To create a character and to be able to put in his mouth borrowed words which yet shall quiver with his personality is the supreme triumph of the greatest ‘miscellaneous writer’ who ever lived. Dr. Ferriar’s book, after all, but establishes this: that the only author whom Sterne really pillaged is Burton, of the ‘Anatomy of Melancholy,’ a now well-known writer, but who in Sterne’s time, despite Dr. Johnson’s partiality, appears to have been neglected. Sir Walter Scott, an excellent authority on such a point, says, in his ‘Life of Sterne,’ that Dr. Ferriar’s essay raised the ‘“Anatomy of Melancholy” to double price in the book market.’ Sir Walter is unusually hard upon Sterne in this matter of the ‘Anatomy.’ But different men, different methods. Sir Walter had his own way of cribbing. Sterne’s humorous conception of the character of the elder Shandy required copious illustration from learned sources, and a whole host of examples and whimsicalities, which it would have passed the wit of man to invent for himself. He found these things to his hand in Burton, and, like our first parent, ‘he scrupled not to eat.’ It is not easy to exaggerate the extent of his plunder. The well-known chapter with its refrain, ‘The Lady Baussiere rode on,’ and the chapter on the death of Brother Bobby, are almost, though not altogether, pure Burton. The general effect of it all is to raise your opinion immensely--of Burton. As for your opinion of Sterne as a man of conduct, is it worth while having one? It is a poor business bludgeoning men who bore the brunt of life a long century ago, and whose sole concern now with the world is to delight it. Laurence Sterne is not standing for Parliament. ‘Eliza’ has been dead a dozen decades. Nobody covers his sins under the cloak of this particular parson. Our sole business is with ‘Tristram Shandy’ and ‘The Sentimental Journey’; and if these books are not matters for congratulation and joy, then the pleasures of literature are all fudge, and the whole thing a got-up job of ‘The Trade’ and the hungry crew who go buzzing about it.