ough not, in this
instance, as it seems, with as successful results. _The Natural Son,
or the Triumph of Virtue_, is not known to have reached either English
readers or English theatrical audiences. The French original, as we
know, fared scarcely better. "It was not until 1771," says Diderot's
latest English biographer, "that the directors of the French Comedy
could be induced to place _Le Fils Naturel_ on the stage. The actors
detested their task, and, as we can well believe, went sulkily through
parts which they had not taken the trouble to master. The public felt
as little interest in the piece as the actors had done, and after one
or two representations, it was put aside.[1]"

[Footnote 1: Morley: _Diderot and the Encyclopaedists_, ii. 305.]

Another, and it is to be guessed a too congenial, acquaintance formed
by Sterne in Paris was that of Crebillon; and with him he concluded "a
convention," unedifying enough, whether in jest or earnest: "As soon
as I get to Toulouse he has agreed to write me an expostulatory
letter upon the indecorums of _T. Shandy_, which is to be answered
by recrimination upon the liberties in his own works. These are to
be printed together--Crebillon against Sterne, Sterne against
Crebillon--the copy to be sold, and the money equally divided. This
is good Swiss-policy," he adds; and the idea (which was never carried
out) had certainly the merit of ingenuity, if no other.

The words "as soon as I get to Toulouse," in a letter written from
Paris on the 10th of April, might well have reminded Sterne of the
strange way in which he had carried out his intention of "wintering
in the South." He insists, however, upon the curative effects of his
winter of gaiety in Paris. "I am recovered greatly," he says; "and if
I could spend one whole winter at Toulouse, I should be fortified in
my inner man beyond all danger of relapsing." There was another, too,
for whom this change of climate had become imperatively necessary.
For three winters past his daughter Lydia, now fourteen years old,
had been suffering severely from asthma, and needed to try "the last
remedy of a warmer and softer air." Her father, therefore, was about
to solicit passports for his wife and daughter, with a view to their
joining him at once in Paris, whence, after a month's stay, they were
to depart together for the South. This application for passports he
intended, he said, to make "this week:" and it would seem that the
intention wa