STERNE, LAURENCE, though of English descent and parentage, was born at Clon Joel, in Ireland, on Nov. 24, 1713. In that country also, in some intermittent way, a good deal of his boyhood was passed with possibly some effect in developing that oddity and whimsical exuberance long after to find vent in his writings. His father was of a good Yorkshire family, and as lieutenant in a marching regiment led a wandering and unsettled life. When about ten years old, the boy was consigned to the care of his kinsman, Mr. Sterne of Elvington, in Yorkshire, by him put to school near H a alifx, and thence, on his approving himself a lad of parts, transferred, in 1733, to Jesus college, Cambridge, where, in 1736 and 1740 respectively, he took the degrees of bachelor and master of arts. He was educated for the church, and on his leaving the university, his uncle the rev. Jaques Sterne, an ecclesiastical dignitary of sonic magnitude, procured for him the living of Sutton in Yorkshire With this relative 113 afterward quarreled, but not before another appointment had been secured him as prebendary of York cathe dral. In 1741, he was married to a lady whom he met in York, and soon after, through the influence of a friend of his wife, he was presented to the additional living of Still ington. For nearly 20 years lie lived at Sutton unheard of. That his devotion to his clerical duties was great, is more than can be supposed from what we know of his char acter; and we can readily believe the "books, painting, fiddling, and shooting," which he tells us were his choice recreations, formed pretty much the business of his life. Up to the year 1759, in which the first two volumes of his Tristram Shandy appeared, he had published only two sermons, which, according to his own statement, "found neither purchasers nor readers." Tristram Shandy, which, though published without his name, was from the first known to be his, had instant and immense success. and Sterne, on going up to London, found himself the literary lion of the day. In 1761, two more volumes of it appeared, followed by vols. 5 and 6 in 1762, vols. 7 and 8 in 1763, and in 1767 by the 9th and last. During this period he also issued 4 vols. of sermons, and the Sentimental Journey, published in the beginning of 1768, completes the list of his works. lie died on March 18 of that year, his health having been much,impaired for some con siderable time.
From the time of his becoming famous his parishioners saw of Sterne but little. He lived mostly either on the continent or in London, where his literary celebrity made him welcome in the best circles. Always an easy, mercurial kind of mortal, he now led some
what a gay and dissipated life, rather modelled on the epicurean maxim of enjoying the present hour, than on those more serious precepts be had been wont to enforce from the pulpit. But except that he does not seem to have been excessively devoted to his own wife—she and her daughter being in these pleasant years but little with him—and was a little of a sentimental Lothario in respect of the wives of other people, no very great harm is known of him. He is said, despite of the exquisite sentiment which abounds in his writings, to have been really heartless, and unfeeling; and the sneer of Walpole that lie could snivel over a dead ass, to the neglect of his live mother, is familiar to almost every one_ It is in fairness, however, to be said that the implied slander rests on no dis tinct basis of evidence.
Whatever question may be made of the worth of Sterne as a man, there can be none of his genius as a writer. Tristram Shandy, his chief work, must live as long as the lane gunge, were it only in virtue of the three characters of Old Shandy, Uncle Toby, and Trim, the most perfect and exquisite, perhaps, in the whole range of British fiction. These are genuine creations, at once fantastic and real, in which the subtlest reconcile ment is effected between the sportive exuberance of fancy and the sober outlines of truth. Otherwise there is a good deal in the work which needs excuse; in particular a most willful and gratuitous indecency almost without a parallel, and a constant trick of law less and whimsical digression, to the endless incalculable frivolities of which even the inimitable grace, ease, and tricksy flexibility of the style can with difficulty reconcile the reader.' The humor of Sterne is notwithstanding the most subtle, airy, delicate, and tender to be found in our literature; and in many passages he shows himself master of a pathos equally exquisite and refined. The fullest, and in every way, best account of Sterne will be found in his Life, in 2 vols., by Mr. Percy Fitzgerald, published in 1864. Though against the charge of unclerical levity, at once in his writings and his life, it is impossible to defend Sterne, except as the laxer morale of his time may afford some slight palliation of it, a candid perusal of this work suggests a considerably more kindly view of his character than that which had previously been current and almost accepted.