Laurence Sterne.
A sentimentalist.
Just two years before Chatterton died in Holborn, another noted literary character—Laurence Sterne[[13]]—died in Old Bond Street, at what were fashionable lodgings then, and what is now a fashionable tailor's shop; died there almost alone; for he was not a man who wins such friendships as hold through all weathers. A well known friend of the sick man—Mr. Crawford—was giving a dinner that day a few doors off; and Garrick was a guest at his table; so was David Hume, the historian; half through the dinner, the host told his footman to go over and ask after the sick man; and this is the report the footman gave to outsiders: "I went to the gentleman's lodgings, and the mistress opened the door. Says I—'How is Mr. Sterne to-day?' She told me to go up to the nurse; so I went, and he was just a-dying; I waited a while; but in five minutes he said, 'Now it's come.' Then he put up his hand, as if to stop a blow, and died in a minute. The gentlemen were all very sorry." And all the sorrow anywhere—save in the heart of his poor daughter Lydia—was, I suspect, of the same stamp. His wife certainly would get on very well without him: she had for a good many years already.
Laurence Sterne.
You know the name of Mr. Sterne, I daresay, a great deal better than his works; and it is well enough that you should. A good many fragments drift about in books of miscellany which you are very likely to know and to admire; for some of them are surely of most exquisite quality. Take for instance that talk of Corporal Trim with Uncle Toby about the poor lieutenant, and of his ways and times of saying his prayers:—
"When the Lieutenant had taken his glass of sack and toast he felt himself a little revived, and sent down into the kitchen to let me know that in about ten minutes he would be glad if I would step upstairs. 'I believe,' said the landlord, 'he is going to say his prayers, for there was a book laid on the chair by the bedside, and as I shut the door I saw him take up a cushion.'
"'I thought,' said the curate, 'that you gentlemen of the army, Mr. Trim, never said your prayers at all."
"'A soldier, an' please your Reverence,' said I, 'prays as often as a parson; and when he is fighting for his king and for his own life, and for his honor too, he has the most reason to pray to God of any one in the whole world.'
"''Twas well said of thee, Trim!' said my Uncle Toby.