127

LIFE OF STERNE
where it was not due, and the utter impos
sibility 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 right 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
£20 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 strug
gle 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
128

CATHEDRAL QUARRELS
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 of a 4th part of what the govern
ment 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 per
form 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 num
ber of the last. For notwithstanding the
hardest measure that ever man received
continued on your side without any provo
cation on mine, without ever once being
told my fault, or conscious of ever com
mitting one which deserved an unkind look
from you, notwithstanding this and the bit
terness of 10 years unwearied persecution,
that I retain that sense of the service you
did me at my first setting out in the world,
129

LIFE OF STERNE
which becomes a man inclined to be grate
ful, and that, I am, Sir,
'Your once much obliged though now
'Your much injured nephew,
' Laurence Sterne.
' Sutton on the Forest,
'April 5, 1751.'*
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.'

* '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, 1851.
A copy of a letter wrote by Laurence Sterne, author of Tristram
Shandy, to his uncle, Dr Sterne, April 5, 1751. [The copy of this
letter is now in the British Museum. Mr Fitzgerald clearly mis
read the proper names. See Letter VII in Letters and Miscel
lanies. ] 130

A SERIES OF LETTERS

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 Hud
son of York kindly placed the whole un
published 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 con
stant expeditions to York for dinners, par
ties and concerts, of which Mrs Sterne seems
to have had her fair share. When her hus
band went to Newborough to meet Lord
Falconberg, she went too. The next even-
133

LIFE OF STERNE
ing 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 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 con-
tain'd — which 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
134

A SERIES OF LETTERS
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 impro
priety of my coming just at this crisis.
You have happily now concluded this affair,
wch has been so often upon the eve of break
ing 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'd upon me, and
should it ever come to light that I had
posted over upon this termination of yr dif
ferences, I know it would naturally alarm
them, and raise a suspicion I had come over
to embroil matters. Things being already
settled, 'twould be thought I could have no
other errand. But you seem to have a for-
boding 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
135

LIFE OF STERNE
come to-night I must stay all night, w*4
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 un-
forseen objection shd arise in either party,
when you may whistle me to you in a mo
ment'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 judgm1 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 abili
ties, 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
136

A SERIES OF LETTERS
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 welcome news to yr friends, that every
thing was happily concluded. Dear sir, ac
cept 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 col
lected all your letters, and burn't them be
fore 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 Tay
lor, ' and others, and seems to have had his
hands full both at home, at Sutton, and
when he came into York. At this time
137

LIFE OF STERNE
too, reappears that poor, tramping Agnes
Hebert, his mother, who has come to
York — possibly after the Irish school bank
ruptcy — 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, to 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 contents of yrs again and again,
and after the coolest and most candid con
sideration of every movement throughout
this affair, the whole appears, what I but
too shrewdly suspected, a contexture of
plots agst yr fortune and person, grand
mama standing first in the dramatis per-
sonae, the Loup Garou or raw head and
bloody bones to frighten Master Jacky into
138

A SERIES OF LETTERS
silence, and make him go to bed with
Missy, supperless 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 (wcb I
trust will be soon offered by you to Mrs
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 be
tween you. Such a one is not Stanhope,
nor could be in honor either as their kins
man or council. So I beg leave to repeat
139

LIFE OF STERNE
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 opportunity of
an honorble 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 Yrs,
' L. Sterne. '
Presently Mrs Sterne was 'taking a wheel'
into York to dine with Mr Bridges, a pleas
ant friend of her husband's, who was Mr
Sterne's fellow artist in a characteristic cari
cature, 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 opera
tor here, though a very penetrating man,
140

A SERIES OF LETTERS
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, re
ferred to that Mr Stanhope, the solicitor,
whom Mr Sterne had before painted in as a
sort of arch- villain in the piece. ' 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 perfect freedome, 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,
141

LIFE OF STERNE
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,
' Yrs 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 con
cerned 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 hin
drances and pretexts. The friends appear to
have stayed at each other's houses, and the
whole turn of the correspondence is easy
143

A SERIES OF LETTERS
and agreeable. Mr Sterne's name for his
clerk, ' my Amen, ' is quaint enough.
' Dear Sir, — I see how your affairs ap
proach 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 indis
pensably 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. How
ever, 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
yrs 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 fur
ther 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
143

LIFE OF STERNE
the week following at yr service, except
Munday which is our Appeal day for the
Land Tax.
' We thank you for yr kindness in speak
ing for Mr Hungton. (?) But we have
plann' d it better.
' All our kind wishes & complim*3 to you
& the ladies, with service to Mr Lowther,
' Yrs very truly, 'L. Sterne.
' Sutton, July 5, '58.'
' Dear Blake, — I send my Amen to en
quire after you, never yet having been able
upon any ace* to get to you, the great con
fusion 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 1 will or no, I
am forced out of my shell in Xmas week to
preach Innts. I hope all goes on success
fully with you & yrs since the age I've had
the pleasure of seeing you — pray let me
144

A SERIES OF LETTERS
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 services — If 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
wch Journiers are exposed.
f ' Will you be so kind as to forward the
I note to Mr Cowpers any time before noon.
There is no ) 'I am, dear Sir, Your
note enclosed. ) ' much obliged & faithful, 'L. S.
145

LIFE OF STERNE ' Monday.
' Dear Sir, — I have transacted my Bris
tol Affair all but a small point left for yr
good nature, wch is to put letter in the
Post to day & pay postige yourself for it to
Mr Oldfield for wch I've inclosed 8d it being
a double letter. If Oldfield sd suspect 3 let
ters instead of two you may open it to con
vince him. But I think he will take your
word, tho' perhaps not a Servant's. The
Express (when God sends it) Monsr Apothe
cary 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 crisis
of my affairs namely the getting down my
crop wch by the way is in danger of sprout
ing. However, I will come over at yr de
sire, 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 por
tion of yr own dinner & confer till 3
146

A SERIES OF LETTERS
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 (w* 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 dis
temper wch I wish likewise was well got
over. For 'tis full of mystery and I think
cannot end as we all once hoped and ex
pected, ' 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 1
shall be able to get to York this week,
having Business of so many sorts to detain
147

LIFE OF STERNE
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 2d 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 k 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 measured to the
Maltsman. I have 4 Thrashers every Day
at work, & they mortify me with declara
tions, That There is so much Barly they
148

A SERIES OF LETTERS
cannot get thro' that speces before Xmas
Day, & God knows I have (I hope) near
80 Qrs of Oats besides. How I shall man
age 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 pres
ent 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 ex
cuse 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 morns (but was disappointed
by a fellow who promised to call for it) to
149

LIFE OF STERNE
have desired yr Indulgences for my not be
ing 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 rea
sons 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 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 Mun
day 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 y* & 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 ab* what is in yrs knowing you will do
150

A SERIES OF LETTERS
for me as for y'seif 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 Ace*. 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 morn& I could not snatch a mo
ment to run to bid you adieu. But I know
You excuse Formalities, wch by the by, I
am a most punctilious regarder of wth all.
But my Friends — Ld Carlisle* I suppose is
not dead tho' Irrecoverable.
' To The Reverend Mr Blake. '
* [Richard Osbaldeston, to whom Sterne dedicated his first
printed sermon. He became in turn Bishop of Carlisle and
Bishop of London. His critical condition to which reference
is made here cannot refer to the illness that ended with death
in 1764. The reference must be to some previous alarm for
the Bishop's life.] 151

LIFE OF STERNE
' 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 w*) in all its shapes and circum
stances, and the more the whole is weighed,
the worse and more insiduous appears every
step of the managem* of that affair. God
direct you in it, 'tis our hearty prayer, for
I am, with my wife best respects to you,
'truly yours,
' Cornp* to ladies. ' L. S. '
From these letters a good idea may be
152

A SERIES OF LETTERS
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 linea
ments that Mr 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 let
ter: — ' 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. 153

LIFE OF STERNE
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, per
haps, 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 so
ciety. Dr Topham, in addition to his other of
fices, had obtained a patent place for him
self, 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 re
crimination and pamphlets.
This little scandal broke out in the year
* Frederick Reynold's ' Memoirs.*
154

