A Political Romance/Introduction

by Wilbur Lucius Cross

 

INTRODUCTION

The first edition of A Political Romance (1759), reprinted here for the first time, is a rare pamphlet from the pen of Laurence Sterne. Indeed, it was supposed until recently that this specimen of Sterne's humor, antedating Tristram Shandy, existed in no other form than the one given it the year after Sterne's death in an edition brought out by a London bookseller named Murdoch, with the assistance perhaps of John Hall-Stevenson, the author's intimate friend. The title-page of that edition runs:

"A Political Romance, Addressed to ——— Esq. of York. London Printed and sold by J. Murdoch, bookseller, opposite the New Exchange Coffe-house in the Strand. MDCCLXIX."

It is a duodecimo volume, having an "Advertisement" (pp. iv-ix) and a list of the characters names in the allegory with their real names opposite (p. x). The Romance itself covers forty-seven pages. In the "Advertisement" the editor or bookseller says: "This little piece was written by Mr. Sterne in the year 1759, but for private reasons was then suppressed. The recovery of this satirical performance from oblivion, as worthy of so masterly a pen, will, it is hoped, be a sufficient excuse, with all lovers of literary merit, for thus bringing it to public view."

Murdoch's edition, several times reprinted by other booksellers, was afterwards incorporated in the humorist's collected works of 1780, with a new title: The History of a Good Warm Watch-Coat . . . A Political Romance. All subsequent editors have taken the text as they found it here, and have interpreted Murdoch's remark that the pamphlet was suppressed to mean that it was not published during the author's lifetime. It was laid by, even the biographers have declared, in Sterne's desk, and at most circulated only in manuscript. Hall-Stevenson, it has been assumed, had one of the manuscripts, which he placed in Murdoch's hand for publication.

A clue to the existence of an edition of A Political Romance earlier than Murdoch's was derived from A Memoir of the York Press, 1868, by Robert Davies, a most accurate antiquary. While he was writing his book he had access to the valuable collection of Edward Hailstone, Esq., of Horton Hall, Bradford, England, and there he saw a copy of the first edition bearing the date 1759. On Mr. Hailstone's death in 1890, this copy came to the Library of the Dean and Chapter of York, where it was uncovered in September, 1905. A few weeks later another copy was found in a volume of pamphlets at the York Subscription Library. Still another copy, bound with other tracts, was discovered the next year in the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge. So far as it is known, no other copies are extant. In none of the three cases was the librarian aware that he had in his possession an anonymous jeu d' esprit by Laurence Sterne.

Our reprint is from a beautiful transcript of the Hailstone volume made by Miss Elizabeth Hastings of London. She followed the text line by line and page by page, and the present edition reproduces so accurately the typography and the paging of the original that no bibliographical description is needed here. By comparing the reprint with the usual text of the Romance, the reader may see how ruthlessly Murdoch mutilated Sterne. To be brief, he "corrected" the humorist's English, substituting "elegant" phrases for quaint and homely idioms, and cut away the entire Key and two long letters that go with it.—"Alas! Poor Yorick!"

To understand Sterne's humorous pamphlet, one must have in mind the circumstances in which it was written; otherwise nothing can be made of it. After graduating from Jesus College, Cambridge, Sterne entered the ministry of the Church of England and settled as Vicar of Sutton-on-the-Forest—a small village eight miles to the north of the city of York. Through the influence of his uncle, Dr. Jaques Sterne, Precentor to York Minster and Archdeacon of Cleveland, he was appointed, early in 1741, a prebendary in the Cathedral. Thenceforth to the end of his life he was a member of the York Chapter, composed of the Dean, canons, and prebendaries, for the management of all affairs connected with the Cathedral. Within the Chapter there was a good deal of maneuvering, whenever a small office fell vacant, in the interest of friends; and at times friction arose between the Dean and the Archbishop over the real or apparent encroachment on each other's rights,

The first Archbishop of York that concerns us was Matthew Hutton, who disliked Sterne and took sides against him in a quarrel that sprang up between Laurence and his uncle Jaques. In the spring of 1757, Archbishop Hutton was translated to the see of Canterbury. His successor at York was Dr. John Gilbert, for some years Bishop of Salisbury. He was an amiable gentleman, most friendly towards Sterne, but without the strong hand necessary to check intrigues. Physical infirmities coming upon him, he rarely left his palace at Bishopthorpe, two miles south of York. With the Dean—Dr. John Fountayne—Sterne had been acquainted since their college days together at Cambridge. They were fast friends. The Dean spent much of his time at Melton Manor, the family seat in South Yorkshire, and so could not always know, any more than the Archbishop, what occurred at York. He was a colorless, good-natured ecclesiastic, inclined, however, to insist upon his prerogatives.

