The Allgemeine deutsche Bibliothek reviews both the Bode and Mittelstedt renderings, together with Bode’s translation of Stevenson’s continuation, in the second volume of the Anhang to Volumes I-XII.[4] The critique of Bode’s work defines, largely in the words of the book itself, the peculiar purpose and method of the Journey, and comments briefly but with frank enthusiasm on the various touching incidents of the narrative: “Nur ein von der Natur verwahrloseter bleibt dabei kalt und gleichgültig,” remarks the reviewer. The conception of Yorick’s personal character, which prevailed in Germany, obtained by a process of elimination and misunderstanding, is represented by this critic when he records without modifying his statement: “Various times Yorick shows himself as the most genuine foe of self-seeking, of immoral double entendre, and particularly of assumed seriousness, and he scourges them emphatically.” The review of the third and fourth parts contains a similar and perhaps even more significant passage illustrating the view of Yorick’s character held by those who did not know him and had the privilege of admiring him only in his writings and at a safe distance. “Yorick,” he says, “although he sometimes brings an event, so to speak, to the brink of an indecorous issue, manages to turn it at once with the greatest delicacy to a decorous termination. Or he leaves it incomplete under such circumstances that the reader is impressed by the rare delicacy of mind of the author, and can never suspect that such a man, who never allows a double entendre to enter his mind without a blush, has entertained an indecent idea.” This view is derived from a somewhat short-sighted reading of the Sentimental Journey: the obvious Sterne of Tristram Shandy, and the more insidiously concealed creator of the Journey could hardly be characterized discriminatingly by such a statement. Sterne’s cleverness consists not in suggesting his own innocence of imagination, but in the skill with which he assures his reader that he is master of the situation, and that no possible interpretation of the passage has escaped his intelligence. To the Mittelstedt translation is accorded in this review the distinction of being, in the rendering of certain passages, more correct than Bode’s. A reviewer in the Hallische Neue Gelehrte Zeitung[5] treats of the Sentimental Journey in the Mittelstedt translation. He is evidently unfamiliar with the original and does not know of Bode’s work, yet his admiration is unbounded, though his critique is without distinction or discrimination. The Neue Critische Nachrichten[6] of Greifswald gives a review of Bode’s rendering in which a parallel with Shakespeare is suggested. The original mingling of instruction and waggery is commented upon, imitation is discouraged, and the work is held up as a test, through appreciation or failure to appreciate, of a reader’s ability to follow another’s feelings, to understand far-away hints and allusions, to follow the tracks of an irregular and errant wit.

The Hamburgischer unpartheyischer Correspondent for October 29, 1768, regards the book in Bode’s translation as an individual, unparalleled work of genius and discourses at length upon its beneficent medicinal effects upon those whose minds and hearts are perplexed and clouded. The wanton passages are acknowledged, but the reviewer asserts that the author must be pardoned them for the sake of his generous and kind-hearted thoughts. The Mittelstedt translation is also quoted and parallel passages are adduced to demonstrate the superiority of Bode’s translation.

The Germans naturally learned to know the continuation of Eugenius chiefly through Bode’s translation, designated as the third and fourth volumes of the work, and thus because of the sanction of the intermediary, were led to regard Stevenson’s tasteless, tedious and revolting narrative with a larger measure of favor than would presumably have been accorded to the original, had it been circulated extensively in Germany. After years the Allgemeine Literatur Zeitung[7] implies incidentally that Bode’s esteeming this continuation worthy of his attention is a fact to be taken into consideration in judging its merits, and states that Bode beautified it. Bode’s additions and alterations were, as has been pointed out, all directly along the line of the Yorick whom the Germans had made for themselves. It is interesting to observe that the reviewer of these two volumes of the continuation in the Neue Critische Nachrichten,[8] while recognizing the inevitability of failure in such a bold attempt, and acknowledging that the outward form of the work may by its similarity be at first glance seductive, notes two passages of sentiment “worthy even of a Yorick,”—the episode “Das Hündchen” and the anecdote of the sparrows which the traveler shot in the garden: both are additions on Bode’s part, and have no connection with the original. The reviewer thus singled out for especial approval two interpolations by the German translator, incidents which in their conception and narration have not the true English Yorick ring.

