The publication of the letters from Yorick to Eliza was the justification afforded Lydia Sterne de Medalle for issuing her father’s correspondence according to her mother’s request: the other volume was not issued till after it was known that Sterne’s daughter was engaged in the task of collecting and editing his correspondence. Indeed, the editor expressly states in his preface that it is not the purpose of the book to forestall Mme. Medalle’s promised collection; that the letters in this volume are not to be printed in hers.[38] Mme. Medalle added to her collection the “Fragment in the manner of Rabelais” and the invaluable, characteristic scrap of autobiography, which was written particularly for “my Lydia.” The work appeared at Becket’s in three volumes, and the dedication to Garrick was dated June, 1775; but, as the notice in the Monthly Review for October[39] asserts that they have “been published but a few days,” this date probably represents the time of the completion of the task, or the inception of the printer’s work.[40] During the same year the spurious letters from Eliza to Yorick were issued.
Naturally Sterne’s letters found readers in Germany, the Yorick-Eliza correspondence being especially calculated to awaken response.[41] The English edition of the “Letters from Yorick to Eliza” was reviewed in the Neue Bibliothek der schönen Wissenschaften,[42] with a hint that the warmth of the letters might easily lead to a suspicion of unseemly relationship, but the reviewer contends that virtue and rectitude are preserved in the midst of such extraordinary tenderness, so that one may interpret it as a Platonic rather than a sensual affection. Yet this review cannot be designated as distinctive of German opinion, for it contains no opinion not directly to be derived from the editor’s foreword, and that alone; indeed, the wording suggests decidedly that source. The Gothaische Gelehrte Zeitung[43] for April 15, 1775, reviews the same English edition, but the notice consists of an introductory statement of Eliza’s identity and translation of parts of three letters, the “Lord Bathurst letter,” the letter involving the criticism of Eliza’s portraits,[44] and the last letter to Eliza. The translation is very weak, abounding in elementary errors; for example, “She has got your picture and likes it” becomes “Sie hat Ihr Bildniss gemacht, es ist ähnlich,” and “I beheld you . . . as a very plain woman” is rendered “und hielt Sie für nichts anders als eine Frau.” The same journal,[45] August 5, reviews the second collection of Sterne’s letters, but there is no criticism, merely an introductory statement taken from the preface, and the translation of two letters, the one to Mistress V., “Of two bad cassocs, fair lady,” and the epistle beginning, “I snatch half an hour while my dinner is getting ready.” The Göttingische Gelehrte Anzeigen, 1776, p. 382, also gives in a review information concerning this anonymous collection, but no criticism.
One would naturally look to Hamburg for translations of these epistles. In the very year of their appearance in England we find “Yorick’s Briefe an Eliza,” Hamburg, bey C. E. Bohn, 1775;[46] “Briefe von Eliza an Yorick,” Hamburg, bey Bode, 1775; and “Briefe von (Yorick) Sterne an seine Freunde nebst seiner Geschichte eines Ueberrocks,” Hamburg, bey Bohn, 1775. The translator’s name is not given, but there is every reason to suppose that it was the faithful Bode, though only the first volume is mentioned in Jördens’ account of him, and under his name in Goedeke’s “Grundriss.” Contemporary reviewers attributed all three books to Bode, and internal evidence goes to prove it.[47]
The first volume contains no translator’s preface, and the second, the spurious Eliza letters, only a brief footnote to the translation of the English preface. In this note Bode’s identity is evident in the following quotation: He says he has translated the letters “because I believe that they will be read with pleasure, and because I fancy I have a kind of vocation to give in German everything that Sterne has written, or whatever has immediate relation to his writings.” This note is dated Hamburg, September 16, 1775. In the third volume, the miscellaneous collection, there is a translator’s preface in which again Bode’s hand is evident. He says he knows by sure experience that Sterne’s writings find readers in Germany; he is assured of the authenticity of the letters, but is in doubt whether the reader is possessed of sufficient knowledge of the attending circumstances to render intelligible the allusion of the watchcoat story. To forfend the possibility of such dubious appreciation, the account of the watchcoat episode is copied word for word from Bode’s introduction to the “Empfindsame Reise.”[48]
In this same year, an unknown translator issued in a single volume a rendering of these three collections.[49] The following year Mme. Medalle’s collection was brought out in Leipzig in an anonymous translation, which has been attributed to Christian Felix Weisse.[50] Its title was “Lorenz Sterne’s Briefe an seine vertrautesten Freunde nebst einem Fragment im Geschmack des Rabelais und einer von ihm selbst verfassten Nachricht von seinem Leben und seiner Familie, herausgegeben von seiner Tochter Mad. Medalle,” Leipzig, 1776, pp. xxviii, 391. Weidmanns Erben und Reich.