The diocese had an arch intriguer in Dr. Francis Topham, the leading ecclesiastical lawyer at York, the official adviser to the Archbishop, to the Dean, and to many of the minor clergy. Never satisfied with the positions that he held, he was always scheming for more. In the autumn of 1748, he fomented a quarrel between Archbishop Hutton and Dean Fountayne over the appointment of preachers to the Cathedral. The Dean, it was averred, ordered the pulpit locked against a prebendary chosen for the day by the Chancellor of the diocese. For his defence of the Archbishop's rights on this and other occasions, Dr. Topham was appointed, in 1751, Commissary and Keeper-General of the Exchequer and Prerogative Courts of the Archbishop of York,—the most comfortable legal office within the gift of his Grace. Near the same time, the Commissaryship of the Dean and Chapter, worth twenty pounds a year, fell vacant by the death of Dr. Mark Braithwaite, an advocate in the ecclesiastical court. Dr. Topham made a grasp for that office, but missed. The place was given to William Stables, another ecclesiastical lawyer. Thereupon Dr. Topham made a grasp for the Commissaryship of the Peculiar Court of Pickering and Pocklington, which had likewise become vacant by the death of Dr. Mark Braithwaite. This office, valued at six pounds a year, he missed also; the Dean generously presented it to his friend Laurence Sterne. Over these appointments Dr. Topham raised a loud clamor. Had not the Chapter been packed against him, he declared, he would have got the first; and had the Dean kept his solemn promise, he would have got the second. The quarrel rose to its height at a dinner of the York clergy, where the Dean and Sterne denounced him as a liar.

Thereafter, Dr. Topham kept reasonably quiet for several years—until the advent of Dr. Gilbert in 1757. On first meeting the new Archbishop, the lawyer told him that he would find it very difficult to live upon good terms with the Dean and Chapter, for they were a set of strange people. The Archbishop, however, might be assured that he would have a zealous champion in all disputes which might arise. Needless to say, Dr. Topham saw to it that petty disputes did arise over questions concerning leases of Cathedral property and the proper method of inducting prebendaries. It was not his intent to force these differences to a breach between the Dean and the Archbishop; but rather to ingratiate himself into favor at the palace so that Dr. Gilbert might be kindly disposed to a new and questionable scheme on which his heart was now set. On searching the records, he had discovered that the patent of the Commissaryship of the Exchequer and Prerogative Courts—his best paying office—had formerly been granted and enjoyed for two lives instead of for one life, as was then the custom. He naturally wished a revival of the good old times. So he went to the Archbishop in the summer of 1758, and asked him for permission to open his patent of the office, which read for one life only, and "to add the life of another proper person to it," meaning thereby, as it quickly transpired, the name of his own son. That son, then a mere boy, lived to be Edward Topham, playwright and libertine.

