of idleness and dissipation, enlisted as a soldier in the service of the East India Company; that in the course of duty he had the good fortune to attract the notice and approbation of Lord Clive, who preferred him from one step to another till he had attained the rank of captain and paymaster to the regiment, in which capacities he had honestly amassed above twelve thousand pounds, and at the peace resigned his commission. He had sent several remittances to his father, who received the first only, consisting of one hundred pounds; the second had fallen into the hands of a bankrupt; and the third had been consigned to a gentleman in Scotland, who died before it arrived, so that it still remained to be accounted for by his executors. He now presented the old man with fifty pounds for his present occasions, over and above bank notes for one hundred, which he had deposited for his brother's release. He brought along with him a deed, ready executed, by which he settled a perpetuity of fourscore pounds upon his parents, to be inherited by the other two sons after their decease. He promised to purchase a commission for his youngest brother; to take the other as his own partner in a manufacture which he intends to set up to give employment and bread to the industrious; and to give five hundred pounds, by way of dower to his sister, who had married a farmer in low circumstances. Finally, he gave fifty pounds to the poor of the town where he was born, and feasted all the inhabitants without exception.

left to his care and discretion, he actually bespoke the company of a French marquis, an Italian count, and a German baron, whom he knew to be egregious coxcombs, and therefore more likely to enhance the joy of the entertainment.

Accordingly, the hour being arrived, he conducted them to the hotel where the physician lodged, after having regaled their expectations with an elegant meal in the genuine old Roman taste; and they were received by Mr Pallet, who did the honours of the house while his friend superintended the cook below. By this communicative painter, the guests understood that the doctor had met with numerous difficulties in the execution of his design; that no fewer than five cooks had been dismissed, because they could not prevail upon their own consciences to obey his directions in things that were contrary to the present practice of their art; and that, although he had at last engaged a person, by an extraordinary premium, to comply with his orders, the fellow was so astonished, mortified, and incensed at the commands he had received, that his hair stood on end, and he begged on his knees to be released from the agreement he had made; but finding that his employer insisted upon the performance of his contract, and threatened to introduce him to the commissaire if he should flinch from the bargain, he had, in the discharge of his office, wept, sung, cursed, and capered, for two whole hours without intermission.

While the company listened to this odd informaMy uncle was so charmed with the character of tion, by which they were prepossessed with strange Captain Brown, that he drank his health three times notions of the dinner, their ears were invaded by a successively at dinner. He said he was proud of his piteous voice, that exclaimed in French, For the love acquaintance; that he was an honour to his country, of God! dear sir, for the sake of all the saints, spare and had in some measure redeemed human nature me the mortification of the honey and oil! Their from the reproach of pride, selfishness, and ingratitude. ears still vibrated with the sound, when the doctor For my part I was as much pleased with the modesty entering, was by Peregrine made acquainted with the as with the filial virtue of this honest soldier, who strangers, to whom he, in the transports of his wrath, assumed no merit from his success, and said very could not help complaining of the want of complailittle of his own transactions, though the answers he sance he had found in the Parisian vulgar, by which made to our inquiries were equally sensible and laco- his plan had been almost entirely ruined and set aside. nic. Mrs Tabitha behaved very graciously to him, The French marquis, who thought the honour of his until she understood that he was going to make a ten-nation was concerned at this declaration, professed his der of his hand to a person of low estate, who had been his sweetheart while he worked as a journeyman weaver. Our aunt was no sooner made acquainted with this design, than she starched up her behaviour with a double portion of reserve; and when the company broke up, she observed, with a toss of her nose, that Brown was a civil fellow enough, considering the lowness of his origin; but that fortune, though she had mended his circumstances, was incapable to raise his ideas, which were still humble and plebeian.*

[Feast in the Manner of the Ancients.]

[From 'Peregrine Pickle."]

Our young gentleman, by his insinuating behaviour, acquired the full confidence of the doctor, who invited him to an entertainment, which he intended to prepare in the manner of the ancients. Pickle, struck with this idea, eagerly embraced the proposal, which he honoured with many encomiums, as a plan in all respects worthy of his genius and apprehension; and the day was appointed at some distance of time, that the treater might have leisure to compose certain pickles and confections, which were not to be found among the culinary preparations of these degenerate days.

