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 some which are discarded from the present edition may be, and therefore are retained in it. 1 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 supp.sed to have been written by Yorick to Eliza. A 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 WRITTEN BY HIMSELF. STERNE, ROGER 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, 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, 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. daughter to Sir Roger Jaques, and an heiress. There we sojourned for about ten months, when the regiment was established, and our household decamped with bag and baggage for Dublin. Within a month of our arrival, my father left us, being ordered to Exeter; where, in a sad winter, my mother and her two children followed him, travelling from Liverpool, by land, to Plymouth. (Melancholy description of this journey, not necessary to be transmitted 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 Ireland, and had a narrow escape from being cast away, by a leak springing up in the vessel. At length, after many perils and struggles, we got to Dublin. There my father took a large house, furnished it, and in a year and a half's time spent a great deal of money. In the year one thousand seven hundred and nineteen, all unhinged again; the regiment was ordered, with many others, to the Isle of Wight, in order to embark for Spain in the Vigo expedition. We accompanied the regiment, and were driven into Milford Haven, but landed at Bristol; thence, by land, to Plymouth again, and to the Isle of Wight;-where, I remember, we stayed encamped some time before the embarkation of the troops (in this expedition, from Bristol to Hampshire, we lost poor Joram,— -a pretty boy, four years old, of the small-pox): my mother, sister, and myself, remained at the Isle of Wight during the Vigo expedition, and until the regiment had got back to Wicklow, in Ireland; 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 the twenty-third, one thousand seven hundred and nineteen.-This pretty blossom fell, at the age of three years, in the barracks of Dublin:-she was, as I well remember, of a fine delicate frame, not made to last long,- -as were most of my father's babes. We embarked for Dublin, and had all been cast away by a most violent storm; but through the intercessions of my mother, the captain was prevailed upon to turn back into Wales, where we stayed a month, and at length got into Dublin, and travelled by land to Wicklow; where my father had for some weeks given us over for lost. We lived in the barracks at Wicklow one year (one thousand seven hundred and twenty), when Devijcher (so called after Colonel Devijeher) was born; thence we decamped to stay half a year with Mr. Fetherston, a clergyman, about seven miles from Wicklow; who, being a relation of my mother's, invited us to his parsonage at Animo.—It was in this parish, during our stay, that I had that wonderful escape in falling through a mill-race whilst the mill was going, and of being taken up unhurt: the story is incredible, but known for truth in all that part of Ireland, where hundreds of the common people flocked to see me. Hence we followed the regiment to Dublin, where we lay in the barracks a year. In this year (one thousand seven hundred and twenty-one) I learnt to write, etc. The regiment ordered in twentytwo to Carrickfergus, in the north of Ireland. We all decamped, but got no farther than Drogheda ;-thence ordered to Mullingar, forty miles west, where, by Providence, we stumbled upon a kind relation, a collateral descendant from Archbishop Sterne, who took us all to his castle, and kindly entertained us for a year, and sent us to the regiment at Carrickfergus, loaded with kindnesses, etc. A most rueful and tedious journey had we all (in March) to Carrickfergus, where we arrived in six or seven days. Little Devijeher here died; he was three years old: he had been left behind at nurse at a farmhouse near Wicklow, but was fetched to us by my father the summer after:-another child sent to fill his place, Susan. This babe too left us behind in this weary journey. The autumn of that year, or the spring afterwards (I forget which), my father got leave of his colonel to fix me at school,-which he did near Halifax, with an able master; with whom I stayed some time, till, by God's care of me, my cousin Sterne, of Elvington, became a father to me, and sent me to the University, etc. etc. To pursue the thread of our story, my father's regiment was, the year after, ordered to Londonderry, where another sister was brought forth, Catherine, still living; but most unhappily estranged from me by my uncle's wickedness and her own folly. From this station the regiment was sent to defend Gibraltar, at the siege, where my father was run through the body by Captain Phillips in a duel (the quarrel