74 Comments on Sterne. 
Authors, I think; Sterne learnt to practice what 
Quintilian had made a precept: Minus eft rorum 
dicere quam omnia. With genius enough for the 
attempt, one has frequently failed in producing 
pleafure by the length of his digreffions, and the 
other by affecting an exeeffive refinement and am- 
biguity in his language. Les bons écrivains du fitcle de 
Louis XIV. fays Voltaire, ont eu de la force, aujour- 
d'hui on cherche de Contorfions. Our own writers are 
not free from this error; and it would not be 
unworthy their confideration, that a fentence, which 
is fo much refined as to admit of feveral different 
fenfes, may perhaps have no direct claim to any 
fenfe.* Sterne has feldom indulged thefe lapfes, 
for which he was probably indebted to the buoyant 
force of Burton’s firm Old-Englifh finews. 
Whoever will take the trouble of comparing 
Sterne’s Dialogue with his own feelings, in the 
Sentimental 
* Maynard puts this very well: 
Mon ami, chaffe bien loin 
Cette noire Rhetorique, 
Tes ouvrages ont befoin 
D’un devin qui les explique, 
Si ton efprit veut cacher 
Les belles chofes qu’il penfe, 
Di-moi, qui peut t’empécher 
De te fervir du filence? 