A SERIES OF LETTERS
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, pimp
ing, pettifogging, ambidextrous fellow, who
neither cared what he did or said of any
one, provided he could get a penny by it.'
He united in his single person this wonder
ful 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 Ju
risdiction of Howdenshire, ' ' Official to the
Precentor, ' ' Official to the Chancellor of
the Church of York, ' and ' Official to sev
eral 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
155

LIFE OF STERNE
had been ready on all occasions to char for
them, and neither he nor she, to best of his
remembrance, ever took a farthing, or any
thing beyond a mug of ale.' Trim is the
name Mr Sterne gives to this greedy peti
tioner — 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 Topham 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-petticoat for
his wife, and a jerkin 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 Warm Watch- Coat, was by the
terms of its endowment to be strictly for
the benefit of some one connected with the
* It will thus be seen that there was a Trim before the
immortal Corporal. The name is also amongst Shad well's
dramatis personos. [Mr Trim is a character in Shadwell's Bury-
Fair.] 156

A SERIES OF LETTERS
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 terri
bly, swore he would get a warrant . . . but
cooling of that, and fearing the Parson '
(who is put for the Archbishop) 'might pos
sibly bind him over to his good behaviour,
and, for aught he knew, might send him to
the House of Correction — he lets the Par
son alone, and to revenge himself falls foul
upon the Clerk,' i.e., the Dean. 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 15T

LIFE OF STERNE
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 Foun-
tayne, on whose side Mr Sterne was now
doing battle. From this dignitary, the per
severing Topham gave out that he had ob
tained 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 ' be
tween the two. Great scandal was the
result; the Cathedral was divided; charges
of falsehood and want of faith were ex
changed, and both, appealing to a larger
public, took the field with pamphlets.
Presently, a third quarrel broke out be
tween the Dean 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
158

A SERIES OF LETTERS
away under the figure of raising or lower
ing the desk in the Cathedral. ' The Arch
bishop,' 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. Forti
fied 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 Dean — in Mr Sterne's ver
sion 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 ex
pected better things ; ' the great green pul
pit cloth and old velvet cushion,' which
would have ' made up the loss of the
breeches seven-fold. ' This was the ' Com-
missaryship of Dean of York, and Commis-
saryship of Dean and Chapter of York.'
159

LIFE OF STERNE
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 un
lucky wight, by whom they are still worn —
in truth, as you will guess, they are very
thin by this time.' There is no difficulty
in identifying 'Lorry Slim,' and this insig
nificant bit of preferment, which made such
a hubbub, shows that he was of considera
tion with the higher powers, and a person
of importance in the Cathedral battles.*
This special quarrel, too, shows us a glimpse
* So far back as the 29th of December, 1750, Mr Steme had
been sworn in as ' Commissary of the Peculiar 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 18th
of June, 1765, to the 25th of October, 1766, Mr Sterne received
but £2, 1*. 4,d. (His registrar, Mr Makley, has an entry in
December, 'Paid Mr Sterne, thus far, £2, Is. id.' And during
seven months of the year in which Mr Sterne died, the returns
reached but to 5s. 4d. Mr Sterne, however, made his annual
' Visitation of the Clergy and Churchwardens of the Parishes of
Alne, Wigginton, and Skelton,' with great regularity. The fol
lowing are the dates: —

10th June, 1751.
6th July, 1752.
28th May, 1753.
1st July, 1754.

28th July, 1755.
5th July, 1756.
25th July, 1757.
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.
160

A SERIES OF LETTERS
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 one
' William Doe, ' that is, to Mr Stables, who
understood very well what use to ' make of
them.' It may be conceived what a sore
ness 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 '
squabble — which 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
161

LIFE OF STERNE
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 Com
missary 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 per
secution 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 ' wicked
ness' — as he called it — had been at work
before 1751.

162

A SECOND LOVE — 'DEAR, DEAR
KITTY '

CHAPTER VIII

A SECOND LOVE — 'DEAR, DEAR KITTY '
IN this fashion the years glided away,
until we touch the year 1759. 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 at
tached to one of Goldsmith's famous come
dies — recollected meeting him there. There
was a well-known physician of the place —
165

LIFE OF STERNE
Dr Noah Thomas — with whom Mr Cradock*
used to dine; 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 character — that of lover, or
perhaps philanderer. A notorious and suc
cessful philanderer he always was. ' Let me
be wise and religious, but let me be man.'
Here is his professional declaration. '/ my
self must ever have some Dulcinea in my
head.' All this was as candid as it was
true. Through his life he carefully nour
ished some gentle passion — it harmonised
and allured the soul, and made him com
fortable 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
* [Consult Joseph Cradock, Literary and Miscellaneous Memoirs,
I. 9, London, 1826.]
1G6

A SECOND LOVE
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 dear 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 now 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 way to York.
Her name was Catherine de Fourmantelle, 167

LIFE OF STERNE
and she seems to have been possessed of
much personal attraction.*
The family itself was called ' Beranger
de Fourmantelle,' and once held estates in
St Domingo. 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
now writing 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 Wes
ton,' her friend, who indorsed upon them a
little history of the conclusion of the ad
venture. 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 error is apparent
from the context, and all are distinguished
by some curious spelling, t
* The details of this little episode are derived from the curious
letters printed by the Philobiblon Society, and edited by the late
Mr Murray. [For these letters and Murray's preface, see Letters
XXV.-XXXVII. in this edition. ]
t It is an interesting question this of the spelling in the last
century. Dr Johnson and other eminent personages, in their
168

A SECOND LOVE
Contemporaneously with this attachment
— which, it may be presumed, like all Mr
Sterne's grandes passions, 'was the tender-
est 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 acci
dent 'Dear, dear Kitty' has received a cer
tain immortality, from being niched into
the eighteenth chapter, under the thin dis
guise 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 else
where, philosophising over the counter with
young and pretty ladies.
He deprecates the construction which
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. 169

LIFE OF STERNE
York gossip may put on the business :
' Nor is there anything unnatural or ex
travagant in the supposition that my dear
Jenny may be my friend — friend ! — my
friend. Surely, madam, a friendship be
tween the two sexes may subsist, and be
supported without,' etc. Long after, when
' dear, dear Kitty ' had been succeeded by
a whole series of Dulcineas, he recurs to
the name again, with a sort of fond recol
lection, 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, ' be
gins the first of these letters, written on a
Sunday,* ' I shall be out of all humour
with you, and besides will not paint your
picture in black, which best becomes you,'
unless ' a few bottles of Calcavalla ' are ac
cepted, which his man will ' leave at the
dore.' He will explain the reasons of this
' trifling present ' on Tuesday night, when
* Two or three of these letters had been seen and printed by the
elder Disraeli. [Isaac Disraeli printed five of the letters in his
essay on Sterne included in Literary Miscellanies (1840).]
170

A SECOND LOVE
' 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 em
barrassments — at 'half an hour after twelve;'
and he has ordered his man Matthew ' to
steal her a quart of honey.' For the strain
of rapture in which portions of the corre
spondence are couched, it would be unbe
coming to offer a 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
171

LIFE OF STERNE
power — ' God will open a dore, when we
shall some time be much more together.'
And again : ' I pray 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
172

A SECOND LOVE
a pot of pickles (by way 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 changer a pas que en mourant."
'L. S.'
' Qui ne changer a pas que en mourant ! '
This from the Reverend Mr 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 com
pany of grisettes, which reads like the per
fect mille e 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, do doubt, some
173

LIFE OF STERNE
copies in his desk. He sends it because
' there is a beautiful character in it of a
tender and compassionate mind in the pic
ture 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 Fother-
gill was one of the ecclesiastical society — a
prebendary, and a 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 let
ter 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 pres
ently, when Mr Sterne's letters to her be
come of far more value than mere rhapso-
174

A SECOND LOVE
dical 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.'
A reference to a single date disposes of
this clumsy ' sensation ' scene. Mr Sterne
was married in 1740; and we find Miss
175

