lais and literature of that kind. The contrast between the little church founded by St. Paul at Corinth and the group of jesters that John Hall-Stevenson gathered about him at Crazy Castle, came to Sterne's imagination, and down it went, without any thought of the bad taste that might be involved. But it is unnecessary to illustrate further, for illustrations will come to readers of the letters and Mr. Percy Fitzgerald's delightful biography. - What I have just said of Sterne, applies of course in a degree to all the great humorists since Aristophanes and Lucian. The humorist is a free lance recognizing no barriers to his wit. All that his race most prizes its religion, its social ideals, its traditions, its history and heroes — is fair game for him just as much as the most trivial act of everyday life. He is, as Yorick named himself, the king's jester, privileged to break in at all times upon the feast, with a jingle of the bells if he likes, to announce the discovery of some new inconsistency in the ways of man or nature. But most humorists have their serious moods, when they turn from the gay to the grave aspect of things. In Don Quixote there is so much tragedy behind the farce that Charles Kingsley thought it the saddest book ever written. Shakespeare passed from Falstaff and the blackguards that gathered at the Boar's Head tavern to Hamlet, Lear, and Othello. Fielding in the midst of his comedy had a way of letting one into a deeper self, as in that great passage where he cuts short an exaggerated description of Sophia's charms with the remark "but most of all she resembled one whose image can never depart from my breast," in allusion to his wife just dead. To all these men there was something besides the humorist. There were in reserve for them great moral and intellectual forces. However far they may have been carried by their humor, there was at some point a quick recovery of the normal selfhood. Sterne had no such reserve powers, for he was compounded of sensations only. In his life and in his books, he added extravagance to extravagance, running the course to the end, for there was no force to check and turn him backward. He was a humorist pure and simple, and nothing else. The modern world has not seen his like. The ancients — though I do not pretend to speak with authority may have had such a humorist in Lucian. But there is a difference in the quality of their humor. Lucian was sharp and acidulous. Sterne rarely, perhaps nowhere except in the sketch of Dr. Slop, reached the border where humor passes into satire; for satire means a degree of seriousness unknown to him. Like the roundelay Yorick heard sung by the peasant dancers in southern France, it was ever with him: VIVA LA JOIA! FIDON LA TRISTESSA ! He was the gayest and kindliest of humorists. W. L. C. ADVERTISEMENT. THE HE works of Mr. Sterne, after contending with the prejudices of some, and the ignorance of others, have at length obtained that general approbation which they are entitled to by their various, original, and intrinsic merits. No writer of the present times can lay claim to so many unborrowed excellences. In none, have wit, humour, fancy, pathos, an unbounded knowledge of mankind, and a correct and elegant style, been so happily united. These properties, which render him the delight of every reader of taste, have surmounted all opposition. Even Envy, Prudery, and Hypocrisy are silent. Time, which allots to each author his due portion of fame, and admits a free discussion of his beauties and faults, without favour and without partiality, hath done ample justice to the superior genius of Mr. Sterne. It hath fixed his reputation as one of the first writers in the English language, on the firmest basis, and advanced him to the rank of a classic. As such, it becomes a debt of gratitude, to collect his scattered performances into a complete edition, with those embellishments usually bestowed on our most distinguished authors. This hath been attempted in the present edition, which comprehends all the Works of Mr. Sterne, either made public in his lifetime or since his death. They are printed from the best and most correct copies, with no other alterations than what became necessary from the correction of literal errors. The Letters are arranged according to their several dates, as far as they can be discovered, and a few illustrations added, to explain some temporary circumstances mentioned or alluded to in them. Those which are confessedly spurious are rejected; and, that no credit may be given to such as are of doubtful authority, it will be proper to observe, that the Letters numbered 129, 130, 131, have not those proofs of authenticity which the others possess. They cannot however be pronounced forgeries with |