over the thoughtless is very apt to make his impulses fall in with the dictates of calculated selfishness. He cannot be an accomplished courtier, because he is apt to be found out; but he can crawl and creep for the nonce with anyone. In real life such a man is often as delightful for a short time as he becomes contemptible on a longer acquaintance. When we think of Sterne as a man, and try to frame a coherent picture of his character, we must give a due weight to the baser elements of his composition. We cannot forget his shallowness of feeling and the utter want of self-respect which prompted him to condescend to be a mere mountebank, and to dabble in filth for the amusement of graceless patrons. Nor is it really possible entirely to throw aside this judgment even in reading his works; for even after abstracting our attention from the rubbish and the indecency, we are haunted in the really admirable parts by our misgivings as to their sincerity. But the problem is often one to tax critical acumen. It is one aspect of a difficulty which meets us sometimes in real life. Every man flatters himself that he can detect the mere hypocrite. We seem to have a sufficient instinct to warn us against the downright pitfalls where an absolute void is covered by an artificial stratum of mere verbiage. Perhaps even this is not so easy as we sometimes fancy; but there is a more refined sort of hypocrisy which requires keener dissection. How are men to draw the narrow and yet all-important line which separates—not the genuine from the feigned emotion—but the emotion which is due to some real cause, and that which is a cause in itself? Some people we know fall in love with a woman, and others are really in love with the passion. Grief may be the sign of lacerated affection, or it may be a mere luxury indulged in for its own sake. The sentimentalism which Sterne represented corresponded in the main to this last variety. People had discovered the art of extracting direct enjoyment from their own 'sensibility,' and Sterne expressly gives thanks for his own as the great consolation of his life. He has the heartiest possible relish for his tears and lamentations, and it is precisely his skill in marking this vein of interest which gives him his extraordinary popularity. So soon as we discover that a man is enjoying his sorrow our sympathy is killed within us, and for that reason Sterne is apt to be repulsive to humourists whose sense of the human tragi-comedy is deeper than his own. They agree with him that the vanity of human dreams may suggest a mingling of tears and laughter; but they grieve because they must, not because they find it a pleasant amusement. Yet it is perhaps unwise to poison our pleasure by reflections of this kind. They come with critical reflection, and may at least be temporarily suppressed when we are reading for enjoyment. We need not sin ourselves by looking a gift horse in the mouth. The sentiment is genuine at the time.