The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman - Laurence Sterne [305]
DEDICATION
1. Lord Viscount SPENCER: John Spencer, first Earl of Spencer (1734–83), became Viscount Spencer of Althorp in 1761, the year he met Sterne, with whom he remained friendly. The manuscript of the Le Fever episode, which Sterne gave to (Margaret) Georgiana, Lady Spencer, has surfaced in the British Library and been published by Melvyn New, Scriblerian and the Kit-Cats, 23 (1991). The great-grandson of Marlborough, the commander of the British armies when Toby fought, is a fitting dedicatee for these volumes. Sterne wrote to him on October 1, 1765, thanking him for a present, and in 1767 he received a portable writing desk from Spencer, who also subscribed to his Sermons.
CHAP. I
Starting with vol. V, Sterne signed each copy of a new installment (vols. V, VII, IX) on the first page of chapter i (“L. Sterne”) in order to deter piracy.
1. postilion: the rider of the near horse of two on a chaise.
2. Stilton to Stamford: coach stops fourteen miles apart on the Great North Road from London to Edinburgh (York Road).
3. the great God of day: This phrase may come from Elijah Fenton (1683–1730), “An Ode to the Sun, For the New Year, 1707.”
4. Shall we for ever … rope: These two sentiments on plagiarism come nearly verbatim from the Preface to Robert Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy (“Democritus Junior to the Reader,” 6). This source was first noted by John Ferriar, Illustrations of Sterne (London, 1798), who stressed Sterne’s plagiarism. Modern scholars have been quick to note a playful doubling effect and believe that Sterne expected many readers to perceive the ludicrousness of a “plagiarized” passage against plagiarism. Burton is at once warning of plagiarism and defending his borrowings as his method of writing. Sterne does something similar with an allusion to Henry Fielding, VI, xxxviii, n. 1 below.
5. MAN, with powers … Aristotle: This passage, which draws heavily on the beginning of Anatomy (1.1.1.1) while recasting and partially translating it, picks up things not in Burton, such as Zoroaster’s book (peri phuseos: Concerning Nature), the term “SHEKINAH,” and the references to Aristotle and St. John Chrysostom. “The marvel of marvels” is Plato’s term, not Aristotle’s.
6. Horace … occasion: Horace’s “O imitatores, servum pecus” (“O imitators, servile herd”), Epistles I, xix, 19, was frequently quoted against critics.
7. catachresis in the wish: technically, a misuse of a trope, such as a mixed metaphor; here, his punning use of farcy/farcical.
8. the farcy: a disease of animals, usually horses.
9. sublimate them: raise them to a higher or more refined status.
10. shag-rag and bob-tail: proverbial: the rabble. Bobtail, from the cut-off tail of a horse or dog, came to mean a “contemptible” man (OED). See Tilley, T10.
11. mort main: literally, dead hand; therefore, a perpetual control over that which is left by will (law French).
12. Tartufs: religious hypocrites, after the title character, Tartuffe, in Molière’s comedy (1664).
13. queen of Navarre: Marguerite de Valois (1553–1615), Queen of France and Navarre. William Jackson (“On Literary Thievery,” The Four Ages [London, 1798]) found Sterne used Bayle for this information: La Fosseuse and La Rebours are mentioned as ladies of the court and rivals for Henry’s attention (245). Florida notes that Carnavalet (Sterne’s Carnavallette) is in Bayle also.
14. farthingal: a hooped petticoat or dress, typical of the Renaissance.
15. St. Ursula … St. Bridget: St. Wilgeforte was a bearded female saint, but neither St. Ursula nor St. Bridget is so described.
16. order of mercy: The Order of Our Lady of Mercy (Mercedarians) was a congregation of