56 Comments on Sterne. 
materials enforces brevity on the writer. In the 
courfe of a moderate folio, Burton has contrived to 
treat a great variety of topics, that feem very loofely 
connected with his fubjeét; and, like Bayle, when 
he ftarts a train of quotations, he does not feruple 
to let the digreffion outrun the principal queftion. 
Thus, from the Doctrines of Religion, to Military 
Difcipline; from inland Navigation, to the Morality . 
ef Dancing Schools, every thing is difcuffed and 
determined. ‘The quaintnefs of many of his divi- 
fions feems to have given Sterne the hint of his 
ludicrous titles to feveral Chapters ;* and the rifible 
effect refulting from Burton’s grave endeavours, to 
prove indifputable facts by weighty quotations, 
he has happily caught, and fometimes well bur- 
Tefqued. ‘This was the confequence of an opinion, 
prevalent in the laft age, which a late writer has 
attempted to re-eftablifh refpecting Hiftory; that 
authorities are facts. 
But where the force of the fubject opens Burton's 
own vein of Profe, we difcover valuable fenfe and 
brilliant expreffion. The proof of this will appear 
in thofe paffages, which Sterne has borrowed from 
him without variation. Burton was likewife a Poet; 
a copy of verfes in Latin, and another in Englifh, 
prefixed to his book, afford no mean proofs of 
his 
* The Tale of a Tub, and the Memoirs of Scriblerus, 
muit come in for a fhare of this influence, 
