Much later a similar product was published, entitled “Launige Reise durch Holland in Yoricks[88] Manier, mit Charakterskizzen und Anekdoten über die Sitten und Gebräuche der Holländer aus dem Englischen,” two volumes, Zittau und Leipzig, 1795. The translation was by Reichel in Zittau.[88] This may possibly be Ireland’s “A Picturesque Tour through Holland, Brabant and part of France, made in 1789,” two volumes, London, 1790.[89] The well-known “Peter Pennyless” was reproduced as “Empfindsame Gedanken bey verschiedenen Vorfällen von Peter Pennyless,” Leipzig, Weidmann, 1770.
In 1788 there appeared in England a continuation of the Sentimental Journey[90] in which, to judge from the reviewers, the petty author outdid Sterne in eccentricities of typography, breaks, dashes, scantily filled and blank pages. This is evidently the original of “Die neue empfindsame Reise in Yoriks Geschmack,” Leipzig, 1789, 8o, pp. 168, which, according to the Allgemeine Litteratur-Zeitung bristles with such extravagances.[91]
A much more successful attempt was the “Sentimental Journey, Intended as a Sequel to Mr. Sterne’s, Through Italy, Switzerland and France, by Mr. Shandy,” two volumes, 12o, 1793. This was evidently the original of Schink’s work;[92] “Empfindsame Reisen durch Italien, die Schweiz und Frankreich, ein Nachtrag zu den Yorikschen. Aus und nach dem Englischen,” Hamburg, Hoffmann, 1794, pp. 272, 8o. The translator’s preface, which is dated Hamburg, March 1794, explains his attitude toward the work as suggested in the expression “Aus und nach dem Englischen,” that is, “aus, so lange wie Treue für den Leser Gewinn schien und nach, wenn Abweichung für die deutsche Darstellung notwendig war.” He claims to have softened the glaring colors of the original and to have discarded, or altered the obscene pictures. The author, as described in the preface, is an illegitimate son of Yorick, named Shandy, who writes the narrative as his father would have written it, if he had lived. This assumed authorship proves quite satisfactorily its connection with the English original, as there, too, in the preface, the narrator is designated as a base-born son of Yorick. The book is, as a whole, a fairly successful imitation of Yorick’s manner, and it must be judged as decidedly superior to Stevenson’s attempt. The author takes up the story where Sterne left it, in the tavern room with the Piedmontese lady; and the narrative which follows is replete with allusions to familiar episodes and sentiments in the real Journey, with sentimental adventures and opportunities for kindly deeds, and sympathetic tears; motifs used originally are introduced here, a begging priest with a snuff-box, a confusion with the Yorick in Hamlet, a poor girl with wandering mind seated by the wayside, and others equally familiar.
It is not possible to determine the extent of Schink’s alterations to suit German taste, but one could easily believe that the somewhat lengthy descriptions of external nature, quite foreign to Sterne, were original with him, and that the episode of the young German lady by the lake of Geneva, with her fevered admiration for Yorick, and the compliments to the German nation and the praise for great Germans, Luther, Leibnitz and Frederick the Great, are to be ascribed to the same source. He did not rid the book of revolting features, as one might suppose from his preface.[93] Previous to the publication of the whole translation, Schink published in the February number of the Deutsche Monatsschrift[94] two sections of his book, “Die Schöne Obstverkäuferin” and “Elisa.” Later, in the May number, he published three other fragments, “Turin, Hotel del Ponto,” “Die Verlegenheit,” “Die Unterredung.”[95]
A few years later Schink published another and very similar volume with the title, “Launen, Phantasieen und Schilderungen aus dem Tagebuche eines reisenden Engländers,”[96] Arnstadt und Rudolstadt, 1801, pp. 323. It has not been possible to find an English original, but the translator makes claim upon one, though confessing alterations to suit his German readers, and there is sufficient internal evidence to point to a real English source. The traveler is a haggard, pale-faced English clergyman, who, with his French servant, La Pierre, has wandered in France and Italy and is now bound for Margate. Here again we have sentimental episodes, one with a fair lady in a post-chaise, another with a monk in a Trappist cloister, apostrophes to the imagination, the sea, and nature, a new division of travelers, a debate of personal attributes, constant appeals to his dear Sophie, who is, like Eliza, ever in the background, occasional references to objects made familiar through Yorick, as Dessein’s Hotel, and a Yorick-like sympathy with the dumb beast; in short, an open imitation of Sterne, but the motifs from Sterne are here more mixed and less obvious. There is, as in the former book, much more enthusiasm for nature than is characteristic of Sterne; and there is here much more miscellaneous material, such, for example, as the tale of the two sisters, which betrays no trace of Sterne’s influence. The latter part of the volume is much less reminiscent of Yorick and suggests interpolation by the translator.[97]
Near the close of the century was published “Fragments in the manner of Sterne,” 8o, Debrett, 1797, which, according to the Monthly Review,[98] caught in large measure the sentimentality, pathos and whimsicality of Sterne’s style. The British Museum catalogue suggests J. Brandon as its author. This was reprinted by Nauck in Leipzig in 1800, and a translation was given to the world by the same publisher in the same year, with the added title: “Ein Seitenstück zu Yoricks empfindsamen Reisen.” The translation is attributed by Kayser to Aug. Wilhelmi, the pseudonym of August Wilhelm Meyer.[99] Here too belongs “Mariens Briefe nebst Nachricht von ihrem Tode, aus dem Englischen,”[100] which was published also under the title: “Yoricks Empfindsame Reisen durch Frankreich und Italien,” 5th vol., 8o, Weissenfels, Severin, Mitzky in Leipzig, 1795.
[1.] VI, 1, p. 166. 1768.
[2.] XII, 1, p. 142.
[3.] August 28, 1769. P. 574.
[4.] Pp. 896–9.