began about a goose!); with much difficulty he survived, though with an impaired constitution, which was not able to withstand the hardships it was put to; for he was sent to Jamaica, where he soon fell by the country fever, which took away his senses first, and made a child of him; and then, in a month or two, walking about continually without 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 his temper, somewhat rapid and hasty, but of a kindly, sweet disposition, void of all design; and so innocent in his own intentions that he suspected no one; so that you might have cheated him ten times in a day, if nine had not been sufficient for your purpose. My poor father died in March 1731. I remained at Halifax till about the latter end of that year, and cannot omit mentioning this anecdote of myself and schoolmaster:-He had the ceiling of the schoolroom new white-washed; 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 that I should come to preferment.-This expression made me forget the stripes I had received.—In the year thirty-two' my cousin sent me to the university, where I stayed some time. "Twas there that I commenced a friendship with Mr. H—, which has been lasting on both sides. I then came to York, and my uncle got me the living of Sutton; and at York I became acquainted with your mother, and courted her for two years :-she owned she liked me; but thought herself not rich enough, or me too poor, to be joined together.-She went to her sister's in S- -; and I wrote to her often.-I believe then she was partly determined to have me, but would not say so.-At her return she fell into a consumption; and one evening that I was sitting by her, with an almost broken heart to see her so ill, she said, 'My dear Laurey, I never can be yours, for I verily believe have not long to live! but I have left you every shilling of my fortune.'-Upon that she showed me her will. This generosity overpowered me. -It pleased God that she recovered, and I married her in the year 1741. 2My uncle and myself were then upon very good terms; for he soon got me the Prebendary of York ;-but he quarrelled with me afterwards, because I would not write paragraphs in the newspapers. Though he was a party man, I was not, and detested such dirty work, thinking it beneath me. From that period he became my bitterest enemy. 3-By my wife's means, I got the living of Stillington: a friend of hers in the south had promised her that, if she mar He was admitted of Jesus College, in the University of Cambridge, 6th July 1733, under the tuition of Mr. Cannon. Matriculated 29th March 1735. Admitted to the degree of B.A. in January 1736. 2 Jaques Sterne, LL.D. He was Prebendary of Durham, Canon Residentiary, Precentor and Prebendary of York, Rector of Rise, and Rector of Hornsey cum Riston, both in the East Riding of the county of York. He died June 9th, 1759. 3 It hath, however, been insinuated that he for some time wrote a periodical electioneering paper at York, in defence of the Whig interest.-Monthly Review, vol. 53, p. 344. A specimen of Mr. Sterne's abilities in the art of designing may be seen in Mr. Wodhul's poems, 8vo, 1772. The first edition was printed in the preceding year at York. The following is the order in which Mr. Sterne's publications appeared : ried a clergyman in Yorkshire, when the living became vacant, he would make her a compliment of it. I remained near twenty years at Sutton, doing duty at both places. I had then very good health. Books, painting, fiddling, and shooting, were my amusements. As to the Squire of the parish, I cannot say we were upon a very friendly footing, but at Stillington the family of the C-s 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 in 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, 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 her. 6 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. As Mr. Sterne, in the foregoing narrative, hath brought down the account of himself until within a few months of his death, it remains only to mention that he left York about the end of the year 1767, and came to London, in order to publish The Sentimental Journey, which he had written during the preceding summer at his favourite living of Coxwould. His health had been for some 1747. The Case of Elijah and the Widow of Zerephath considered. A Charity Sermon preached on Good Friday, April 17, 1747, for the support of two charity schools in York. 1750. The Abuses of Conscience. Set forth in a Sermon preached in the Cathedral Church of St. Peter, York, at the summer assizes, before the Hon. Mr. Baron Clive and the Hon. Mr. Baron Smythe, on Sunday, July 29, 1750. 1759. Vol 1 and 2 of Tristram Shandy. The remainder of his works were published after his death. 7 From this passage it appears that the present account of Mr. Sterne's Life and Family was written about six months only before his death. |
