All we have willed or hoped or dreamed of good shall exist;

Not its semblance, but itself; no beauty, nor good, nor power

Whose voice has gone forth, but each survives for the melodist

When eternity affirms the conception of an hour.

The high that proved too high, the heroic for earth too hard,

The passion that left the ground to lose itself in the sky,

Are music sent up to God by the lover and the bard;

Enough that he heard it once: we shall hear it by and by.

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And what is our failure here but a triumph's evidence

For the fullness of the days? Have we withered or agonized?

Why else was the pause prolonged but that singing might issue thence?

Why rushed the discords in, but that harmony should be prized?

Sorrow is hard to bear, and doubt is slow to clear,

Each sufferer says his say, his scheme of the Iweal and woe:

But God has a few of us whom he whispers in the ear;

The rest may reason and welcome: 'tis we musicians know. 88

Not that, amassing flowers,

Youth sighed, "Which rose make ours, Which lily leave and then as best recall?" Not that, admiring stars,

It yearned, "Nor Jove, nor Mars;

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Mine be some figured flame which blends, transcends them all!"

Not for such hopes and fears

Annulling youth's brief years,

Do I remonstrate: folly wide the mark! Rather I prize the doubt

Low kinds exist without,

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17

Finished and finite clods, untroubled by a spark.

Roger Sterne, Sterne's father, was the second son of a numerous race, descendants of Richard Sterne, Archbishop of York, in the reign of Charles II; and children of Simon Sterne and Mary Jaques, his wife, heiress of Elvington, near York. Roger was an ensign in Colonel Hans Hamilton's regiment, and engaged in Flanders in Queen Anne's wars. He married the daughter of a noted sutler,"N. B., he was in debt to him," his son writes, pursuing the paternal biography - and marched through the world with his companion; she following the regiment and bringing many children to poor Roger Sterne. The Captain was an irascible but kind and simple little man, Sterne says, and he informs us that his sire was run through the body at Gibraltar, by a brother officer, in a duel which arose out of a dispute about a goose. Roger never entirely recovered from the effects of this rencontre, but died presently at Jamaica, whither he had followed the drum.

Laurence, his second child, was born at Clonmel, in Ireland, in 1713, and travelled for the first ten years of his life, on his father's march, from barrack to transport, from Ireland to England.

One relative of his mother's took her and her family under shelter for ten months at Mullingar; another collateral descendant of the Archbishop's housed them for a year at his castle near Carrickfergus. Larry Sterne was put to school at Halifax in England, finally was adopted by his kinsman of Elvington, and parted company with his father, the Captain, who marched on his path of life till he met the fatal goose which closed his career. The most picturesque and delightful parts of Laurence Sterne's writings we owe to his recollections of the military life. Trim's montero cap, and Le Fevre's sword, and dear Uncle Toby's ro

4

Laurence remained at Halifax school till he was eighteen years old. His wit and cleverness appear to have acquired the respect of his master here; for when the usher whipped Laurence for writing his name on the newly whitewashed schoolroom ceiling, the pedagogue in chief rebuked the understrapper, and said that the name should never be effaced, for Sterne was a boy of genius, and would come to preferment.

His cousin, the Squire of Elvington, sent Sterne to Jesus College, Cambridge, where he remained some years, and, taking orders,5 got, through his uncle's interest, the living of Sutton and a prebendal stall' at York. Through his wife's connections he got the living of Stillington. He married her in 1741, having ardently courted the young lady for some years previously. It was not until the young lady fancied herself dying, that she made Sterne acquainted with the extent of her liking for him. One evening when he was sitting with her, with an almost broken heart to see her so ill (the Reverend Mr. Sterne's heart was a good deal broken in the course of his life), she said "My dear Laurey, I never can be yours, for I verily believe I have not long to live; but I have left you every shilling of my fortune;" a generosity which overpowered Sterne. She recovered: and so they were married, and grew heartily tired of each other before many years were over. "Nescio quid est materia cum me," Sterne writes to one of his friends (in dog-Latin, and very sad dog-Latin too); "sed sum fatigatus et aegrotus de mea uxore plus quam unquam:" which means, I am sorry to say, "I don't know what is the matter with me; but I am more tired and sick of my wife than ever."

This to be sure was five-and-twenty years after Laurey had been overcome by her generosity, and she by Laurey's love. Then he wrote to her of the delights of marriage, say