whipped him, was taken to task by the master, who said in Sterne's hearing, "that never should that name be effaced, for I was a boy of genius, and he was sure I should come to preferment." Under this discerning pedagogue "I stayed," says Sterne, "some time, till by God's care of me my cousin Sterne of Elvington became a father to me, and sent me to the university." Sterne went to Jesus college, Cambridge, in July, 1733, and took his B.A. degree in 1736, after which probably he left the university, where one of his associates had been John Hall Stevenson, his intimate friend of subsequent years, the author of Crazy Tales, and the Eugenio of "Tristram Shandy." Taking orders, he procured through his uncle, who was a prebendary of Durham and York, the vicarage of Sutton, and he entered upon his clerical duties in the August of 1738. In 1741, after a courtship of two years, he married a lady with some little fortune. A friend of his wife's gave him the living of Stillington, near that of Sutton, and through his uncle he was made a prebendary of York. For twenty years Sterne remained doing duty at Sutton and Stillington; "books, painting, fiddling, and shooting were my amusements." He had broken a blood-vessel when a student at Cambridge, but during these years he had, he says, "very good health." Up to 1759 he had published nothing but two sermons, neither of them exciting the least attention, although one of them became famous enough when declaimed by Corporal Trim. Towards the close of 1759, however, the first two volumes of "Tristram Shandy" were published at York. Sterne went up to London at the beginning of 1760 to superintend their republication, and found himself at once a celebrity. "Nothing is talked of," writes Horace Walpole, in January, 1760, "nothing admired, but 'Tristram Shandy.'" "One is invited," the poet Gray writes of its author at this period, "to dinner, where he dines, a fortnight beforehand." Sterne received, besides applause and dinners, £700 for his first two volumes, the same sum for the mere promise of the next two, and it was doubtless an admiration of "Tristram Shandy" that led Lord Falconbridge to bestow on him the curacy of Coxwold in Yorkshire, "a sweet retirement," he says, "in comparison of Sutton." From Yorkshire, with two new volumes of "Tristram," Sterne returned to London, where he spent the winter of 1760-61, and was feted even more extensively than before. He now began to dream of rising in the church. He had dedicated the first volumes of "Tristram" to the elder Pitt, and he was familiar with Charles Townshend and Rockingham, but he soon discovered that his character could not be forgotten in his talents. A second London season of constant dissipation brought back the malady which rural life in Yorkshire had laid to sleep, and he went to Paris in 1762. Migrating in search of health from place to place in the south of France, he returned to Coxwold in the summer of 1764, leaving behind him his wife, of whom ho had grown tired, and his only child, his daughter Lydia, to whom he was always fondly attached. In the year of the London appearance of "Tristram Shandy," 1760, he had taken advantage of his popularity to publish two volumes of Sermons, with double title-pages, one of them bearing his name, while the other assigned them to the authorship of "Mr. Yorick." The third and fourth volumes of "Tristram" appeared in 1761, the fifth and sixth in 1762, the seventh and eighth in 1765, and two new volumes of Sermons in 1766. With the money received for his new volumes of "Shandy" and of sermons he made a tour through France and Italy from October, 1765, to June, 1766, when with materials for the "Sentimental Journey" he returned to England. During the early months of 1767 he was in London with the last volume of "Tristram," published in that year; and it was now he made the acquaintance of Mrs. Draper, the wife of a counsellor of Bombay, afterwards chief of the factory at Surat—a lady whom Raynal has lauded in his Histoire des deux Indes. She had come to England from India for the sake of her health, and her intimacy with Sterne was not of long duration, for she returned to her husband in the April of 1767; not before, however, Sterne had written her some epistles, which after his death she was not ashamed to publish as "Ten Letters to Eliza," and on which Mr. Thackeray (Lectures on the English Humourists) has fixed, as painting the darker side of Sterne's character. On his return to Coxwold, his wife and daughter joined him to nurse him, for he was seriously ill, when he composed the "Sentimental Journey." As usual he visited London to superintend its publication, this time by subscription; and in the February of 1768 an attack of influenza, complicated by