in proportion: so we shall live here for a very, very little."

And this, no doubt, was to Sterne a matter of some moment at this
time. The expenses of his long and tedious journey must have been
heavy; and the gold-yielding vein of literary popularity, which he
had for three years been working, had already begun to show signs of
exhaustion. _Tristram Shandy_ had lost its first vogue; and the fifth
and sixth volumes, the copyright of which he does not seem to have
disposed of, were "going off" but slowly.




CHAPTER VI.


LIFE IN THE SOUTH.--RETURN TO ENGLAND.--VOLS. VII. AND VIII.--SECOND
SET OF SERMONS.

(1762-1765.)

The diminished appetite of the public for the humours of Mr. Shandy
and his brother is, perhaps, not very difficult to understand. Time
was simply doing its usual wholesome work in sifting the false from
the true--in ridding Sterne's audience of its contingent of sham
admirers. This is not to say, of course, that there might not have
been other and better grounds for a partial withdrawal of popular
favour. A writer who systematically employs Sterne's peculiar methods
must lay his account with undeserved loss as well as with unmerited
gain. The fifth and sixth volumes deal quite largely enough in mere