Bode’s translation of Yorick’s letters to Eliza is reviewed in the Gothaische Gelehrte Zeitung, August 9, 1775, with quotation of the second letter in full. The same journal notes the translation of the miscellaneous collection, November 4, 1775, giving in full the letter of Dr. Eustace and Sterne’s reply.[51] The Allgemeine deutsche Bibliothek[52] reviews together the three Hamburg volumes (Bode) and the Leipzig volume containing the same letters. The utter innocence, the unquestionably Platonic character of the relations between Yorick and Eliza is accepted fully. With keen, critical judgment the reviewer is inclined to doubt the originality of the Eliza letters. Two letters by Yorick are mentioned particularly, letters which bear testimony to Yorick’s practical benevolence: one describing his efforts in behalf of a dishonored maiden, and one concerning the old man who fell into financial difficulties.[53] Both the translations win approval, but Bode’s is preferred; they are designated as doubtless his. The “Briefe an Elisa” (Bode’s translation) are noticed in the Frankfurter Gelehrte Anzeigen, October 3 and 6, 1775, with unrestrained praise of the translator, and vigorous asseveration of their authenticity. It is recognized fully that the relation as disclosed was extraordinary among married people, even Sterne’s amazing statement concerning the fragile obstacles which stood in the way of their desires is noted. Yet the Yorick of these letters is accorded undisguised admiration. His love is exalted above that of Swift for Stella, Waller for Sacharissa, Scarron for Maintenon,[54] and his godly fear as here exhibited is cited to offset the outspoken avowal of dishonoring desire.[55] Hamann in a letter to Herder, June 26, 1780, speaks of the Yorick-Eliza correspondence quite disparagingly.[56]
In 1787 another volume of Sterne letters was issued in London, giving English and German on opposite pages.[57] There are but six letters and all are probably spurious.
In 1780 there was published a volume of confessedly spurious letters entitled “Briefe von Yorick und Elisen, wie sie zwischen ihnen konnten geschrieben werden.”[58] The introduction contains some interesting information for the determination of the genuineness of the Sterne letters.[59] The editor states that the author had written these letters purely as a diversion, that the editor had proposed their publication, but was always met with refusal until there appeared in London a little volume of letters which their editor emphatically declared to be genuine. This is evidently the volume published by the anonymous editor in 1775, and our present editor declares that he knows Nos. 4–10 were from the same pen as the present confessedly spurious collection. They were mere efforts originally, but, published in provincial papers, found their way into other journals, and the editor goes on to say, that, to his astonishment, he saw one of these epistles included in Lydia Medalle’s collection. This is, of course, No. 5, the one beginning, “The first time I have dipped my pen in the ink-horn.” These events induced the author to allow the publication. The book itself consists mostly of a kind of diary kept by Yorick to send to Eliza at Madeira and later to India, and a corresponding journal written by Eliza on the vessel and at Madeira.
Yorick’s sermons were inevitably less potent in their appeal, and the editions and translations were less numerous. In spite of obvious effort, Sterne was unable to infuse into his homiletical discourses any considerable measure of genuine Shandeism, and his sermons were never as widely popular as his two novels, either among those who sought him for whimsical pastime or for sentimental emotion. They were sermons. The early Swiss translation has been duly noted.
The third volume of the Zürich edition, which appeared in 1769, contained the “Reden an Esel,” which the reviewer in the Allgemeine deutsche Bibliothek[60] with acute penetration designates as spurious. Another translation of these sermons was published at Leipzig, according to the editor of a later edition[61] (Thorn, 1795), in the same year as the Zürich issue, 1769.