CHAPTER III

THE PUBLICATION OF THE SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY

On February 27, 1768, the Sentimental Journey was published in London,[1] less than three weeks before the author's death, and the book was at once transplanted to German soil, beginning there immediately its career of commanding influence and wide-spread popularity.

Several causes operated together in favoring its pronounced and immediate success. A knowledge of Sterne existed among the more intelligent lovers of English literature in Germany, the leaders of thought, whose voice compelled attention for the understandable, but was powerless to create appreciation for the unintelligible among the lower ranks of readers. This knowledge and appreciation of Yorick were immediately available for the furtherance of Sterne's fame as soon as a work of popular appeal was published. The then prevailing interest in travels is, further, not to be overlooked as a forceful factor in securing immediate recognition for the Sentimental Journey.[2] At no time in the world's history has the popular interest in books of travel, containing geographical and topographical description, and information concerning peoples and customs, been greater than during this period. The presses teemed with stories of wanderers in known and unknown lands. The preface to the _Neue Zeitungen von Gelehrten Sachen_ of Leipzig for the year 1759 heralds as a matter of importance a gain in geographical description. The _Jenaische Zeitungen von Gelehrten Sachen_, 1773, makes in its tables of contents, a separate division of travels. In 1759, also, the "Allgemeine Historie der Reisen zu Wasser und zu Lande" (Leipzig, 1747-1774), reached its seventeenth volume. These are brief indications among numerous similar instances of the then predominant interest in the wanderer's experience. Sterne's second work of fiction, though differing in its nature so materially from other books of travel, may well, even if only from the allurement of its title, have shared the general enthusiasm for the traveler's narrative. Most important, however, is the direct appeal of the book itself, irresistible to the German mind and heart. Germany had been for a decade hesitating on the verge of tears, and grasped with eagerness a book which seemed to give her British sanction for indulgence in her lachrymose desire.

The portion of Shandy which is virtually a part of the Sentimental Journey,[3] which Sterne, possibly to satisfy the demands of the publisher, thrust in to fill out volumes contracted for, was not long enough, nor distinctive enough in its use of sentiment, was too effectually concealed in its volume of Shandean quibbles, to win readers for the whole of Shandy, or to direct wavering attention through the mazes of Shandyism up to the point where the sentimental Yorick really takes up the pen and introduces the reader to the sad fate of Maria of Moulines. One can imagine eager Germany aroused to sentimental frenzy over the Maria incident in the Sentimental Journey, turning with throbbing contrition to the forgotten, neglected, or unknown passage in Tristram Shandy.[4]

It is difficult to trace sources for Sterne in English letters, that is, for the strange combination of whimsicality, genuine sentiment and knavish smiles, which is the real Sterne. He is individual, exotic, not demonstrable from preceding literary conditions, and his meteoric, or rather rocket-like career in Britain is in its decline a proof of the insensibility of the English people to a large portion of his gospel. The creature of fancy which, by a process of elimination, the Germans made out of Yorick is more easily explicable from existing and preceding literary and emotional conditions in Germany.[5] Brockes had prepared the way for a sentimental view of nature, Klopstock's poetry had fostered the display of emotion, the analysis of human feeling. Gellert had spread his own sort of religious and ethical sentimentalism among the multitudes of his devotees. Stirred by, and contemporaneous with Gallic feeling, Germany was turning with longing toward the natural man, that is, man unhampered by convention and free to follow the dictates of the primal emotions. The exercise of human sympathy was a goal of this movement. In this vague, uncertain awakening, this dangerous freeing of human feelings, Yorick's practical illustration of the sentimental life could not but prove an incentive, an organizer, a relief for pent-up emotion.[6]

