Cowards have done
good and kind actions; cowards have even fought, nay, sometimes even
conquered; but a coward never forgave." All readers of _Tristram Shandy_
will recall his sermon on the text, "For we trust we have a good
conscience," so affecting to Corporal Trim and so overwhelming to Dr.
Slop.
But if his sermons are so pious and good, we look in vain into his
entertaining _Letters_ for a corresponding piety in his life. They are
witty, jolly, occasionally licentious. They touch and adorn every topic
except religion; and so it may be feared that all his religion was
written, printed, bound, and sold by subscription, in those famous
sermons, sixteen for a crown--"dog cheap!"
TRISTRAM SHANDY.--In 1759 appeared the first part of _Tristram Shandy_--a
strange, desultory work, in which many of the curious bits of philosophy
are taken from Montaigne, Burton, Rabelais, and others; but which has,
besides, great originality in the handling and in the portraiture of
characters. Much of what Sterne borrowed from these writers passed for his
own in that day, when there were comparatively few readers of the authors
mentioned.
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