and here and there of a highly unpleasant, kind.  To his friends, Mr. and Mrs. James, too, he writes frequently during this year, chiefly to pour out his soul on the subject of Eliza; and Mrs. James, who is always addressed in company with her husband, enjoys the almost unique distinction of being the only woman outside his own family circle whom Sterne never approaches in the language of artificial gallantry, but always in that of simple friendship and respect.[1] Meanwhile, however, the Sentimental Journey was advancing at a reasonable rate of speed towards completion.  In July he writes of himself as “now beginning to be truly busy” on it, “the pain and sorrows of this life having retarded its progress.”

[Footnote 1:  To this period of Sterne’s life, it may here be remarked, is to be assigned the dog-Latin letter ("and very sad dog-Latin too”) so justly animadverted upon by Thackeray, and containing a passage of which Madame de Medalle, it is to be charitably hoped, had no suspicion of the meaning.  Mr. Fitzgerald, through an oversight in translation, and understanding Sterne to say that he himself, and not his correspondent, Hall Stevenson, was “quadraginta et plus annos natus,” has referred it to an earlier date.  The point, however, is of no great importance, as the untranslatable passage in the letter would be little less unseemly in 1754 or 1755 than in 1768, at the beginning of which year, since the letter is addressed from London to Hall Stevenson, then in Yorkshire, it must, in fact, have been written.]

His wife and daughter were about to rejoin him in the autumn, and he looked forward to settling them at a hired house in York before going up to town to publish his new volumes.  On the 1st of October the two ladies arrived at York, and the next day the reunited family went on to Coxwold.  The meeting with the daughter gave Sterne one of the few quite innocent pleasures which he was capable of feeling; and he writes next day to Mr. and Mrs. James in terms of high pride and satisfaction of his recovered child.  “My girl has returned,” he writes, in the language of playful affection, “an elegant, accomplished little slut.  My wife—­but I hate,” he adds, with remarkable presence of mind, “to praise my wife.  ’Tis as much as decency will allow to praise my daughter.  I suppose,” he concludes, “they will return next summer to France.  They leave me in a month to reside at York for the winter, and I stay at Coxwold till the 1st of January.”  This seems to indicate a little longer delay in the publication of the Sentimental Journey than he had at first intended; for it seems that the book was finished by the end of November.  On the 28th of that month he writes to the Earl of ——­ (as his daughter’s foolish mysteriousness has headed the letter), to thank him for his letter of inquiry about Yorick, and to say that Yorick “has worn out both his spirits and body with the Sentimental Journey.  ’Tis true that an author must