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NOTES.

TH HIS edition of Sterne's sentimental Journey is printed from and collated with two of the earliest and best copies printed in London. Where these differ from each other (as may be seen in some instances ), the present editor has followed that which seemed most expressive of the author's meaning.

And it here it may be proper to observe, as well in regard to this work as to others printed or intend= ed to be printed in this form, that there are several words in the english language the orthography of which is not absolutely fixed. In all such cases the author's orthography has been followed, except where an error has evidently appeared to be merely the effect of inadvertency.

The readers of Sterne's works must have remarked a singularity in his ponctuation by lines instead of the stops commonly used. As he had probably some reasons for this deviation from the common method, it was judged right to adopt his manner in this work.

For any grammatical errors in the English, the au= thor is left responsable: errors in the French phrases are corrected.

Page 1. The title announces a journey through France and Italy. It appears by some of the author's letters, that this account of his journey, which ex= tends no further than Lyons, was not finished till the end of the year 1767; and as he died the 13th march 1768, it is probable that he had not completed the whole of his design.

Ibid., line 21. (droit d'aubaine) This jour ney was undertaken in 1762, when the French and English were at war: a circumstance which probably occasioned a temporary suspension of a declaration made by Louis XV at Compiegne 19th july 1739, and registered by the Parliament the 14th august following, by which the Personal Estates of English subjects, were exempted from the droit d'aubaine.

Pag. 9, lin. 14. Benefit of the clergy, etc. Among the privileges granted to the Clergy in ancient times of ignorance, was that of not being subject to the jurisdiction of the temporal courts in criminal cases. By an abusive extension of this privilege, all who could read were considered as clerks or clergy, and by that means generally escaped capital punishment. This abuse has been long suppressed in fact tho not wholly so in form. This privilege now called the Benefit of Clergy, is allowed in some cases of felony, in order to mitigate the rigour of the law; and many criminals are now sentenced to be transported to fo= reign parts, instead of suffering capital punishment at home. To these the author alludes in the first class of travellers with the Benefit of the Clergy; in the second class he includes those who are transported or sent by their parents to travel under the direction of tutors, generally clergy-men educated at the Uni= versities of Oxford, Aberdeen, Glascow, etc.

Pag. 29, lin. 23. Smelfungus: Smollet; a writer of great merit, author of an history of England, and of several romances little inferior to Tom Jones. He was in so bad a state of health when he travelled, that he could enjoy no pleasure from any object he met with in his travels.

Pag. 30, lin. 5. Wherein he spoke etc.: a part of Othello's speech to the Senate, in one of Shakespear's Tragedies, act. I, scen. III.

Ibid. lin. 12. Mundungus: Sharp, an eminent surgeon, and respectable man, who retired from his profession with a considerable fortune, and under= took his travels at an age not easily affected by com= mon objects of curiosity or pity.

Pag. 31, lin. 33. The name of the poet was Home; the historian's name was Hume.

Pag. 32, lin. 2. La Fleur, we learn, was not an imaginary character. He was a native of Burgundy, served as a drummer in the French army during six years: quitted the service secretly. His natural pre= vanency was an universal passport to him: he soon and without difficulty introduced himself to Varen= ne the innkeeper at Montreuil: he there married; but his wife, by profession a mantua-maker, not being able to support him, he sought a service as valet de place, and was recommended to Sterne. On his return from this journey, he rejoined his wife, and, with the little money they had acquired, he establish= ed himself in a publick house at Calais: but the war deranging his affairs, he again entered into service as a valet. After some time he returned, but his wife had eloped with an actor of a strolling Company. From this period (about March 1783) he was fre= quently in England, employed either in his former capacity or as an express. In the anecdotes of this poor fellow, it appears that Sterne's little story of the grisette at the glove-shop, and that of the visit made to him by the fille de chambre, are founded on facts: that what regards the starling was in some measure true, but La Fleur never heard it speak that the want of a passport had made Sterne really uneasy, but that it was la marquise de Lambert, mention= ed under the initial letter L., and not le comte de Breteuil who procured the passport: that the anec= dote of poor Maria is not a fiction, nor was that of the dead ass a mere invention; the owner was as sim= ple and affecting as Sterne has represented him. The last scene is, as may well be imagined, a sport of fancy.

Pag. 35, lin. 13. Putting my breeches under my head: a caution frequently used by travellers to prevent being surprized and robbed in the night by the waiters, servants etc. in publick inns.

Pag. 38, lin. 2. By the circle is meant the assem bly of courtiers who wait on the king when he receives his court, and who form a kind of circle about his person.

Pag. 39, lin. 19. The far side of a horse : le côté droit; consequently the near side : le coté gauche. Pag. 45, lin. 35. Eliza; see the letters in the sup= plement to this volume.

Pag. 47, lin. 17. Fille de chambre; the author has every where made use of this term for femme de chambre, by a literal translation of chamber-maid.

Pag. 67, lin. 21. Pluck your rose. The writer of a Tour thro' part of France observes, that a French woman makes no scruple of doing that in publick which an english girl would blush to think herself suspected of doing at all. The truth is, the en= glish ladies are so delicate on this point, that, if they withdraw from company for a few minutes, they ge= nerally return with a flower, a book, or something, in their hands, which they would wish might be thought the motive of their withdrawing, rather than that their absence should be attributed to its real cause; hence the expression to go and pluck a rose is fre= quently understood as synonimous with that made use of by Sterne to denote the action of madame de R....

Pag. 91, lin. 5. King of Denmark's jester: the name Yorick, which Sterne has adopted for himself, is that of a person mentioned in Shakespear's play of Hamlet, prince of Denmark, and there represented as jester to the king of Denmark.

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Pag. 92, lin. 1. Muchado about nothing: the title of one of Shakespear's comedies. Don Pedro, Benedict, and Beatrice, are characters in that piece.

Pag. 112, lin. 3. Pontifick; a jeu de mots bet= ween pontifick, belonging to a pontiff or high priest, and pontifical, belonging to a bridge. Milton seems to have made the same jeu de mots in his Paradise lost.

Pag. 126, lin. 16. Divinity which stirs within me : my soul shrinks back etc.: part of the soliloquy of Cato in Addison's celebrated tragedy.

Pag. 144, lin. 22. Nabobesses: as the appellation of Nabob is frequently given in England to those who have acquired great fortunes in the East-Indies, the author has formed the feminine, Nabobess.

Pag. 149, lin. 5. Which is C...: the notes in the musical scale, used by the English, are called by the seven first letters of the alphabet; the C is the note which in France is called ut.

Ibid., lin. 19. Deal machine : the stage-coach. Pag. 154, lin. 9. It can no be, Masser: a ne= gro's manner of pronouncing, It cannot be, Master. Pag. 155, lin. 22. The first eight or nine are numbered. It seems that Sterne had written morelet= ters to Mrs. Draper than those contained in this vo= lume. As he says they contain much advice, truth and knowledge, we lament that they have not yet been published.

Pag. 157, lin. 5. The last postman's bell: the receiving offices in London for letters to go by the post were regularly shut at nine o'clock in the even= ing. After which hour a postman with a bell passed through the principal streets at nine or soon after, at ten and at eleven o'clock to collect such letters as were too late for the receiving offices.

Pag. 158, lin. 25. I'm lost, I'm lost : probably

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