The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Political Romance, by Laurence Sterne

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Title: A Political Romance

Author: Laurence Sterne

Release Date: January 2, 2007 [EBook #20257]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A POLITICAL ROMANCE ***

Produced by Jerry Kuntz

A Political Romance,
Addressed To _____ ________, Esq;
of York.
To which is subjoined a KEY.

Ridiculum acri Fortius et melius magnas plerumque secat Res

YORK: Printed in the Year MDCCLIX.
[Price ONE SHILLING.]

A POLITICAL ROMANCE, ETC.

SIR,

In my last, for want of something better to write about, I told you what
a World of Fending and Proving we have had of late, in this little
Village of ours, about an old-cast-Pair-of-black-Plush-Breeches, which
John, our Parish-Clerk, about ten Years ago, it seems, had made a
Promise of to one Trim, who is our Sexton and Dog-Whipper.--To this you
write me Word, that you have had more than either one or two Occasions
to know a good deal of the shifty Behaviour of this said Master Trim,--
and that you are astonished, nor can you for your Soul conceive, how so
worthless a Fellow, and so worthless a Thing into the Bargain, could
become the Occasion of such a Racket as I have represented.

Now, though you do not say expressly, you could wish to hear any more
about it, yet I see plain enough that I have raised your Curiosity; and
therefore, from the same Motive, that I slightly mentioned it at all in
my last Letter, I will, in this, give you a full and very circumstantial
Account of the whole Affair.

But, before I begin, I must first set you right in one very material
Point, in which I have misled you, as to the true Cause of all this
Uproar amongst us;--which does not take its Rise, as I then told you,
from the Affair of the Breeches;--but, on the contrary, the whole Affair
of the Breeches has taken its Rise from it:--To understand which, you
must know, that the first Beginning of the Squabble was not between John
the Parish-Clerk and Trim the Sexton, but betwixt the Parson of the
Parish and the said Master Trim, about an old Watch-Coat, which had many
Years hung up in the Church, which Trim