never had a suspicion the paper. I shall be down before May is out. I preach before the judges on Sunday my Sermons come out on Thursday after, and I purpose the Monday, at furthest, after that, to set out for York. I have bought a pair of horses for that purpose. My best respects to your Lady. am, Dear Sir, Your most obliged and faithful P.S. I beg pardon for this hasty scrawl, having just come from a concert where the D. of York performed. I have received great notice from him, and last week had the honour of supping with him. Not knowing where to send two sets of my Sermons, I could think of no better expedient than to order them into Mr. Berenge's hands, who has promised me that he will wait upon your Lordship with them, the first moment he hears you are in town. The truest and humblest thanks I return to your Lordship, for the generosity of your protection, and advice to me; by making a good use of the one, I will hope to deserve the other: I wish your Lordship all the health and happiness in this world, for I am Your Lordship's most obliged and PS. I am just sitting down to go on with Tristram, the scribblers use me ill, but they have used my betters much worse, for which may God forgive &c. - them. XI. TO THE REV. MR. STERNE. REVEREND SIR, Prior-Park, June 15, 1760. You I HAVE your favour of the 9th instant, and am glad to understand you are got safe home, and employed again in your proper studies and amusements. have it in your power to make that, which is an amusement to yourself and others, useful to both: at least you should, above all things, beware of its becoming hurtful to either, by any violations of decency and good manners: but I have already taken such repeated liberties of advising you on that head, that to say more would be needless, or perhaps unacceptable. Whoever is, in any way, well received by the public, is sure to be annoyed by that pest of the public, profligate scribblers. This is the common lot of successful adventurers; but such have often a worse evil to struggle with, I mean the over officiousness of their indiscreet friends. There are two Odes, * as they are called, printed by Dodsley. Whoever was the author, he appears to be a monster of impiety and lewdness yet, such is the malignity of the scribblers, some have given them to your friend Hall; and others, which * Intitled, "Two Lyric Epistles: one to my Cousin Shandy, on his coming to Town; and the other to the Grown Gentlewomen, the Misses of ***" 4to. is still more impossible, to yourself; though the first Ode has the insolence to place you both in a mean and a ridiculous light. But this might arise from a tale equally groundless and malignant, that you had shewn them to your acquaintances in MS. before they were given to the public. Nor was their being printed by Dodsley the likeliest means of discrediting the calumny. About this time, another, under the mask of friendship, pretended to draw your character, which was since published in a Female Magazine (for dulness, who often has as great a hand as the devil, in deforming God's works of the creation, has made them, it seems, male and female,) and thence it was transferred into a Chronicle. Pray have you read it you know its author? or do But of all these things, I dare say Mr. Garrick, whose prudence is equal to his honesty or his talents, has remonstrated to you with the freedom of a friend. He knows the inconstancy of what is called the Public, towards all, even the best intentioned, of those who contribute to its pleasure or amusement. He (as every man of honour and discretion would) has availed himself of the public favour, to regulate the taste, and, in his proper station, to reform the manners, of the fashionable world; while, by a well-judged œconomy, he has provided against the temptations of a mean and servile dependency on the follies and vices of the great. In a word, be assured there is no one more sincerely wishes your welfare and happiness, than, Reverend Sir, The London Chronicle, May 6, 1760. Sentimental Journey, etc. 12 XII. TO MY WITTY WIDOW, MRS. F MADAM, Coxwould, August 3, 1760. -- WHEN a man's brains are as dry as a squeez'd orange, and he feels he has no more conceit in him than a mallet, 'tis in vain to think of sitting down, and writing a letter to a lady of your wit, unless in the honest John-Trot-Style of yours of the 15th instant came safe to hand, &c.; which, by the bye, looks like a letter of business; and you know very well, from the first letter I had the honour to write to you, I am a man of no business at all. This vile plight I found my genius in was the reason I have told Mr. I would not write to you till the next post, hoping by that time to get some small recruit, at least of vivacity, if not wit, to set out with; but upon second thoughts, thinking a bad letter in season to be better than a good one out of it, this scrawl is the consequence, which if you will burn the moment you get it, I promise to send you a fine set essay in the style of your female epistolizers, cut and trim'd at all points. God defend me from such, who never yet knew what it was to say or write one premeditated word in my whole life, for this reason I send you this with pleasure, because wrote with the careless irregularity of an easy heart. Who told you. Garrick wrote the medley for Beard? 'Twas wrote in his house, however, and before I left town. --- I deny it, I was not lost two days before I left town. I was lost all the time I was there, and never found till I got to this Shandy-castle of mine. Next winter I intend to sojourn amongst you with more decorum, and will neither be lost nor found any where. Now I wish to God I was at your elbow. I have just finished one volume of Shandy, and I want to read it to some one who I know can taste and relish humour; this by the way is a little impudent in me, for I take the thing for granted, which their high mightinesses the world have yet to determine; but I mean no such thing, I could wish only to have your opinion: shall I, in truth, give you mine; I dare not, but I will; provided you keep it to yourself know then, that I think there is more laughable humour, with an equal degree of Cervantic satire, if not more than in the last, but we are bad judges of the merit of our children. I return you a thousand thanks for your friendly congratulations upon my habitation and I will take care, you shall never wish me but well, for I am, Madam, With great esteem and truth, Your most obliged, L. STERNE. P.S. I have wrote this so vilely and so precipitately, I fear you must carry it to a decypherer. I beg you'll do me the honour to write, otherwise you draw me in, instead of Mr. drawing you into a scrape, for I should sorrow to have a taste of so agreeable a correspondent and no more. Adieu. I HAVE been in such a continual hurry since the |