The Project Gutenberg EBook of Sterne, by H.D. Traill

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

Title: Sterne

Author: H.D. Traill

Release Date: April 25, 2004 [EBook #12142]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STERNE ***

Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Bill Hershey and PG Distributed
Proofreaders

STERNE

BY

H.D. TRAILL

1882

PREFATORY NOTE.

The materials for a biography of Sterne are by no means abundant.
Of the earlier years of his life the only existing record is that
preserved in the brief autobiographical memoir which, a few months
before his death, he composed, in the usual quaint _staccato_ style of
his familiar correspondence, for the benefit of his daughter. Of his
childhood; of his school-days; of his life at Cambridge, and in his
Yorkshire vicarage; of his whole history, in fact, up to the age of
forty-six, we know nothing more than he has there jotted down. He
attained that age in the year 1759; and at this date begins that
series of his _Letters_, from which, for those who have the patience
to sort them out of the chronological confusion in which his daughter
and editress involved them, there is, no doubt, a good deal to be
learnt. These letters, however, which extend down to 1768, the year
of the writer's death, contain pretty nearly all the contemporary
material that we have to depend on. Freely as Sterne mixed in the best
literary society, there is singularly little to be gathered about him,
even in the way of chance allusion and anecdote, from the memoirs and
_ana_ of his time. Of the many friends who would have been competent
to write his biography while the facts were yet fresh, but one, John
Wilkes, ever entertained--if he did seriously entertain--the idea
of performing this pious work; and he, in spite of the entreaties of
Sterne's widow and daughter, then in straitened circumstances, left
unredeemed his promise to do so. The brief memoir by Sir Walter Scott,
which is prefixed to many popular editions of _Tristram Shandy_ and
the _Sentimental Journey,_ sets out the so-called autobiography in
full, but for the rest is mainly critical; Thackeray's well-known
lecture essay is al