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In 1759, were published the first two volumes of "Tristram Shandy," a singular and brilliant medley of wit, sentiment, indecency, and study of character. Laurence Sterne was a profligate clergyman, a dishonest author, and an unfaithful husband. He wrote "Tristram Shandy," and he wrote a great many sermons.
But we shall attempt to expound a powerful system of hygiene, which will enable you to put out the flame when your chimney takes fire. We will leave to Aelian his herb hanea and to Sterne the purslane and cucumber which indicate too plainly his antiphlogistic purpose.
Richardson, Fielding, Smollett, and Sterne are the great quartet of English novelists of the last century; but Smollett, in his preface to "Roderick Random," after an admiring allusion to the "Gil Blas" of Le Sage, goes on to say: "The following sheets I have modelled on his plan"; and Sterne was always talking and thinking about Cervantes, and comparing himself to the great Spaniard: "I think there is more laughable humor, with an equal degree of Cervantic satire, if not more, than in the last," he writes of one of his chapters, to "my witty widow, Mrs.
Write instantly, and tell me you triumph over all fears tell me Lydia is better, and a help-mate to you. You say she grows like me: let her show me she does so in her contempt of small dangers, and fighting against the apprehensions of them, which is better still." At last this anxiously awaited journey was taken; and, on Thursday, July 7, Mrs. Sterne and her daughter arrived in Paris.
Sterne: "When Tully was bereft of his daughter, at first he laid it to his heart, he listened to the voice of nature, and modulated his own unto it. O my Tullia! my daughter! my child! Still, still, still 'twas O my Tullia, my Tullia! Me thinks I see my Tullia, I hear my Tullia, I talk with my Tullia.
Then quite suddenly, in 1759, the lazy, lounging, most eccentric, and ill-chosen clergyman enraptured London by the publication of the first two volumes of "Tristram Shandy." The author of "Tristram Shandy" came to town, and was received with more than Roman triumph. Wealth, wit, genius, nobility, thronged his door, sought his friendship, proffered favors. Sterne revelled in this new life.
Calais, as being the nearest point to the English coast, and at which we so often obtain our first peep at France, merits some notice, and although it offers but few attractions, and is surrounded by a flat cheerless country, yet there are connected with it some associations which are replete with interest; as who that has ever read Sterne's Sentimental Journey can forget the simple but impressive description he gives of the poor friar and other objects which he there met, and which he has engraven on the minds of his readers, in his own peculiar style, in characters never to be erased; for my part, as I first approached Calais I thought but of Sterne and his plain, unvarnished tale, of the trifles he encountered, around which he contrived to weave an interest which is felt even by the inhabitants of Calais to this day; although they knew his works but through the spoiling medium of translation, still they never fail to exhibit to the Englishman the alcove in which he is said to have written his adventures in Calais.
Sterne says, that, if he were in a desert, he would love some cypress; and Isaac Taylor has observed, that the devout heart can find in a single blade of grass the evidence of a Divine Creator.
"I do," agreed Hal, and, discarding his coat, hung that on another peg. "I've got a right to." Tilting a slumber-burdened head, McGuire Ellis released his adjuration against youthfulness. "What's the answer?" demanded Sterne. "I've just bought out the 'Clarion," said Hal. Some degree of triumph would perhaps have been excusable in the new owner.
"Whatever creed be taught, or land be trod, Man's conscience is the oracle of God." Byron. "Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire called conscience." Washington. "Trust that man in nothing who has not a conscience in everything." Sterne.
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