the Levite a wife; human connivance a concubine; neither did the Jewish concubine differ from a wife, but in some outward compliments; both might challenge all the true essence of marriage. I shall omit the greater part of the Levite's solioquy, in Sterne, and only take the last sentences. "Mercy well becomes the heart of all thy creatures, but most of thy servant, a Levite, who offers up so many daily sacrifices to thee, for the transgressions of thy people." -"But to little purpose," he would add, "have I served at thy altar, where my business was to sue for mercy, had I not learn'd to practise it." Mercy, says Bishop Hall, becomes well the heart of any man, but most of a Levite. He that had helped to offer so many sacrifices to God for the multitude of every Israelite's sins, saw how proportionable it was, that man should not hold one sin unpardonable. He had served at the altar to no purpose, if he (whose trade was to sue for mercy) had not at all learned to practise it. It were needless to pursue the parallel. Sterne's twelfth Sermon, on the Forgiveness of Injuries, is merely a dilated com mentary on the beautiful conclusion of the Contemplation of Joseph.' 6 The sixteenth Sermon contains a more striking imitation. "There is no small degree of malicious craft in fixing upon a sea son to give a mark of enmity and ill-will; -a word, a look, which, at one time, would make no impression,-at another time, wounds the heart; and, like a shaft flying with the wind, pierces deep, which with its own natural force, would scarce have reached the object aimed at." This is little varied from the original There is no small cruelty in the picking out of a time for mischief; that word would scarce gall at one season, which at another killeth. The same shaft flying with the wind pierces deep, which against it, can hardly find strength to stick upright.* *Hall's Shimei Cursing. H 6 In Sterne's fifth Sermon, the Contemplation of Elijah with the Sareptan,' is closely followed. Witness this passage out of others: "The prophet follows the call of his God:-the same hand which brought him to the gate of the city, had led also the poor widow out of her doors, oppressed with sorrow.' The prophet follows the call of his God; the same hand that brought him to the gate of Sarepta, led also this poor widow out of her doors.t The succeeding passages which correspond are too long for insertion. Sterne has acknowledged his acquaintance with this book, by the disingenuity of two ludicrous quotations in Tristram Shandy. The use which Sterne made of Burton and Hall, and his great familiarity with their works, had considerable influence on his * Sterne. + Bishop Hall, p. 1323. Vol. i. chap. xxii. and vol. vii. chap. xiii. style; it was rendered, by assimilation with their's, more easy, more natural, and more expressive. Every writer of taste and feeling must indeed be invigorated, by drinking at the "pure well of English undefiled;" but like the Fountain of Youth, celebrated in the old romances, its waters generally elude the utmost efforts of those who strive to appropriate them. Нати Hermes fermons the Moved feely from Young's / the fathe A Pub CHAPTER IV. Mr. Shandy's hypothesis of noses explained -Taliacotius-Stories of long noses-Coincidence between Vigneul-Marville and Lavater-Opinions of Garmann-Riolan-Beddoes-Segar's point of honour concerning the nose. By the labours of those who cultivate the philosophy of the East, we learn, that there exists an order of sages,* who reckon it the perfection of wisdom, to pass their lives in silently contemplating the point of the The philosophy of noses has not nose. The Yogeys. See Sketches relating to the History of the Hindoos. Tho' the priesthood of Fo on the vulgar impose CAMBRIDGE. |
