It was they who praised STERNE's writings and himself, and were willing to make him rich. His written words were as remote from anecdotes which grim moralists allowed themselves to listen to, and even to repeat, in his day, as were those of Mr. Thackeray in an age of more watch upon its lips in the presence of women.

The most that STERNE ever published has been mentioned. 'An Impromptu' will be found at the end of this edition which deserves particular attention. It is altogether Shandean. S. P., who gave it to the public, says, STERNE drew it up in a few moments without stopping his pen.' In such a case it deserves the study of any one who wishes to look more closely into the secret of making a reputation in literature. In 1844 there was printed for private circulation a collection of Seven Letters by Sterne and his Friends. They are mentioned by Thackeray, and founded on by him for his notorious attack on the earlier humorist, against which it is a duty to protest. One of the best possible proofs of literary success is that an author's name becomes marketable. Our Prebend of York attained this distinction. In an edition of his works, in seven volumes, published in 1783-fifteen years after he died-the sixth volume is mainly made up of The Koran; or the Life, Character, and Sentiments of Tria Juncta in Uno, M. N. A., or Master of No Arts. It is dedicated in the fulsome terms of that period 'to the Right Honourable the Earl of Charlemont.' The editor pretends that the work was handed to him by STERNE, who left it to his discretion whether he would make it public or not. While reading the pages to him one day, STERNE, he says, stopped at the end of a particular chapter and expressed himself thus : 'Swift said, that if there were a dozen Arbuthnots in the world, he would burn his Gulliver. In like manner, I declare, that if there were only as many Charlemonts in these kingdoms, I would also commit my Primmer to the flames.' This mention of the Primmer is a bit of skilful imposture. It occurs as one of the many chapters which compose the Koran. That work was proved in the Gentleman's Magazine to be an infliction upon the name of STERNE. It is a tolerably clever imitation of what was weakest in him. It multiplies chapters as he did. It shows that the author of it understood STERNE'S devices in the way of affectation and allusiveness. But like all other imitations, it betrays itself by becoming too close. The author, who calls himself editor, says in his address to the reader a rather good thing of his original. It is this: STERNE was a second Democritus, who sported his opinions freely, just as his philosophy or his fancy led the way. And as he instilled no profligate principle, nor solicited any loose desire, the worst that could possibly be said of the very worst part of his writings might be only, that they were as indecent, but as innocent at the same time, as the sprawling of an infant on the floor.' This is the defence which STERNE himself gave for his writings to a lady who charged him with indelicacy; and of course suggests at once to the reader a

1

suspicion of forgery. But the affair is not left to conjecture. The writer in the Gentleman's Magazine, who signs himself 'Normanus,' says, in his edition-Dublin, 1775, 5 vols., 12mo-the Koran was placed at the end, the editor honestly confessing that it was written by Mr. Richard Griffith, son of Mrs. Griffith the novelettist, himself a wealthy gentleman in Kildare. This imposture does not occur in Cadell's royal octavo four volume edition, published in 1803, which is followed in the present issue of the Complete Works of a genuine and generous humorist. STERNE'S affectation, indelicacy, and originality, have all been severely reprimanded by high authorities in the republic of letters. Coleridge is wise and wordy when he writes about his 'using the best dispositions of our nature as the panders and condiments for the basest.' And just as Professor Ferrier in our day distinguished himself by showing what a plagiarist Coleridge was, so a Dr. Ferriar of an earlier day made some name by exposing the plagiarisms of STERNE. Coleridge and STERNE live and will live as thinkers and thought-producing powers, notwithstanding the faults with which each has been charged. To the pure all things are pure. This is the motto which the editor of literature produced in the middle of last century adopts. If that embodiment of thought, wit, humour, and artistic skill were not reproduced, the thoughtful portion of mankind would soon begin to inquire after some missing link, the need of which they felt in their 'dreams by day and lingering thoughts in the night.'

ADVERTISEMENT.

THE works of Mr. Sterne, after contending with the prejudices of some and the ignorance of others, have at length obtained that general approbation which they are entitled to by their various, original, and intrinsic merits. No writer of the present times can lay claim to so many unborrowed excellences. In none have wit, humour, fancy, pathos, and unbounded knowledge of mankind, and a correct and elegant style, been so happily united. These properties, which render him the delight of every reader of taste, have surmounted all opposition,-even Envy, Prudery, and Hypocrisy are silent.

Time, which allots to each author his due portion of fame, and admits a free discussion of his beauties and faults, without favour and without partiality, hath done ample justice to the superior genius of Mr. Sterne. It hath fixed his reputation as one of the first writers in the English language on the firmest basis, and advanced him to the rank of a classic. As such, it becomes a debt of gratitude to collect his scattered performances into a complete edition, with those embellishments usually bestowed on our most distinguished authors.

This hath been attempted in the present edition, which comprehends all the Works of Mr. Sterne, either made public in his lifetime or since his death. They are printed from the best and most correct copies, with no other alterations than what became necessary from the correction of literal errors; and the Letters are arranged according to their several dates, as far as they can be discovered. Those which are confessedly spurious are rejected; and, that no credit may be given to such as are of doubtful authority, it will be proper to observe that those numbered 129, 130, 131, have not the proofs of authenticity which the others possess. They cannot, however, be pronounced forgeries with so much confidence as some1 which are discarded from the present edition may be, and therefore are retained in it.

