It may be taken for granted that the Manuscripts reached Thackeray in the course of a week. The lecture on Sterne and Goldsmith—the last of the series—was read at Willis’s Rooms on the afternoon of Thursday July 3, 1851.[[6]] After a long delay, the Manuscripts were returned to Mr. Gibbs, with a comment on the man Sterne as revealed by the Journal. I give the letter just as Thackeray wrote it, save for erasures and substitutions:

Kensington

12 September [1851.]

Dear Sir

Immediately after my lectures I went abroad and beg your pardon for having forgotten in the hurry of my departure to return the MSS wh. you were good enough to lend me. I am sorry that reading the Brahmin’s letters to his Brahmine did not increase my respect for the Reverend Laurence Sterne.

In his printed letters there is one XCII[[7]] addressed to Lady P. full of love and despair for my Lady & pronouncing that he had got a ticket for Miss xxx benefit that night, which he might use if deprived of the superior delight of seeing Lady P. I looked in the Dramatic Register (I think is the name of the book) to find what lady took a benefit on a Tuesday, & found the names of 2, 1 at Covent Garden, & one at Drury Lane, on the same Tuesday evening, and no other Miss’s benefit on a Tuesday during the Season. Miss Poyntz I think is one of the names, but I’m 5 miles from the book as I write to you, and forget the lady’s name & the day.

However on the day Sterne was writing to Lady P., and going to Miss ——’s benefit, he is dying in his Journal to the Brahmine, can’t eat, has the Doctor, & is in a dreadful way.

He wasn’t dying, but lying I’m afraid—God help him—a falser & wickeder man its difficult to read of. Do you know the accompanying pamphlet.[[8]] (My friend Mr. Cooper gave me this copy, wh he had previously sent to the Reform club, & has since given the club another copy) there is more of Yorick’s love making in these letters, with blasphemy to flavor the compositions, and indications of a scornful unbelief. Of course any man is welcome to believe as he likes for me except a parson, and I can’t help looking upon Swift & Sterne as a couple of traitors and renegades (as one does upon Bonneval or poor Bem the other day,) with a scornful pity for them in spite of all their genius and greatness.

With many thanks for your loan believe me Dear Sir

Very faithfully yours