pleurisy, was too much for his enfeebled constitution. On the 18th of March there was a gay party in Clifford Street, close to Bond Street, where Sterne lodged. Garrick and David Hume were of the company, to several of whom Sterne was known. A footman was sent to inquire after his health, and was directed by the landlady to the sick-room. On entering it he saw what was approaching, and remained for a few minutes, when Sterne exclaimed, "Now it is come," and putting up his hands as if to ward off a blow, expired in the act, among strangers in a London lodging. In person Sterne was tall and thin, with a hectic and consumptive appearance; in conversation he was gay and witty. After the death of his wife his "Letters to his Friends" were published by his daughter in 1775. There has been no elaborate biography of Sterne—a work indeed for which the materials are wanting. The best memoirs of him are the sketch by Sir Walter Scott in the Lives of the Novelists, and one in vol. xlix. of the Quarterly Review. The faults of Sterne, the man, have been laid bare without mercy by Mr. Thackeray in the lecture already referred to. His faults as a writer are palpable in almost every page of his composition, and may be summed up in one word—affectation. His pathos, once so celebrated, the "sentiment" which bestowed a title upon his "Journey," have become almost wholly ineffective. But his humour so peculiar, so whimsical, so English, is perhaps more highly prized than ever, and in this one department, Shakspeare, Addison, and Goldsmith must yield the palm to the genius which created Mr. Shandy, Uncle Toby, Corporal Trim, and all the scenery, inhabitants, and visitants of Shandy Hall.—F. E.
STERNE, Richard, Archbishop of York, the son of Simon Sterne, a native of Suffolk, was born at Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, in 1596. He graduated at Trinity college, Cambridge, whence he subsequently removed to St. Bene't, of which latter he was elected fellow in July, 1623. He took the degree of B.A. in 1624, and was admitted to the same dignity at Oxford in 1627. In 1632 he was made president of his college, and succeeded Dr. Beale in the mastership of Jesus' when that divine was promoted to St. John's in 1633. His promotion is thus spoken of in a private letter of the time:—"One Sterne, a solid scholar (who first summed up the three thousand six hundred faults that were in our printed Bibles of London) is by his majesty's direction to the bishop of Ely, who elects there, made master of Jesus." Sterne became D.D. in 1635, and was rector of Yeovilton in Somersetshire, and Harleton in Cambridgeshire. To the former benefice he was nominated by the favour of Archbishop Laud, one of whose chaplains he was, and by whom he was so highly esteemed that he chose him to do the last good offices for him on the scaffold. Dr. Sterne fell under the displeasure of Cromwell for having conveyed to the king all the college plate and money, and he was for this arrested, brought to London, and thrown into prison. After suffering many hardships in different gaols, and being deprived of all his preferments, he was at length released, and settled with his family at Stevenage, Hertfordshire, where he kept a school for their support. He rose again to eminence after the Restoration, was appointed bishop of Carlisle, and took part in the Savoy conference, and in the revision of the Book of Common Prayer. He succeeded Dr. Frewen as archbishop of York, and continued to discharge the duties of that important office until the period of his death in 1683. He was author of some Latin verses in the Genethliacon Caroli et Mariæ, and in the Irenodia Cantab, ob Paciferum Caroli e Scotiâ Reditum; he assisted in the publication of Walton's Polyglot; wrote a Comment on the 103d Psalm; and a treatise on logic, "Summa Logicæ," &c., which was not published till after his death.—F.
STERNHOLD, Thomas, author of the first metrical version of the Psalms which was used in the Church of England, was a native of Hampshire. He was probably educated at Winchester school, whence he proceeded to Oxford. He became groom of the privy chamber to Henry VIII., who bequeathed to him a solid token of his satisfaction in a legacy of one hundred marks. He continued in the same office during the reign of Edward VI., at whose court he enjoyed the reputation of a poet. Being sincerely attached to the principles of the Reformation and of a serious disposition, he emulated the fame acquired by Marot, a gentleman-in-waiting at the court of France, and sought to correct the mischievous influence of the secular poetry of his day by offering to the court and public a versification of the Psalms. Not having the poetical gift in equal measure with the French writer. Stern-
