Gardiner or the Duke of Cumberland. I admire the author of 'Amelia,' and thank the kind master who introduced me to that sweet and delightful companion and friend. 'Amelia' perhaps is not a better story than 'Tom Jones,' but it has the better ethics; the prodigal repents, at least, before forgiveness,-whereas that odious broad-backed Mr. Jones carries off his beauty with scarce an interval of remorse for his manifold errors and shortcomings; and is not half punished enough before the great prize of fortune and love falls to his share. I am angry with Jones. Too much of the plum-cake and rewards of life fall to that boisterous, swaggering young scapegrace. Sophia actually surrenders without a proper sense of decorum ; the fond, foolish, palpitating little creature! Indeed Mr. Jones,' she says, 'it rests with you to appoint the day.' I suppose Sophia is drawn from life as well as Amelia; and many a young fellow, no better than Mr. Thomas Jones, has carried by a coup de main the heart of many a kind girl who was a great deal too good for him.

What a wonderful art! What an admirable gift of nature was it by which the author of these tales was endowed, and which enabled him to fix our interest, to waken our sympathy, to seize upon our credulity, so that we believe in his people-speculate gravely upon their faults or their excellences, prefer this one or that, deplore Jones's fondness for play and drink, Booth's fondness for play and drink, and the unfortunate position of the wives of both gentlemen-love and admire those ladies with all our hearts, and talk about them as faithfully as if we had breakfasted with them this morning in their actual drawing-rooms, or should meet them this afternoon in the Park! What a genius! what a vigour ! what a bright-eyed intelligence and observation! what a wholesome hatred for

meanness and knavery! what a vast sympathy! what a cheerfulness! what a manly relish of life! what a love of human kind! what a poet is here!-watching, meditating, brooding, creating! What multitudes of truth has that man left behind him! What generations he has taught to laugh wisely and fairly! What scholars he has formed and accustomed to the exercise of thoughtful humour and the manly play of wit! What a courage he had! What a dauntless and constant cheerfulness of intellect, that burned bright and steady through all the storms of his life and never deserted its last wreck ! It is wonderful to think of the pains and misery which the man suffered; the pressure of want, illness, remorse which he endured! and that the writer was neither malignant nor melancholy, his view of truth never warped, and his generous human kindness never surrendered.*

In the Gentleman's Magazine for 1786, an anecdote is related of Harry Fielding, 'in whom,' says the correspondent, good-nature and philanthropy in their extreme degree were known to be the prominent features.' It seems that some parochial taxes' for his house in Beaufort Buildings had long been demanded by the collector. At last, Harry went off to Johnson, and obtained by a process of literary mortgage the needful sum. He was returning with it, when he met an old college chum whom he had not seen for many years. He asked the chum to dinner with him at a neighbouring tavern; and learning that he was in difficulties, emptied the contents of his pocket into his. On returning home he was informed that the collector had been twice for the money. "Friendship has called for the money and had it,” said Fielding; "let the collector call again."'

It is elsewhere told of him, that being in company with the Earl of Denbigh, his kinsman, and the conversation turning upon their relationship, the Earl asked him how it was that he spelled his name ‘Fielding,' and not 'Feilding,' like the head of the house? I cannot tell, my Lord,' said he, 'except it be that my branch of the family were the first who knew how to spell.'

In 1748, he was made Justice of the Peace for Westminster and Middlesex, an office then paid by fees and very laborious, without being particularly reputable. It may be seen from his own words, in the Introduction to the 'Voyage,' what kind of work devolved upon him,

STERNE AND GOLDSMITH

ROGER STERNE, Sterne's father, was the second son of a mumerous race, descendants of Richard Sterne, Archbishop of York, in the reign of James II.; and children of Simon Sterne, and Mary Jaques, his wife, beiress of Elvington, near York. Roger was a lieutenant in Handyside's regiment, and engaged in Flanders in Queen Anne's wars. He married the daughter of a noted sutler-N.B., he was in debt to him,' his son writes, pursuing the paternal biography —and marched through the world with this companion; she following the regiment and bringing many children to poor Roger Sterne. The captain was an irascible but kind and simple little man, Sterne says, and informs us that his sire was run through the body at Gibraltar, by a brother officer, in a duel which arose out of a dispute about a goose. Roger never entirely recovered from the effects of this rencontre, but died presently at Jamaica, whither he had followed the drum.