LIFE OF STERNE
Fourmantelle, in all her charms, intimate
with him twenty years afterwards, viz., in
1760. 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 be in the main true; and it
may be that on being ' cast off ' by her admirer — which it would
seem she was, in the first flush of his success — she thus lost her
wits. 176

'TRISTRAM' WRITTEN AND
PUBLISHED

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 York
shire politics. Busy with an ambitious at
tempt — a strange, rambling novel, based upon
some of those quaint models with which his
mind was stored; by which, too, his reputa
tion as a satirist might be increased, and
with the introduction of local allusions, and
characters thinly veiled — he was, in short,
scribbling away at Tristram 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
179

LIFE OF STERNE
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 chapters when he
broke into an address to Fame, begging
of her, 'if not too busy with Miss Cune-
gunde's affairs,' to look down upon Tris
tram* 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 mo
ment he was holding the pen, viz. , ' On
this very rainy day, March 26, 1759, be
tween 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 fash
ion, according to this scale, January would
be about the date he began his first chap-
* It is curious that three such famous books as Rasselas,
Candide and Tristram Shandy should have appeared almost in
the same month. [Rasselas and Candide appeared in March,
1759; and Tristram Shandy in the following December.]
180

TRISTRAM WRITTEN
ter. 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; and 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 lungs was always
in ambuscade, as it were, for him. He had
been tempted to try Bishop Berkeley's fa
mous 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 Berkeley's Querist and
Swift's Directions to Servants, bound up
together, and put in the beginning a hu
morous inscription:— 'Laurence Sterne to...
with B. Berkeley. . . . Going through a course
181

LIFE OF STERNE
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 York
shire. Possible he meant in this way to
retaliate upon Yorick's persecutors. His
enemies were not slack upon such an oc
casion, 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
new edition of Tristram was getting ready,
he found reason to change his mind.
* This volume was in the possession of Mr Gray of York.
182

TRISTRAM WRITTEN
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 cir
cumstances 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
* [Two volumes formed the first instalment.] 183

LIFE OF STERNE
of an obscure Yorkshire Prebendary, saying,
'that £50 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 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 re
ception of the first.' If the 'lean edition'
(how characteristic this description) should
have ' the run our critics expect, ' he pro
posed following up his success with an in
stalment 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
184

TRISTRAM WRITTEN
trifle, incline me to give you the whole
profits of the sale (except what Mr Hinx-
ham 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 allu
sions, had made ' the satire general, notes
are added where wanted, and the whole
made more saleable, about 150 pages added;
and, to conclude, a strong interest formed
and forming in his behalf. ' *
It is not known what terms he did event
ually 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 specu
lative arrangement, with which, he owns, he
proposed 'laying the world under contribu
tion.' His book will be read enough 'to
answer my design of raising a tax upon the
* See this letter, which embodies the substance of Dodsley's, in
Dr Dibdin's Reminiscences. [Letter XXII. in this edition.] 185

LIFE OF STERNE
public;' which seems to hint that his pecu
niary 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 : ' Mr 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 found
lings 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 Publick Advertiser, in
186

TRISTRAM WRITTEN
the great metropolis, read in their number of
Tuesday, the first 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 5s. , 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 Britain and Ire
land. ' 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 de
mand 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 talk
ing 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, '
187

LIFE OF STERNE
and the brilhant Prebendary himself. There
he met the young French emigrie 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 it, and, above all, to praise it
partout, because his ' good word in town
will do the author, I am sure, great ser
vice. ' 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 perfer-
ment, 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 at
tached 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
188

TRISTRAM WRITTEN
than by endeavouring to make you a friend
to him and his performance. This is all my
excuse for this liberty, which 1 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 learn
ing 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 in these days ; and
in the memoir, which appeared when Mr
Sterne first came upon town, it is stated
* [When Sterne reached London, early in March, the first
edition was already exhausted. The second edition appeared
on April 3, 1760.] 189

LIFE OF STERNE
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.

190

PETTY ANNOYANCES

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 forth
with. 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, 193

LIFE OF STERNE
and a tide of good advice flowed in upon
him from well-meaning friends. The genus
irritabile of 'our Sydenhams and Sangr ados'
were specially sore. A strange passage in
the first volume, which has mystified 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 comb
ing 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 comb
ing the back hair of his ' flames, ' and pick
ing out the short hairs with his teeth. 'This
curious weakness,' says Mr Sterne in one of
his letters, 'was known by every chamber
maid and footman within the bills of mor
tality. '
There happened to be two country prac
titioners down in Mr Sterne's neighbour
hood who had been married to daughters of
the famous physician; and charitable fingers
194

PETTY ANNOYANCES
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 out
rage 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, good - naturedly lets his clerical
friend in the provinces know 'the general
opinion of the best judges, without excep
tion,' upon his book, which is to the effect
'that it cannot be put into the hands of
any woman of character ; ' a verdict per
fectly 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 ex-
195

LIFE OF STERNE
cept 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 176th page of my
second volume ; . . . but for the chaste mar
ried, 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 grudg
ingly, that the book would be read enough
' to answer his design of raising a tax upon
the public' This was just at the com
mencement of the month of February; so
that ' would be read enough ' was yet to
come. The picture of Dr Slop was at once ap
propriated by nearly every sensitive San-
grado 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
196

PETTY ANNOYANCES
all consciousness of any resemblance in the
picture. But there were others scarcely so
politic. An amusing interview is said to
have taken place between the author and
one of the injured guild. The latter com
plained 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 remon
strant 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 rea
son 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

* Memoir in the Royal Female Magazine for 1760. [This is
given entire among the anecdotes in the first volume of Letters
and Miscellanies.] 197

LIFE OF STERNE
care; / 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 be
fed, but to be famous.' Both ends were
fortunately attained. His purse was hand
somely lined in the same proportion as his
fame extended.
A clerical friend also wrote to him nerv
ously about the irregular character of the
new book. Mr Fothergill, a brother func
tionary of the cathedral, preached daily to
him on the same text. ' Get your prefer
ment first,' said this clergyman, taking cer
tainly 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
198

PETTY ANNOYANCES
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, ' en
dorsed 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 clamour
ing? No wonder that, harassed in this fash
ion, 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
199

LIFE OF STERNE
book had time to make its way fairly, the
most skilful actor of the day had penetra
tion enough to discern its great and eccen
tric merits. The famous manager and actor
had read it, and was, no doubt, taken by
its wonderfully dramatic character. Gar-
rick'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 re
monstrances, which certainly took a rough
and churlish shape, the country parson was
presently — sooner indeed than he or the re
monstrants were dreaming of — to have satis
factory indemnity. Tristram Shandy was
now in the hands of the great public of
London — it being now close on the month
of March, 1760 — 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,
200

PETTY ANNOYANCES
bestowed a thought upon the obscure York
shire cleric. Now all is about to be changed.
Now, as he said in one of his sermons, 'the
whole drama is opened' — the splendid glo
ries of success, and of London homage, are
waiting for him.

