STERNE.

Born at Clonmel, 1713.--Died 1768.


With regard to Sterne, and the charge of licentiousness which presses so
seriously upon his character as a writer, I would remark that there is a
sort of knowingness, the wit of which depends--1st, on the modesty it
gives pain to; or, 2dly, on the innocence and innocent ignorance over
which it triumphs; or, 3dly, on a certain oscillation in the
individual's own mind between the remaining good and the encroaching
evil of his nature--a sort of dallying with the devil--a fluxionary act
of combining courage and cowardice, as when a man snuffs a candle with
his fingers for the first time, or better still, perhaps, like that
trembling daring with which a child touches a hot tea urn, because it
has been forbidden; so that the mind has in its own white and black
angel the same or similar amusement, as may be supposed to take place
between an old debauchee and a prude,--she feeling resentment, on the
one hand, from a prudential anxiety to preserve appearances and have a
character, and, on the other, an inward sympathy with the enemy. We have
only to suppose society innocent, and then nine-tenths of this sort of
wit would be like a stone that falls in snow, making no sound because
exciting no resistance; the remainder rests on its being an offence
against the good manners of human nature itself.

This source, unworthy as it is, may doubtless be combined with wit,
drollery, fancy, and even humour, and we have only to regret the