To explain these remarkable parallelisms,—sometimes word for word—Mr. Sidney Lee has recently suggested that Mrs. Medalle, in editing her father’s correspondence, “foisted some passages from the _Journal_ on her mother’s love-letters.”[5] Mrs. Medalle was certainly unscrupulous enough for that; but it is more likely that Sterne deliberately adjusted the letters to the _Journal_ from copies preserved at Coxwold. Miss S—— of York consoled with him in the earlier days while Miss Lumley was away in Staffordshire. Mrs. James now consoles with him for the loss of Eliza. The situations are similar; and why should not the same or similar language be used in describing them. Sterne’s plagiarism from himself in the _Journal_ is by no means confined to the sentimental passages. The letter dated June 7, 1767, to A. Lee Esq., descriptive of the golden age at Coxwold, was worked into the _Journal_ for the second of July. And in reverse order, the Shandean story of Sterne’s illness recorded in the _Journal_ for the twenty-second of April, was retold on the twenty-first of May in a letter to the Earl of S——. This was, as has been seen, the manner of the sermons, of which two were nearly alike except for the different texts. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ INTRODUCTION THACKERAY AND THE JOURNAL. WHILE Thackeray was preparing his lectures on the _English Humourists_, Mr. Gibbs sent him the _Journal to Eliza_ in a parcel which seems to have contained also the copy of the _Letters from Yorick to Eliza_ now bound with the Gibbs Manuscripts. Surprise has been expressed by Sterne’s biographers—Mr. Percy Fitzgerald and Mr. Sidney Lee—that Thackeray “made no use” of the _Journal_, as if he thought it “of slight importance.” The biographers also say that it was lent to Thackeray “while he was lecturing on Sterne.” As a matter of fact, Thackeray must have received the Manuscripts nearly a month before his lecture; and as will be seen, he did make some use of them. But we will let Thackeray first speak for himself. The following letter to Mr. Gibbs is postmarked May 31, 1851 and June 1, 1851. 13 Young St. Kensington May 31 [1851.] Dear Sir I thank you very much for your obliging offer, and the kind terms in w^h. you make it. If you will send me the MSS I will take great care of them, and gratefully restore them to their owner. Your very faithful Serv^t. W M THACKERAY