which to us in these days have become absolutely pathetic in their felicity of falsified prediction.  Seeing, too, that a good three-fourths of the attractions which won Sterne his contemporary popularity are now so much dead weight of dead matter, and that the vital residuum is in amount so small, the fate of Richardson might seem to be but too close behind him.  Yet it is difficult to believe that this fate will ever quite overtake him.  His sentiment may have mostly ceased—­it probably has ceased—­to stir any emotion at all in these days; but there is an imperishable element in his humour.  And though the circle of his readers may have no tendency to increase, one can hardly suppose that a charm, which those who still feel it feel so keenly, will ever entirely cease to captivate; or that time can have any power over a perfume which so wonderfully retains the pungent freshness of its fragrance after the lapse of a hundred years.

THE END.