3 Books By Laurence Sterne. Laurence Sterne
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have that eternal propensity to apply them upon all occasions, that a work of genius had better go to the devil at once, than stand to be prick'd and tortured to death by 'em.
--And how did Garrick speak the soliloquy last night?--Oh, against all rule, my lord,--most ungrammatically! betwixt the substantive and the adjective, which should agree together in number, case, and gender, he made a breach thus,--stopping, as if the point wanted settling;--and betwixt the nominative case, which your lordship knows should govern the verb, he suspended his voice in the epilogue a dozen times three seconds and three fifths by a stop watch, my lord, each time.--Admirable grammarian!--But in suspending his voice--was the sense suspended likewise? Did no expression of attitude or countenance fill up the chasm?--Was the eye silent? Did you narrowly look?--I look'd only at the stop-watch, my lord.--Excellent observer!
And what of this new book the whole world makes such a rout about?--Oh! 'tis out of all plumb, my lord,--quite an irregular thing!--not one of the angles at the four corners was a right angle.--I had my rule and compasses, &c. my lord, in my pocket.--Excellent critick!
--And for the epick poem your lordship bid me look at--upon taking the length, breadth, height, and depth of it, and trying them at home upon an exact scale of Bossu's--'tis out, my lord, in every one of its dimensions.--Admirable connoisseur!
--And did you step in, to take a look at the grand picture in your way back?--'Tis a melancholy daub! my lord; not one principle of the pyramid in any one group!--and what a price!--for there is nothing of the colouring of Titian--the expression of Rubens--the grace of Raphael--the purity of Dominichino--the corregiescity of Corregio--the learning of Poussin--the airs of Guido--the taste of the Carrachis--or the grand contour of Angelo.--Grant me patience, just Heaven!--Of all the cants which are canted in this canting world--though the cant of hypocrites may be the worst--the cant of criticism is the most tormenting!
I would go fifty miles on foot, for I have not a horse worth riding on, to kiss the hand of that man whose generous heart will give up the reins of his imagination into his author's hands--be pleased he knows not why, and cares not wherefore.
Great Apollo! if thou art in a giving humour--give me--I ask no more, but one stroke of native humour, with a single spark of thy own fire along with it--and send Mercury, with the rules and compasses, if he can be spared, with my compliments to--no matter.
Now to any one else I will undertake to prove, that all the oaths and imprecations which we have been puffing off upon the world for these two hundred and fifty years last past as originals--except St. Paul's thumb--God's flesh and God's fish, which were oaths monarchical, and, considering who made them, not much amiss; and as kings oaths, 'tis not much matter whether they were fish or flesh;--else I say, there is not an oath, or at least a curse amongst them, which has not been copied over and over again out of Ernulphus a thousand times: but, like all other copies, how infinitely short of the force and spirit of the original!--it is thought to be no bad oath--and by itself passes very well--'G-d damn you.'--Set it beside Ernulphus's--'God almighty the Father damn you--God the Son damn you--God the Holy Ghost damn you'--you see 'tis nothing.--There is an orientality in his, we cannot rise up to: besides, he is more copious in his invention--possess'd more of the excellencies of a swearer--had such a thorough knowledge of the human frame, its membranes, nerves, ligaments, knittings of the joints, and articulations,--that when Ernulphus cursed--no part escaped him.--'Tis true there is something of a hardness in his manner--and, as in Michael Angelo, a want of grace--but then there is such a greatness of gusto!
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