the Dean of St. Patrick's, wrote the above-quoted respectable letter to his friend in London: and it was in April of the same year that he was pouring out his fond heart to Mrs. Elizabeth Draper, wife of "Daniel Draper, Esq., Councillor of Bombay, and, in 1775, chief of the factory of Surat a gentleman very much respected in that quarter of the globe." "I got thy letter last night, Eliza," Sterne writes, "on my return from Lord Bathurst's, where I dined (the letter has this merit in it, that it contains a pleasant reminiscence of better men than Sterne, and introduces us to a portrait of a kind old gentleman) – I got thy letter last night, Eliza, on my return from Lord Bathurst's; and where I was heard as I talked of thee an hour within intermission - with so much pleasure and attention, that the good old Lord toasted your 66 anguish of a mock-trial, and endure the utmost pain that a studied system of religious cruelty has been able to invent. Behold this helpless victim delivered up to his tormentors. His body so wasted with sorrow and long confinement, you'll see every nerve and muscle as it suffers. Observe the last movement of that horrid engine. - What convulsions it has thrown him into ! Consider the nature of the posture in which he now lies stretched. What exquisite torture he endures by it. - 'Tis all nature can bear. - Good GOD! see how it keeps his weary soul hanging upon his trembling lips, willing to take its leave, but not suffered to depart. Behold the unhappy wretch led back to his cell,- dragg'd out of it again to meet the flames - and the insults in his last agonies, which this principle - this principle, that there can be religion without morality - has prepared for him." - Sermon 27th. The next extract is preached on a text to be found in Judges xix. vv. 1, 2, 3, concerning a "certain Levite: " "Such a one the Levite wanted to share his solitude and fill up that uncomfortable blank in the heart in such a situation: for, notwithstanding Iall we meet with in books, in many of which, no doubt, there are a good many handsome things said upon the sweets of retirement, &c. yet still it is not good for man to be alone:' nor can all which the cold-hearted pedant stuns our ears with upon the subject, ever give one answer of satisfaction to the mind; in the midst of the loudest vauntings of philosophy, nature will have her yearnings for society and friendship; a good heart wants some object to be kind to and the best parts of our blood, and the purest of our spirits, suffer most under the destitution. “Let the torpid monk seek Heaven comfortless and alone. God speed him! For my own part, I fear I should never so find the way let me be wise and religious, but let me be MAN; wherever thy Providence places me, or whatever be the road I take to Thee, give me some companion in my journey, be it only to remark to, 'How our shadows lengthen as our sun goes down;'-to whom I may say, 'How fresh is the face of Nature! how sweet the flowers of the field! how delicious are these fruits!""— Sermon 18th. The first of these passages gives us another drawing of the famous Captive." The second shows that the same reflection was suggested to the Rev. Laurence by a text in Judges as by the fille-de-chambre. Sterne's Sermons were published as those of "Mr. Yorick." health three different times; and now he is in his 85th year, says he hopes to live long enough to be introduced as a friend to my fair Indian disciple, and to see her eclipse all other Nabobesses as much in wealth as she does already in exterior and, what is far better" (for Sterne is nothing without his morality), "in interior merit. This nobleman is an old friend of mine. You know he was always the protector of men of wit and genius, and has had those of the last century, Addison, Steele, Pope, Swift, Prior, &c., always at his table. The manner in which his notice began of me was as singular as it was polite. He came up to me one day as I was at the Princess of Wales's court, and said, 'I want to know you, Mr. Sterne, but it is fit you also should know who it is that wishes this pleasure. You have heard of an old Lord Bathurst, of whom your Popes and Swifts have sung and spoken so much? I have lived my life with geniuses of that cast; but have survived them; and, despairing ever to find their equals, it is some years since I have shut up my books and closed my accounts; but you have kindled a desire in me of opening them once more before I die : which I now do: so go home and dine with me.' This nobleman, I say, is a prodigy, for he has all the wit and promptness of a man of thirty; a disposition to be pleased, and a power to please others, beyond whatever I knew added to which a man of learning, courtesy, and feeling. "He heard me talk of thee, Eliza, with uncommon satisfaction - for there was only a third person, and of sensibility, with us and a most sentimental afternoon till nine o'clock have we passed! * But thou, Eliza, wert the star that conducted and enlivened the discourse! And when I talked not of thee, still didst thou fill my mind, and warm every thought I uttered, for * " I am glad that you are in love: 'twill cure you at least of the spleen, which has a bad effect on both man and woman. I myself must ever have some Dulcinea in my head; it harmonizes the soul; and in these cases I first endeavor to make the lady believe so, or rather, I begin first to make myself believe that I am in love; but I carry on my affairs quite in the French way, sentimentally: 'L'amour,' say they, 'n'est rien sans sentiment.' Now, notwithstanding they make such a pother about the word, they have no precise