bitterest enemy." The date of this quarrel cannot be precisely fixed;
but we gather from an autograph letter (now in the British Museum)
from Sterne to Archdeacon Blackburne that by the year 1750 the two men
had for some time ceased to be on friendly terms. Probably, however,
the breach occurred subsequently to the rebellion of '45, and it may
be that it arose out of the excess of partisan zeal which Dr. Sterne
developed in that year, and which his nephew very likely did not, in
his opinion, sufficiently share. But this is quite consistent with the
younger man's having up to that time assisted the elder in his party
polemics. He certainly speaks in his "Letters" of his having "employed
his brains for an ungrateful person," and the remark is made in a way
and in a connexion which seems to imply that the services rendered
to his uncle were mainly _literary_. If so, his declaration that he
"would not write paragraphs in the newspapers" can only mean that
he would not go on writing them. Be this as it may, however, it
is certain that the Archdeacon for some time found his account in
maintaining friendly relations with his nephew, and that during that
period he undoubtedly did a good deal for his advancement. Sterne was
ordained deacon by the Bishop of Lincoln in March, 1736, only three
months after taking his B.A. degree, and took priest's orders in
August, 1738, whereupon his uncle immediately obtained for him the
living of Sutton-on-the-Forest, into which he was inducted a few days
afterwards. Other preferments followed, to be noted hereafter; and
it must be admitted that until the quarrel occurred about the "party
paragraphs" the Archdeacon did his duty by his nephew after the
peculiar fashion of that time. When that quarrel came, however, it
seems to have snapped more ties than one, for in the Memoir Sterne
speaks of his youngest sister Catherine as "still living, but most
unhappily estranged from me by my uncle's wickedness and her own
folly." Of his elder sister Mary, who was born at Lille a year before