The following represents his arrival in the Paris of his day—
"Crack, crack! crack, crack! crack, crack!—so this is Paris! quoth I,—and this is Paris!—humph!—Paris! cried I, repeating the name the third time."
"The first, the finest, the most brilliant!
"The streets, however, are nasty.
"But it looks, I suppose, better than it smells. Crack, crack! crack, crack! what a fuss thou makest! as if it concerned the good people to be informed that a man with a pale face, and clad in black had the honour to be driven into Paris at nine o'clock at night, by a postillion in a tawny yellow jerkin, turned up with a red calamanco! Crack! crack! crack! crack! crack! I wish thy whip——But it is the spirit of the nation; so crack, crack on."
Here is another instance;—
"Ptr—r—r—ing—twing—twang—prut—trut;—'tis a cursed bad fiddle. Do you know whether my fiddle's in tune or no?—trut—prut. They should be fifths. 'Tis wickedly strung—tr—a, e, i, o, u, twang. The bridge is a mile too high, and the sound post absolutely down,—else,—trut—prut.
"Hark! 'tis not so bad in tone. Diddle, diddle, diddle, diddle, diddle, diddle, dum. There is nothing in playing before good judges; but there's a man there—no, not him with the bundle under his arm—the grave man in black,—'sdeath! not the man with the sword on. Sir, I had rather play a capriccio to Calliope herself than draw my bow across my fiddle before that very man; and yet I'll stake my Cremona to a Jew's trump, which is the greatest odds that ever were laid, that I will this moment stop three hundred and fifty leagues out of time upon my fiddle without punishing one single nerve that belongs to him. Twiddle diddle,—tweddle diddle,—twiddle diddle,—twoddle diddle,—twiddle diddle;—prut-trut—krish—krash—krush,—I've outdone you, Sir, but you see he's no worse; and was Apollo to take his fiddle after me, he can make him no better. Diddle diddle; diddle diddle, diddle diddle,—hum—dum—drum.
"Your worships and your reverences love music, and God has made you all with good ears, and some of you play delightfully yourselves; trut-prut—prut-trut."
In the following passages we may also observe that peculiar neat and dramatic form of expression for which Sterne was remarkable.