ning often conceives that to be humour, which to others is
not even intelligible!]

The result of Dr. Cheyne's honest confession was experienced by Sterne,
for while more than half of the three kingdoms were convulsed with
laughter at his humour, the other part were obdurately dull to it. Take,
for instance, two very opposite effects produced by "Tristram Shandy" on a
man of strong original humour himself, and a wit who had more delicacy and
sarcasm than force and originality. The Rev. Philip Skelton declared that
"after reading 'Tristram Shandy,' he could not for two or three days
attend seriously to his devotion, it filled him with so many ludicrous
ideas." But Horace Walpole, who found his "Sentimental Journey" very
pleasing, declares that of "his tiresome 'Tristram Shandy,' he could never
get through three volumes."

The literary life of Sterne was a short one: it was a blaze of existence,
and it turned his head. With his personal life we are only acquainted by
tradition. Was the great sentimentalist himself unfeeling, dissolute,
and utterly depraved? Some anecdotes which one of his companions[A]
communicated to me, confirm Garrick's account preserved in Dr. Bumey's
collections, that "He was more dissolute in his conduct than his writings,
and generally drove every female away by his ribaldry. He degenerated in
London like an ill-transplanted shrub; the incense of the great spoiled
his head, and their ragouts his stomach. He grew sickly and proud
--an invalid in body and mind." Warburtou declared that "he was an
irrecoverable scoundrel." Authenticated facts are, however, wanting for a
judicious summary of the real character of the founder of sentimental
writing. An impenetrable mystery hangs over his family conduct; he has
thrown many sweet domestic touches in his own memoirs and letters
addressed to his daughter: but it would seem that he was often parted from
his family. After he had earnestly solicited the return of his wife from
France, though she did return, he was suffered to die in utter neglect.

[Footnote A: Caleb Whitefoord, the wit once famed for his invention of
cross-readings, which, appeared under the name of "Papirius Cursor."]

His sermons have been observed to be characterised by an air of levity; he
attempted this unusual manner. It was probably a caprice which induced him
to introduce one of his sermons in "Tristram Shandy;" it was fixing a
diamond in black velvet, and the contrast set off the b