ver, and
place it in a respectable Light to all the World.

In the next Place, it will furnish what will be wanted; that is, a Key
to the Romance.--In troth you might have said a whole Bunch of Keys,
quoth a Whitesmith, who was the only Member in the Club who had not said
something in the Debate: But let me tell you, Mr. President, says he,
That the Right Key, if it could but be found, would be worth the whole
Bunch put together.

To ------ ---------, Esq; of York.

Sir,

You write me Word that the Letter I wrote to you, and now stiled The
Political Romance is printing; and that, as it was drop'd by
Carelessness, to make some Amends, you will overlook the Printing of it
yourself, and take Care to see that it comes right into the World.

I was just going to return you Thanks, and to beg, withal, you would
take Care That the Child be not laid at my Door.--But having, this
Moment, perused the Reply to the Dean of York's Answer,--it has made me
alter my Mind in that respect; so that, instead of making you the
Request I intended, I do here desire That the Child be filiated upon me,
Laurence Sterne, Prebendary of York, &c. &c. And I do, accordingly, own
it for my own true and lawful Offspring.

My Reason for this is plain;--for as, you see, the Writer of that Reply,
has taken upon him to invade this incontested Right of another Man's in
a Thing of this Kind, it is high Time for every Man to look to his own--
Since, upon the same Grounds, and with half the Degree of Anger, that he
affirms the Production of that very Reverend Gentleman's, to be the
Child of many Fathers, some one in his Spight (for I am not without my
Friends of that Stamp) may run headlong into the other Extream, and
swear, That mine had no Father at all:--And therefore, to make use of
Bays's Plea in the Rehearsal, for Prince Pretty-Man; I merely do it, as
he says, "for fear it should be said to be no Body's Child at all."

I have only to add two Things:--First, That, at your Peril, you do not
presume to alter or transpose one Word, nor rectify one false Spelling,
nor so much as add or diminish one Comma or Tittle, in or to my
Romance:--For if you do,--In case any of the Descendents of Curl should
think fit to invade my Copy-Right, and print it over again in my Teeth,
I may not be able, in a Court of Justice, to swear strictly to my own
Child, after you had so large a Share in the begetting it.

In the next Place, I do not approve of your quaint Con