Laurence, his second child, was born at Clonmel, in Ireland, in 1713, and travelled for the first ten years of his life, on his father's march, from barrack to transport, from Ireland to England.t

*He came of a Suffolk family-one of whom settled in Nottinghamshire. The famous 'starling' was actually the family crest.

It was in this parish (of Animo, in Wicklow), during our stay, that I had that wonderful escape in falling through a mill-race, whilst the

One relative of his mother's took her and her family under shelter for ten months at Mullingar; another collateral descendant of the Archbishop's housed them for a year at his castle near Carrickfergus. Larry Sterne was put to school at Halifax in England, finally was adopted by his kinsman of Elvington, and parted company with his father, the Captain, who marched on his path of life till he met the fatal goose which closed his career. The most picturesque and delightful parts of Laurence Sterne's writings we owe to his recollections of the military life. Trim's montero cap, and Le Fevre's sword, and dear Uncle Toby's roquelaure are doubtless reminiscences of the boy, who had lived with the followers of William and Marlborough, and had beat time with his little feet to the fifes of Ramillies in Dublin barrack-yard, or played with the torn flags and halberds of Malplaquet on the parade-ground at Clonmel.

Laurence remained at Halifax school till he was

eighteen years old. His wit and cleverness appear to have acquired the respect of his master here; for when the usher whipped Laurence for writing his name on the newly whitewashed school-room ceiling, the pedagogue in chief rebuked the understrapper, and said that the name should never be effaced, for Sterne was a boy of genius, and would come to preferment.

His cousin, the Squire of Elvington, sent Sterne to Jesus College, Cambridge, where he remained five years, and, taking orders, got, through his uncle's interest, the living of Sutton and the prebendary of York. Through his wife's connections he got the living of Stillington. He married her in 1741, having ardently courted the young lady for some years

mill was going, and of being taken up unhurt: the story is incredible, but known for truth in all that part of Ireland, where hundreds of the common people flocked to see me.'-Sterne.

previously. It was not until the young lady fancied herself dying, that she made Sterne acquainted with the extent of her liking for him. One evening when he was sitting with her, with an almost broken heart to see her so ill (the Reverend Mr. Sterne's heart was a good deal broken in the course of his life), she said

My dear Laurey, I never can be yours, for I verily believe I have not long to live; but I have left you every shilling of my fortune;' a generosity which overpowered Sterne. She recovered: and so they were married, and grew heartily tired of each other before many years were over. 'Nescio quid est materia cum me,' Sterne writes to one of his friends (in dog-Latin, and very sad dog-Latin too); 'sed sum fatigatus et ægrotus de meâ uxore plus quam unquam' which means, I am sorry to say, 'I don't know what is the matter with me; but I am more tired and sick of my wife than ever.'*

The

This to be sure was five-and-twenty years after Laurey had been overcome by her generosity, and she by Laurey's love. Then he wrote to her of the delights of marriage, saying, 'We will be as merry and as innocent as our first parents in Paradise, before the arch-fiend entered that indescribable scene. kindest affections will have room to expand in our retirement let the human tempest and hurricane rage at a distance, the desolation is beyond the horizon of peace. My L. has seen a polyanthus blow in December? Some friendly wall has sheltered it from the biting wind. No planetary influence shall reach us but that which presides and cherishes the

*My wife returns to Toulouse, and proposes to pass the summer at Bagnères. I, on the contrary, go and visit my wife, the Church, in Yorkshire. We all live the longer, at least the happier, for having things our own way; this is my conjugal maxim. I own 'tis not the best of maxims, but I maintain 'tis not the worst.'-STERNE's Letters, 20th January, 1764.