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The Historical Chronicle in the July 1769 GM, under the date of "Monday, 31," reported the following, the sort of tid-bit about Sterne's artistry as opposed to his morality that should be more widely known:

It is reported that the body of Mr Sterne, the ingenious author of Triſtram Shandy, which was buried at Marybone, has been taken up and anatomized by a

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ſurgeon at Oxford. That gentleman, tho' happy in a fertile genius, does not ſeem to have been happy thro' life. He lived during the firſt period of his life in obſcurity and poverty; and in the latter part in a ſtate of ſeperation from his wife, who choſe rather to retire to a convent in France with her amiable daughter, than live in England under the daily provocations of an unkind huſband. For tho' the Rev. Mr. Sterne was a great wit, it cannot be ſaid that he was a deſirable companion for a woman of delicacy.

Years later, one "J. M.," writing from Winchester and hence almost surely identifiable as the Reverend Dr. John Milner (1752-1826), a prolific writer on theological and archaeological subjects (see DNB), declared that he had "always looked upon Sterne to be one of the most dangerous writers of his time" because he associated real "sentiment and religion" with "buffoonry and obscenity" (1794. ii. 593). However, as further proof of Sterne's plagiarism, he referred readers to "'An Essay towards the Theory of the Intelligible World, by Gabriel John,' supposed to be Tom D'Urfy, published in the first year of the present century." He continued by pointing out that in that work "we have a Preface in the middle of the work, sections concerning weathercocks and button-holes, a chapter which is announced to be the best in the book, and another which the reader is desired not to look into." Milner had taken as his point of departure an earlier contribution to the GM on the subject of Sterne's plagiarism (1794. i. 406). While the earlier contribution may be dismissed, Milner's suggestion about the work attributed to D'Urfey merits attention. Four years after Milner's suggestion, John Ferriar, M.D., in the first extended examination of Sterne's sources or plagiarisms, the Illustrations of Sterne, published in 1798, would not

presume to determine whether Sterne made any use of a whimsical book, apparently published about the year 1748, (for it has no date) under the title of, An Essay towards the Theory of the Intelligible World, by Gabriel John. It is a pretty close copy of the Tale of a Tub in manner; some appearances of imitation may, therefore, be supposed to result from the common reference of both writers to Swift. If Sterne can be supposed to have taken any thing from this book, it must be the hint of his marbled pages. . . . The essay in question was professedly composed to satirize Norris's Theory of the Ideal World (pp. 52-3).

Much is amiss here: the Essay was published in 1701, not "about the year 1748," and therefore could not have been aping Swift's Tale of a Tub, published in 1704, nor would it be satirizing John Norris's work, published in 1701-04, some forty-five years after the publication of that work. One can only assume, given the absence of references to those features of the work attributed to D'Urfey which Sterne imitated, that Ferriar did not know the GM piece by Milner. Mr. Kenneth Monkman kindly informs me that "Hillhouse, in his The Grub Street Journal, quotes a reference in that journal to a mad 'Mr Gregory of Christ Church, Oxford,' who wrote under the pseudonym of Gabriel John—the name pinned to the Essay," and that, hence, D'Urfey may not be the author of the Essay. However, the identity of the author of the Essay is of less consequence than the possibility that Sterne knew and borrowed from it.

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An anonymous contributor to the February 1796 GM (p. 151) wrote, "The following composition, there is every reason to believe, was written by the celebrated Mr. Sterne. It is sufficient to observe, that he is supposed to have written it on re-visiting, at an advanced period of his life, the house of a gentleman to whose daughter, in his early days, he had paid his addresses." The poem, in octosyllabic couplets, begins "O CAROLINE, thy form recalls," is dated 1755, and bears the signature L. S. In 1739, according to Sterne's modern biographer, Sterne wrote to the Reverend John Dealtary about a lady he had fallen in love with and whose identity he disguised as "Miss C---." Among other things, he wrote, "I am convinced she is fixed in a resolution never to marry, and as the whole summ of happiness I ever proposed was staked upon that single Point, I see nothing left for me at present but a dreadful Scene of uneasiness & Heartache."[2] The authenticity of the poem as Sterne's gains from the existence of a Miss C--- with whom he fell in love as a young man and from the fact that it is a somewhat extended verse rendering of the sentiments in the letter.

In a letter dated Jan. 26 which appeared in the March 1799 GM (pp. 196-197) S. A., writing from M. B., suggested that Sterne had seen a pamphlet which he, S. A., supposed to be scarce. S. A. is almost surely Samuel Asycough; M. B. is almost as surely a transposition of B. M., i.e. the British Museum, where Ayscough was an assistant librarian. Ayscough was a fairly frequent contributor to the GM; his letters were headed B. M. In any event, the scarce pamphlet is titled "Occasional Reflections in a Journey from London to Norwich and Cambridge," and was "Printed and sold by A. Baldwin, near the Oxford Arms, in Warwick-lane, 1711." While the few extracts given are all of interest in the matter of the sources of A Sentimental Journey, one in particular stands out, an account of an encounter with some beggars which bears marked similarities of tone with the parallel account in the novel. So, too, with the extract having to do with the "horse half-starved and overloaded." Some year and half earlier "An Admirer of Sterne" had anticipated Ayscough, writing in the October 1797 European Magazine (pp. 240-241), that "The story [of the beggars in the Journey] is taken from page 6 of a small pamphlet entitled 'Occasional Reflections in a Journey from London to Norwich and Cambridge.' Printed by A. Baldwin, Warwick-Lane, MDCCXI." Sterne's admirer claimed only that the Reflections was written in the same style as Sterne's; he suggested no plagiarism. The Occasional Reflections runs only to twenty-eight pages, but there is enough matter for students of Sterne, steeped in the two novels, to ponder. The unknown author, like Sterne, was not above coining words, and one will look in vain in the OED for "Petycrain," in a context which plainly means "little brain" (p. 8). It is unfortunate that the Reflections was not known to Gardner D. Stout, Jr., editor of the definitive edition of A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy by Mr. Yorick (1967).