argues no very cordial feeling on the Bishop's side. And, on the
whole, one regrets to feel, as I must honestly confess that I do feel,
far less confident of the groundlessness of this rather unpleasant
story than could be wished. It is impossible to forget, however, that
while the ethics of this matter were undoubtedly less strict in those
days than they are--or, at any rate, are recognized as being--in our
own, there is nothing in Sterne's character to make us suppose him to
have been at all in advance of the morality of his time.

The incumbent-designate did not go down at once to take possession of
his temporalities. His London triumph had not yet run its course. The
first edition of Vols. I. and II. of _Tristram Shandy_ was exhausted
in some three months. In April, Dodsley brought out a second; and,
concurrently with the advertisement of its issue, there appeared--in
somewhat incongruous companionship--the announcement, "Speedily will
be published, The Sermons of Mr. Yorick." The judicious Dodsley, or
possibly the judicious Sterne himself (acute enough in matters of
this kind), had perceived that now was the time to publish a series of
sermons by the very unclerical lion of the day. There would--they,
no doubt, thought--be an undeniable piquancy, a distinct flavour of
semi-scandalous incongruity in listening to the Word of Life from the
lips of this loose-tongued droll; and the more staid and serious the
sermon, the more effective the contrast. There need not have been
much trouble in finding the kind of article required; and we may be
tolerably sure that, even if Sterne did not perceive that fact for
himself, his publisher hastened to inform him that "anything would
do." Two of his pulpit discourses, the Assize Sermon and the Charity
Sermon, had already been thought worthy of publication by their author
in a separate form; and the latter of these found a place in the
series; while the rest seem to have been simply the chance sweepings