1 publifh a fifth and fixth volume *). Their fatire was fill poignant, fpirited, and, in general, extremely juft. The characters, though somewhat overcharged, were lively, and in nature. He conftantly caught the Ridiculous, wherever he found it; and he never failed to prefent it to his readers in the moft agreeable point of light. His ftory of Le Fevre **) was highly finished, and truly pathetic; and would alone refcue his name from oblivion, if his fermons were not confidered as fome of the beft moral difcourfes extant. The feventh, eighth and ninth volumes ***) have not yet completed that work; fo that what was faid upon the publication of his firft volumes, has been verified: Mr. Shandy feems fo extreme"ly fond of digressions, and of giving his "hiftorical readers the flip upon all oc"cafions, that we are not a little ap ઃઃ *) In 1762. ***) The reader will alfo meet with it at the end of the fourth volume of the prefent book. ***) The feventh and eighth volumes appeared in 1765, the ninth in 1767. "prehenfive, he may, fome time or other, "give them the flip in good earnest, and "leave the work before the story be fi"nifhed." In the above mentioned volumes, Mr. Sterne carries his readers through France, and introduces fome scenes and characters, which are afterwards taken up in the Sentimental Journey, particularly that of Maria; so that this may, in some measure, be confidered as a continuation of the Life and Opinions of Triftram Shandy. It is almoft needlefs to obferve, of a book fo univerfally read as Shandy, that the ftory of the hero's life is the leaft part of the author's concern. It is, in reality, nothing more than a vehicle for satire on a great variety of subjects. Most of these fatirical ftrokes are introduced with little regard to any connexion, either with the principal ftory or with each other. The author having no determined end in view, runs from object to object, as they happen to ftrike a very lively and very irregular imagination. In fact, the book is a perpetual series of disappointments; yet with this and other blemishes, the Life of Triftram Shandy has uncommon merit; and the freedom and fincerity of its author, perhaps, cannot be equalled by any other writer beside the incomparable Montaigne. The faults of an original work are always pardoned; and it is not furprising, that at a time, when a tame imitation makes almoft the whole merit of fo many books, fo happy an attempt at novelty should have been fo well received. His laft work, however, may be confidered as his greatest, fince it contains a variety of agreeable pathetic defcriptions, in an easy simple style, cleared from much of the obscurity and levity, which degrade the former volumes. As Mr. Sterne advanced in literary fame, he left his livings to the care of his curates; and, though he acquired some thousands by his productions, being a character very diftant from an œconomist, his favings were no greater at the end of the year, than when he had no other fupport but the fingle vicarage of Sutton. Indeed, his travelling expences abroad, and the luxurious manner in which he lived with the gay and polite at home, greatly promoted the diffipation of a very confiderable fum, which his writings had produced, and which might have been a future assistance to his family. This being the cafe, at his death, his widow and daughter, an agreeable young lady about fixteen, who had both refided for fome years in a convent in France, having separated from Mr. Sterne through fome pique, which was differently accounted for by the parties, finding that their penfions muft difcontinue, returned to England, in order to publifh his pofthumous works. Being at York during the laft races, some humanè gentlemen, friends and admirers of the late Prebend, took into confideration their disagreeable fituation, and made them a present of a purse containing a thousand pounds. This unexpected and generous fupply, added to a very extenfive fubfcription of the nobility and gentry to three additional volumes of fermons, has afforded a sufficient provifion to enable them to fupport themfelves in their late reclufe manner of life, to which they have determined to return. As Mr. Sterne hath drawn his own cha B racter (under the name of Yorick) with great happiness and skill, we will take the liberty of introducing it here, the better to complete our account of the author and his works: “This is all that ever ftagger'd "my faith in regard to Yorick's extrac"tion, who, by what I can remember "of him, and by all the accounts I could . ever get of him, feem'd not to have "had one fingle drop of Danish blood in "his whole crafis; in nine hundred years "it might possibly have all run out.— .. "I will not philofophife one moment with 'you about it; for, happen how it would, "the fact was this:----That inftead "of that cold phlegm and exact regula"rity of sense and humours, you would "have look'd for in one fo extracted;"he was, on the contrary, as mercurial "and fublimated a compofition, - .. as heteroclite a creature in all his de❝clenfions——-with as much life and "whin, and gaieté de coeur about him, 66 as the kindlieft climate could have en"gendered and put together. With all "this fail, poor Yorick carried not one |