201

VISIT TO LONDON

CHAPTER XI

VISIT TO LONDON
WHEN the now celebrated author ar
rived in town his success was already
assured. ' No one, ' writes Mr Fors
ter, '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 him
self 'in Piccadilly or the Haymarket,' but
settled himself before the day was over, in
* [Sterne went up to London with Stephen Croft, the Squire
of Stillington. They lodged with their friend Mr Cholmley in
Chapell Street.] 205

LIFE OF STERNE
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 Marlbor
ough House. It was a genteel quarter: and,
three or four years later, another fashionable
clergyman, 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 din
ners, which shows that his coming must have
been eagerly looked for. Mr Garrick was the
first to take him by the hand, and over
whelmed him with favours and invitations.
He had been the first, too, to discover the
merits of Tristram. He asked him fre
quently to dine, introduced him to every
body, and promised 'numbers of great peo
ple ' to carry the witty stranger to dine
with them. He made him free of his the
atre for the whole season, and undertook
506

VISIT TO LONDON
' 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 ser
vice or credit.' Neither was it extravagance
of him to add, that he had the greatest hon
ours and civilities paid him ' that were ever
known from the great. '
Even in this bewilderment he was mind
ful 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, raptur
ously detailing his triumphs. All the news
went to 'Mrs Joliff's, in Stone 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 suc
cess often imparts a general tenderness to
the style; but it is hard to excuse the very
warm tone of these raptures: — 'And now,
* ["Jenny," here and below, is a slip for " Kitty."] 207

LIFE OF STERNE
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 ap
pear, 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 ut
ter profuse and rapturous thanks. This per
son 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;
208

VISIT TO LONDON
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
filling '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 noble
man, 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 im
portant piece of news, significant enough
for the York gossip, yet far more signifi
cant for posterity. ' Even, ' he says, ' all
the bishops have sent their compliments to
me.' Their compliments to the Parson-
209

LIFE OF STERNE
author of Tristram. Such encouragement
is sufficient to account for all poor Yorick's
future vagaries. After the tumultuous ac
claim 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 year, and
his fierce controversies and insolent epithets
were in everybody's mouth. It had been
given out that Mr Sterne was already lay
ing 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,
* [Consult ' The Design of Tristram Shandy ' and ' The First
Biography of Sterne ' in Letters and Miscellanies.]
210

VISIT TO LONDON
though the idea appears to have been sug
gested 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 feel
ing 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 ' as
tonished ' him ; came home, and as in the
case of all mercurial spirits, with the loneli
ness 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 through
out 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, 211

LIFE OF STERNE
muddle - headed, mortar - headed, pudding-
headed chap among our Doctors, but I
must disable my judgment by choosing
a Warburton ? ' ' This report, ' he adds,
' might draw blood of the author of Tris
tram 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 de
scents, 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,'
' mortar-headed ' 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
stepping-stone for an acquaintance. ' Pray, '
he writes, ' have you no interest, lateral or
collateral to get me introduced to his lord
ship ? '
' 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,
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VISIT TO LONDON
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 Gar
rick, as well as of the high character of Mr
Sterne, which had reached him by repute.
' 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 agree
able and so original a writer as Mr Sterne —
J mean of his moral character, of which I
had received from several of my acquaint-
213

LIFE OF STERNE
ances so very advantageous an account. And
I could not see how I could have held it,
had the lying tale been true that he in
tended 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 affectionate and faithful humble
servant, W. Gloucester.'
214

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 con
veys 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 recol
lected 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 character
istic idiom, ' I have been told, has had en
gagements 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,
215

LIFE OF STERNE
or the power of pleasing, will be very gen
erally invited in London.
These social ovations still go on, gather
ing as they go. From morning till night
his lodgings are ' full of the greatest com
pany. The dinner engagements still accu
mulate. 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).
Then came Lord Edgecombe, Lord Win
chelsea, 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 for
tune befell him. The first took the rather
Eastern shape of a purse of gold; the sec
ond was a very fair slice of Church prefer
ment. 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 pre-
216

VISIT TO LONDON
pared to like him, and was delighted with
Tristram. 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 mo
tives were naturally enough imputed to both
parties in the transaction.
The next day came the other piece of
good fortune. Lord Falconberg, or Fau-
conberg, as it was spelt, was then at Court
presently to be made a Lord of the Bed
chamber at sixty years of age. There was
a pleasant perpetual curacy down in York
shire, not twenty 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

LIFE OF STERNE
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 ob
stacle is, the reader knows as well as Mr
Sterne, or ' dear Kitty. '
How did Mr Sterne obtain this promo
tion ? 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
218

VISIT TO LONDON
promise to give him the living. The noble
man 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 have thought the matter over seriously;
and doubtful whether it would be advisable
to support his memory at the risk of turn
ing 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 intimi
dated into a favour would be so forgiving.

219

FAME AND HONOURS

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 metrop
olis. 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 sepa
rations, my dear Kitty, however grievous to
us both, must be for the present. God,' he
adds, 'will open a Dore when we shall some
time be more together.'

LIFE OF STERNE
He had been already thinking of setting
out for Yorkshire, but could not resist stay
ing 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, 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 fort
night 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
224

FAME AND HONOURS
may put any load upon a jackass, but a
spirited creature is too good for such la
bour. ' *
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 al
most 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 thoughtful-
ness, the hint of suppressed Shandeism, that
pervades the face. The attitude so original
and insignificant, is familiar to all; the sly,
thoughtful head, 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 Gar
dens: and Mr Reynolds, choosing out four
* This, though taken from an old jest book — a very indif
ferent authority — has a certain characteristic air that looks
like truth. 225

LIFE OF STERNE
of his best pictures, placed this master
piece — 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 hun
dred 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 re
sult was to be a mezzotinto worthy of the
painter, and one of the best of that match
less 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 pre-
226

FAME AND HONOURS
ferment. That he had promises, and was
confident of success, there can be no ques
tion. He hints it mysteriously to Miss
Fourmantelle, talking to her of his hope
that ' she would one day share in my great
good fortune. My fortunes 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 discretion — in
this age, too, when those who had the ap
pointment of ecclesiastical offices were not
too nice in their selection — it is likely
enough that Yorick would have been a
dignitary. But that ' lack of ballast, ' and
the riot of London pleasures, were betray
ing 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 reck
less perversion.
He was to be seen constantly at Rane-
227

LIFE OF STERNE
lagh Gardens — a 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
Comely '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 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
228

FAME AND HONOURS
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 toler
ance, 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 scan
dals. There never was such licence among
the shepherds of the flock; or such tolera
tion 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
229

LIFE OF STERNE
accumulating scandal. There were parsons,
like the Rev. Home Tooke, who flaunted
abroad in gold lace and sky-blue and scar
let, and who apologised to Wilkes for hav
ing suffered 'the infectious hand of a bishop
to be waved over him — whose imposition,
like the sop 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 ' clergy
men — like the one mentioned in Mr Grose's
Olio. And a few years later the story of
the unfortunate Dodd was to be in every
one's mouth; as well as that of the infatu
ated 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 back
ground Sterne's follies cannot stand out in
very strong relief. His must be a well-
230

FAME AND HONOURS
trained, steady spirit who can resist the
prevailing demoralisation of a whole pro
fession, or, at least, not catch the low tone
of his order. Not that we may accept a
taste for moral reading and wholesome sen
timent as a test of moral conduct and vir
tuous life; as this is well known to be a
curious inconsistency in human character,*
and seems to be the answer to the argu
ment, which has been pressed, perhaps a
little too far; namely, as to this age so
heartily relishing the soft beauties of Gold
smith, 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 hu
man nature.' But there are other merits in
Goldsmith's Vicar beside its sweet and pure
tone, and a charm beyond that of mere pas
toral innocence — there is a surpassing deli
cacy of touch, simplicity, warm geniality,
* Just as at the obscure places of entertainment known as
' penny gaffs,' where the audience is the worst and most sus
picious class of human beings, the finest ' sentiments ' are wel
comed vociferously. 231

LIFE OF STERNE
marvellous Dutch painting, and perfect faith
and truth — qualities which every age, how
ever corrupted, will, more or less, appre
ciate. And how, after all, was this exquisite
little pastoral welcomed ? As Mr Forster
says, it only ' silently forced its way. . .
The St James' 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 Puri
tanism — not 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 and women of the
age, and readers of Fielding and Smollett
will have discovered that a certain forcible
232

FAME AND HONOURS
indelicacy of phrase and allusion had become
almost habitual. It will be found from allu
sions 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
Wife of Bath, to young Miss Moore, and
could laugh heartily at its humour. John
son 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 Four
mantelle, had not yet arrived in town. She
had written to Mr Sterne to use his influ
ence for some local matter, which would
appear to have failed. It is scarcely a re
finement to say that an almost perceptible
change of tone can be discovered in his an
swer. The whirl of festivity, the universal
adulation, or possibly some other ' Dulci
nea,' whose presence in Mr Sterne's head
was a perpetual necessity, had done its work.
'Never, my dear girl, be dejected; something 233

LIFE OF STERNE
else will offer and turn out in another quar
ter. 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 hon
our and truth.'
But in a few days 'dear, dear Kitty' ar
rived, 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 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
234

