"A standing reproach to the profession which he disgraced,
grovelling in his tastes, indiscreet, if not licentious, in his
habits, he lived unhonoured and died unlamented, save by those
who found amusement in his wit or countenance in his
immorality."[B]

But though he avoids these particular excesses; though he goes
straight for the book, as a critic should; Mr. Whibley cannot get quit
of the bad tradition of patronizing Sterne:--

"He failed, as only a sentimentalist can fail, in the province of
pathos.... There is no trifle, animate or inanimate, he will not
bewail, if he be but in the mood; nor does it shame him to dangle
before the public gaze those poor shreds of sensibility he calls
his feelings. Though he seldom deceives the reader into sympathy,
none will turn from his choicest agony without a thrill of
disgust. The _Sentimental Journey_, despite its interludes of
tacit humour and excellent narrative, is the last extravagance of
irrelevant grief.... Genuine sentiment was as strange to Sterne
the writer as to Sterne the man; and he conjures up no tragic
figure that is not stuffed with sawdust and tricked out in the
rags of the green-room. Fortunately, there is scant opportunity
for idle tears in _Tristram Shandy_.... Yet no occasion is
lost.... Yorick's death is false alike to nature and art. The
vapid emotion is properly matched with commonness of expression,
and the bad taste is none the more readily excused by the
suggestion of self-defence. Even the humour of My Uncle Toby is
something: degraded by the oft-quoted platitude: 'Go, poor
devil,' says he, to an overgrown fly which had buzzed about his