With a view of rendering the physician's taste more conspicuous, and extracting from it the more diversion, Peregrine proposed that some foreigners should partake of the banquet; and the task being

* This is a true story, the only alteration being in the name of the hero, which, in reality, was White.-ED.

sorrow for what had happened, so contrary to the established character of the people, and undertook to see the delinquents severely punished, provided he could be informed of their names or places of abode. The mutual compliments that passed on this occasion were scarce finished, when a servant, coming into the room, announced dinner; and the entertainer led the way into another apartment, where they found a long table, or rather two boards joined together, and furnished with a variety of dishes, the steams of which had such evident effect upon the nerves of the company that the marquis made frightful grimaces, under pretence of taking snuff; the Italian's eyes watered, the German's visage underwent several distortions of feature; our hero found means to exclude the odour from his sense of smelling by breathing only through his mouth; and the poor painter, running into another room, plugged his nostrils with tobacco. The doctor himself, who was the only person then present whose organs were not discomposed, pointing to a couple of couches placed on each side of the table, told his guests that he was sorry he could not procure the exact triclinia of the ancients, which were somewhat different from these conveniences, and desired they would have the goodness to repose themselves without ceremony, each in his respective couchette, while he and his friend Mr Pallet would place themselves upright at the ends, that they might have the pleasure of serving those that lay along. This disposition, of which the strangers had no previous idea, disconcerted and perplexed them in a most ridiculous manner; the marquis and baron stood bowing to each other on pretence of disputing the lower seat, but, in reality,

Pallet, hearing the first of these dishes described, lifted up his hands and eyes, and with signs of loathing and amazement, pronounced, "A pie made of dormice and sirup of poppies: Lord in heaven! what beastly fellows those Romans were!' His friend checked him for his irreverent exclamation with a severe look, and recommended the veal, of which he himself cheerfully ate with such encomiums to the company that the baron resolved to imitate his example, after having called for a bumper of Burgundy, which the physician, for his sake, wished to have been the true wine of Falernum. The painter, seeing nothing else upon the table which he would venture to touch, made a merit of necessity, and had recourse to the veal also; although he could not help saying, that he would not give one slice of the roast beef of Old England for all the dainties of a Roman emperor's table. But all the doctor's invitations and assurances could not prevail upon his guests to honour the hashis and the goose; and that course was succeeded by another, in which he told them were divers of those dishes which among the ancients had obtained the appellation of politeles, or magnificent. "That which smokes in the middle,' said he, is a sow's stomach, filled with a composition of minced pork, hog's brains, eggs, pepper, cloves, garlic, anniseed, rue, ginger, oil, wine, and pickle. On the righthand side are the teats and belly of a sow, just farrowed, fried with sweet wine, oil, flour, lovage, and pepper. On the left is a fricassee of snails, fed or rather purged with milk. At that end, next Mr Pallet, are fritters of pompions, lovage, origanum, and oil; and here are a couple of pullets, roasted and stuffed in the manner of Apicius.'

wine and herring-pickle, which he had used instead of the celebrated garum of the Romans; that famous pickle having been prepared sometimes of the scombri, which were a sort of tunny fish, and sometimes of the silurus or shad fish; nay, he observed, that there was a third kind called garum hoemation, made of the guts, gills, and blood of the thynnus.

The physician, finding it would be impracticable to re-establish the order of the banquet by presenting again the dishes which had been discomposed, ordered everything to be removed, a clean cloth to be laid, and the dessert to be brought in.

Meanwhile he regretted his incapacity to give them a specimen of the alieus or fish-meals of the ancients; such as the jus diabaton, the conger eel, which, in Galen's opinion, is hard of digestion; the cornuta or gurnard, described by Pliny in his Natural History, who says the horns of many of them were a foot and a half in length; the mullet and lamprey, that were in the highest estimation of old, of which last Julius Cæsar borrowed six thousand for one triumphal supper. He observed that the manner of dressing them was described by Horace, in the account he gives of the entertainment to which Maecenas was invited by the epicure Nasiedenus,

Affertur squillos inter Murena natantes, &c.

and told them, that they were commonly eaten with the thus Syriacum, a certain anodyne and astringent seed, which qualified the purgative nature of the fish. Finally, this learned physician gave them to understand, that though this was reckoned a luxurious dish in the zenith of the Roman taste, it was by no means comparable in point of expense to some preparations in vogue about the time of that absurd voluptuary Heliogabalus, who ordered the brains of six hundred ostriches to be compounded in one mess.

By this time the dessert appeared, and the company were not a little rejoiced to see plain olives in salt and water; but what the master of the feast valued himself upon, was a sort of jelly, which he affirmed to

The painter, who had by wry faces testified his abhorrence of the sow's stomach, which he compared to a bagpipe, and the snails which had undergone purgation, no sooner heard him mention the roasted pullets, than he eagerly solicited a wing of the fowl; upon which the doctor desired he would take the trouble of cutting them up, and accordingly sent them round, while Mr Pallet tucked the tablecloth under his chin, and brandished his knife and fork with sin-be preferable to the hypotrimma of Hesychius, being a gular address; but scarce were they set down before him, when the tears ran down his cheeks, and he called aloud, in a manifest disorder, 'Zounds! this is the essence of a whole bed of garlic!' That he might not, however, disappoint or disgrace the entertainer, he applied his instruments to one of the birds; and when he opened up the cavity, was assaulted by such an irruption of intolerable smells, that, without staying to disengage himself from the cloth, he sprung away with an exclamation of Lord Jesus!' and involved the whole table in havoc, ruin, and confusion.