That no part of the genuine works of Mr. Sterne might be omitted, his own account of himself and family is inserted, without variation. But as this appears to have been a hasty composition, intended only for the information of his daughter, a small number of facts and dates, by way of notes, are added to it. These, it is presumed, will not be considered as improper additions.

It would be trespassing on the reader's patience to detain him any longer from the pleasure which these volumes will afford, by bespeaking his favour either for the author or his works the former is out of the reach of censure or praise; and the reputation of the latter is too well established to be either supported or shook by panegyric or criticism. To the taste, therefore, the feeling, the good sense, and the candour of the public the present collection of Mr. Sterne's works may be submitted, without the least apprehension that the perusal of any part of them will be followed by consequences unfavourable to the interests of society. The oftener they are read, the stronger will a sense of universal benevolence be impressed on the mind; and the attentive reader will subscribe to the character of the author given by a comic writer, who declares he held him to be 'a moralist in the noblest sense he plays indeed with the fancy, and sometimes, perhaps, too wantonly; but while he thus designedly masks his main attack, he comes at once upon the heart; refines, amends it, softens it; beats down each selfish barrier from about it, and opens every sluice of pity and benevolence.'

See the Preface to a work published in 1779, intituled Letters supposed to have been written by Yorick to Eliza.

Ꭺ

EXTRACT FROM THE PENNY MAGAZINE,'

NOVEMBER 17, 1802.

As a writer, Sterne is undoubtedly entitled to a high rank in his peculiar line. Attempts have been made to trace the peculiarities of his style to preceding writers; and Dr. Ferriar, in particular, has certainly convicted him of having borrowed many thoughts, and even the groundwork of some pretty long passages, from Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy and other old English works. Arbuthnot's famous Martinus Scriblerus has also been pointed out as the prototype of Tristram Shandy. Of all his predecessors, however, Rabelais is undoubtedly the writer who has the best right to be regarded as having been directly imitated by Sterne. We do not allude to particular passages, in which the one may be proved to have been a copier of the other, so much as to general resemblance of style and manner. There is in both the same nervous and idiomatic style, the same whimsicality of thought and allusion, the same intermixture of the most sagacious and profound remarks with the wildest absurdity, as well as the same wit and humour. In both, too, there is the same indelicacy,—only far more frequent and reckless in Rabelais, whose satire is also animated in many places by a much more bitter spirit. But in this or any other parallel which may be drawn to the disadvantage of Sterne's originality, it ought never to be forgotten that his highest attribute remains still all his own-his exquisite pathos. Of this there is nothing whatever either in Burton, or Arbuthnot, or Rabelais, or any other with whom he has been compared. None of these writers could have produced the stories of the Dead Ass, of Lefevre, of the Monk, or of Maria. Nay, none of them, we may venture to affirm, could have drawn or imagined anything so full of the eccentric and the ludicrous, and yet so mild, so attractive, and, with all its singularity, so true to nature, as the delineation either of my Uncle Toby or of Corporal Trim; though perhaps Cervantes might.

Speaking of Sterne's physiognomy, Lavater says: 'In this face you discover the arch, satirical Sterne, the shrewd and exquisite observer, more limited in his object, but on that very account more profound;-you discover him, I say, in the eyes, in the space which separates them, in the nose and the mouth, of this figure.'

MEMOIRS OF THE LIFE AND FAMILY

OF

THE LATE REV. LAURENCE STERNE,

WRITTEN BY HIMSELF.

adrift into the wide world, with a wife and two children, the elder of which was Mary. She was born at Lisle, in French Flanders, July 10, 1712, new style. This child was the most unfortunate: she married one Wemans, in Dublin,

OGER STERNE' (grandson to Archbishop | with many other brave officers, broke, and sent Sterne), Lieutenant in Handaside's regiment, was married to Agnes Hebert, widow of a Captain of a good family. Her family name was (I believe) Nuttle ;-though, upon recollection, that was the name of her father-in-law, who was a noted sutler in Flanders, in Queen Anne's wars, where my father married his wife's daughter (N.B. he was in debt to him), which was on 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; at which town I was born, November 24, 1713, a few days after my mother arrived from Dunkirk.-My birth-day was ominous to my poor father, who was, the day of our arrival,

who used her most unmercifully; spent his substance, became a bankrupt, and left my poor sister to shift for herself; which she was able to do but for a few months, for she went to a friend's house in the country, and died of a broken heart. She was a most beautiful woman, of a fine figure, and deserved a better fate. The regiment in which my father served being broke, he left Ireland as soon as I was able to be carried, with the rest of his family, and came to the family-seat at Elvington, near York, where his mother lived. She was

1 Mr. Sterne was descended from a family of that name in Suffolk, one of which settled in Nottinghamshire. The following genealogy is extracted from Thoresby's Ducatus Leodinensis, p. 215:—

The arms of the family, says Guillam, in his Book of Heraldry, p. 77, are, Or, a chevron between three crosses flory, sable. The crest, on a wreath of his colours, a starling proper.

Trifling circumstances are worthy of notice when connected with distinguished characters. The arms of Mr. Sterne's family are no otherwise important than on account of the crest having afforded a hint for one of the finest stories in The Sentimental Journey.