The Archbishop was inclined to agree to the plan out of gratitude to Dr. Topham for his many services; but the Dean and Chapter, whose concurrence was necessary to complete the transaction, were hostile to the proposal. That the question of the appointment, which threatened to divide the Church of York, might be settled peaceably, the Dean, Dr. Topham, and several others were summoned by the Archbishop to meet at Bishopthorpe on November 7, 1758, for a general conference. The two chief dignitaries, who had been misrepresented, each to each, by the intriguing lawyer, found themselves agreeably of one opinion: that it was inadvisable, notwithstanding ancient precedent, to grant the valuable patent for more than one life. The lawyer, enraged at this decision, says Sterne, "huffed and bounced most terribly," threatening everybody from the Archbishop down to a timid surgeon, one Isaac Newton, who gave the story of the conference to the coffee-houses. Nothing coming of these angry violences, Dr. Topham decided to appeal to the public against the Dean, whom he charged with working upon the sick man at Bishopthorpe. So, during the second week in December, was launched his anonymous pamphlet entitled A Letter address'd to the Reverend the Dean of York; In which is given A full Detail of some very extraordinary Behaviour of his, in relation to his Denial of a Promise made by him to Dr. Topham. Though the sixpenny pamphlet set out to deal principally with the commissaryship that fell to Sterne, it nevertheless touched upon all the quarrels of a dozen years. Two weeks later, the Dean had ready his retort courteous, which bore the title: An Answer to a Letter Address'd to the Dean of York, in the Name of Dr. Topham. A feature of this very skilful reply was a formal declaration, signed by Laurence Sterne, as to what took place at the clerical dinner when Dr. Topham was proved to be a liar. In concluding his open letter, the Dean announced that he had taken leave of Dr. Topham "once for all." Thus apparently sure of the last word, the lawyer poured forth the phials of his wrath in A Reply to the Answer to a Letter lately addressed to the Dean of York. With considerable humor "a late notable performance," supposed to be the Dean's, was described as "the child and offspring of many parents." Mr. Sterne and some others, it was intimated, had been called in by the Dean for "correcting, revising, ornamenting, and embellishing" his well-known faint and nerveless style.

Some parts of the Dean's pamphlet were without doubt Sterne's; but they count for nothing in comparison with A Political Romance, all his own, which he sent to the printer late in January, 1759. Dr. Topham had written in anger; the Dean replied soberly; Sterne turned the whole controversy into ridicule. "Above five hundred copies" of Sterne's pamphlet, it was said, "were struck off"; and "what all the serious arguments in the world could not effect, this brought about." At once Sterne had at his feet both friends and enemies, begging that the Romance be suppressed. Dr. Topham sent word that he was ready, on this condition, to "quit his pretensions." Certain members of the York Chapter told Sterne that this humorous recital of their disputes would never do. The Archbishop and the Dean were, to say truth, each handsomely complimented by the way; but the laugh was, after all, on them as well as on Dr. Topham; the publication, from any point of view, was, they thought, offensive to the dignity of the Church. Sterne heeded the advice of his brethren. With his assent, an official of the Cathedral bought up the copies remaining in the book-stalls and burned them with those still at the printer's. That was the current story thirty years after. But several copies must have been sold beyond recovery; and Sterne himself managed in some way to keep from the flames "three or four" other copies, which he guarded for the delight of his friends. It is perhaps one of these copies that is reprinted here.

Sterne cast his amusing narrative in the form of an allegory, having in mind Swift's Voyage to Lilliput. That seeming great things may appear as small as they really are, the diocese of York is cut down to a country parish, and Archbishop Gilbert is thereby reduced to the rank of a village parson. The late parson is Archbishop Hutton. The Dean, Dr. John Fountayne, shorn of his surname, becomes merely John the parish clerk; and the members of the Chapter figure as the church-wardens. Incidentally Mark Braithwaite appears as Mark Slender, and William Stables as William Doe. Dr. Topham, renamed Trim, because he receives so thorough a trimming at the last, is degraded to sexton and dog-whipper of the parish; and Sterne himself is slightly disguised under the name of Lorry Slim.

As of the characters, so of the incidents, which cover the bickerings of ten years, from 1748 to 1758. In the dispute over the height of John's desk, everybody would see a comical version of the quarrel that Dr. Topham stirred up between Archbishop Hutton and Dean Fountayne over the key to the Cathedral pulpit. When Trim, clad in an old coat, hat, and wig, emerges from the vicarage and struts across the churchyard, bawling out to John, "See here, my Lad! how fine I am!"—that is Sterne's way of saying that Dr. Topham has obtained from the Archbishop the patent of the Prerogative Courts in defiance of the Dean's protest. The pair of black plush breeches which Trim begs John to let him have for God's sake, is the Commissaryship of Pickering and Pocklington that the Dean refused him and bestowed upon Sterne. Similarly, the green pulpit-cloth and old velvet cushion, which Trim eyed with envy, stand for the Commissaryship of the Dean and Chapter that went to William Stables. The numerous semi-legal offices that Dr. Topham already held are symbolized, for example, in the "pindar's place," worth forty shillings a year, in the six shillings and eight pence that he receives for oiling and winding up the clock, in the six pounds a year paid him for catching the moles of the parish, and in the thirteen shillings and four pence given to his wife for washing and darning the church linen.