Before Pickle could accomplish his escape, he was sauced with a sirup of the dormice pie, which went to pieces in the general wreck: and as for the Italian count, he was overwhelmed by the sow's stomach, which, bursting in the fall, discharged its contents upon his leg and thigh, and scalded him so miserably that he shrieked with anguish, and grinned with a most ghastly and horrible aspect.

The baron, who sat secure without the vortex of this tumult, was not at all displeased at seeing his companions involved in such a calamity as that which he had already shared; but the doctor was confounded with shame and vexation. After having prescribed an application of oil to the count's leg, he expressed his sorrow for the misadventure, which he openly ascribed to want of taste and prudence in the painter, who did not think proper to return and make an apology in person; and protested that there was nothing in the fowls which could give offence to a sensible nose, the stuffing being a mixture of pepper, lovage, and assafoetida, and the sauce consisting of

mixture of vinegar, pickle, and honey, boiled to a proper consistence, and candied assafoetida, which he asserted, in contradiction to Aumelbergius and Lister, was no other than the laser Syriacum, so precious as to be sold among the ancients to the weight of a silver penny. The gentlemen took his word for the excellency of this gum, but contented themselves with the olives, which gave such an agreeable relish to the wine that they seemed very well disposed to console themselves for the disgraces they had endured; and Pickle, unwilling to lose the least circumstance of entertainment that could be enjoyed in their company, went in quest of the painter, who remained in his penitentials in another apartment, and could not be persuaded to re-enter the banqueting room, until Peregrine undertook to procure his pardon from those whom he had injured. Having assured him of this indulgence, our young gentleman led him in like a criminal, bowing on all hands with an air of humility and contrition; and particularly addressing himself to the count, to whom he swore in English he had no intent to affront man, woman, or child, but was fain to make the best of his way, that he might not give the honourable company cause of offence by obeying the dictates of nature in their presence.

When Pickle interpreted this apology to the Italian, Pallet was forgiven in very polite terms, and even received into favour by his friend the doctor in consequence of our hero's intercession; so that all the guests forgot their chagrin, and paid their respects so piously to the bottle, that in a short time the champaigne produced very evident effects in the behaviour of all present.

LAURENCE STERNE.

Next in order of time and genius, and not inferior in conception of rich eccentric comic character, was the witty, pathetic, and sentimental author of Tristram Shandy. Sterne was an original writer, though a plagiarist of thoughts and illustrations. Brother Shandy, my Uncle Toby, Trim, the Widow Wadman, and Dr Slop, will go down to posterity with the kindred creations of Cervantes. This idol of his own day is now, however, but little read, except in passages of pure sentiment. His broad humour is not relished; his oddities have not the gloss of novelty; his indecencies startle the prudish and correct. The readers of this busy age will not hunt for his beauties amidst the blank and marbled leaves -the pages of no-meaning-the quaint erudition, stolen from forgotten folios-the abrupt transitions and discursive flights in which his Shakspearean touches of character, and his gems of fancy, judgment, and feeling, lie hid and embedded. His sparkling polished diction has even an air of false glitter, yet it is the weapon of a master-of one who can stir the heart to tears as well as laughter. The want of simplicity and decency is his greatest fault. His whim and caprice, which he partly imitated from Rabelais, and partly assumed for effect, come in sometimes with intrusive awkwardness to mar the touches of true genius, and the kindlings of enthusiasm. He took as much pains to spoil his own natural powers by affectation, as Lady Mary says Fielding did to destroy his fine constitution.

