—the more than rival of the Dean of St. Patrick's, wrote the above quoted respectable letter to his friend in London; and it was in April of the same year, that he was pouring out his fond heart to Mrs. Elizabeth Draper, wife of "Daniel Draper, Esq., Counsellor of Bombay, and, in 1775, chief of the factory of Surat—a gentleman very much respected in that quarter of the globe."
"I got thy letter last night, Eliza," Sterne writes, "on my return from Lord Bathurst's, where I dined—(the letter has this merit in it that it contains a pleasant reminiscence of better men than Sterne, and introduces us to a portrait of a kind old gentleman)—I got thy letter last night, Eliza, on my return from Lord Bathurst's; and where I was heard—as I talked of thee an hour without intermission—with so much pleasure
friendship;—a good heart wants some object to be kind to—and the best parts of our blood, and the purest of our spirits, suffer most under the destitution.
"Let the torpid monk seek Heaven comfortless and alone. God speed him! For my own part, I fear I should never so find the way; let me be wise and religious, but let me be Man; wherever thy Providence places me, or whatever be the road I take to Thee, give me some companion in my journey, be it only to remark to, 'How our shadows lengthen as our sun goes down;'—to whom I may say, 'How fresh is the face of Nature! how sweet the flowers of the field! how delicious are those fruits !?"—Sermon 18th.
The first of these passages gives us another drawing of the famous "Captive." The second shows that the same reflection was suggested to the Rev. Lawrence, by a text in Judges, as by the fille-de-chambre.
Sterne's Sermons were published as those of "Mr. Yorick."