Johann Joachim Christoph Bode has already been mentioned in relation to the early review of Zückert's translation of Shandy. His connection with the rapid growth of the Yorick cult after the publication of the Sentimental Journey demands a more extended account of this German apostle of Yorick. In the sixth volume of Bode's translation of Montaigne[7] was printed first the life of the translator by C. A. Böttiger. This was published the following year by the same house in a separate volume entitled "J. J. C. Bodes literarisches Leben, nebst dessen Bildnis von Lips." All other sources of information regarding Bode, such as the accounts in Jördens and in Schlichtegroll's "Nekrolog,"[8] are derivations or abstracts from this biography. Bode was born in Braunschweig in 1730; reared in lowly circumstances and suffering various vicissitudes of fortune, he came to Hamburg in 1756-7. Gifted with a talent for languages, which he had cultivated assiduously, he was regarded at the time of his arrival, even in Hamburg, as one especially conversant with the English language and literature. His nature must have borne something akin to Yorick, for his biographer describes his position in Hamburg society as not dissimilar to that once occupied for a brief space in the London world by the clever fêted Sterne. Yet the enthusiasm of the friend as biographer doubtless colors the case, forcing a parallel with Yorick by sheer necessity. Before 1768 Bode had published several translations from the English with rather dubious success, and the adaptability of the Sentimental Journey to German uses must have occurred to him, or have been suggested to him directly upon its very importation into Germany. He undoubtedly set himself to the task of translation as soon as the book reached his hands, for, in the issue of the _Hamburgische Adress-Comptoir-Nachrichten_ for April 20, is found Bode's translation of a section from the Sentimental Journey. "Die Bettler" he names the extract; it is really the fifth of the sections which Sterne labels "Montriul."[9] In the numbers of the same paper for June 11 and 15, Bode translates in two parts the story of the "Monk;" thus, in but little over three months after its English publication, the story of the poor Franciscan Lorenzo and his fateful snuff-box was transferred to Germany and began its heart-touching career. These excerpts were included by Bode later in the year when he published his translation of the whole Sentimental Journey. The first extract was evidently received with favor and interest, for, in the foreword to the translation of the "Monk," in the issue of June 11, Bode assigns this as his reason for making his readers better acquainted with this worthy book. He further says that the reader of taste and insight will not fail to distinguish the difference when so fine a connoisseur of the human heart as Sterne depicts sentiments, and when a shallow wit prattles of his emotions. Bode's last words are a covert assumption of his rôle as prophet and priest of Yorick in Germany: "The reader may himself judge from the following passage, whether we have spoken of our Briton in terms of too high praise."

In the July number of the _Unterhaltungen_, another Hamburg periodical, is printed another translation from the Sentimental Journey entitled: "Eine Begebenheit aus Yoricks Reise fürs Herz übersetzt." The episode is that of the _fille de chambre_[10] who is seeking Crébillon's "Les Egarements du Coeur et de l'Esprit." The translator omits the first part of the section and introduces us to the story with a few unacknowledged words of his own. In the September number of the same periodical the rest of the _fille de chambre_ story[11] is narrated. Here also the translator alters the beginning of the account to make it less abrupt in the rendering. The author of this translation has not been determined. Bode does not translate the word "Sentimental" in his published extracts, giving merely the English title; hence Lessing's advice[12] concerning the rendering of the word dates probably from the latter part of the summer. The translation in the September number of the _Unterhaltungen_ also does not contain a rendering of the word. Bode's complete translation was issued probably in October,[13] possibly late in September, 1768, and bore the imprint of the publisher Cramer in Hamburg and Bremen, but the volumes were printed at Bode's own press and were entitled "Yoricks Empfindsame Reise durch Frankreich und Italien, aus dem Englischen übersetzt."[14]

The translator's preface occupies twenty pages and is an important document in the story of Sterne's popularity in Germany, since it represents the introductory battle-cry of the Sterne cult, and illustrates the attitude of cultured Germany toward the new star. Bode begins his foreword with Lessing's well-known statement of his devotion to Sterne. Bode does not name Lessing; calls him "a well-known German scholar." The statement referred to was made when Bode brought to his friend the news of Sterne's death. It is worth repeating:

"I would gladly have resigned to him five years of my own life, if such a thing were possible, though I had known with certainty that I had only ten, or even eight left. . . . but under the condition that he must keep on writing, no matter what, life and opinions, or sermons, or journeys." On July 5, 1768, Lessing wrote to Nicolai, commenting on Winckelmann's death as follows: "He is the second author within a short time, to whom I would have gladly given some years of my own life."[15]

