BEAUTIES OF STERNE; INCLUDING MANY OF HIS LETTERS AND SERMONS, ALL HIS PATHETIC TALES, HUMOROUS DESCRIPTIONS, AND MOST DISTINGUISHED OBSERVATIONS ON LIFE. THE THIRTEENTH EDITION. Ornamented with feveral PLATES, from Original Drawings. Dear Senfibility! fource inexhausted of all that's precious in our joys, or coftly in our forrows! thou chainest thy martyr down upon his bed of ftraw-and 'tis thou who lifteft him up to HEAVEN! -Eternal fountain of our feelings! 'tis here I S. Journey, p. 226. trace thee. LONDON: PRINTED FOR G. KEARSLEY, J. WALKER; VERNOR 1799. PRICE THREE SHILLINGS AND SIXPENCE SEWED. HENRY SMITH, Esq. SECRETARY TO THE HON. THE BOARD OF ORDNANCE, IN THE KINGDOM OF IRELAND. SIR, A DEDICATION wears, at all times, fo much the air of flattery, that 'tis hard to distinguish between the language dictated by Sincerity, and the fawnings of the Parafite-between the refpect paid by perfonal gratitude to perfonal merit, and the aukward imitations of it offered at the foot of Wealth and Title by the hungry expectant. I fhall, for these reasons, only make one short obfervation on the propriety of my offering these sheets to your patronageThat although nothing doubting but the innate beauty of my favourite author, is capable of attracting the admiration and feizing A 2 feizing the attention of every rank and age -yet having had an opportunity (through the honour of a perfonal intimacy with you) of obferving, not only how reducible, but reduced to practice, is that philanthropy he fo fweetly recommends in every page of his writings,-I have been induced to prefix your name, as a fit head to fuch a body-feeling with what force precept comes home to the heart, ftrengthened by fuch an example. I have therefore to beg you will attribute the liberty I here take with your name to its proper motive, a defire to hold up to the world a mirror, in which they should endeavour to behold their own likenefsand to believe me, with every fentiment of gratitude and respect, SIR, Your moft obliged, And most humble fervant, A. F. THE H E very many editions that have already paffed the prefs, of the "Beauties of Sterne," fufficiently evince the fentiments of the public at large upon the propriety of such a work, and remove those objections which at first might have been supposed to exist-it therefore only remains to point out the amendments the world has a right to look for in the prefent edition. It has been a matter of much general complaint, that the felections hitherto made were of rather too confined a cast,-and that, contrary to the original, the utile and the dulce were not fufficiently blended, or in equal quantities. That as the work was intended both for the recreation of our riper years, and the improvement of the more juvenile mind, it dragg'd on rather too ferious a fyftem of grave morality, unmix'd with those sprightlier fallies of fancy, A 3 which |