“Goodness so conspicuous as yours will be often solicited and perhaps sometimes solicited by those who have little pretension to your favour. It is now my turn to introduce a petitioner, but such as I have reason to believe you will think worthy of your notice. Mrs. Ogle who kept the music room in Soho Square, a woman who struggles with great industry for the support of eight children, hopes by a Benefit Concert to set herself free from a few debts, which she cannot otherwise discharge. She has, I know not why, so high an opinion of me as to believe that you will pay less regard to her application than to mine. You know, Madam, I am sure you know, how hard it is to deny, and therefore would not wonder at my compliance, though I were to suppress a motive which you know not, the vanity of being supposed to be of any importance to Mrs. Montagu. But though I may be willing to see the world deceived for my advantage, I am not deceived myself, for I know that Mrs. Ogle will owe whatever favours she shall receive from the patronage which we humbly entreat on this occasion, much more to your compassion for honesty in distress than to the request of, Madam, “Your most obedient and most humble servant, “SAM. JOHNSON. “Gray’s Inn, Dec. 17, 1759.” This letter is printed in Croker’s edition of Boswell’s “Life of Johnson,” vol. ii. p. 115, published in 1880 by George Bell and Sons. He probably received the copy, as he did a former letter, from my grandfather, the 4th Baron Rokeby, as he would have been too young to obtain it from Mrs. Montagu, who died in 1800, and John Wilson Croker was not born till 1780. [Page heading: “TRISTRAM SHANDY”] [Page heading: THE REV. LAURENCE STERNE] Though undated, the following letter of Laurence Sterne may be placed here. Early in 1759 he had been writing the first two volumes of “Tristram Shandy,” towards the end of the year he was in London arranging for their publication with Dodsley the publisher, who declined the venture. They were printed for and sold by John Hinxham, bookseller in Stonegate, according to Mr. Traill’s volume on Sterne in the “Englishmen of Letters” series. The allusions to the Dean of York, etc., referred to a dispute between a Dr. Topham and Dr. Fountayne (Dean of York), in which Sterne sided with the Dean when he wrote his “History of a Good Warm Watchcoat,” “a sarcastic apologue,” as Mr. Traill terms it. I have not time or knowledge enough to enter into the details of this affair, but hope the letter may throw light upon it to students of Sterne’s character. “MADAM,