Nearly thirty years later (March 20, 1797) Sara Wulf, whose maiden name was Meyer and who was later and better known as Frau von Grotthus, wrote from Dresden to Goethe of the consolation found in "Werther" after a disappointing youthful love affair, and of Lessing's conversation with her then concerning Goethe. She reports Lessing's words as follows: "You will feel sometime what a genius Goethe is, I am sure of this. I have always said I would give ten years of my own life if I had been able to lengthen Sterne's by one year, but Goethe consoles me in some measure for his loss."[16]

It would be absurd to attach any importance to this variation of statement. It does not indicate necessarily an affection for Sterne and a regret at his loss, mathematically doubled in these seven or eight years between Sterne's death and the time of Lessing's conversation with Sara Meyer; it probably arises from a failure of memory on the part of the lady, for Bode's narrative of the anecdote was printed but a few months after Sterne's death, and Lessing made no effort to correct an inaccuracy of statement, if such were the case, though he lived to see four editions of Bode's translation and consequently so many repetitions of his expressed but impossible desire. Erich Schmidt[17] reduces this willingness on Lessing's part to one year,--an unwarranted liberty.

These two testimonies of Lessing's devotion are of importance in defining his attitude toward Yorick. They attest the fact that this was no passing fancy, no impulsive thought uttered on the moment when the news of Sterne's death was brought to him, and when the Sentimental Journey could have been but a few weeks in his hands, but a deep-seated desire, born of reflection and continued admiration.[18] The addition of the word "Reisen" in Bode's narrative is significant, for it shows that Lessing must have become acquainted with the Sentimental Journey before April 6, the date of the notice of Sterne's death in the _Hamburgische Adress-Comptoir-Nachrichten_;[19] that is, almost immediately after its English publication, unless Bode, in his enthusiasm for the book which he was offering the public, inserted the word unwarrantably in Lessing's statement.

To return to Bode's preface. With emphatic protestations, disclaiming vanity in appealing to the authority of so distinguished a friend, Bode proceeds to relate more in detail Lessing's connection with his endeavor. He does not say that Lessing suggested the translation to him, though his account has been interpreted to mean that, and this fact has been generally accepted by the historians of literature and the biographers of Lessing.[20] The tone of Bode's preface, however, rather implies the contrary, and no other proof of the supposition is available. What Bode does assert is merely that the name of the scholar whom he quotes as having expressed a willingness to give a part of his own life if Sterne's literary activity might be continued, would create a favorable prepossession for his original ("ein günstiges Vorurtheil"), and that a translator is often fortunate enough if his selection of a book to translate is not censured. All this implies, on Lessing's part, only an approval of Bode's choice, a fact which would naturally follow from the remarkable statement of esteem in the preceding sentence. Bode says further that out of friendship for him and regard for the reader of taste, this author (Lessing), had taken the trouble to go through the whole translation, and then he adds the conventional request in such circumstances, that the errors remaining may be attributed to the translator and not to the friend.

The use of the epithet "empfindsam" for "sentimental" is then the occasion for some discussion, and its source is one of the facts involved in Sterne's German vogue which seem to have fastened themselves on the memory of literature. Bode had in the first place translated the English term by "sittlich," a manifestly insufficient if not flatly incorrect rendering, but his friend coined the word "empfindsam" for the occasion and Bode quotes Lessing's own words on the subject:

"Bemerken Sie sodann dass sentimental ein neues Wort ist. War es Sternen erlaubt, sich ein neues Wort zu bilden, so muss es eben darum auch seinem Uebersetzer erlaubt seyn. Die Engländer hatten gar kein Adjectivum von Sentiment: wir haben von Empfindung mehr als eines, empfindlich, empfindbar, empfindungsreich, aber diese sagen alle etwas anders. Wagen Sie, empfindsam! Wenn eine mühsame Reise eine Reise heisst, bey der viel Mühe ist: so kann ja auch eine empfindsame Reise eine Reise heissen, bey der viel Empfindung war. Ich will nicht sagen, dass Sie die Analogie ganz auf ihrer Seite haben dürften. Aber was die Leser vors erste bey dem Worte noch nicht denken mögen, sie sich nach und nach dabey zu denken gewöhnen."[21]

