OF THE LIFE AND FAMILY OF THE LATE REVEREND MR. LAURENCE STERNE, WRITTEN BY HIMSELF. ROGER STERNE* (grandson to Arch- was ominous to my poor father, who was, bishop Sterne) Lieutenant in Handaside's the day of our arrival, with many other regiment, was married to Agnes Hebert, brave officers, broke, and sent adrift into widow of a Captain of good family. Her the wide world, with a wife and two chilfamily name was (I believe) Nuttle, though dren;-the elder of which was Mary. She upon recollection, that was the name of her was born at Lisle, in French Flanders, July father-in-law, who was a noted sutler in 10, 1712, new style.-This child was the Flanders, in Queen Anne's wars, where my most unfortunate:-She married one Weefather married his wife's daughter, (N. B. mans, in Dublin,-who used her most unhe was in debt to him), which was on Sep- mercifully;-spent his substance, became a tember 25, 1711, old style.-This Nuttle bankrupt, and left my poor sister to shift had a son by my grandmother, a fine per- for herself; which she was able to do but son of a man, but a graceless whelp!-what for a few months, for she went to a friend's became of him I know not.-The family (if house in the country, and died of a broken any left) live now at Clonmel, in the south heart. She was a most beautiful woman,— of Ireland; at which town I was born, No- of a fine figure, and deserved a better fate. vember 24, 1713, a few days after my mo--The regiment in which my father served ther arrived from Dunkirk.-My birth-day being broke, he left Ireland as soon as I was * Mr. Sterne was descended from a family of that name in Suffolk, one of which settled in Nottinghamshire. The following genealogy is extracted from Thoresby's Ducatus Leodinensis, p. 215. SIMON STERNE, of Mansfield. Dr. Richard Sterne, Elizabeth, daughter 1 12 ob. 1670. 3 Richard Sterne, William Sterne, Simon Sterne, Mary daughter of York and of Mansfield. Kilvington, & of Elvington | beiress of Roger and Halifax, Jaques, of Elving able to be carried with the rest of his family, and came to the family seat at Elvington, near York, where his mother lived. She was daughter to Sir Roger Jaques, and an heiress. There we sojourned for about ten months, when the regiment was established, and our household decamped with bag and baggage for Dublin.-Within a month of our arrival, my father left us, being ordered to Exeter; where, in a sad winter, my mother and her two children followed him, travelling from Liverpool, by land, to Mary. Elizabeth. Frances. Plymouth.-(Melancholy description of this journey, not necessary to be transmitted here.)-In twelve months we were all sent back to Dublin.-My mother, with three of us (for she lay-in at Plymouth of a boy, Joram) took ship at Bristol, for Ireland, and Trifling circumstances are worthy of notice, when had a narrow escape from being cast away, connected with distinguished characters. The arms by a leak springing up in the vessel.-At of Mr. Sterne's family are no otherwise important length after many perils and struggles we for one of the finest stories in "The Sentimental got to Dublin. There my father took a large house, furnished it, and in a year and a-half's 11 12 Richard. ROGER. Richard. 13 Jaquez, LL.D. ob. 1759. 14 LAURENCE STERNE. The arms of the family, says Guillam, in his book of Heraldry, p. 77, are, Or, a chevron between three crosses flory, sable. The crest, on a wreath of his colors, a starling proper. than on account of the crest having afforded a hint Journey." time spent a great deal of money.-In the to write, &c.-The regiment ordered in year one thousand seven hundred and nine- twenty-two to Carrickfergus, in the north teen, all unhinged again; the regiment was of Ireland. We all decamped; but got no ordered, with many others, to the Isle of further than Drogheda;-thence ordered Wight, in order to embark for Spain in to Mullengar, forty miles west, where, by the Vigo expedition. We accompanied the Providence, we stumbled upon a kind relaregiment, and were driven into Milford- tion, a collateral descendant from ArchHaven, but landed at Bristol; from thence, bishop Sterne, who took us all to his casby land, to Plymouth again, and to the Isle tle, and kindly entertained us for a year, of Wight; where, I remember, we staid and sent us to the regiment at Carrickencamped some time before the embarkation fergus, loaded with kindnesses, &c. A of the troops (in this expedition, from most rueful and tedious journey had we Bristol to Hampshire, we lost poor Joram, all (in March) to Carrickfergus, where we -a pretty boy, four years old, of the small- arrived in six or seven days.-Little Devipox) my mother, sister, and myself, re- jeher here died; he was three years old: he mained at the Isle of Wight during the Vigo had been left behind at nurse at a farmexpedition, and until the regiment had got house near Wicklow, but was fetch'd to us back to Wicklow, in Ireland; from whence by my father the summer after:-another my father sent for us.We had poor Joram's child sent to fill his place, Susan. This loss supplied, during our stay in the Isle of babe too left us behind in this weary jourWight, by the birth of a girl, Anne, born ney. The autumn of that year, or the September the twenty-third, one thousand spring afterwards (I forget which) my faseven hundred and nineteen.-This pretty ther got leave of his colonel to fix me at blossom fell at the age of three years, in the school,—which he did near Halifax, with barracks of Dublin:-She was, as I well an able master; with whom I staid some remember, of a fine delicate frame, not time, till by God's care of me, my cousin made to last long, as were most of my Sterne, of Elvington, became a father to me, father's babes. We embarked for Dublin, and sent me to the university, &c. &c.—To and had all been cast away by a most vio- pursue the thread of our story, my father's lent storm; but through the intercessions regiment was the year after ordered to Lonof my mother, the captain was prevailed donderry, where another sister was brought upon to turn back into Wales, where we forth, Catherine, still living; but most unstaid a month, and at length got into Dub- happily estranged from me by my uncle's lin, and travelled by land to Wicklow; wickedness and her own folly. From this where my father had for some weeks given station the regiment was sent to defend us over for lost.-We lived in the barracks Gibraltar, at the siege, where my father at Wicklow, one year (one thousand seven was run through the body by Captain Philhundred and twenty) when Devijeher (so lips, in a duel (the quarrel began about a called after Colonel Devijeher) was born; goose!) with much difficulty, he survived, from thence we decamped to stay half a though with an impaired constitution, which year with Mr. Fetherston, a clergyman, was not able to withstand the hardships it about seven miles from Wicklow; who be- was put to; for he was sent to Jamaica, ing a relation of my mother's, invited us to where he soon fell by the country fever, his parsonage at Animo.-It was in this which took away his senses first, and made parish, during our stay, that I had that won- a child of him; and then, in a month or two, derful escape in falling through a mill-race walking about continually without comwhilst the mill was going, and of being plaining, till the moment he sat down in taken up unhurt: the story is incredible, an arm-chair, and breathed his last, which but known for truth in all that part of Ire- was at Port Antonio, on the north of the land, where hundreds of the common people island. My father was a little smart man, flocked to see me. From hence we followed active to the last degree in all exercises, the regiment to Dublin, where we lay in most patient of fatigue and disappointments, the barracks a year. In this year (one thou- of which it pleased God to give him full sand seven hundred and twenty-one) I learnt measure. He was, in his temper, some |
