STERNE, Laurence, an eccentric writer of fiction, has left behind him a sketch of the principal events of his life, and some particulars of his family history. From that outline it appears that he was born at Clonmell, in the south of Ireland, on the 24th November 1713. His father was a lieutenant in the army, and grandson of Dr Richard Sterne, archbishop of York. When his son was about eight years of age, Lieutenant Sterne placed him at a school in Halifax, to which town he had been conducted by his professional duties. That officer died in 1731, and in the following year, young Sterne, by the bounty of a relation and namesake of his own, was transferred from the school of Halifax to Jesus College, Cambridge.

Having completed his studies at the university, he proceeded to York; and his uncle, Dr Jacques Sterne, prebendary of Durham, and canon residentiary and precentor of York, procured him the living of Sutton, and afterwards a prebend at York. At York he formed an acquaintance with the lady who afterwards became his wife, under circumstances sufficiently romantic. From a friend of hers he obtained the living of Stillington, but continued for twenty years to reside at Sutton, relieving the burden of his double charge, as he informs us, “by books, painting, fiddling, and shooting.” In the library of Shelton Castle, the residence of his friend and relation, John Hall Stevenson, author of a licentious production, entitled Crazy Tales, Sterne found among the dross of antiquity many a brilliant gem, which he transferred without scruple to his own pages. In this stolen garb he cut a most imposing figure, until Dr Ferriar of Manchester, twenty years after the death of the celebrated plagiary, restored the pilfered trappings to the rightful owners.^[1. See Dr Ferriar’s Illustrations of Sterne. Lond. 1798, 8vo. ] ’

In 1759, Sterne produced the first two volumes of Tris-[7:20:722] train Shandy, which procured him both money and reputation. In these volumes there was abundance of matter which every one could relish; and what was unintelligible was thought profound. Much ingenious speculation was squandered upon the black leaves and marbled pages, which were long contemplated with wonder, before they were discovered to mean nothing. “The republic of dark authors,” says Swift, “have been peculiarly happy in the variety, as well as extent, of their reputation.”

Before this period, Sterne had only printed two sermons. The two volumes of Tristram Shandy were succeeded by two volumes of Sermons. In 1761 appeared the third and fourth volumes of the novel, and the fifth and sixth in the year following. The seventh and eighth volumes were published in 1765; but these monstrous births had by that time ceased to please. Four volumes of Sermons were produced in 1766; and in 1767, these were followed by the ninth and last volume of Tristram Shandy. In 1768 Sterne returned from Italy, whither he had repaired in the hopes of finding relief for a consumptive complaint with which he had long been afflicted. He only survived to prepare for the press the first part of his Sentimental Journey, which was published in 1768. In the month of March of that year he expired at his lodgings in Bond Street, surrounded by strangers; a mode of death which he considered as most desirable.

The English writer to whom the author of Tristram Shandy is most indebted for his matter is Burton; and his manner bears some resemblance to the capricious, whimsical, and digressive Tale of a Tub. He even mimics Swift in sneering at “the great Dryden ;” but in the writings of his prototype he might have found many tilings infinitely more worthy of imitation. In order to make room for his pathos, however, he eschewed the misanthropy of the dean of St Patrick’s, and set up for a lover of his species, to which character his claims were less than equivocal, for his philanthropy did not extend so far as to his own mother. That sensibility is worthy only of ridicule that bestows a tear with greater promptitude than a shilling. For the irony of Swift, Sterne substituted buffoonery, which, in conformity with the opinion of Aristotle, the dean regarded as the less liberal species of pleasantry But the strongest objection to much of the satire in Tristram Shandy is, that the author threw away his ridicule upon pedantry that had become altogether obsolete.

It would be harsh justice to conclude, that the beauties of Sterne’s writings are drawn from some yet undiscovered source, because he is known to have had confused notions on the subject of literary honesty, and to tear the laurel from his brows, because some of its leaves are purloined from the tombs of the dead. “Every man’s wit,” he says, “must come from every man’s own soul, and no other body's.” That he had much wit of his own, there is reason as well as charity in supposing, although his propensity to make free with the wit of others may justify some suspicion on the subject, upon the principle that a rich man, who retains the use of his reason, is seldom guilty of theft. And it cannot be denied, that the world would be indebted to the writer who could produce such another tissue of reproductions, if such it is, as “The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gent.”