The statement that Sterne coined the word "sentimental" is undoubtedly incorrect,[22] but no one seems to have discovered and corrected the error till Nicolai's article on Sterne in the _Berlinische Monatsschrift_ for February, 1795, in which it is shown that the word had been used in older English novels, in "Sir Charles Grandison" indeed.[23] It may well be that, as Böttiger hints,[24] the coining of the word "empfindsam" was suggested to Lessing by Abbt's similar formation of "empfindnisz."[25]

[Transcriber's Note: The reference is to Böttinger, not to the present text.]

The preface to this first edition of Bode's translation of the Sentimental Journey contains, further, a sketch of Sterne's life,[26] his character and his works. Bode relates the familiar story of the dog, but misses the point entirely in rendering "puppy" by "Geck" in Sterne's reply, "So lang er ein Geck ist." The watchcoat episode is narrated, and a brief account is given of Sterne's fortunes in London with Tristram Shandy and the sermons. Allusion has already been made to the hints thrown out in this sketch relative to the reading of Sterne in Germany. A translation from Shandy of the passage descriptive of Parson Yorick serves as a portrait for Sterne.

A second edition of Bode's work was published in 1769. The preface, which is dated "Anfang des Monats Mai, 1769," is in the main identical with the first, but has some significant additions. A word is said relative to his controversy with a critic, which is mentioned later.[27] Bode confesses further that the excellence of his work is due to Ebert and Lessing,[28] though modesty compelled his silence in the previous preface concerning the source of his aid. Bode admits that even this disclosure is prompted by the clever guess of a critic in the _Hamburgischer unpartheyischer Correspondent_,[29] who openly named Lessing as the scholar referred to in the first introduction. The addition and prominence of Ebert's name is worthy of note, for in spite of the plural mention[30] in the appendix to the introduction, his first acknowledgment is to one friend only and there is no suggestion of another counselor. Ebert's connection with the Bode translation has been overlooked in the distribution of influence, while the memorable coining of the new word, supplemented by Böttiger's unsubstantiated statements, has emphasized Lessing's service in this regard. Ebert is well-known as an intelligent and appreciative student of English literature, and as a translator, but his own works betray no trace of imitation or admiration of Sterne.

The final words of this new preface promise a translation of the continuation of the Sentimental Journey; the spurious volumes of Eugenius are, of course, the ones meant here. This introduction to the second edition remains unchanged in the subsequent ones. The text of the second edition was substantially an exact reproduction of the first, but Bode allowed himself frequent minor changes of word or phrase, an alteration occurring on an average once in about three pages. Bode's changes are in general the result of a polishing or filing process, in the interest of elegance of discourse, or accuracy of translation. Bode acknowledges that some of the corrections were those suggested by a reviewer,[31] but states that other passages criticised were allowed to stand as they were. He says further that he would have asked those friends who had helped him on his translation itself to aid him in the alterations, if distance and other conditions had allowed. The reference here is naturally to his separation from Ebert, who was in Braunschweig, but the other "conditions" which could prevent a continuation of Lessing's interest in the translation and his assistance in revision are not evident. Lessing was in Hamburg during this period, and hence his advice was available.

Bode's retranslation of the passage with which Sterne's work closed shows increased perception and appreciation for the subtleness of Sterne's indecent suggestions, or, perhaps, a growing lack of timidity or scruple in boldly repeating them. It is probable that the continuation by Eugenius, which had come into his hands during this period, had, with its resumption of the point, reminded Bode of the inadequacy and inexactness of his previous rendering.

