used. Besides Elijah and the Widow of Zarephath, the Bishop wrote on Shimei and the Levite and his concubine; and in each case Sterne took something from him. Occasionally an entire paragraph was appropriated with only slight change in the phrasing. But in spite of so direct borrowing in places, the aim and tone of Sterne are invariably quite different. Bishop Hall was a scholar of solid attainments. Sterne was a man of the world.

*

Rather more interesting than Sterne's thefts from others are the thefts from himself. He had a way of taking passages out of one sermon and putting them into another under a new text. Self-Knowledge and the Abuses of Conscience were in Sterne's imagination so allied in theme that he transferred from one to the other sermon a long passage on how we may be deceived by conscience. In like manner, the sermon, † without title, on the corruption of the times, closes with a passage from the sermon on the Advantages of Christianity to the World, ‡ modified in precisely the way Sterne sometimes varied from the exact words of Bishop Hall. In the first sermon, we read: "No doubt, there is sufficient room * Nos. IV and XXVII. † No. XXXIII. ‡ No. XXVI.

for amendment in the Christian world, and we may be said to be a very corrupt and bad generation of men, considering what motives we have from the purity of our religion, and the force of its sanctions to make us better:- yet still I affirm, if these restraints were taken off, the world would be infinitely worse." This becomes for a new purpose: "No doubt, there is great room for amendment in the Christian world, — and the professors of our holy religion may in general be said to be a very corrupt and bad generation of men, - considering what reasons and obligations they have to be better. -Yet still I affirm, if those restraints were lessened, -the world would be infinitely worse." And finally, half of the Thirtieth of January, on "the great trespass" of our forefathers in putting to death Charles the First was wrought anew for The Ingratitude of Israel. Other writers have stolen from themselves-Lamb among them, if I mistake not - but perhaps none to a greater extent than Sterne. And yet when a man has said a good thing once, why should he not repeat it?

W. L. C.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

WHILE

HILE I was preparing the foregoing essay on Yorick's sermons, Mr. W. A. White, of New York City, sent to me his copies of Sterne's first two sermons, printed at York in 1747 and 1750 respectively. The two pamphlets, now bound together, came from the library of Isaac Reed (1742-1807), the Shakespearean scholar. On one of the front fly-leaves is "a page from Sterne's MSS. Sermons," from which I have quoted; and on another leaf is a paragraph from the General Advertiser, which I have also given in a footnote. On the blank pages at the end have been pasted old newspaper clippings of considerable interest.

Taking advantage of Mr. White's permission to use the volume as I may please, I have thought best to reprint, now for the first time, the original dedication to the famous Assize sermon, numbered twenty-seven in this collection. I have discovered also that the Shan

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

dean Advertisement to this sermon and the briefer Advertisement to the sermon on Elijah (numbered V), which Sterne wrote for the collected edition of the sermons, have never been reprinted. I have placed the former after the original dedication and the latter as a footnote at the end. Except for these interesting additions, this edition of Yorick's sermons follows the text of 1780.

W. L. C.

TH

PREFACE

[TO THE FIRST EDITION]

HE Sermon which gave rise to the publication of these, having been offered to

the world as a Sermon of Yorick's, I hope the most serious reader will find nothing to offend him, in my continuing these volumes under the same title: lest it should be otherwise, I have added a second title-page with the real name of the author the first will serve the Bookseller's purpose, as Yorick's name is possibly of the two the more known; - and the second will ease the minds of those who see a jest, and the danger which lurks under it, where no jest was meant.

I suppose it is needless to inform the Public, that the reason of printing these Sermons arises altogether from the favourable reception which the Sermon given as a sample of them in TRISTRAM SHANDY met with from the world. That Sermon was printed by itself some years ago, but could find neither pur