r it, and determined now to try a
different course. He wrote "Tristram Shandy" as he says "not to be fed,
but to be famous," and so just was the opinion of what would please the
age in which he lived that we find the quiet country rector suddenly
transformed into the most popular literary man of the day,--going up to
London and receiving more invitations than he could accept. He had made
his gold current by a considerable admixture of alloy; and endeavoured
to excuse his offences of this kind by a variety of subterfuges. Upon
one occasion, he compared them to the antics of children which although
unseemly, are performed with perfect innocence.

Of course this was a jest. Sterne was not living in a Paradisaical age,
and he intentionally overstept the boundaries of decorum. But granting
he had an object in view, was he justified in adopting such means to
obtain it? certainly not; but he had some right to laugh, as he does, at
the inconsistency of the public, who, while they blamed his books,
bought up the editions of them as fast as they could be issued.

If Sterne's humour was often offensive, we must in justice admit it was
never cynical. Had it possessed more satire it would have, perhaps, been
more instructive, but there was a bright trait in Sterne's character,
that he never accused others. On the contrary, he censures men who,
"wishing to be thought witty, and despairing of coming honestly by the
title, try to affect it by shrewd and sarcastic reflections upon
whatever is done in the world. This is setting up trade with the broken
stock of other people's failings--perhaps their misfortunes--so, much
good may it do them with what honour they can get--the farthest extent
of which, I think, is to be praised, as we do some sauces--with tears in
our eyes. It has helped to give a bad name to wit, as if the main
essence of it was satire."

Sterne had no personal enmities; his faults were all on the amiable
side, nor can we imagine a selfish cold-hearted sensualist writing "Dear
Sensibility, source inexhausted by all that is precious in our joys, or
costly in our sorrows." His letters to his wife before their marriage
exhibit the most tender and beautiful sentiments;--

"My L---- talks of leaving the country; may a kind angel guide thy
steps hither--Thou sayest thou will quit the place with regret;--I
think I see you looking twenty times a day at the house--almost
counting every brick and pane of glas