FAME AND HONOURS
I do not spend an hour 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 vio
lent 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 Eng
lish 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
encouragement does, indeed, take much of
the blame from off the delinquent's shoul
ders, and looks very like an invitation to pro
ceed with further instalments of his book.
There are some little trifles which show the
235

LIFE OF STERNE
strength of his popularity. There was a new
game of cards called Tristram Shandy intro
duced, 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 steeple
chases, 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 conversa
tion. 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 —
* [There was also a dancing tune called "Tristram Shandy."]
236

FAME AND HONOURS
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 a sort
of photograph of one of these dinners which
has been preserved. He was dining at a
fashionable house, where a certain self-suffi
cient physician chanced to be of the party,
and engrossed the whole conversation, giv
ing it a medical turn, and discoursing pro
foundly of ' phrenitis, ' and ' paraphrenias, '
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 snivel-
237

LIFE OF STERNE
ling a fortnight, it fell upon my breast.
How they 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 sug
gested itself. 'I bought a pole,' continued
Yorick, with due gravity, ' and began leap
ing 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 sys
tem.' Thus pleasantly was extinguished the
intrusive physician.
This story went round the clubs, and got
into the 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*
* [Consult " The First Biography of Sterne " and Letter
XLIII.] 238

FAME AND HONOURS
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 com
paratively 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
239

LIFE OF STERNE
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.
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 War
burton, bitterly, in allusion 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
240

FAME AND HONOURS
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 whim
sicality, born in the barracks of Dublin.'
When his book made its appearance, he
disdained to practise any of ' those common
arts ' by which ' a book is pushed. A par
cel 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 people in the kingdom, and to the friend
ship of Mr Garrick. Fools,' it goes on to
say, ' tremble at the allusions that may be
made from the present volumes. Forty peo
ple have assumed to themselves the ridicu
lous titles in these volumes. '
It then dwells on the ' extreme candour
and modesty of his temper. ' ' A vain man
241

LIFE OF STERNE
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 fashion
able mistress, whom everybody courted be
cause 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 state
ment 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 liberal
purse has bought off the dread of a tutor's
character in those (volumes) which are to
come.' This was the old club story re
vived. 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

FAME AND HONOURS
three weeks in town. So odd and excep
tional a present, and coming from so sensi
tive a being as the new Bishop of Glouces
ter, 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 char
acteristic. What specially affected them was
a paragraph relating to a piece of local gen
erosity 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 £100 in hand, and promised a pension
for her life.'
His friends, the Crofts, watchful in his
243

LIFE OF STERNE
absence, wrote to him of the rumour, and
of how the Yorkshire Mrs Candours were
circulating that he had furnished all the de
tails of that complacent sketch. He wrote
back an indignant denial almost the instant
he received it. No wonder he should mar
vel at the uncharitableness of the York peo
ple, 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 credulity and non
sense. ' The best refutation, however, was
in the blunders and mistakes — ' falsehoods '
he calls them — in reference to that ' whim
sicality ' 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 rea
sons,' and refutes it by three arguments:
the improbability of his ' falling foul of Dr
Warburton, my best friend,' by representing
244

FAME AND HONOURS
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 enough to own I had
taken his purse for such a purpose. ' * 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,t and the London Chronicle, and
other journals, noticed it 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

* Most writers — even Mr Watson, in his Life of
Warburton — have assumed that there is here a complete denial
of the purse story; but Sterne merely denies the supposed
motive for accepting the purse.
t [The Monthly Review was the first to notice the book. See
the issue for December, 1759.] 245

LIFE OF STERNE
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 appre
ciation 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.'
246

FAME AND HONOURS
' "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 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 heav
ily, 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 disfig
ured Tristram, but for which it was scarcely
fair to pillory Mr Sterne singly ; for it is
247

LIFE OF STERNE
admitted that ' this manner of writing is
perfectly adapted to the taste of gentle
men 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 licen
tious 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 hit
ting 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 throwing
off their prejudices;' and not only 'applaud
ing,' but, what was far more serious, actually
introducing this free tone into their conver
sation. '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
248

FAME AND HONOURS
believed that Mr Sterne's book was wholly
accountable for it.
Goldsmith was at this time smarting un
der 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
perfect judges of literary excellence; yet, it
is confessed to be only a revival of what
was once fashionable here before.' He al
ludes to 'the gentle Tom Durfey, whose
works were once the subject of polite — I
mean very polite — conversation. ' ' There
are several very dull fellows, who, by a few
mechanical helps, sometimes learn to become
extremely brilliant and pleasing. . . . By imi
tating 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, 249

LIFE OF STERNE
indeed, by printing his face at the title-page.'
He then falls into a happy 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 pull 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 mother'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 indiscrimi-
nating. Was it that, besides his own indif
ferent 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 Eng
land? '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 coffee-houses,
from whence it circulates, improving as it
proceeds, through fifty-five houses, where
250

FAME AND HONOURS
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 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 pro
tested loudly.
The Florentine legation, kept au courant
with all that was new or fashionable in
London life by regular advices from Arling
ton Street, learnt that in the next case of
251

LIFE OF STERNE
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.'

252

YORICK'S SERMONS

CHAPTER XIII
yorick's sermons
ALL this time, while being feasted and
feted, and ' hurried off his legs by
going to great people,' he had con
trived to snatch a few moments for serious
business. A new edition of Tristram was
being sent through the press — no 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 Life
and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentle
man. ' Speedily will be published the Sermons
of Mr Yorick.'
The new Tristram edition had thus two
additional attractions — the dedication to Mr
255

LIFE OF STERNE
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 Lon
don it was different; the successful author,
the rising cleric, the friend of statesmen,
and protige oi bishops, would be ill advised
to neglect this mode of increasing his social
capital. Wise in his generation, as he fan
cied, 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
256

YORICK'S SERMONS
week with the Life and Opinions of Tris
tram Shandy. ' I am, sir,
' Your most humble servant,
' Law. Sterne. '
The dedication itself was conceived in a
warm, admiring strain. He told the minis
ter 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 pub
lic appetite, for it was exhausted in little
more than three weeks. Four editions were
issued before the year was out.
To engage Hogarth's aid for the illustra
tions he wrote to Mr Berrenger, the Master
of the Horse, Garrick's friend, this extraor
dinary 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
257

Life of sterne
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! Block
head ! 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 ad
mire 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 fields, & when
you have knock'd at the door (for you must
258

YORICK'S SERMONS
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, t
For the new edition of the volumes of
sermons which were now to be published,
it was reported that he received £650. It
was so written by Walpole to his friends.
This, however, is a mistake. The original
agreement, dated May 19th, sold many
years ago, with other papers of Dodsley's,
set out that for the new editions of Tris
tram, 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
* ' Shandy ' is said to be a Yorkshire local word signifying
'crack-brained,' 'odd,' etc.
t [Hogarth furnished one plate — -the frontispiece, 'Trim
Reading the Sermon.' A second plate, 'The Moment my
Father cried Pish ! ' first appeared as frontispiece to Volume
III., in January, 1761.] 259

LIFE OF STERNE
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 Prince Ferdinand, and the
Marquis of Rockingham, a Yorkshire noble
man, were to receive the Garter. The cere
mony took place on Tuesday the 6th, and on
the Monday they set out, the latter noble
man 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 ad
mirably, and had been preached before the
'judges of assize,' had struck the public
fancy. ' The best thing in it, ' wrote Wal
pole, ' is a sermon ; ' and there was a large
class of the ' serious ' who bought the ' hun-
260

YORICK'S SERMONS
dred very wise, learned, well-intended pro
ductions, that have no charms for me,' as
Goldsmith put it. Dodsley was not one to
let so good an opening pass by, and a selec
tion 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 Day is published, in two volumes,
price, sewed, 5*. (with a portrait of the
Editor, engraved from a painting by Mr
Reynolds), The Sermons of Mr Yorick,
published by the Rev. Mr Sterne, Pre
bendary of York. Printed for J. Dodsley.'
It will be remarked, what a Shandean jum
ble is here of Yorick and Sterne; and some
have leant on him very severely for what
they considered a trick unworthy his posi
tion as a clergyman. They were not intro
duced under the authorship of Tristram
Shandy, but of Mr Yorick, an amiable
clergyman, with whose sufferings and pa
thetic end all were familiar. The fact was,
Mr Sterne was better known as ' Mr Yorick,'
than as Mr Sterne, and it was really a par
donable device which deceived nobody. In
a characteristic preface he remonstrates with
2C1

