MEMOIR.

THE story of LAURENCE STERNE'S life-without and within-is better known than that of any of the other larger lights of English literature. About six months before he died, he wrote a short account of his nearly fifty-five years' peculiar pilgrimage, which will be found immediately after these few pages of introduction. It was meant for his daughter. He adds this postscript to it: 'I 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.' It is sad to read words. like these written by a father regarding his daughter. The few lines referring to this daughter and her mother which conclude the Autobiography slightly explain them, but do not relieve the sadness. They are: 'In 1762 I went to France, before the peace was concluded; and you both followed me. I left you both in France, and in two years after I went to Italy for the recovery of my health; and when I called upon you, I tried to engage your mother to return to England with me: she and yourself are at length come, and I have had the inexpressible joy of seeing my girl everything I wished.' There is here no 'inexpressible joy' uttered at seeing the girl's mother; and yet there is implied a very high compliment to that lady's motherly training. And this after a tender two years' courtship, and a marriage so unselfish on her part, and so romantic on his, as any one may read in the short Autobiography! There is not on record a marriage of affection which ought to have inspired more confident hopes of an old age like that of Burns' Mrs. John Anderson and her Joe, or of Tennyson's Miller and his Alice. Thackeray had no difficulty with the matter of explanation. After quoting from a scandalous letter, 'Whether husband or wife had most of the patience d'un ange,' he said in one of his lectures, 'may be uncertain; but there can be little doubt which needed it most!' The wife, forsooth. But it is most probably the old story over again. One of the elder biographers of STERNE, by no means an apologist of his, remarks that the wife and daughter, an agreeable young lady about sixteen, who had both resided for some years in a convent in France, having separated from Mr. STERNE through some pique, which was differently accounted for by the parties, returned to England.' It may as well be left so, out of respect to both husband and wife. Husbands of

sentiment and genius are seldom as constantly domesticated in their habits as they should be. There are few of the women ill fated enough to become the wives of such men, who are either able or willing to try and account for the ways of their disagreeably-gifted husbands. Tom Moore's Bessie is a glorious exception, and she obtrudes herself on memory as these words are written. Robert Burns' Jean has also some claim to honourable mention in this respect. Fielding, too, was happy in his marriage relations. Could many more be mentioned? Our present concern is that LAURENCE STERNE was not. Two events are noticeable in his account of his boyhood. When mentioning that a relation of his mother invited the itinerant family to his parsonage at Animo, a hamlet within a few miles of the romantic Lake of Glandelow, he says: '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.' This extraordinary adventure still lives in local tradition, and has been taken effective advantage of by Mr. Edmund Falconer in his melodrama 'Eileen Oge.' The other circumstance of STERNE'S boyhood worth specifying is the impression he made on his teacher at Halifax. He 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 should come to preferment.' The boy did come to preferment, other, most probably, than the master predicted. But did anybody ever go to look for the ineffaceable name on the roof?

Sir Walter Scott remarks that the Autobiography to which the readers of this Memoir have been referred 'is but a slight sketch, and stops short just where the reader becomes most interested in its progress, being very succinct in all which regards the author's personal history.' This remark is too obviously true, and supplies the only reason any one can assign for attempting to amplify it—especially where space is necessarily so limited as it is in this edition of STERNE'S Works. The poverty of the Autobiography is felt from the month that the subject of it became a public man by the publication of Tristram Shandy. The living of Sutton, it will be scen, was his first appointment. His uncle, the Rev. Jacques Sterne, LL.D., Prebendary of Durham, Canon Residentiary, Precentor and Prebendary of York, and a Rector besides, got him this, and secured for him the Prebendary of York. Through his wife's influence,-her name is not known-all that appears is that it began with L,―he got the living of Stillington. On the title-page of an early edition of his Works he is designated 'Prebendary of York, and Vicar of Sutton on the Forest, and of Stillington near York.' STERNE says, 'I remained near twenty years at Sutton, doing duty at both places. Books, paint

ing, fiddling, and shooting were my amusements.' A glimpse or two of his life at this time is to be had by the curious, who alone care to read for such a reward. He was well known as a wit of the Douglas Jerrold stamp. It is told that he was sitting in a publichouse at York one day, along with some clerical brethren, when a young fellow, a stranger, came in and annoyed the reverend gentlemen very much by descanting too freely on religious topics in general, and on the hypocrisy of the clergy in particular. He addressed STERNE directly, asking him what were his sentiments on the subject. The clerical wit replied by telling him that his dog was reckoned one of the most beautiful pointers in the whole county, was very good-natured, but that he had one infernal trick which destroyed all his good qualities: 'He never sees a clergyman, but he immediately flies at him.' 'How long may he have had that trick, sir?' inquired the profane person with apparent interest. 'Ever since he was a puppy,' was the reply, and it revealed the satire. Now in those days a reputation for wit like this, thus used, was almost enough to canonize a man. Such anecdotes are still told in Sunday schools, as if they were a subdivision of the evidences of Christianity.