At almost precisely the same time that Bode's translation appeared, another German rendering was published, a fact which in itself is significant for the determination of the relative strength of appeal as between Sterne's two works of fiction. The title[32] of this version was "Versuch über die menschliche Natur in Herrn Yoricks, Verfasser des Tristram Shandy, Reisen durch Frankreich und Italien, aus dem Englischen." It was dated 1769 and was published at the "Fürstliche Waisenhausbuchhandlung," in Braunschweig. The preface is signed Braunschweig, September 7, 1768, and the book was issued in September or October. The anonymous translator was Pastor Mittelstedt[33] in Braunschweig (Hirsching und Jördens say Hofprediger), whom the partisan Böttiger calls the ever-ready manufacturer of translations (der allezeit fertige Uebersetzungsfabrikant). Behmer tentatively suggests Weis as the translator of this early rendering, an error into which he is led evidently by a remark in Bode's preface in which the apologetic translator states the rumor that Weis was engaged in translating the same book, and that he (Bode) would surely have locked up his work in his desk if the publisher had not thereby been led to suffer loss. Nothing was ever heard of this third translation.

This first edition of the Mittelstedt translation contains 248 pages and is supplied with a preface which is, like Bode's, concerned in considerable measure with the perplexing problem of the translation of Sterne's title. The English title is given and the word "sentimental" is declared a new one in England and untranslatable in German. Mittelstedt proposes "Gefühlvolle Reisen," "Reisen fürs Herz," "Philosophische Reisen," and then condemns his own suggestions as indeterminate and forced. He then goes on to say, "So I have chosen the title which Yorick himself suggests in the first part."[34] He speaks of the lavish praise already bestowed on this book by the learned journals, and turns at last aside to do the obvious: he bemoans Sterne's death by quoting Hamlet and closes with an apostrophe to Sterne translated from the April number of the _Monthly Review_ for 1768.[35] In 1769, the year when the first edition was dated, the Mittelstedt translation was published under a slightly altered title, as already mentioned. This second edition of the Mittelstedt translation in the same year as the first is overlooked by Jördens and Hirsching,[36] both of whom give a second and hence really a third edition in 1774. Böttiger notes with partisan zeal that Bode's translation was made use of in some of the alterations of this second edition, and further records the fact that the account of Sterne's life, added in this edition, was actually copied from Bode's preface.[37]

The publication of the Mittelstedt translation was the occasion of a brief controversy between the two translators in contemporary journals. Mittelstedt printed his criticism of Bode's work in a home paper, the _Braunschweiger Intelligenzblätter_, and Bode spoke out his defense in the _Neue Hamburger Zeitung_. That Bode in his second edition adopted some of the reviewer's suggestions and criticisms has been noted, but in the preface to this edition he declines to resume the strife in spite of general expectation of it, but, as a final shot, he delivers himself of "an article from his critical creed," that the "critic is as little infallible as author or translator," which seems, at any rate, a rather pointless and insignificant contribution to the controversy.

Bode's translation of the third and fourth volumes of Yorick's Journey,[38] that is, the continuation by Eugenius, followed directly after the announcement in the preface to the second edition of the first two volumes, as already mentioned. Böttiger states that Bode had this continuation from Alberti and knew it before anyone else in Germany. It was published in England in the spring of 1769, and was greeted with a disapproval which was quite general, and it never enjoyed there any considerable genuine popularity or recognition. Bode published this translation of Stevenson's work without any further word of comment or explanation whatsoever, a fact which easily paved the way for a misunderstanding relative to the volumes, for Bode was frequently regarded as their author and held responsible for their defects. Bode himself never made any satisfactory or adequate explanation of his attitude toward these volumes, and the reply to Goeze in the introduction to his translation of Shandy is the nearest approach to a discussion of his position. But there Bode is concerned only with the attack made by the Hamburg pastor upon his character, an inference drawn from the nature of the book translated, and the character of the translation; in the absence of a new edition in which "Mine and His shall be marked off by distinct boundaries," he asks Goeze only to send to him, and beg "for original and translation," naturally for the purpose of comparison. This evasive reply is Bode's only defense or explanation. Böttiger claims that the review of Bode's translation in the _Allgemeine deutsche Bibliothek_ did much to spread the idea of Bode's authorship, though the reviewer in that periodical[39] only suggests the possibility of German authorship, a suspicion aroused by the substitution of German customs and motif and word-play, together with contemporary literary allusion, allusion to literary mediocrities and obscurities, of such a nature as to preclude the possibility of the book's being a literal translation from the English.

