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these personages were all literally committed, but admits that he invented such incidents as he judged might best correspond to the idea which he had formed of their character; thus rather shaping his facts according to a preconceived opinion, than deducing his opinion from facts which had actually taken place.

The truth is that young, ardent, and bold, the author seems to have caught fire from his own subject, to have united credulity in belief with force of description, and to have pushed praise too readily into panegyric, while he exaggerated censure into reprobation. He every where shows himself strongly influenced by the current tone of popular feeling; nay, unless in the case of Wilkes, whose stimulated patriotism he seems to have suspected, his acuteness of discrimination seldom enables him to correct public opinion. The bill for the naturalization of the Jews had just occasioned a general clamour, and we see Chrysal, not only exposing their commercial character in the most odious colours, but reviving the ancient and absurd fable of their celebrating the feast of the passover by the immolation of Christian infants. With the same prejudiced credulity, he swallows without hesitation all the wild and inconsistent charges which were then heaped upon the order of the Jesuits, and which occasioned the general clamour for their suppression.

On the other hand, because it was the fashion to represent the continental war, which had for its sole object the protection of the electorate of Hanover, as

waged in defence of the Protestant religion, Johnstone has dressed up the selfish and atheistical Frederick of Prussia in the character of the Protestant hero, and put into his mouth a prayer adapted to the character of a self-devoted Christian soldier, who drew his sword in the defence of that religion which was enshrined in his own bosom. This is so totally out of all keeping and character, that we can scarce help thinking that the author has written, not his own sentiments, but such as were most likely to catch the public mind at the time.

But, feeling and writing under the popular impression of the moment, Johnstone has never failed to feel and write like a true Briton, with a sincere admiration of his country's laws, an ardent desire for her prosperity, and a sympathy with her interests, which more than atone for every error and prejudice. He testifies on many occasions his respect for the house of Brunswick, and leaves his testimony against the proceedings first commenced by Wilkes, and so closely followed by imitators of that unprincipled demagogue, for the purpose of courting the populace by slandering the throne. It is remarkable that, notwithstanding his zeal for king George and the Protestant religion, the Jacobite party, though their expiring intrigues might have furnished some piquant anecdotes, are scarcely mentioned in Chrysal.

A key to the personages introduced to the reader, in Chrysal, was furnished by the author himself to

Lord Mount Edgecombe, and another to captain Mears, with whom he sailed to India. It is published by Mr. William Davis, in his collection of Bibliographical and Literary Anecdotes, with this caveat: "The author's intention was to draw general characters; therefore, in the application of the Key, the reader must exercise his own judgment." The Key is subjoined to the text with a few additional notes, illustrative of such incidents and characters, as properly belong to history or to public life. Anecdotes of private scandal are willingly left in the mystery in which the text has involved them; and some instances occur in which the obvious misrepresentations of the satirist have been modified by explanation. But when all exaggeration has been deducted from this singular work, enough of truth will still remain, in Chrysal, to incline the reader to congratulate himself that these scenes have passed more than half a century before his time.

STERNE.

LAURENCE STERNE was one of those few authors who have anticipated the labours of the biographer, and left to the world what they desired should be known of their family and their life.

"Roger Sterne* (says this narrative,) grandson to Archbishop Sterne, lieutenant in Handaside's regiment, was married to Agnes Hebert, widow of a captain of a good family. Her family name was (I believe) Nuttle; though, upon recollection, that was the name

Mr. Sterne was descended from a family of that name, in Suffolk, one of which settled in Nottinghamshire. The following genealogy is extracted from Thoresby's Ducatus Leodinensis, p. 215.

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Richard. ROGER. Jaques, L.L.D. Mary. Elizabeth. Frances.

Ob. 1759.

Richard,

LAURENCE STERNE.

of her father-in-law, who was a noted sutler in Flanders, in Queen Anne's wars, where my father married his wife's daughter (N. B. he was in debt to him) which was in September 25, 1711, old style. This Nuttle had a son by my grandmother-a fine person of a man, but a graceless whelp!-What became of him, I know not. The family (if any left) live now at Clonmel, in the south of Ireland; at which town I was born, November 24, 1713, a few days after my mother arrived from Dunkirk.-My birthday was ominous to my poor father, who was on the day of our arrival, with many other brave officers, broke and sent adrift into the wide world, with a wife and two children-the elder of which was Mary. She was born at Lisle, in French Flanders, July 10, 1712, new style. This child was the most unfortunate :-She married one Weemans, in Dublin, who used her most unmercifully; spent his substance, became a bankrupt, and left my poor sister to shift for herself; which she was able to do but for a few months, for she went to a friend's house in the country, and died of a broken heart. She was a most beautiful woman, of a fine figure, and deserved a better fate.-The regiment in which my father served being broke, he left Ireland as soon as I was able to be carried, with the rest of his family, and came to the family seat at Elvington, near York, where his mother lived. She was daughter to Sir Roger Jaques, and an heiress. There we sojourned for about ten months, when the regiment was established, and our

VOL. I.

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