life which he was so fond of elaborating from sensation and fancy. "Sweet pliability of man's spirit,” he exclaims, "that can at once surrender itself to illusions which cheat expectation and sorrow of their weary moments!" "I can safely say, that, for myself, I was never able to conquer one single bad sensation in my heart so decisively, as by beating up, as fast as I could, for some kindly and gentle sensation to fight it upon its own ground." "A man who has not a sort of affection for the whole sex is incapable of ever loving a single one as he ought." "I know not how it is, but I am never so perfectly conscious of a soul within me, as when I am entangled in them." Again, in the sermon on the Pharisee, he says: "In benevolent natures the impulse to pity is so sudden, that, like instruments of music which obey the touch, the objects which are fitted to excite such impressions work so instantaneously that you would think the will was scarce concerned." Now, if we admit such confessions to be what Sterne claims for them,-"loose touches of an honest heart," — they explain, by the want of balance, the incompleteness of the man, his overplus of sensibility and deficiency of will and moral harmony, and show that it is quite possible for genuine feeling to coëxist with "infirmity of purpose," and emotional sympathy with an absence of disinterestedness. Hence, Thackeray's censure is indiscriminate, when he sums up the character of this author with the statement that he "had artistical sensibility," and "exercised the lucrative gift of weeping," and that he is represented entirely by "tears and fine feelings, and a white pocket handkerchief, a procession of mutes, and a hearse with a dead donkey inside." This is satire, not criticism. Somewhat more real must Sterne's writings have contained to have survived the fluctuations of taste, and proved more or less models for subsequent and popular authors. Affectation and indecency are so alien to Anglo-Saxon instincts in literature, that only a large admixture of wit or grace could have preserved writings thus meretricious.

This temperament, so undesirable for moral efficiency, was favorable to authorship. Its almost reckless impulse gave a certain sociability to pen-craft. It led, indeed, to the expression of much that offends refined taste and elevated sentiment, but, at

the same time, what he wrote was all the more human for being unreserved. As a good table companion, while he entertains, often in the same proportion forfeits respect, so a writer of this species attracts, by virtue of an abandon which is full of peril as a trait of character, and yet induces a thousand felicities of invention and style. Allied to genius, it is a great element of success. Without it Byron would never have imparted the sensation of his own experience, which is the source of his intensity. So largely does it enter into the old English drama, that we are continually startled and thrilled by a boldness of language which, unchastened as it is, takes hold at once upon the emotional in our nature. One secret, therefore, of the charm whereby Sterne maintains so definite a rank in English literature, is the freedom of his tone, involving, with much that is gross, a frank challenge to our sympathies as human beings,— a companionable appeal, which the reader, with even an inkling of geniality, cannot resist. He professes to write for the benefit of those who, "when cooped up betwixt a natural and positive law, know not, for their souls, which way in the world to turn themselves." He thus establishes a relation with his reader, personal, direct, and genuine the first condition of success in authorship. This relation is never long forgotten. He addresses both sexes, in a colloquial, friendly, trustful manner, and seems to identify himself with each by the magnetism of a determined recognition, which it is as unpleasant to evade as it is to repel the courteous and benign advances of an urbane stranger whom we accidentally encounter. He is so confidential, communicative, at his ease, and agreeable, that we instinctively yield.

Contemporary records give us quite a lively idea of Sterne's début in the world of letters. The same prestige has attended many an author before and since, who found in London a market for his books and an arena for social consideration; and the real significance of such prandial honors as attend success in that metropolis is now estimated at its true value. Unless the popular author boasts more legitimate credentials than his fame as a writer, the "dinners fourteen deep" suggest only a casual position. Walpole, in his usual satirical way, treats the "run which the early volumes of Tristram Shandy enjoyed as one of

the absurdities of fashion. Johnson sneered at the author's countless invitations; even the amiable Goldsmith called him a dull fellow. Warburton repudiated his intimacy, in despair of the reform he attempted; and Gray, the poet, declared it made one nervous to hear him preach, because his discourse continually verged on the laughable. Meanwhile Sterne encountered these and other better-founded objections with an insensibility which in a nobler cause would have been heroic, but in his case argues little else than recklessness.