The success of the Sentimental Journey increased the interest in the incomprehensible Shandy. Lange’s new edition of Zückert’s translation has been noted, and before long Bode[9] was induced to undertake a German rendering of the earlier and longer novel. This translation was finished in the summer of 1774, the preface being dated “End of August.” The foreword is mainly concerned with Goeze’s attack on Bode’s personal character, a thrust founded on Bode’s connection with the Sentimental Journey and its continuation. At the close of this introduction Bode says that, without undervaluing the intelligence of his readers, he had regarded notes as essential, but because of his esteem for the text, and a parental affection for the notes, he has foreborne to insert them here. “So they still lie in my desk, as many as there are of them, but upon pressing hints they might be washed and combed, and then be published under the title perhaps of a ‘Real und Verballexicon über Tristram Shandy’s Leben und Meinungen.’” This hint of a work of his own, serving as a commentary to Tristram Shandy, has been the occasion of some discussion. A reviewer in the Allgemeine deutsche Bibliothek,[10] in an account of Bode’s and Wichmann’s renderings of “Tom Jones,” begs Bode to fulfill the hopes thus raised, saying he could give Yorick’s friends no more valuable or treasured gift. Böttiger in his biographical sketch of Bode expressed regret that the work never saw the light, adding that the work contained so many allusions to contemporary celebrities and hits upon Bode’s acquaintance that wisdom had consigned to oblivion.[11] A correspondent, writing to the Teutscher Merkur,[12] minimizes the importance of this so-called commentary, saying “er hatte nie einen Kommentar der Art, . . . auch nur angefangen auszuarbeiten. Die ganze Sache gründet sich auf eine scherzhafte Aeusserung gegen seinem damaligen Freund in Hamburg, welchen er oft mit der ihm eignen Ironie mit diesem Kommentar zu drohen pflegte.”

The list of subscribers to Bode’s translation contained upwards of 650 names, among which are Boie, Claudius, Einsieder, Gerstenberg, Gleim, Fräulein von Göchhausen, Goethe, Hamann, Herder, Hippel, Jacobi, Klopstock, Schummel, Wieland (five copies), and Zimmermann. The names of Ebert and Lessing are not on the list. The number of subscribers in Mitau (twelve) is worthy of note, as illustrating the interest in Sterne still keenly alive in this small and far away town, undoubtedly a direct result of the admiration so lavishly expressed in other years by Herder, Hamann and their circle.

The translation was hailed then as a masterly achievement of an arduous task, the difficulties of which are only the less appreciated because of the very excellence of the performance. It contrasts most strikingly with its clumsy predecessor in its approximation to Sterne’s deftness of touch, his delicate turns of phrase, his seemingly obvious and facile, but really delicate and accurate choice of expression. Zückert was heavy, commonplace, uncompromisingly literal and bristling with inaccuracies. Bode’s work was unfortunately not free from errors in spite of its general excellence, yet it brought the book within reach of those who were unable to read it in English, and preserved, in general with fidelity, the spirit of the original. The reviews were prodigal of praise. Wieland’s expressions of admiration were full-voiced and extensive.[13]

The Wandsbecker Bothe for October 28, 1774, asserts that many readers in England had not understood the book as well as Bode, a frequent expression of inordinate commendation; that Bode follows close on the heels of Yorick on his most intimate expeditions. The Frankfurter Gelehrte Anzeigen[14] copies in full the translation of the first chapter as both Zückert and Bode rendered it, and praises the latter in unqualified terms; Bode appears as “Yorick’s rescuer.” Several years later, in the Deutsches Museum, the well-known French translation of Shandy by Frenais is denounced as intolerable (unerträglich) to a German who is acquainted with Bode’s,[15] an opinion emphasized later in the same magazine[16] by Joseph von Retzer. Indeed, upon these two translations from Sterne rests Bode’s reputation as a translator. His “Tom Jones” was openly criticised as bearing too much of Sterne,[17] so great was the influence of Yorick upon the translator. Klamer Schmidt in a poem called “Klamersruh, eine ländlich malerische Dichtung,”[18] dilating upon his favorite authors during a country winter, calls Bode “our Sterne” and “the ideal translator,” and in some verses by the same poet, quoted in the article on Bode in Schlichtegroll’s “Nekrolog,”[19] is found a very significant stanza expressing Sterne’s immeasurable obligation to his German translator:

“Er geht zu dir nun, unser Bode!

Empfang ihn, Yoriks Geist! Auch dein

Erbarmt er sich,