usin, how it altered my gait and air--for I went and
came like any louden'd carl, and did nothing but _jouer des
sentimens_ with her from sun-rising even to the setting of the same;
and now she is gone to the south of France; and to finish the
_comedie_, I fell ill and broke a vessel in my lungs, and half bled
to death. _Voila mon histoire!_"

Whether husband or wife had most of the _patience d'ange_ may be
uncertain; but there can be no doubt which needed it most!

164 "_Tristram Shandy_ is still a greater object of admiration, the man
as well as the book; one is invited to dinner, when he dines, a
fortnight before. As to the volumes yet published, there is much
good fun in them, and humour sometimes hit and sometimes missed.
Have you read his _Sermons_, with his own comick figure, from a
painting by Reynolds, at the head of them? They are in the style I
think most proper for the pulpit, and show a strong imagination and
a sensible heart; but you see him often tottering on the verge of
laughter, and ready to throw his periwig in the face of the
audience."--GRAY'S _Letters_, June 22nd, 1760.

"It having been observed that there was little hospitality in
London--Johnson: 'Nay, sir, any man who has a name, or who has the
power of pleasing, will be very generally invited in London. The
man, Sterne, I have been told, has had engagements for three
months.' Goldsmith: 'And a very dull fellow.' Johnson: 'Why, no,
sir.' "--BOSWELL'S _Life of Johnson_.

"Her [Miss Monckton's] vivacity enchanted the sage, and they used to
talk together with all imaginable ease. A singular instance happened
one evening, when she insisted that some of Sterne's writings were
very pathetic. Johnson bluntly denied it. 'I am sure,' said she,
'they have affected me.' 'Why,' said Johnson, smiling, and rolling
himself about--'that is, because, dearest, you're a dunce.' When she
some time afterwards mentioned this to him, he said with equal truth
and politeness, 'Madam, if I had thought so, I certainly should not
have said it.' "--BOSWELL's _Life of Johnson_.

165 A passage or two from Sterne's _Sermons_ may not be without interest
here. Is not the following, levelled against the cruelties of the
Church of Rome, stamped with the autograph of the author of