idea annexed to it. And so much for that same subject called love." STERNE'S Letters: May 23, 1765. "P.S. My Sentimental Journey' will please Mrs. J and my Lydia” [his daughter, afterwards Mrs. Medalle] - "I can answer for those two. It is a subject which works well, and suits the frame of mind I have been in for some time past. I told you my design in it was to teach us to love the world and our fellow-creatures better than we do so it runs most upon those gentler passions and affections which aid so much to it." - Letters [1767]. Best of I am not ashamed to acknowledge I greatly miss thee. all good girls! the sufferings I have sustained all night in consequence of thine, Eliza, are beyond the power of words. And so thou hast fixed thy Bramin's portrait over thy writing-desk, and will consult it in all doubts and difficulties? grateful and good girl! Yorick smiles contentedly over all thou dost his picture does not do justice to his own complacency. I am glad your shipmates are friendly beings (Eliza was at Deal, going back to the Councillor at Bombay, and indeed it was high time she should be off). "You could least dispense with what is contrary to your own nature, which is soft and gentle, Eliza; it would civilize savages though pity were it thou should'st be tainted with the office. Write to me, my child, thy delicious letters. Let them speak the easy carelessness of a heart that opens itself anyhow, everyhow. Such, Eliza, I write to thee!" (The artless rogue, of course he did!) "And so I should ever love thee, most artlessly, most affectionately, if Providence permitted thy residence in the same section of the globe: for I am all that honor and affection can make me 'THY BRAMIN.'" The Bramin continues addressing Mrs. Draper, until the departure of the "Earl of Chatham" Indiaman from Deal, on the 2nd of April, 1767. He is amiably anxious about the fresh paint for Eliza's cabin; he is uncommonly solicitous about her companions on board: "I fear the best of your shipmates are only genteel by comparison with the contrasted crew with which thou beholdest them. So was you know who from the same fallacy which was put upon your judgment when — but I will not mortify you! "You know who" was, of course, Daniel Draper, Esq., of Bombay - a gentleman very much respected in that quarter of the globe, and about whose probable health our worthy Bramin writes with delightful candor: "I honor you, Eliza, for keeping secret some things which, if explained, had been a panegyric on yourself. There is a dignity in venerable affliction which will not allow it to appeal to the world for pity or redress. Well have you supported that character, my amiable, my philosophic friend! And, indeed, I begin to think you have as many virtues as my Uncle Toby's widow. Talking of widows—pray, Eliza, if ever you are such, do not think of giving yourself to some wealthy Nabob, because I design to marry you myself. My wife cannot live long, and I know not the woman I should like so well for her substitute as yourself. "Tis true I am ninety-five in constitution, and you but twenty-five; but what I want in youth, I will make up in wit and good-humor. Not Swift so loved his Stella, Scarron his Maintenon, or Waller his Saccharissa. Tell me, in answer to this, that you approve and honor the proposal." Approve and honor the proposal! The coward was writing gay letters to his friends this while, with sneering allusions to this poor foolish Bramine. Her ship was not out of the Downs, and the charming Sterne was at the "Mount Coffee-house," with a sheet of gilt-edged paper before him, offering that precious treasure his heart to Lady P—, asking whether it gave her pleasure to see him unhappy? whether it added to her triumph that her eyes and lips had turned a man into a fool? quoting the Lord's Prayer, with a horrible baseness of blasphemy, as a proof that he had desired not to be led into temptation, and swearing himself the most tender and sincere fool in the world. It was from his home at Coxwould that he wrote the Latin letter, which, I suppose, he was ashamed to put into English. I find in my copy of the Letters, that there is a note of I can't call it admiration, at Letter 112, which seems to announce that there was a No. 3 to whom the wretched worn out old scamp was paying his addresses; * and the year after, having come back to his lodgings in Bond Street, with his "Sentimental Journey" to launch upon the town, eager as ever for praise and pleasure-as vain, as wicked, as witty, *To MRS. H—. "COXWOULD, Nov. 15, 1767. - "Now be a good dear woman, my H—, and execute those commissions well, and when I see you I will give you a kiss there's for you! But I have something else for you which I am fabricating at a great rate, and that is my 'Sentimental Journey,' which shall make you cry as much as it has affected me, or I will give up the business of sentimental writing.. "I am yours, &c. &c., 66 "T. SHANDY." COXWOULD, Nov. 28, 1767. "MY LORD, · 'Tis with the greatest pleasure I take my pen to thank your lordship for your letter of inquiry about Yorick: he was worn out, both his spirits and body, with the Sentimental Journey.' 'Tis true, then, an author must feel himself, or his reader will not; but I have torn my whole frame into pieces by my feelings: I believe the brain stands as much in need of recruiting as the body. Therefore I shall set out for town the twentieth of next month, after having recruited myself a week at York. I might indeed solace myself with my wife (who is come from France); but, in fact, I have long been a sentimental being, whatever your lordship may think to the contrary." |