rilliancy. But he
seems then to have had no design of publishing his "Sermons." One day, in
low spirits, complaining to Caleb Whitefoord of the state of his finances,
Caleb asked him, "if he had no sermons like the one in 'Tristram Shandy?'"
But Sterne had no notion that "sermons" were saleable, for two preceding
ones had passed unnoticed. "If you could hit on a striking title, take my
word for it that they would go down." The next day Sterne made his
appearance in raptures. "I have it!" he cried: "Dramatic Sermons by
Torick." With great difficulty he was persuaded to drop this allusion to
the church and the playhouse![A]

[Footnote A: He published these two volumes of discourses under the title
of "Yorick's Sermons," because, as he stated in his preface, it would
"best serve the booksellers' purpose, as Yorick's name is possibly of the
two the more known;" but, fearing the censure of the world, he added a
second title-page with his own name, "to ease the minds of those who see a
jest, and the danger which lurks under it, where no jest is meant." All
this did not free Sterne from much severe criticism.--ED.]

We are told in the short addition to his own memoirs, that "he submitted
to fate on the 18th day of March, 1768, at his lodgings in Bond-street."
But it does not appear to have been noticed that Sterne died with
neither friend nor relation by his side! a hired nurse was the sole
companion of the man whose wit found admirers in every street, but
whose heart, it would seem, could not draw one to his death-bed. We
cannot say whether Sterne, who had long been dying, had resolved to
practise his own principle,--when he made the philosopher Shandy, who had
a fine saying for everything, deliver his opinion on death--that "there is
no terror, brother Toby, in its looks, but what it borrows from groan? and
convulsions--and the blowing of noses, and the wiping away of tears with
the bottoms of curtains in a dying man's room. Strip it of these, what is
it?" I find the moment of his death described in a singular book, the
"Life of a Foot-man." I give it with all its particulars. "In the month of
January, 1768, we set off for London. We stopped for some time at Almack's
house in Pall-Mall. My master afterwards took Sir James Gray's house in
Clifford-street, who was going ambassador to Spain. He now began
house-keeping, hired a French cook, a house-maid, and kitchen-maid, and
kept a great deal of the best company. About this tim