in the strictest sense of the word, a Pantagruelist; he imitated the style, and borrowed many of the thoughts of Rabelais, Verville, and the other early writers of that school. But his obscenity often consists as much in what is implied as in what is said. "There is not a page in Sterne's writing but has something that were better away, a latent corruption, a hint as of an impure presence."[1] Wherever we turn we are met by the anguis in herba. With this covert filth his works begin and end. The first sentence of Tristram Shandy and the last of the Sentimental Journey are alike corrupt.[2]
Sterne wrote several volumes of sermons, the publication of which, under the title of Sermons by Mr. Yorick, he alternated with those of Tristram Shandy, It is observable that his resemblance to Rabelais was the more complete on account of the clerical office which he held, and the infidelity with which he discharged its duties. His life was in all respects a counterpart of his works. Need I say more of him? He has met with unsparing castigation from a great satirist of our own day—from one ever ready to say a kind and merciful word on behalf of struggling weakness or failing strength; but equally ready to apply the lash to baseness, selfishness and cowardice.
Our task is now at an end. In England, after the death of Sterne, the school of Pantagruel gradually died out, nor has it since re-arisen in any very threatening shape. Our literature and, I hope, our lives are purer than those of our ancestors. Yet these works, read and admired by them in a less cultivated age, still, unfortunately, retain their place in our libraries; nay, are in some cases edited and reprinted with a care that might more worthily have been bestowed on a better subject.
In France, indeed, this class of writing has revived, and flourishes to no inconsiderable extent. The character of the
- ↑ W. M. Thackeray: Lectures on the English Humourists.,
- ↑ "I wish either my father or mother, or indeed both of them," &c. —Tristram Shandy Vol. l, p. 1. "So that when I" &c.—Sentimental Journey, Vol. 2, last page.
