713 



STERNE, LAURENCE. 



STERNE, LAURENCE. 



714 



known ' Life of Sterling ' by Mr. Carlyle, representing the man less in 

 his ecclesiastical than in his general human relations, appeared in 

 1851 ; and in the same year ' Twelve Letters by John Sterling' were 

 edited by his relative Mr. Coningham of Brighton. 



STERNE, LAURENCE, was the great-grandson of Dr. Richard 

 Sterne, who died archbishop of York in 1683. His father, Roger 

 Sterne, second son of Simon Sterne of Elvington and Halifax, having 

 entered the army, became a lieutenant in Handaside's regiment, and 

 on the 25th of September 1711, o.s., married in Flanders, Agnes, the 

 widow of Captain Herbert, and stepdaughter of a person of the name 

 of Nuttle, whom Sterno himself, in a memoir written for the infor- 

 mation of his daughter a short time before his death, describes as " a 

 noted sutler in Flanders in Queen Anne's wars." His mother's own 

 family name he professes to have forgotten. Roger's first child, born 

 at Lisle, in July 1712, was a daughter, Mary, who grew up to be a 

 very beautiful woman, but made an unfortunate marriage, and died 

 early of a broken heart. Laurence was brought into the world on the 

 24th of November 1713, at Clonmel in Ireland, where his father and 

 mother had arrived with the regiment from Dunkirk only a few 

 days before. "My birthday," says Sterne, '' was ominous to my poor 

 father, who was, the day after our arrival, with many other brave 

 officers, broke, and sent adrift into the world, with a wife and two 

 children." The lieutenant upon this betook himself with his wife and 

 family to the family seat at Elvington, near York, where his mother, 

 who had inherited the property from her father, Sir Roger Jaques, 

 resided, her husband having died ten years before; here they all 

 sojourned for about ten months, after which, the regiment being re- 

 established, they set out to join it at Dublin, whence Lieutenant 

 Sterne being within a month ordered to Exeter, his wife and her two 

 infants followed him thither. They remained a twelvemonth in Eng- 

 land, and then the lieutenant, with his family increased by another 

 boy, born at Plymouth, was forced once more to turn his face to Ire- 

 land. This must have been about the end of the year 1715, if the 

 chronology of the account is to be depended upon. Having got to 

 Dublin, they continued there till the year 1719, which however would 

 be for above three years, instead of only a year and a half, as Sterne 

 seems to state. In that year, he says, " all unhinged again." The 

 regiment was ordered to the Isle of Wight, to embark for Spain on 

 the Vigo expedition. On their journey thither from Bristol the 

 younger boy died, but his place was supplied by a girl' (who died how- 

 ever in childhood) born in September 1719, in the Isle of Wight, 

 where the lieutenant left his wife and children till the regiment got 

 back to Wicklow, in Ireland, whither he then sent for them. They 

 lived a year in the barracks at Wicklow, where Mrs. Sterne gave birth 

 to another boy ; and then they spent six months with a relation of 

 hers, a Mr. Fetherston, parson of a place called Annamoe about seven 

 miles from Wicklow. "It was in this parish," says Sterne, "during 

 our stay, that I had that wonderful escape, in falling through a mill- 

 race whilst the mill was going, and being taken up unhurt ; the story 

 is incredible, but known for truth in all that part of Ireland, where 

 hundreds of the common people flocked to see me." The incident, it 

 seems, is still traditionally remembered in the district. After this 

 they were in barracks for another year in Dublin the year 1721 

 in which, Sterne tells us, he learned to write. The regiment was 

 next ordered to Mullingar, where a collateral descendant of Arch- 

 bishop Sterne found out his relations, or was found out by them, and, 

 taking them all to his ' castle,' entertained them kindly for a year, and 

 then sent them after the regiment to Carrickfergus. On the journey 

 thither, which took six or seven days, and is described as most rueful 

 and tedious, or shortly after, the youngest boy died, and also another 

 infant, a girl, which had been born when they were last in Dublin. In 

 the autumn of this year (1723), or the spring of the next, Laurence, 

 now ten years old, was sent over to England, and put to school, near 

 Halifax, " with an able master," says he, " with whom I stayed some 

 time, till, by God's care of me, my cousin Sterne of Elvington became a 

 father to me, and sent me to the university." It will be perceived 

 from this detail, that, although Sterne was of English descent and 

 parentage, he was not only by accident a native of Ireland, but spent 

 in that country a considerable part of his early boyhood. No doubt 

 some effect was produced upon his opening powers of thought and 

 observation, by his having been allowed to run wild, as it were, in 

 that land of wit and whim from his seventh to bis tenth year. 



His father next followed his regiment to Londonderry, where, says 

 the autobiographical sketch, " another sister was brought forth, 

 Catherine, still living, but most unhappily estranged from me by my 

 uncle's wickedness and her own folly." From Londonderry the regi- 

 ment was sent out to defend Gibraltar at the siege (in 1727), where 

 Lieutenant Sterne was run through the body by a brother officer in a 

 duel, and only recovered with much difficulty, and with so shattered a 

 constitution, that when, shortly after, he was sent out to Jamaica, he 

 speedily fell a prey to the country fever, dying at Port Antonio, in 

 March 1731. "My father," says Sterne, "was a little smart man 

 active to the last degree in all exercises most patient of fatigue and 

 disappointments, of which it pleased God to give him full measure ; 

 he was in his temper somewhat rapid and hasty, but of a kindly, 

 sweet disposition, void of all design, and so innocent in his own inten- 

 tions, that he suspected no one ; so that you might have cheated him 

 en times in a day, if nine had not been sufficient for your purpose." 