LIFE OF STERNE
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 title-page with the real name of
the author. The first will serve the book
seller'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 tak
ing 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

YORICK'S SERMONS
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 exceed
ingly, and I think he must be a good man. '
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 Hor-
wendillus' Court. The other Yorick is my
self, who have flourished, my Lord, in no
Court. He shook his head. "Good God!"
said I, "you might as well compare Alexan
der the Great with Alexander the copper
smith, my lord." "It was all one," he
replied. 263

LIFE OF STERNE
Mr Sterne thought ' that if Alexander
of Macedon could have translated his lord
ship, the Bishop would not have said
so.' This is a specimen of his best sketch
ing. We almost hear and see the Prelate
shaking his head and repeating, '// was all
one.' The Sermons were introduced in the pret
tiest 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 Rabe
lais twinkle.* The poet was charmed with
them. He thought they 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 an
swered her, —

* 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.
264

YORICK'S SERMONS
' I know nothing about them, madam ! ' *
Later on, the subject was renewed, perhaps
started by one whom he might have con
sidered 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 I been
at large!' 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 ser
mons. 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
* [Consult ' Sterne and the Theatre ' in Letters and Miscel
lanies. ] 265

LIFE OF STERNE
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, 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 neu
tralise the effects of the humourist's fascinat-
266

YORICK'S SERMONS
ing powers of conversation, upon their com
mon 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 can
not but call them.' And then adds, what
reads very comically for those who shrink
back from the weary and protracted inci
dents of the excellent Sir Charles Grandi-
son'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 remark
able literary prediction. ' But mark my
prophecy, ' said she, impressively, ' 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 Dr Farmer's prophecy,
who, a httle 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
267

LIFE OF STERNE
refer to Tristram Shandy would have to ask
for it of an antiquary.' The person report
ing this in the year 1818, adds, with com
placent dulness, — ' This was truly pro
phetic ! '
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 spir
itual superiors. Happy for him if Garrick's
remark had been only in part true : — ' He
degenerated in London,' said the actor, wit-
268

YORICK'S SERMONS
tily, 'like an ill-transplanted shrub; the in
cense of the great spoiled his head, as their
ragouts had done his stomach.'
The sad feature of the whole was that he
found himself compelled to cater, as it were,
for the grosser taste of the public. Tristram
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. Re
markable, 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
merely introduced, 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 of the four or five
leading characters — my Uncle Toby, Mr and
269

LIFE OF STERNE
Mrs Shandy, Trim and Dr Slop — these out
lines have become fixed in the public mind,
like the incidents and characters in Don
Quixote. These are so clear in their draw
ing, 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 Tris
tram 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 ; Stillington, 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 Still
ington, 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 fur-
270

YORICK'S SERMONS
nished 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 be
hind 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 door
way, 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 Bohe
mian career, that picture should come back
upon him with a breath of pleasant memo
ries. ' This Shandy Castle of mine, ' he be
gan to christen it within a few weeks of his
arrival. It soon grew to be ' Shandy Hall ; '
and by the name of Shandy Hall it is known
271

LIFE OF STERNE
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 regu
larity — 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 cuck-
oldy 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 agremens. Another was the
vicinity of Lord Fauconberg and his park,
scarcely a mile away: and to visit that no
bleman, 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 com
pany was always welcome. Naturally enough
then he would have enjoyed his new habita
tion. He had no trouble with Sutton and
Stillington; a curate, as I have said — the
273

YORICK'S SERMONS
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 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 Cox-
wold. 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 sus
pended, 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
* 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. 273

LIFE OF STERNE
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 postscript 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 refer
ence to the rough treatment his patron and
himself experienced from ' the scribblers. '
Warburton and Garrick had been already
in consultation over our ' heteroclite Par
son. ' The Bishop, perhaps, was a little un
easy, lest his indiscreet protege 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 suit-
274

YORICK'S SERMONS
able 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 fur
nished 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 in
sinuated advice, and even reproof, without
the cold air of professional admonishment.
' Reverend sir,' it began, ' 1 have your
favour of the 9th instant, and am glad to
understand you are got safe home, and evi-
ployed 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 hurt
ful to either by any violations of decency and
275

LIFE OF STERNE
good manners; but I have already taken such
repeated liberties of advising you on that
head, that to say more were needless, or per
haps unacceptable.' This was plain speaking.
He then touches on some discreditable pane
gyrics 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 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
276

YORICK'S SERMONS
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 in
directly hints to Mr Sterne a course of con
duct which he might imitate with profit.
' He (Mr Garrick) knows the 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 regu
late the taste, and in his proper station to re
form, the manners of the fashionable world;
while by a well-judged economy, he has pro
vided against the temptations of a mean and
servile dependence 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 protege steady, it must be said again,
277

LIFE OF STERNE
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 ex
plains clearly the meaning of his advice.
' I heard enough, ' he wrote, ' of his con
duct 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 oppor
tunity I was not sorry for, to tell him my
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 half-wounded, half-defiant, rather dif
ferent 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 vio-
278

YORICK'S SERMONS
lation 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 prud
ish 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 partici
pation 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 societe, 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
279

LIFE OF STERNE
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.
' Of all the vile things wrote against me,
that in the Female Magazine was the most
inimicitious. 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 £200 a year 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
280

YORICK'S SERMONS
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 mo
ment of despondency to be accepted as a
true choice. Even as he wrote the ' mis-
chievousness' 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 appar
ently by the earliest return post, closes the
correspondence. His explanation had some
what warmed the Bishop into cordiality,
who writes in the same happy mixture of
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
281

LIFE OF STERNE
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 sun
shine before the shade; indeed, he would
not wish to dwell in the malignant heat of
the dog-days, not for the teasing and mo
mentary annoyances of the numberless tribes
of insects abroad, but for the more fatal as
pect of the superior bodies.' A friendly and
prophetic hint as to his ecclesiastical pros
pects 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 for
merly 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 un
likely to have had any effect upon a char
acter such as Sterne's was. The whole is
creditable to Warburton, who displays a
delicacy and moderation surprising to those

YORICK'S SERMONS
familiar with his usual rough free-lance
mode of action, and the portraits done of
him by Churchill.

283

TRISTRAM AT HIS DESK

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 ' basti
nadoes ' inflicted by ' the scribblers. ' He
could not resist the temptation of showing
his scars to the world, and dealing with
them in Shandy fashion, possibly to depre
cate 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 jer
kin, ' he wrote, ' has been tickled off at such
* [June.] 2S7

LIFE OF STERNE
a rate as it has been these last nine months
together  pell-mell, helter-skelter,
ding-dong, back stroke and fore stroke, side
way and long way, have they been trim
ming it for me.' He then turns back to
the severest of all the attacks, that in the
Monthly 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 fa
miliar 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 irregu
lar 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 —
288

TRISTRAM AT HIS DESK
still apologetic — still appealing from 'the
scribblers ' — striving hard to prove, in a
curious mixture of raillery, serious argu
ment, and illustration, that wit and judg
ment are not antagonistic qualities. For
' the scribblers ' had insinuated, that what
ever 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, ' dash
ing and squirting ' his ink about on his
books and furniture, he casts his eye down
wards 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 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
289

Life of sterne
as myself.' Still, he was furnished with
' that careless alacrity which, every day of
my life, prompts me to say and write 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
290

TRISTRAM AT HIS DESK
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 good one out of it,5 and so
'this scrawl is the consequence, which, if
you will bum the moment you get it, I
promise to send you a fine set essay in the
style of your female epistolizers, cut and
trinrd at all points. God defend me Ji-om
such, ischo neiTr yet knete xchat it :cas to say
or write one premeditated xcord in my xchole
fi/e. " * 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 Tery 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
Ml