pleted the first part of his Journey,' Sterne went to London to see it published, and died in lodgings in Bond Street, March 18, 1768. There was nobody but a hired nurse by his death-bed. He had wished to die in an inn, where the few cold offices he wanted would be purchased with a few guineas, and paid to him with an undisturbed but punctual attention. His wish was realised almost to the letter. No one reads Sterne for the story: his great work is but a bundle of episodes and digressions, strung together without any attempt at order. The reader must give up the reins of his imagination into his author's hand-be pleased he knows not why, and cares not wherefore.' Through the whole novel, however, over its mists and absurdities, shines his little family band of friends and relatives-that inimitable group of originals and humorists-which stand out from the canvass with the force and distinctness of reality. This distinctness and separate identity is a proof of what Coleridge has termed the peculiar power of Sterne, of seizing on and bringing forward those points on which every man is a humorist, and of the masterly manner in which he has brought out the characteristics of two beings of the most opposite natures-the elder Shandy and Toby-and surrounded them with a group of followers, sketched with equal life and individuality: in the Corporal, the obstetric Dr Slop; Yorick, the lively and careless parson; the Widow Wadman and Susannah. During the intervals of the publication of Tristram,' Sterne ventured before the public some volumes of Sermons, with his own comic figure, from a painting by Reynolds, at the head of The life of LAURENCE STERNE was as little in them. The Sermons,' according to the just opinion keeping as his writings. A clergyman, he was dis- of Gray the poet, show a strong imagination and a solute and licentious; a sentimentalist, who had, sensible heart; but,' he adds, you see the author with his pen, tears for all animate and inanimate often tottering on the verge of laughter, and ready nature, he was hardhearted and selfish in his con- to throw his periwig in the face of the audience.' duct. Had he kept to his living in the country, The affected pauses and abrupt transitions which going his daily round of pastoral duties, he would disfigure Tristram' are not banished from the Serhave been a better and wiser man. 'He degene- mons,' but there is, of course, more connection and rated in London,' says David Garrick, like an ill- coherency in the subject. The Sentimental Jourtransplanted shrub: the incense of the great spoiled ney' is also more regular than Tristram' in its plan his head, and their ragouts his stomach. He grew and details; but, beautiful as some of its descriptions sickly and proud-an invalid in body and mind.' are, we want the oddities of Shandy, and the everHard is the life of a wit when united to a suscep- pleasing good nature and simplicity of Uncle Toby. tible temperament, and the cares and sensibilities of Sterne himself is the only character. The pathetic an author! Sterne was the son of an Irish lieu- passages are rather overstrained, but still finely tenant, and was born at Clonmel, November 24, conceived, and often expressed in his most felicitous 1713. He was educated by a relation, a cousin, and manner. That gentle spirit of sweetest humour, took his degree of M.A. at Cambridge in 1740. who erst didst sit upon the easy pen of his beloved Having entered into orders, his uncle, Dr Sterne, a Cervantes, turning the twilight of his prison into rich pluralist, presented him with the living of Sut-noonday brightness,' was seldom absent long from ton, to which was afterwards added a prebend of York. He married a York lady, and derived from the connexion another living in that county, the rectory of Stillington. He lived nearly twenty years at Sutton, reading, painting, fiddling, and shooting, with occasional quarrels with his brethren of the cloth, with whom he was no favourite. He left Yorkshire for London in 1759, to publish the two first volumes of Tristram Shandy.' Two others were published in 1761, and the same number in 1762. He now took a tour to France, which It was some time in the summer of that year in enriched some of his subsequent volumes of Tris- which Dendermond was taken by the allies, which tram' with his exquisite sketches of peasants and was about seven years before my father came into vine-dressers, the muleteer, the abbess and Mar- the country, and about as many, after the time, that garita, Maria at Moulines-and not forgetting the my uncle Toby and Trim had privately decamped poor ass with his heavy panniers at Lyons. In from my father's house in town, in order to lay some 1764 he took another continental tour, and pene- of the finest sieges to some of the finest fortified cities trated into Italy, to which we are indebted for his in Europe, when my uncle Toby was one evening Sentimental Journey. The latter work he composed getting his supper, with Trim sitting behind him at on his return at Coxwould, the living of which had a small sideboard, I say sitting, for in consideration been presented to him, on the first publication of of the corporal's lame knee (which sometimes gave Tristram,' by Lord Falconbridge. Having com-him exquisite pain), when my uncle Toby dined or

the invocations of his English imitator, even when he mounted his wildest hobby, and dabbled in the mire of sensuality.

Of the sentimental style of Sterne (his humour is too subtle and ethereal to be compressed into our limits) a few specimens are added.

The Story of Le Fevre.

[From Tristram Shandy."]

I was hearing this account, continued the corporal, Stay in the room a little, said my uncle Toby. when the youth came into the kitchen, to order the Trim said my uncle Toby, after he lighted his pipe, thin toast the landlord spoke of. But I will do it for and smoked about a dozen whiffs. Trim came in my father myself, said the youth. Pray, let me save front of his master, and made his bow. My uncle you the trouble, young gentleman, said I, taking up Toby smoked on, and said no more. Corporal! said a fork for the purpose, and offering him my chair to my uncle Toby. The corporal made his bow. My sit down upon by the fire whilst I did it. I believe, sir, uncle Toby proceeded no further, but finished his said he, very modestly, I can please him best myself. pipe. I am sure, said I, his honour will not like the toast the worse for being toasted by an old soldier. The youth took hold of my hand, and instantly burst into tears. Poor youth! said my uncle Toby; he has been bred up from an infant in the army, and the name of a soldier, Trim, sounded in his ears like the name of a friend; I wish I had him here.