ork. Nor can it be pleaded in extenuation
that he improved upon his originals--though it can, I think, be
pleaded that he made his borrowings his own. I do not think much of
Mr. Whibley's instance of Servius Sulpicius' letter. No doubt Sterne
took his translation of it from Burton; but the letter is a very well
known one, and Burton's translation happened to be uncommonly good,
and the borrowing of a good rendering without acknowledgment was not,
as far as I know, then forbidden by custom. In any case, the whole
passage is intended merely to lead up to the beautiful perplexity of
My Uncle Toby. And that is Sterne's own, and could never have been
another man's. "After all," says Mr. Whibley, "all the best in Sterne
is still Sterne's own."

But the more I agree with Mr. Whibley's strictures the more I desire
to remove them from an Introduction to _Tristram Shandy_, and to read
them in a volume of Mr. Whibley's collected essays. Were it not
better, in reading _Tristram Shandy_, to take Sterne for once (if only
for a change) at his own valuation, or at least to accept the original
postulates of the story? If only for the entertainment he provides we
owe him the effort. There will be time enough afterwards to turn to
the cold judgment of this or that critic, or to the evidence of this
or that thief-taker. For the moment he claims to be heard without
prejudice; he has genius enough to make it worth our while to listen
without prejudice; and the most lenient "appreciation" of his sins, if
we read it beforehand, is bound to raise prejudice and infect our
enjoyment as we read. And, as a corollary of this demand, let us ask
that he shall be allowed to present his book to us exactly as he
chooses. Mr. Whibley says, "He set out upon the road of authorship
with a false ideal: 'Writing,' said he, 'when properly managed, is
but a different name for conversation.' It would be juster to assert
that writing is never properly managed, unless it be removed from
conversation as far as possible." Very true; or, at least, very
likely. But since Sterne _had_ this ideal, let us grant him full
liberty to make his spoon or spoil his horn, and let us judge
afterwards concerning the result. The famous blackened page and the
empty pages (all omitted in this new edition) are part of Sterne's
method. They may seem to us trick-work and foolery; but, if we
consider, they link on to his notion that writing is but a name for
conversation; they are includ