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In the Neue Bibliothek der schönen Wissenschaften, the last number for 1766 contains the first mention of Sterne’s name in this representative literary periodical. It is an article entitled “Ueber die Laune,” which is concerned with the phenomena of hypochrondia and melancholia, considered as illnesses, and their possible cure. The author claims to have found a remedy in the books which do not depress the spirits with exhibition of human woes, but which make merry over life’s follies. In this he claims merely to be following the advice of St. Evremond to the Count of Olonne. His method he further explains by tracing humor to its beginnings in Aristophanes and by following its development through Latin, new Latin (Erasmus, Thomas Morus, etc.), French and English writers. Among the latter Sterne is named. Unfortunately for the present purpose, the author is led by caution and fear of giving the offense of omission to refrain from naming the German writers who might be classed with the cited representatives of humor. In closing, he recommends heartily to those teased with melancholy a “portion of leaves of Lucian, some half-ounces of ‘Don Quixote’ or some drachms of ‘Tom Jones’ or ‘Tristram Shandy.’” Under the heading, “New English Books,” in the third number of the same periodical for 1767, is a brief but significant notice of the ninth volume of Tristram Shandy. “The ninth part of the well-known ‘Life of Tristram Shandy’ has been published; we would not mention it, if we did not desire on this occasion to note at least once in our magazine a book which is incontestably the strangest production of wit and humor which has ever been brought forth. .
She smiled, out of sheer content at being thus waited upon, and gave them a description of Praed Street, where the meal was continually interrupted by purchasers of journals, buyers of half-ounces of shag.
The little chandler’s shop with the cracked bell behind the door, whose melancholy tinkling has been regulated by the demand for quarterns of sugar and half-ounces of coffee, is shutting up.
Here is a date, and after it some figures, but no articles mentioned, neither tea nor candles. Next come some groceries, and the price, but no one's name, so that it is impossible to tell who had the goods. Then there are pages with mysterious dots and strokes and half-strokes, which ultimately turn out to mean ounces and half-ounces of tobacco. These have neither name nor value attached.
This he kept in his coat-pocket, a place where the gauger would never think of searching for it, divided into halfpenny and pennyworths, ounces or half-ounces, according as it might be required; and as he had it without duty, the liberal spirit in which he dealt it out to his neighbors soon brought him a large increase of custom.
Children are half fed, for the earnings of parents are too meagre to allow a sufficient quantity of nourishing food; but public-houses do a roaring trade on the ready-money principle, while the chandler supplies scraps of food and half-ounces of tea on very long credit.
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