It may be taken for granted that the Manuscripts reached Thackeray in the course of a week. The lecture on Sterne and Goldsmith—the last of the series—was read at Willis’s Rooms on the afternoon of Thursday July 3, 1851.[6] After a long delay, the Manuscripts were returned to Mr. Gibbs, with a comment on the man Sterne as revealed by the _Journal_. I give the letter just as Thackeray wrote it, save for erasures and substitutions: Kensington 12 September [1851.] Dear Sir Immediately after my lectures I went abroad and beg your pardon for having forgotten in the hurry of my departure to return the MSS w^h. you were good enough to lend me. I am sorry that reading the Brahmin’s letters to his Brahmine did not increase my respect for the Reverend Laurence Sterne. In his printed letters there is one XCII[7] addressed to Lady P. full of love and despair for my Lady & pronouncing that he had got a ticket for Miss xxx benefit that night, which he might use if deprived of the superior delight of seeing Lady P. I looked in the Dramatic Register (I think is the name of the book) to find what lady took a benefit on a Tuesday, & found the names of _2_, 1 at Covent Garden, & one at Drury Lane, on the same Tuesday evening, and no other Miss’s benefit on a Tuesday during the Season. Miss Poyntz I think is one of the names, but I’m 5 miles from the book as I write to you, and forget the lady’s name & the day. However on the day Sterne was writing to Lady P., and going to Miss ——’s benefit, he is _dying_ in his Journal to the Brahmine, can’t eat, has the Doctor, & is in a dreadful way. He wasn’t dying, but lying I’m afraid—God help him—a falser & wickeder man its difficult to read of. Do you know the accompanying pamphlet.[8] (My friend M^r. Cooper gave me this copy, w^h he had previously sent to the Reform club, & has since given the club another copy) there is more of Yorick’s love making in these letters, with blasphemy to flavor the compositions, and indications of a scornful unbelief. Of course any man is welcome to believe as he likes for me _except_ a parson, and I can’t help looking upon Swift & Sterne as a couple of traitors and renegades (as one does upon Bonneval or poor Bem the other day,) with a scornful pity for them in spite of all their genius and greatness. With many thanks for your loan believe me Dear Sir Very faithfully yours W. M. THACKERAY