Thus did STERNE live, a local celebrity, till he was forty-six years of age. This is noteworthy. Like Cowper, he was late of beginning to write for the public-that is, for fame. He wrote for fame, and found it. Before 1759, the year in which the first two volumes of Tristram Shandy were published, STERNE had printed only two sermons. He had written a good deal, it is true; but now, 'tired of employing his brains for other people's advantage,' he took to his pen for his own. Accused of writing upon Iago's advice, 'Put money in thy purse,' or, as it was pedantically expressed, nummum in loculo, he replied that he wrote, not to be fed, but to be famous. He gained what he wrote for. He stalked into renown on his 'Hobby-horse-a compound he rendered classical in Tristram Shandy. He wanted money too-all men who write do. He mentions having taken a small house in York at the time for the education of his daughter; and this requires money. STERNE was lucky enough to encounter both praise and pudding.

The genesis of Tristram Shandy is traceable. There will be found, printed last in the present edition, an earlier work of fiction than Tristram Shandy. It was inspired by a controversy between two ambitious clerical gentlemen, Dr. John Fountayne, Dean of York, and a Dr. Topham, which took place in 1758-the year before the first instalment of Tristram Shandy was published. The gentleman who first made this jeu d'esprit public, speaks of it as 'written immediately before Tristram Shandy, and which may be considered the precursor of it.' The origin of a dispute which originated a brochure which revealed to LAURENCE STERNE the power he had within him to write Tristram Shandy, and take rank among the immortals, was that

a person-Dr. Topham, called Trim by the humorist-who filled a lucrative benefice was not satisfied with enjoying it during his own lifetime, but exerted all his influence to have it entailed on his wife and son after his decease. A friend of STERNE-Dr. Fountayne-thought he had good right to expect the reversion of this living, but saw it passing away from him, and felt he had not sufficient influence to prevent the success of his adversary. When matters were at a critical juncture for John, as STERNE styles his friend and protégé, the satirist attacked the monopolizer in a formidable joke, which he entitled, The History of a Good Warm Watch-Coat, with which the present possessor is not content to cover his own shoulders, unless he can cut out of it a petticoat for his wife and a pair of breeches for his son. A Political Romance. We are told by a contemporary, that what all the serious arguments in the world could not have effected, STERNE'S satirical pen brought about. Dr. Topham, the man to whom the worldly interests of his wife and son were dearer than rights based upon a deed of endowment, sent him word, that if this sarcasm were suppressed, he would resign his pretensions to the 'petticoat and breeches.' Thus STERNE served a friend-and himself. He is Lorry Slim in the squabble, and tells us: 'As for the old breeches, poor Mark Slender lived to wear them but a short time, and they got into the possession of Lorry Slim, an unlucky wight, by whom they are still worn ;-in truth, as you may well guess, they are very thin by this time. 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.' This means, STERNE was made Prebendary of York-got 'the breeches.'

There would be at this time of day absolutely no interest at all in such a dispute, but for STERNE's 'Political'-it should have been termed Ecclesiastical-Romance.' It has, however, this interest in itself. Had it been discovered as an anonymous pamphlet, many a sensible expert in identifications of the sort would have assigned it to STERNE. There is the same class of wit-that of knocking a germ of thought or humour about, which suggests to the reader a game at intellectual football carried on by a single eccentric player; and there are the inevitable dashes and asterisks of which Tristram Shandy made such dexterous, not always decent, use. But we are not left to guess. It was suppressed during STERNE'S lifetime, and published twenty years after it was written. One lingers over it, and is reminded of a few things. If only the world knew in what accidents and by what hints great works of literary genius. generally originate, that sapient institution would first wonder, and then undervalue these creative proofs of the divine element in man. It is known that Milton hunted about a good deal for a 'high argument' long before he fixed on Paradise Lost. It is also a recognised fact that