f English shipwrecks and disasters--of
the officer on the African shore, when disease has destroyed the crew, and
he himself is seized by fever, who throws the lead with a death-stricken
hand, takes the soundings, carries the ship out of the river or off the
dangerous coast, and dies in the manly endeavour--of the wounded captain,
when the vessel founders, who never loses his heart, who eyes the danger
steadily, and has a cheery word for all, until the inevitable fate
overwhelms him, and the gallant ship goes down. Such a brave and gentle
heart, such an intrepid and courageous spirit, I love to recognize in the
manly, the English Harry Fielding.

Lecture The Sixth. Sterne And Goldsmith

Roger Sterne, Sterne's father, was the second son of a numerous race,
descendants of Richard Sterne, Archbishop of York, in the reign of James
II; and children of Simon Sterne and Mary Jaques, his wife, heiress of
Elvington, near York.(160) Roger was a lieutenant in Handyside's regiment,
and engaged in Flanders in Queen Anne's wars. He married the daughter of a
noted sutler--"N.B., he was in debt to him," his son writes, pursuing the
paternal biography--and marched through the world with this companion
following the regiment and bringing many children to poor Roger Sterne.
The captain was an irascible but kind and simple little man, Sterne says,
and informs us that his sire was run through the body at Gibraltar, by a
brother officer, in a duel, which arose out of a dispute about a goose.
Roger never entirely recovered from the effects of this rencontre, but
died presently at Jamaica, whither he had followed the drum.

Laurence, his second child, was born at Clonmel, in Ireland, in 1713, and
travelled for the first ten years of his life, on his father's march, from
barrack to transport, from Ireland to England.(161)

One relative of his mother's took her and her family under shelter for ten
months at Mullingar: another collateral descendant of the Archbishop's
housed them for a year at his castle near Carrickfergus. Larry Sterne was
put to school at Halifax in England, finally was adopted by his kinsman of
Elvington, and parted company with his father, the Captain, who marched on
his path of life till he met the fatal goose, which closed his career. The
most picturesque and delightful parts of Laurence Sterne's writings, we
owe to his recollections of the military life. Trim's montero cap, and Le
Fevre's sword, and dear Uncle To