LIFE OF STERNE
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 impu
dent 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 opin
ion. 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 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 look
ing 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

TRISTRAM AT HIS DESK
this turnpike, over that, as if the arch-jockey
of jockeys had got behind me  He's
flung — he's off — he'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."
"J hope in God 'twas only Ernulphus,"
said I.'
In short, so diligently had he laboured,
that by the first week in October such per
sons as took the London Chronicle read in
their copy of October the 9th, a very cheer
ing 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 fi <
and second volumes, will be published about
Christmas next. Printed for R. & J. Dods
ley, in Pall Mall, where may be had: 293

LIFE OF STERNE
' 1. A New Edition of the first two
volumes.
' 2. The Sermons of Mr Yorick, pub
lished by the Rev. Mr Sterne,
Prebendary of York.'
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 'trim
ming 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 vol
umes, 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
294

TRISTRAM AT HIS DESK
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. Lau
rence 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 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

* [The pictorial partnership must have been in pre-Shandian
days; whereas the clerum is first mentioned by Sterne to John
Hall Stevenson in a letter dated July 28, 1761. J 295

LIFE OF STERNE
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 out-door 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 jeer
ing York boys.

296

A SECOND LONDON VISIT

CHAPTER XV

A SECOND LONDON VISIT
HE was now in town, and found Lon
don in a curious flutter and confu
sion. Every eye was on the palace
and its new tenant. Everyone was follow
ing ' this charming young King, ' as Wal
pole called him, and noting his grace and
good nature, ' which breaks out on all occa
sions.' 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 Dods-
leys, dated December 19th, 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 writ
ten 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
299

LIFE OF STERNE
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 somewhere 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 sus
tained without change or fickleness, must be
accepted as the best testimonials to his wit
and spirits and powers of conversation.
The new Shandy s 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 mis
understood — and Mr Croft wrote him a
sort of friendly remonstrance. Mr Sterne
acknowledged this friendly act very grate
fully, 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 block
heads, who in all ages have wasted their
time and learning upon points as foolish.'
300

A SECOND LONDON VISIT
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 infatua
tion about the ' charming young King.'
He wrote enthusiastically about him to his
friends at Stillington — how he rose at six
for business, rode out at eight 'to a minute,
looked into everything himself, and was de
termined to stop the torrent of corruption
and laziness.' He was very intimate with
Lord Rockingham, and the witty, ' flashy '
Charles Townshend, with Mr Charles Spen
cer, and other men of politics; and writes
to his country friends with a political wis
dom 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
301

LIFE OF STERNE
terms with his present ecclesiastical supe
rior, 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 re
ceived with a mixed chorus of cheers and
hisses. His prediction about the attacks
and ' peltings ' from garret, came true ex
actly 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 bitter
ness, 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
and buy it at such a rate that we are going
on with a second edition as fast as possible.'
302

A SECOND LONDON VISIT
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 Griffith'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 lan
guage 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
Griffith'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 insipidity/ If the half of the town
* [The second edition appeared on May 21 — four months
after the first edition.] 303

LIFE OF STERNE
that abused the book reflected this just criti
cism, 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, 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 As
sembly, ' 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
304

A SECOND LONDON VISIT
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 Sec
retary'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 was
' forbid the Court. ' An absurd tale on the
face of it; this species of honourable banish
ment being confined to the court of the
French King. Mr Sterne told the story to
his friends, and it afforded them much amuse
ment. As he himself put it, he was scarcely
305

LIFE OF STERNE
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 unex
pected 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 com
mittee 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 meet
ings, directed a notice to be inserted in the
daily papers, that the Reverend Mr Sterne
was to preach for the Foundlings ; and on
306

A SECOND LONDON VISIT
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 com
mittee, that 'the collection at the Anthem'
amounted to the sum of £55, 9* 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.

* From the Minutes of the Foundling Hospital. But a charity
sermon for the Magdalens — a far more ' sensational ' charity —
brought over a thousand pounds! 307

LIFE OF STERNE
' 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 com
pletely put all the serious duties of his pro
fession out of his head.
A worse result still was, that it brought
him back to his village in a state of rest
lessness and despondency, wholly unsuited
to his office. Almost as soon as he arrived,
he was pining to be back in London again.
His friend 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
308

A SECOND LONDON VISIT
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 Dods
ley 's £650 remained over, though a good
deal must have been swept away in the six
months' campaign. ' O Lord ! now are you
going to Ranelagh to-night, and I am sit
ting sorrowful as the Prophet. When we
309

LIFE OF STERNE
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, he'
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.
310

A SECOND LONDON VISIT
'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 reck
less, profane screed, certain signs of a decay
and demoralisation. When two loose men
address each in this fashion, there is evi
dently a sympathetic reference to pleasures
enjoyed in company. But there is another
letter indited to this frere 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-five — and it will
be remembered they were students at Cam
bridge together. This precious letter* is in
Latin, of a ' dog ' kind, and very justly ex
cited 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 wife 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 tenta-
tum ancillis tuis et perturbatum uxore tua—
believe me, my Antony, this is not the way
*[For the complete text, see Letter L.] 311

LIFE OF STERNE
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,
aut consobrinus suus Lucifer — sed est diabolus
amabundus qui non vult sinere me esse
solum . . . et sum mortaliter in amore et
sum fatuus, etc.* I am obliged to omit
the rest. This, it must be said, is a shock
ing letter, and becomes worse when we think
of the peaceful pastoral enjoyments at Cox
would, 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.
* Yet this letter was printed by his own daughter, who, we
must charitably hope, was ignorant of its meaning.
312

A SECOND LONDON VISIT
His wife, Mrs Sterne — lost sight of, for
gotten, left behind in all the series of Lon
don 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 story — incompatibility ;
without an effort on either side to aim at
oven an artificial compatibility, by which a
sort of harmony is sometimes brought about.
On his side, a taste for town life and pleas
ures, which made him look on London as his
settled home, Coxwould as a banishment. On
hoi's, an apparent apathy, not to say indiffer
ence, 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 happier with
out 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
sis

LIFE OF STERNE
this time twelvemonth, to lead a bear round
Europe: and from this hope from you, I
verily believe it is that you are so high in
her favour at present.' That is, from the
prospect of Mr Hall finding 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 par
donable complacency, when we reflect that
this portion of labour contained the exquisite
story of Le Fever, a masterpiece of true feel
ing 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
314

A SECOND LONDON VISIT
is a healthier tone; but still, it will be said,
how could he set a child of thirteen or four
teen 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 ' with
out 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 cor
rupted as to put into his child's hands
pages that made grown-up people blush.
She had inherited from him a weak chest,
and had now suffered three winters continu
ously 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 were perpetually giving way.
Preaching, too, was a duty he could not
give up, and which the rector of three par
ishes would scarcely be permitted to forego.
315

LIFE OF STERNE
It was always 'fatal' to him; and this year
he did not suspend that arduous duty. Be
fore 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
pubhc, 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 ru
moured that his friends, the Northumber-
lands, 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.
316

A SECOND LONDON VISIT
On Monday, December the 21st, came
forth Mr Sterne's usual Christmas present,
the fifth and sixth volumes of Tristram
Shandy, ' price 4y. 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 Lon
don, once more set free. A delightful inci
dent always in Mr Sterne's life; and wist
fully looked for with that announcement in
the public newspapers. For it brought vaca
tion — holiday — life 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 ' heteroc-
lite parson,' who could answer with that in
dependent 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
317

LIFE OF STERNE
one who wishes to know the pattern of man
whom he favoured, turn over the letters of
his protege, 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, I fear, an
irrevocable scoundrel. '
We have, however, Warburton 's testimony
to their 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 sub
lime by Garrick. These volumes, however,
contained but too many of those little clap
trap devices with which Mr Sterne had be
gun to help himself over chasms, where his
318

A SECOND LONDON VISIT
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 tun
ing, 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 fines, 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 remplissage, these new
volumes contain some of his happiest scenes.
The reception of the news of young Shan
dy's death — the dialogues between Mr and
Mrs Shandy on putting Tristram into trous
ers — the story of Le Fever — the elaborations 319

LIFE OF STERNE
of my Uncle Toby's military tactics, and the
council of war between him and his lieuten
ant — are at least equal to Mr Sterne's best
efforts, and should redeem many shortcom
ings. In these volumes, too, was found another
device to draw purchasers — the author's sig
nature 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 bid
den 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 in
discreetly 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,
320

A SECOND LONDON VISIT
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 them
selves, '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 Eras
mus, and the third from the decrees of a
Council at Carthage.

