d God! we were toasted, roasted,
grilled, stewed, carbonaded, on one side or other, all the way: and
being all done through (_assez cuits_) in the day, we were eat up at
night by bugs and other unswept-out vermin, the legal inhabitants, if
length of possession give right, at every inn on the way." A few miles
from Beaucaire he broke a hind wheel of his carriage, and was obliged
in consequence "to sit five hours on a gravelly road without one
drop of water, or possibility of getting any;" and here, to mend the
matter, he was cursed with "two dough-hearted fools" for postilions,
who "fell a-crying 'nothing was to be done!'" and could only be
recalled to a worthier and more helpful mood by Sterne's "pulling off
his coat and waistcoat," and "threatening to thrash them both within
an inch of their lives."

The longest journey, however, must come to an end; and the party found
much to console them at Toulouse for the miseries of travel. They were
fortunate enough to secure one of those large, old comfortable houses
which were and, here and there, perhaps, still are to be hired on the
outskirts of provincial towns, at a rent which would now be thought
absurdly small; and Sterne writes in terms of high complacency of
his temporary abode. "Excellent," "well furnished," "elegant beyond
anything I ever looked for," are some of the expressions of praise
which it draws from him. He observes with pride that the "very great
_salle a compagnie_ is as large as Baron d'Holbach's;" and he records
with great satisfaction--as well he might--that for the use of this
and a country house two miles out of town, "besides the enjoyment of
gardens, which the landlord engaged to keep in order," he was to pay
no more than thirty pounds a year. "All things," he adds, "are cheap
in proportion: so we shall live here for a very, very little."

And this, no doubt, was to Sterne a matter of some moment at this
time. The expenses of his long and tedious journey must have been
heavy; and the gold-yielding vein of literary popularity, which he
had for three years been working, had already begun to show signs of
exhaustion. _Tristram Shandy_ had lost its first vogue; and the fifth
and sixth volumes, the copyright of which he does not seem to have
disposed of, were "going off" but slowly.

CHAPTER VI.

LIFE IN THE SOUTH.--RETURN TO ENGLAND.--VOLS. VII. AND VIII.--SECOND
SET OF SERMONS.

(1762-1765.)

The diminished appetite of the public for th