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and the candour of the publick, the present collection of Mr. Sterne's works may be submitted, without the least apprehension that the perusal of any part of them will be followed by consequences unfavourable to the interests of society. The oftener they are read, the stronger will a sense of universal benevolence be impressed on the mind; and the attentive reader will subscribe to the character of the author given by a comick writer, who declares he held him to be "a moralist in the noblest sense; "he plays indeed with the fancy, and sometimes, "perhaps, too wantonly; but while he thus design"edly masks his main attack, he comes at once upon the heart; refines, amends it, softens it; beats "down each selfish barrier from about it, and opens "every sluice of pity and benevolence."

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OF

THE LIFE AND FAMILY

OF THE

REV. MR. LAURENCE STERNE.

WRITTEN BY HIMSELF.

ROGER STERNE* (grandson to Archbishop Sterne) lieutenant in Handaside's regiment, was married to Agnes Hebert, widow of a captain of a good family. Her family name was (I believe) Nuttle; -though, upon recollection, that was the name of her father-in-law, who was a noted suttler in Flanders, in Queen Anne's wars, where my father mar

* Mr. Sterne was descended from a family of that name in Suffolk, one of which settled in Nottinghamshire. The following genealogy is extracted from Thoresby's Ducatus Leodinensis, p. 215.Simon Sterne, of Mansfield.

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Richard Sterne, William Sterne, Simon Sterne, Mary, daughter

of York and of Mansfield.

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of Elvington

and Halifax,
Ob. 1703.

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Roger Jaques

LL D.

Richard Laurence Ob. 1759.

and heiress of Roger Jaques, of Elvington, near York.

5 1 6

Mary Elizabeth Francis.

Sterne.

ried his wife's daughter (N. B. he was in debt to him) which was in September 25, 1711, old style.This Nuttle had a son by my grandmother,—a fine person of a man, but a graceless whelp!-what became of him I know not-The family (if any left) live now at Clonmel, in the south of Ireland; at which town I was born, November 24, 1713, a few days after my mother arrived from Dunkirk.— My birth-day was ominous to my poor father, who was, the day after our arrival, with many other brave officers, broke, and sent adrift into the wide world, with a wife and two children !-the elder of which was Mary. She was born at Lisle, in French Flanders, July 10, 1712, new style.-This child was the most unfortunate :-she married one Weemans, in Dublin,-who used her most unmercifully ;-spent his substance, became a bankrupt, and left my poor sister to shift for herself; which she was able to do but for a few months, for she went to a friend's house in the country, and died of a broken heart. She was a most beautiful woman,-of a fine figure, and deserved a better fate.-The regiment in which my father served being broke, he left Ireland as soon as I was able to be carried, with the rest of his family, and came to the family-seat at Elvington, near York, where his mother lived. She was daughter to Sir Roger Jaques, and an heiress.

The arms of the family, says Guillam, in his Book of Heraldry, p. 77, are, Or, a chevron between three crosses flory, sable. The crest, on a wreath of his colours, a starling proper.

Trifling circumstances are worthy of notice, when connected with distinguished characters. The arms of Mr. Sterne's family are no otherwise important than on account of the crest having afforded a hint for one of the finest stories in The Sentimental Journey.

There we sojourned for about ten months, when the regiment was established, and our household decamped with bag and baggage for Dublin.Within a month of our arrival, my father left us, being ordered to Exeter; where, in a sad winter, my mother and her two children followed him, travelling from Liverpool, by land, to Plymouth.-(Melancholy description of this journey, not necessary to be transmitted here.)-In twelve months we were all sent back to Dublin. My mother, with three of us (for she lay-in at Plymouth of a boy, Joram) took ship at Bristol, for Ireland, and had a narrow escape from being cast away, by a leak springing up in the vessel. At length, after many perils and struggles, we got to Dublin.-There my father took a large house, furnished it, and in a year and a half's time spent a great deal of money.-In the year one thousand. seven hundred and nineteen, all unhinged again;. the regiment was ordered, with many others, to the Isle of Wight, in order to embark for Spain in the Vigo expedition. We accompained the regiment, and were driven into Milford Haven, but landed at Bristol; from thence, by land, to Plymouth again, and to the Isle of Wight ;-where, I remember, we stayed encamped some time before the embarcation of the troops-(in this expedition, from Bristol to Hampshire, we lost poor Joram,-a pretty boy, four years old, of the small-pox) my mother, sister, and myself, remained at the Isle of Wight during the Vigo expedition, and until the regiment had got back to Wicklow, in Ireland; from whence my father sent for us. We had poor Joram's loss sup-plied, during our stay in the Isle of Wight, by the birth of a girl, Anne, born September the twen

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