(tho' it ruins my simile), I felt a great deal of pain from it, but affected an air usual on such accidents, of less feeling than I had.

I have now got home to my lodgings since the play (you astonished me in it) and have been unwrapping this self-same wound of mine, and shaking my head over it this half-hour.

What the devil! is there no one learned blockhead throughout the many schools of misapplied science in the Christian World, to make a tutor of for my Tristram ?- ex quovis ligno non fit - Are we so run out of stock, that there is no one lumber-headed, muddleheaded, mortar-headed, pudding-headed chap amongst our doctors?—is there no one single wight of much reading and no learning amongst the many children in my mother's nursery, who bid high for this charge — but I must disable my judgment by choosing a Warburton? Vengeance! have I so little concern for the honour of my hero! Am I a wretch so void of sense, so bereft of feeling for the figure he is to make in story, that I should chuse a praeceptor to rob him of all the immortality I intended him? O! dear Mr. Garrick.

Malice is ingenious-unless where the excess of it outwits itself— I have two comforts in this

stroke of it; the first is, that this one is partly of this kind; and secondly, that it is one of the number of those which so unfairly brought poor Yorick to his grave. The report might draw blood of the author of Tristram Shandy--but could not harm such a man as the author of the Divine Legation

God bless him! though (by the bye, and according to the natural course of descents) the blessing should come from him to me.

Pray have you no interest, lateral or collateral, to get me introduced to his Lordship? Why do you ask?

My dear Sir, I have no claim to such an honour, but what arises from the honour and respect which in the progress of my work, will be shewn the world I owe to so great

a man.

Whilst I am talking of owing- I wish, my dear Sir, that anybody would tell you, how much I am indebted to you. — I am determined never to do it myself, or say more upon the subject than this, that I am yours,

L. STERNE.

LETTER XXXIX

Dr. Warburton, Bishop of Gloucester, to David Garrick GROSVENOR-SQUARE, March 7, 1760.

MY DEAR SIR, 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 inclosed, to have an impertinent story confuted the first moment I heard of it; for I cannot but be pleased to find I have no reason to change my opinion of so agreeable and so original a writer as Mr. Sterne; I mean my opinion of his moral character, of which I had received from several of my acquaintance so very advantageous an account. And I cannot see how I could have held it, had the lying tale been true, that he intended to injure one personally and entirely unknown to him. I own it would have grieved me, (and so, I believe, it would him too, when he had known me and my enemies a little better,) to have found himself in company with a crew of the most egregious blockheads that ever abused the blessing of pen and ink.

I

say

However, I pride myself in having warmly recommended "Tristram Shandy" to all the best company in town, except that at Arthur's. I was charged in a very grave assembly, as Dr. Newton can tell him, for a particular patronizer of the work; and how I acquitted myself of the imputation, the said Doctor can tell him. all this to show how ready I was to do justice to a stranger. This is all I expect from a stranger. From my friends, indeed, I expect, because I stand in need of, much indulgence. To them, (being without reserve,) I show my weaknesses. To strangers I have the discretion not to show them; at least, those writing strangers, I mentioned before, have not yet had the wit to find them out.

If Mr. Sterne will take me with all my infirmities, I shall be glad of the honour of being better known to him; and he has the additional recommendation of being your friend. I am, dear Sir,

Your most affectionate and faithful humble

servant,

W. GLOUCESTER.

LETTER XL

To Mr. Berrenger

[LONDON, March, 1760.]

You bid me tell you all my wants. What the Devil in Hell can a fellow want now? By the Father of the Sciences (you know his name) I would give both my ears (if I was not to lose my credit by it) for no more than ten strokes of Howgarth's witty chisel, to clap at the Front of my next Edition of Shandy. The Vanity of a Pretty Girl in the Heyday of her Roses & Lilies is a fool to that of Author of my stamp. Oft did Swift sigh to Pope in these words: "Orna me, unite something of yours to mine, to transmit us down together hand in hand to futurity." The loosest sketch in Nature, of Trim's reading the sermon to my Father, &c., wd do the Business, and it wḍ mutually illustrate his System and mine. But, my dear Shandy, with what face I would hold out my lank Purse! I would shut my Eyes, & you should put in your hand and take out what you liked for it. Ignoramus! Fool! Blockhead! Symoniack! This Grace is not to be