THE AUTHOR of “Tristram Shandy” and the “Sentimental Journey” was as incapable of writing an essay according to rule as he was of telling a story with a plot or a purpose. The “Chapter on Sleep” in “Tristram Shandy” is an essay, to be sure, complete in itself, and in every way admirable. It is one of the best in the English language, but it is accidental as far as Sterne is concerned. It was his deliberate and lifelong habit to begin nowhere in particular and never to end at all. This with his extensive and curious learning (which he is unkindly charged with borrowing in a great measure from Burton’s “Anatomy of Melancholy”) constitutes his peculiar excellence and his greatest charm. Time was when the “Sentimental Journey” and “Tristram Shandy” were considered improper books for family reading, but they have come to be “classics,” and it is well known that all classics are not only safe but necessary virginibus puerisque. It must be noted also that whoever sets out to get his morals corrupted by Sterne will have much labor for his pains,—for it is a “Shandean” habit to tantalize the reader with fifty pages of curious philosophy as the price of getting at the suspicion of a doubtful jest. And moreover, though nothing is more delightful than five minutes of “Tristram Shandy,” nothing could be more calculated to break the spirit than five hours of it. This, however, is not to Sterne’s discredit. He is deliberately disconnected, writing in defiance of all the known laws of the mind’s operation and still succeeding in impressing himself on the English literature of all time. He is not “purely original,” for he followed Rabelais; but while Rabelais has found many imitators, Sterne himself has defied all. He was the first and last representative of a school of English humor of which the world needs nothing more than he has given it,—though of that it could spare nothing. He was born at Clonmel, Ireland, November 24th, 1713. His father was an English officer whose regiment was stationed at Clonmel, and Sterne, after remaining with the regiment until his tenth year, was then sent to school in England. He graduated at Cambridge in 1736, and took orders in the English Established Church, in the ministry of which he remained until his death, March 18th, 1768. His “Sermons” and several volumes of his letters are included with “Tristram Shandy” and the “Sentimental Journey” to make up the total of his works. The “Sermons” are described as “Shandean” in their style, and when first published they were very popular. His best sermon, however, is the story of Le Fevre, in consideration of which he may fairly have asked the recording angel to shed tears enough over the unclerical parts of “Tristram Shandy” to allow its author to pass into heaven in full canonicals without the formality of a trial.