Meanwhile Sterne remained with his master at Halifax, to whom, 

 from an anecdote which he relates, his dawning genius seems to have 

 been already clearly discernible, till he was sent by his kinsman to 

 the University of Cambridge, in 1733. He was admitted of Jesus 

 College on the 6th of July in that year ; and he took the degree of 

 B.A. in January 1736 ; and that of M.A. at the commencement in 



1740. On leaving the university, in what year has not been stated, he 

 took orders, and his uncle, the Rev. Jaques Sterne, LL.D., a younger 

 brother of his father's, and a well-beneficed clergyman, being a pre- 

 bendary of Durham and of York, and rector of Rise and of Hornsea 

 cum Riston, procured him the living of Sutton, in Yorkshire. It was 

 in the city of York that he met with the lady whom he married in 



1741, after having courted her, as he tells us, for two years. Her name 

 is not known ; all that appears is that her Christian name began with 

 L., being probably Lydia, like that of her daughter. She brought 

 him some fortune, but probably of no great amount. Sterne's uncle 

 now procured him a prebend in York cathedral ; " but he quarrelled 

 with me afterwards," eays Sterne, "because I would not write 

 paragraphs in the newspapers : though he was a party man, I was 

 not, and detested such dirty work, thinking it beneath me : from 

 that period he became my bitterest enemy." Notwithstanding all this 

 virtuous indignation however, Sterne appears to have gone on doing 

 this " dirty work " for his uncle for a very considerable length of time 



not much less than twenty years. In a letter to a Mrs. F , 



written in November 1759, on the eve of the publication of the first 

 two volumes of his ' Tristram Shandy,' he says, in reply to an inquiry 

 his correspondent had made as to the reason of his turning author, 

 " Why truly, I am tired of employing my brains for other people's 

 advantage. 'Tis a foolish sacrifice I have made for some years to an 

 ungrateful person." It has been asserted that he wrote, or conducted 

 for some time, a periodical electioneering paper published at York in 

 the Whig interest. Soon after his marriage, a friend of his wife's 

 presented him with the living of Stillington, also in Yorkshire ; and 

 he tells us he remained near twenty years at Sutton doing duty at 

 both places, which seem to have been within a mile and a half of each 

 other. " I had then," he says, " very good health : books, painting, 

 fiddling, and shooting were my amusements." During all this space, 

 his only publications, or all at least to which he put his name, were 

 two sermons : the first, entitled ' The Case of Elijah and the Widow 

 of Zarephath considered/ in 1747 ; the second, entitled ' The Abuses 

 of Conscience," in 1750. This latter is the same which he afterwards 

 introduced in the second volume of his ' Tristram Shandy ' as a Ser- 

 mon of Yorick's : iu the preface to the first two volumes of his col- 

 lected sermons, which appeared the following year, he says, " I suppose 

 it is needless to inform the public that the reason of printing these 

 sermons arises altogether from the favourable reception which the 

 sermon given as a sample of them in ' Tristram Shandy ' met with 

 from the world : that sermon was printed by itself some years ago, 

 but could find neither purchasers nor readers." Both sermons were 

 republished in the collection. 



The first two volumes of ' Tristram. Shandy ' were originally pub- 

 lished at York, towards the end of 1759, and were reprinted at London 

 early in 1760. Although anonymous, the work seems to have been 

 known to be Sterne's from the first; and it raised him at once from 

 obscurity to universal notoriety and high literary fame. This and 

 his subsequent publications two volumes of Sermons in 1760, vols. 

 3 and 4 of ' Tristram Shandy ' in 1761, vols. 5 and 6 in 1762, vols. 7 

 and 8 in 1765, two more vols. of Sermons in 1766, the 9th vol. of 

 'Tristram Shandy' in 1767, and the 'Sentimental Journey' in 1768 

 probably also brought him a good deal of money ; and hia circum- 

 stances were further improved by his being presented by Lord 

 Falcoubridge, in 1760, with the curacy of Coxwold, also in Yorkshire, 

 which he calls "a sweet retirement, in comparison of Sutton." His 

 celebrity also, it is to be feared, introduced the Yorkshire parson to 

 new habits of life, and to some kinds of dissipation not quite so 

 innocent as " fiddling and shooting." In 1760 he took a house at York 

 for his wife and his only child, a daughter ; but his own time he seems 

 from this date to have spent mostly either in London or on the 

 Continent. In 1762, before the conclusion of the peace, he went to 

 France, whither he was soon after followed by his wife and daughter. 

 Leaving them both in that country, he seems to have in the first 

 instance returned to England, whence, in 1764, he proceeded to Italy, 

 with a view to the recovery of his health, now greatly impaired. He 

 returned to England in the earlier part of 1767, and, having after 

 some time persuaded his wife to come over to him with their daughter, 

 he remained at York till he had written all that we have of his 

 'Sentimental Journey,' the first part, which he then brought up with 

 him to the metropolis, and published, as has been already stated, in 

 the beginning of the following year. He lived merely to see the work 

 brought out; having died, at his lodgings in Bond-street, on the 18th 

 of March 1768 (not the 13th of September, as is stated on his monu- 

 ment erected some years after in the burying-ground of St. George's, 

 Hanover-square, where he was interred). He had saved nothing, if 

 he did not die in debt ; but it is said that, soon after, his wife and 

 daughter being at York during the races, a collection which amounted 

 to a thousand pounds was made for them by some gentlemen there; 

 and they also received a liberal subscription for three more volumes 

 of his Sermons, which were afterwards published. In 1775, after he 



