hor, and the other the nondescript philosophy which he
pilfered from Rabelais and Burton. The glass through which the _Vicar of
Wakefield_ is shown us is the good-nature and loving heart of Goldsmith,
which brighten and gladden every creation of his pen. Thus it is that two
men, otherwise essentially unlike, appear together as representatives of a
school which was at once sentimental and subjective.

STERNE.--Lawrence Sterne was the son of an officer in the British army,
and was born, in 1713, at Clonmel, in Ireland, where his father was
stationed.

His father died not long afterwards, at Gibraltar, from the effect of a
wound which he had received in a duel; and it is indicative of the _code
of honor_ in that day, that the duel was about a goose at the mess-table!
What little Lawrence learned in his brief military experience was put to
good use afterwards in his army reminiscences and portraitures in
_Tristram Shandy_. No doubt My Uncle Toby and Corporal Trim are sketches
from his early recollections. Aided by his mother's relations, he studied
at Cambridge, and afterwards, without an inward call, but in accordance
with the custom of the day, he entered into holy orders, and was presented
to a living, of which he stood very much in need.

HIS SERMONS.--With no spirit for parochial work, it must be said that he
published very forcible and devout sermons, and set before his people and
the English world a pious standard of life, by which, however, he did not
choose to measure his own: he preached, but did not practise. In a letter
to Mr. Foley, he says: "I have made a good campaign in the field of the
literati: ... two volumes of sermons which I shall print very soon will
bring me a considerable sum.... 'Tis but a crown for sixteen sermons--dog
cheap; but I am in quest of honor, not money."

These discourses abound in excellent instruction and in pithy expressions;
but it is painful to see how often his pointed rebukes are undesignedly
aimed at his own conduct. In one of them he says: "When such a man tells
you that a thing goes against his conscience, always believe he means
exactly the same thing as when he tells you it goes against his stomach--a
present want of appetite being generally the true cause of both." In his
discourse on _The Forgiveness of Injuries_, we have the following striking
sentiment: "The brave only know how to forgive: it is the most refined and
generous pitch of virtue human nature can arrive