Chap. XIX.] Romances ami Norcls. 38S 



to the present day, have continued to mistake his 

 capricious and exceptionable singularities for ef- 

 forts of a o;reat and oriiJ-inal jj^enius. But his ee- 

 nius and writings have certainly been overrated. 

 That he possessed con??iderable powers, of a cer- 

 tain description, is readily admitted; that the Ej)i- 

 sodes of le FexTe and Jlfaria are almost unrivalled, 

 as specimens of the tender and pathetic, must also 

 be granted; and that the man who could con- 

 ceive and draw the character ol* i^ncle Toby 

 must sometimes have had elevated moral feel- 

 ings, as well as peculiar talents, is equally evi- 

 dent : but those parts of his works which de- 

 serve this character bear so small a proportion 

 to the rest, and the great mass of what he has 

 written is either so shamefully obscene, so quaintly 

 obscure, or so foolishly unmeaning, that there are 

 very few M^orks more calculated to corru[)t both 

 the taste and the morals. That a man who bore 

 the sacred office should employ his talents in re- 

 commending a system of libertinism ; that he who 

 could so well delineate the pleasures of benevo- 

 lence and purity, should so grossly offend against 

 both ; and that volumes which abound with such 

 professions of exalted philanthropy, should con- 

 tain so many pages on which a virtuous mind can- 

 not look but with disgust and indignation, are 

 facts more atrociously and disgracefully criminal 

 than the ordinary language of reprobation is able 

 to reach *. 



* " What is called sentimental writing," says, Ilor.ice W al- 

 .pole, " though it be understood to appeal solely to the heart, m.17 

 be the product of a very bad one. One would imagine thnt 

 Sterne had been a man of a very tender heart ; yet I know, from 



