The success of the Sentimental Journey increased the interest in the incomprehensible Shandy. Lange’s new edition of Zückert’s translation has been noted, and before long Bode[9] was induced to undertake a German rendering of the earlier and longer novel. This translation was finished in the summer of 1774, the preface being dated “End of August.” The foreword is mainly concerned with Goeze’s attack on Bode’s personal character, a thrust founded on Bode’s connection with the Sentimental Journey and its continuation. At the close of this introduction Bode says that, without undervaluing the intelligence of his readers, he had regarded notes as essential, but because of his esteem for the text, and a parental affection for the notes, he has foreborne to insert them here. “So they still lie in my desk, as many as there are of them, but upon pressing hints they might be washed and combed, and then be published under the title perhaps of a ‘Real und Verballexicon über Tristram Shandy’s Leben und Meinungen.’” This hint of a work of his own, serving as a commentary to Tristram Shandy, has been the occasion of some discussion. A reviewer in the _Allgemeine deutsche Bibliothek_,[10] in an account of Bode’s and Wichmann’s renderings of “Tom Jones,” begs Bode to fulfill the hopes thus raised, saying he could give Yorick’s friends no more valuable or treasured gift. Böttiger in his biographical sketch of Bode expressed regret that the work never saw the light, adding that the work contained so many allusions to contemporary celebrities and hits upon Bode’s acquaintance that wisdom had consigned to oblivion.[11] A correspondent, writing to the _Teutscher Merkur_,[12] minimizes the importance of this so-called commentary, saying “er hatte nie einen Kommentar der Art, . . . auch nur angefangen auszuarbeiten. Die ganze Sache gründet sich auf eine scherzhafte Aeusserung gegen seinem damaligen Freund in Hamburg, welchen er oft mit der ihm eignen Ironie mit diesem Kommentar zu drohen pflegte.” The list of subscribers to Bode’s translation contained upwards of 650 names, among which are Boie, Claudius, Einsieder, Gerstenberg, Gleim, Fräulein von Göchhausen, Goethe, Hamann, Herder, Hippel, Jacobi, Klopstock, Schummel, Wieland (five copies), and Zimmermann. The names of Ebert and Lessing are not on the list. The number of subscribers in Mitau (twelve) is worthy of note, as illustrating the interest in Sterne still keenly alive in this small and far away town, undoubtedly a direct result of the admiration so lavishly expressed in other years by Herder, Hamann and their circle.