321

MR STERNE GOES ABROAD

CHAPTER XVI

MR STERNE GOES ABROAD
BEARING in mind the conditions under
which the new volumes had been writ
ten, 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 occa
sion, 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.
325

LIFE OF STERNE
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, 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 thou. ' ' ' No wonder
the allusion ' brought blood into the cheek
from whence it had been some months ban
ished. ' 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 considera
tion. The new archbishop, Dr Hay Drum
mond, at once excused him from all paro
chial 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
326

MR STERNE GOES ABROAD
the two countries were at war — an insuper
able 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 torn-; and some were staying
there for the season, affiliated to the socie
ties of that brilliant capital. A little interest
would smooth away all difficulties as to pass
ports ; 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. The
road was now open to him, and he might
depart when he pleased.
His friends, knowing his careless, Shan
dean 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
327

LIFE OF STERNE
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 nerv
ously about it. ' I hope Becket has stood
my friend about what he ought to have re
ceived 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 charac
teristic. He confides to us the story of his
abrupt departure with a pleasant confidence,
shifting it into the Sentimental Journey. ' I
had left London, ' he says, ' with so much
328

MR STERNE GOES ABROAD
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 the
end of a street, I have a mortal aversion
for returning back no reiser 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. 'AllonsI ' 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-a-dozen 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
3>9

LIFE OF STERNE
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 jum
bled into one mass.' A faithful description:
for the ' Packets ' were no more than open
pilot or fishing boats, of small tonnage, and
wretched interior accommodation, which, too,
was to be enjoyed at exorbitant and extor
tionate 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 gend
armes, who suggest the drama of 'Robert
330

MR STERNE GOES ABROAD
Macaire. ' We may put in, too, the huge
vehicle itself, built up with mountains of lug
gage, reeling and swaying; a huge, 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, lung
ing 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. Pic
turesque the postilions and estafettes, with
the glazed, shining hats, the gay, embroid
ered jackets, and the huge boots, like a
species of leathern tub. Picturesque the
motley company of the rotonde, the coupe,
the interieur, and the more humble accom
modation 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 331

LIFE OF STERNE
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 pic
turesqueness, 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 posi
tion of the limbs; uneasy snatches of sleep,
procured by the agency of the strap that
hung from the roof, and on which the suf
ferer, leaning his elbow, sought a temporary
relief and a disturbed dream.
The whole economy of this ' service ' re
mained 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 an
cient 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
332

MR STERNE GOES ABROAD
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, prac
tical Yorkshire life must have been inexpres
sibly 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 inven
tories 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
* [Nouveau Voyage en France, avec un Itineraire et des Cartes
(2 vols. Paris, 1724, and often reprinted), by Piganiol de la
Force.] 333

LIFE OF STERNE
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 anti
quarian flourish of ' Calais, Calitium Calu-
sium,' where, however, with his common in
accuracy 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 of the town
as he clattered by, and he marked the specu
lative glances directed at the new arrival.
These are not many strokes, yet the whole
is a picture; and there is a breath and fra
grance 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.
334

MR STERNE GOES ABROAD
' "Get on, my lad," said I, briskly, but in
the most harmonious tone imaginable, for I
jmgled 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 ' Senti
mental Journey ' — than which no town in
all France ' looks better on the map. '
By his Book of French Post Roads, page
36, he journeyed 'de Montreuil a Nampont,
poste et demi; de Nampont a Bernay, poste;
de Bernay a Nouvion, poste; de Nouvion a
Abbeville, poste.'
At Nampont was the well-known picture
of the dead donkey*; — to become famous
later; but Abbeville disgusted him by its
wretched inn. At Abbeville, too, he enter
tained that dismal meditation on the man
ner 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. 335

LIFE OF STERNE
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 brood-
ings, 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 au Clochers, 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 from —
Ailly au Clochers, I got to Hixcourt;
from Hixcourt I got to Pequignay, and
from Pequignay I got to Amiens.'
But at night, when the weary traveller was
struggling for a little sleep, a train of comic
troubles set in; among which was 'the in
cessant 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
336

MR STERNE GOES ABROAD
sous (sous by sous). ' ' Then monsieur le
Cure" oilers 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 Conde, hurried
through St Denis without turning his head
('richness of their treasury! stuff and non
sense!*) — took a postilion there "in a tawny
yellow jerkin. ' At last, late of a 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 pos
tilion sounding 'crack, crack! — crack, crack!'
and saw the ' villanously narrow' streets flit
ting 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, how
ever, are nasty.' And the pale man in black
was taken, still clattering — still crack, crack!
— through the narrow, winding turns of the
Quartier St Denis — he looking out with a
sort of da/.ed wonder at what flitted by.
' One — two — three — four— five — six — seven —
SSJ

LIFE OF STERNE
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 comer, 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
; 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
338

MR STERNE GOES ABROAD
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 philos
ophers, 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 sup
pressed, the Diderots and D'Alemberts, and
339

LIFE OF STERNE
D'Holbachs, fortified by a crowd of intel
lectual queens of society, gave laws in many
a salon. But there was a still more propi
tious tone to welcome Mr Sterne's arrival.
A frantic Anglomania had set in, which
broke out in every way that a mania could
manifest itself, taking the shape of mon
strous extravagances in hats, wigs, and other
articles of dress; also in a preference for
articles of a solid English shape and pat
tern; 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. He
was at once, with scarcely an hour's delay,
plunged into the crowd of the wits, philos
ophers, 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
340

MR STERNE GOES ABROAD
George, and Lord Macartney, and a whole
crowd of 'English of distinction." Tristram,
not translated yet, nor to have that hon
our for many years to come, had travelled
to Paris before him, and was prodigiously
talked of, if not read. With their charac
teristic 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 mid
distinctions with which he was welcomed.
He had been there little more than a week
when the current of dinners began to flow;
and he 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 sup
pers. ' There was the difficulty about his
passports, but when such great persons as
the Count de Limbourgh and Baron d'Hol-
bach had offered the Prime Minister Choiseul
'any security for the inotfensiveness of my
behaviour in France, which is more than
you will do, you rogue ! ' it may be eon-
311

LIFE OF STERNE
ceived 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 dis
covered 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.
342

MR STERNE GOES ABROAD
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 re
stored 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. He 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 Opera Comique, in Iphigenie, one of her
grand parts; and it was natural that one of
his theatrical taste should be enchanted with
343

LIFE OF STERNE
her magnificent acting. So delighted was he,
that he with 'fifteen or sixteen English of dis
tinction' 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 Lon
don,' in which he was to 'send us all home
to supper, happy.' 'Ah, Pre ville,' 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 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 sup
per 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 sup
pers to Garrick and Clairon, and other noto
rieties, 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
* See Angelo's 'Letters.' f Garrick's 'Letters.'
344

MR STERNE GOES ABROAD
wish, too, that even some little instalment
of what had passed so comically, had come
down to us in a few hasty Shandean jot
tings. 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 fort
night'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 mourn
ing 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 of black; at other
seasons, we may be sure, he found his way
to the quais, where old books were sold,
and began to bouquiner with his old zest.
oi5

LIFE OF STERNE
Mr Heber had a copy of the Shandean
' Serees,' well thumbed, and with this in
scription, ' L. Sterne, a Paris, 8 livres.'
And when Mr Wilkes was in Paris, Mr
Sterne presented him with a copy of Bar-
bou's fine edition of Catullus, which was
sold with the rest of that gentleman's
books.

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