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than entitle the author to a free pardon for his literary peculations, his indecorum, and his affectation; nay, authorize him to leave the court of criticism, not forgiven only, but plauded and rewarded, as one who has exalted and honoured humanity, and impressed upon his readers such a lively picture of kindness and benevolence, blended with courage, gallantry, and simplicity, that their hearts must be warmed by whenever it is recalled to memory. Sterne, indeed, might boldly plead in his own behalf, that the passages which he borrowed from others were of little value, in comparison to those which are exclusively original; and that the former might have been written by many persons, while in his own proper line he stands alone and inimitable. Something of extravagance may, perhaps, attach to Uncle Toby's favourite amusements. Yet in England, where men think and act with little regard to the ridicule or censure of their neighbours, there is no impossibility, perhaps no great improbability, in supposing, that a humourist might employ such a mechanical aid as my Uncle's bowling-green, in order to encourage and assist his imagination, in the pleasing but delusive task of castle building. Men have been called children of a larger growth, and among the antic toys and devices. with which they are amused, the device of my Uncle, with whose pleasures we are so much

disposed to sympathize, does not seem so unnatural upon reflection, as it may appear at first sight.

It is well known (through Dr Ferriar's labours) that Dr Slop, with all his obstetrical engines, may be identified with Dr Burton, of York, who published a treatise of Midwifery in 1751. This person, as we have elsewhere noticed, was on bad terms with Sterne's uncle; and though there had come strife and unkindness between the uncle and the nephew, yet the latter seems to have retained aversion against the enemy of the former. But Sterne, being no politician, had forgiven the Jacobite, and only persecutes the Doctor with his raillery, as a quack and a catholic.

It is needless to dwell longer on a work so generally known. The style employed by Sterne is fancifully ornamented; but at the same time vigorous and masculine, and full of that animation and force which can only be derived by an intimate acquaintance with the early English prose-writers. In the power of approaching and touching the finer feelings of the heart, he has never been excelled, if indeed, he has ever been equalled; and may be at once recorded as one of the most affected, and one of the most simple writers, as one of the greatest plagiarists, and one of the most original geniuses whom England has produced. Dr Ferriar, who seemed born to trace

and detect the various mazes through which Sterne carried on his depredations upon ancient and dusty authors, apologizes for the rigour of his inquest, by doing justice to those merits which were peculiarly our author's own. We cannot better close this article than with the sonnet in which his ingenious inquisitor makes the amende honorable to the shade of Yorick.

K

Sterne, for whose sake I plod through miry ways,

Of antique wit and quibbling mazes drear,

Let not thy shade malignant censure fear,

Though ought of borrowed mirth my search betrays.
Long slept that mirth in dust of ancient days;
(Erewhile to Guise or wanton Valois dear)
Till waked by thee, in Skelton's joyous pile,
She flung on Tristram her capricious rays;
But the quick tear that checks our wondering smile,
In sudden pause, or unexpected story,
Owns thy true mastery-and Lefevre's woes,
Maria's wanderings, and the prisoner's throes,
Fix thee conspicuous on the throne of glory.»

MRS ANN RADCLIFFE.

THE life of Mrs Ann Radcliffe, spent in the quiet shade of domestic privacy, and in the interchange of familiar affections and sympathies, appears to have been as retired and sequestered, as the fame of her writings was brilliant and universal. The most authentic account of her birth, family, and personal appearance, seems to be that contained in the following communication to a work of contemporary biography.

« She was born in London, in the year 1764 (9th July); the daughter of William and Ann Ward, who, though in trade, were nearly the only persons of their two families not living in handsome, or at least easy independence. Her paternal grandmother was a Cheselden, the sister of the celebrated surgeon, of whose kind regard her father had a grateful recollection, and some of whose presents, in books, I have

seen. The late Lieutenant Colonel Cheselden, of Somerby in Leicestershire, was, I think, another nephew of the surgeon. Her father's aunt, the late Mrs Barwell, first of Leicester, and then of Duffield in Derbyshire, was one of the sponsors at her baptism. Her maternal grandmother was Ann Oates, the sister of Dr Samuel Jebb, of Stratford, who was the father of Sir Richard: on that side she was also related to Dr Halifax, Bishop of Gloucester, and to Dr Halifax, physician to the king. Perhaps it may gratify curiosity to state farther, that she was descended from a near relative of the De Witts of Holland. In some family papers which I have seen, it is stated, that a De Witt, of the family of John and Cornelius, came to England, under the patronage of government, upon some design of draining the fens in Lincolnshire, bringing with him a daughter, Amelia, then an infant. The prosecution of the plan is supposed to have been interrupted by the rebellion, in the time of Charles the First; but De Witt appears to have passed the remainder of his life in a mansion near Hull, and to have left many children, of whom Amelia was the mother of one of Mrs Radcliffe's ancestors.

This admirable writer, whom I remember from about the time of her twentieth year, was, in her youth, of a figure exquisitely proportioned, while she resembled her father,

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