Sterne came honestly both by his improvident spirit and his clerical title. His great-grandfather was Archbishop of York, and his father was killed in a duel which originated in high words about a goose. His boyhood was passed in the vagabondage of the camp, his young imagination kindled by the stories of Marlborough's veterans; his prime degraded by intimacy with an obscene writer, whose library was a unique collection of works especially adapted to pervert his taste; literary success introduced him suddenly to the pleasures of the town, and to the most perilous of all situations for a man of quick intellect and keen passions that of a favorite diner-out and convivial buffoon; the prestige of an unscrupulous wit awaited him at the French capital; and to all his moral exposures he brought a mind unbraced by any clear force of purpose, a nature, both physical and moral, far more sensitive than vigorous, with morbid constitutional tendencies, and enslaved to pleasurable sensations. Thus born and bred, the creature of the immediate, only by a rare and felicitous union of circumstances was it possible for the flattered author, the susceptible cosmopolite, the imaginative epicure, to acquire that strength of will and methodical discipline, wherein alone could self-respect be intrenched. He must either have met the problem of life on perpetual guard, conscious that vigilant resistance was his only safety, or retired from its blandishments with heroic selfabnegation; and to neither of these alternatives were his resolution and courage adequate. Hence his qui vive philosophy, his deliberate search for excitement, the habit of absorbing consciousness in variety of scene and outward enjoyment, the attempt to waive off all mundane annoyance, and even death itself.

So reduced, at one period, was Sterne, that he hired a pane in

the window of a stationer's shop, and placed there advertisements offering his services to all who stood in need of pen-craft, from the indolent vicar desirous of an eloquent sermon, to the uneducated lover who would fain register his mistress' charms in an anagram. On another occasion, it is related that he stole forth at night, to solicit a loan from Garrick; but, hearing the sounds of festivity within, gently replaced the uplifted knocker rather than expose his shabby dress by appearing in gay company. Debt and neglect made his exit from the world forlorn; not a single friend ministered to his dying wants; and the very companions who had most frequently applauded his table-talk were interrupted in their mirth by the announcement of his decease. These anecdotes form a gloomy contrast to the hues in which Sterne loved to depict human life; for they are unrelieved by cheerfulness, and unsoftened by sentiment. Perhaps in all literary history there is not a more impressive instance of the inevitable consequence of that unnatural divorce between genius and character which turns the blessed promise of the former into a mockery. It is as painful in literature as in life to be charmed, and yet to feel obliged to question the spell; to experience a conflict between the sense of beauty and the moral judgment, and to condemn the man while we enjoy the author. Quite the reverse of the Oriental benediction, "May you die among your kindred!" was his confessed wish. "I certainly declare," he says, "against submitting to it [death] before my friends." In accordance with the vagrant humor and casual sentiment that gave a charm to his writing and a recklessness to his character, he desired to close his existence away from home, and to receive the last offices of humanity from strangers; and thus it happened. While hirelings were endeavoring to restore circulation to his feet, as he lay in his lodgings in Old Bond street, he expired; not, like Scott, surrounded by awed and weeping relatives and dependents; nor, like Cowper, with a smile of "holy surprise;" nor, like Johnson, with the one nds of years tearfully awaiting the sad event. His ties, with to use two exceptions, had all been convivial and "sentimental," cerity of fe favorite word, rather than affectionate; no grand sinhearts of thosling or noble self-devotion had enshrined him in the te who were amused by his wit, or softened by his

pathos; and the man who, of all English authors, made emotion the staple of his writings, and chiefly sought to apply literary art to the expression of sentiment, passed away with the paltriest oblation, and owed his monument to public charity.

It is usual to regard the private correspondence of an author as the best test of his disposition. We have ample means of this nature to aid our judgment. There are domestic letters to his wife and daughter, business letters to Foley his banker, friendly letters to Garrick, his cousin, and several London and Paris acquaintances, and love-letters to Mrs. Draper. In them we discover his social relations, his opinions, private life, and tone of mind, and can easily perceive the sprightliness and geniality that captivated such men as the Baron d'Holbach and Lord Bathurst. His letters confirm our theory of his character; they exhibit the extremes of animal spirits, the constant trials of an invalid, the caprices of a sensitive and the recklessness of an excitable mind; yet with these defects appear, in equally strong colors, devoted parental love, cheerful philosophy, a conscientious regard to the claims of family and friends, candor, kindliness, and a sense of the beautiful and the true. How variable in his moods, how much a creature of mere temperament and sensibility, how prone to artificiality in the midst of natural emotion, was this singular compound of the man of the world and the sentimental epicure, clearly appears in his off-hand epistles. The manner in which he meets the arguments of judicious friends, who urged him to suppress objectionable parts of Tristram Shandy, shows conclusively that he was deficient in what may be called the instinct of the appropriate. It was the fashion in his day for both the aristocracy and the literati to indulge in table-talk which now would scarcely be tolerated in a barrack; and it is evident that he calculated upon the popularity of an obscene joke, without any adequate notion of the defilement it cast on a printed work designed for general perusal. In those letters which are addressed to the last object of his sentiment, there is displayed an anxiety for her comfort and welfare which betokens genuine disinterestedness; and, during the few weeks preceding his death, a most affectionate solicitude for his child is apparent. A few random extracts will best illustrate these diverse traits of his correspondence.