The old garments and worn pulpit decorations being divided up among the contestants, the parish fell back into its usual monotonous drone, and would have droned on forever had not the old parson left his flock for a better living and his place been supplied by a new incumbent. Then was struck up a lively tune. Trim at once hastens to the rectory to sell himself into servitude. He blacks the parson's shoes, greases his boots, runs to the town for eggs, catches his horse and rubs him down; and on one occasion, when the parson cuts his finger in paring an apple, goes half a mile to inquire of an old woman what is good to staunch blood, and returns with a cobweb in his breeches' pocket. All these incidents are a burlesque of Dr. Topham's endless visits to Bishopthorpe immediately after the new Archbishop had settled at the palace.

As a reward for running on the parson's errands, Trim merely requested that he might have an old watch-coat which had long hung up in the church, apparently of no use to anybody. He wished to take it home and have it made over into an under-petticoat for his wife and a jerkin for himself before winter should come on. The parson told him he was welcome to it with all his heart and soul, provided it were in the power of his Reverence to make the gift. As to that, it would be necessary to consult the parish registry. Some days later, just as the parson had discovered that the watch-coat was an ancient possession of great value and dignity, Trim popped in with it already ripped into two parts and cut out for the petticoat and jerkin, Enraged at Trim's impudence, the parson commanded him to lay down the bundle and to wait upon him the next morning in company with John the parish clerk, the churchwardens, and one of the sidesmen. The next morning at eleven, passions ran high at the rectory. Trim pleaded the parson's promise, and, failing there, enumerated his humble services as the parson's man. But all in vain. The "pimping, pettyfogging, ambidextrous fellow . . . was kick'd out of doors; and told, at his peril, never to come there again."

The allegory here is clear enough. By the watch-coat Sterne intends the Commissaryship of the Exchequer and Prerogative Courts; its being ripped up for a petticoat and a jerkin means that Dr. Topham made out a new patent for the office, in which he inserted the name of his own son as his successor, and then brought it to Archbishop Gilbert for his approval and signature. The hot scene at the parsonage the next morning is the conference held at Bishopthorpe on November 7, 1758. It is probable that Sterne, a most active member of the York Chapter, was present on that occasion, and so witnessed Dr. Topham's utter rout and angry departure.

The Key which Sterne appended to the Romance belongs to a kind of humor common in the eighteenth century, a late survival of which may be seen in the Pickwick Club. Specifically, it was developed from Swift's "Grand Committee" that sat upon the meaning of "A Tale of a Tub." Sterne's "Political Club," however, is much more than an imitation of Swift. For years Sterne spent many evenings, when in York, at a convivial club that met at Sunton's Coffee-House in Coney Street. Here were discussed the questions of the day, national and local, It was also a gossip-shop for rumor, scandal, and salacious stories and jests. The "Political Club," which devoted an entire session to the Romance, was, I take it, a burlesque of the transactions of Sterne's own club. Under the disguise of a surgeon, lawyer, apothecary, undertaker, and the president who loved an hypothesis better than his life, he probably drew little portraits of the members—their mannerisms and favorite gestures, and their vehemence in the expression of their opinions. What kind of men they were further than this or what names they bore—we may never know, except, to be sure, that the Vicar of Sutton is among them. He is the parson of the parish, smart in repartee and ready to defend by a counter-jest an attack upon the cloth, just as was related in many an anecdote of Sterne once current and as may be seen in the character he drew of himself in Parson Yorick.

To these obscure associates Sterne had been long known for his overpowering sense of humor. "He loved a jest in his heart." He had contributed political paragraphs to York and London newspapers, and had read to his friends his quaint verses occasioned by hearing the great bell of the Cathedral toll for the dead; but it was really A Political Romance that first revealed to the author and his club that he could write "so as to make his reader laugh." Having once discovered his talent, Sterne immediately sat down to Tristram Shandy, and within a year entered upon his fame.

Wilbur L. Cross.

August 20, 1914.