The exact amount and the nature of Bode's divergence from the original, his alterations and additions, have never been definitely stated by anyone. The reviewer in the _Allgemeine deutsche Bibliothek_ is manifestly ignorant of the original. Böttiger is indefinite and partisan, yet his statement of the facts has been generally accepted and constantly repeated. He admits the German coloring given the translation by Bode through German allusions and German word-plays: he says that Bode allowed himself these liberties, feeling that he was no longer dealing with Sterne, a statement of motive on Bode's part which the latter never makes and never hints at. The only absolute additions which Böttiger mentions as made by Bode to the narrative of Eugenius are the episode, "Das Hündchen," and the digression, "Die Moral." The erroneous idea herein implied has been caught up and repeated by nearly everyone who has mentioned Bode's translation of the work.[40] The less certain allusion to "Die Moral" has been lost sight of, and "Das Hündchen" alone has been remembered as representing this activity on Bode's part. In fact this episode is only one of many pure creations on Bode's part and one of the briefer. In the first pages of these volumes Bode is faithful to the original, a fact suggesting that examination or comparison of the original text and Bode's translation was never carried beyond the first two-score pages; yet here, it would seem, Bode's rendering was less careful, more open to censure for inaccuracy, than in the previous volumes.[41]

This method of translation obtains up to page 48, then Bode omits a half-page of half-innocent, half-revolting suggestion, the story of the Cordelier, and from the middle of page 49 to page 75, twenty-five pages, the translator adds material absolutely his own. This fiction, introducing Yorick's sentimental attitude toward the snuff-box, resuming a sentimental episode in Sterne's work, full of tears and sympathy, is especially characteristic of Yorick, as the Germans conceived him. The story is entitled "Das Mündel,"[42] "The Ward," and is evidently intended as a masculine companion-piece to the fateful story of Maria of Moulines, linked to it even in the actual narrative itself. An unfortunate, half-crazed man goes about in silence, performing little services in an inn where Yorick finds lodging. The hostess tells his story. He was once the brilliant son of the village miller, was well-educated and gifted with scholarly interests and attainments. While instructing some children at Moulines, he meets a peasant girl, and love is born between them. An avaricious brother opposes Jacques's passion and ultimately confines him in secret, spreading the report in Moulines of his faithlessness to his love. After a tragedy has released Jacques from his unnatural bondage, he learns of his loved one's death and loses his mental balance through grief. Such an addition to the brief pathos of Maria's story, as narrated by Sterne, such a forced explanation of the circumstances, is peculiarly commonplace and inartistic. Sterne instinctively closed the episode with sufficient allowance for the exercise of the imagination.

Following this addition, the section "Slander" of the original is omitted. The story of the adventure with the opera-girl is much changed. The bald indecency of the narrative is somewhat softened by minor substitutions and omissions. Nearly two pages are inserted here, in which Yorick discourses on the difference between a sentimental traveler and an _avanturier_. On pages 122-126, the famous "Hündchen" episode is narrated, an insertion taking the place of the hopelessly vulgar "Rue Tireboudin." According to this narrative, Yorick, after the fire, enters a home where he finds a boy weeping over a dead dog and refusing to be comforted with promises of other canine possessions. The critics united in praising this as being a positive addition to the Yorick adventures, as conceived and related in Sterne's finest manner. After the lapse of more than a century, one can acknowledge the pathos, the humanity of the incident, but the manner is not that of Sterne. It is a simple, straight-forward relation of the touching incident, introducing that element of the sentimental movement which bears in Germany a close relation to Yorick, and was exploited, perhaps, more than any other feature of his creed, as then interpreted, _i.e._, the sentimental regard for the lower animals.[43] But there is lacking here the inevitable concomitant of Sterne's relation of a sentimental situation, the whimsicality of the narrator in his attitude at the time of the adventure, or reflective whimsicality in the narration. Sterne is always whimsically quizzical in his conduct toward a sentimental condition, or toward himself in the analysis of his conduct.

After the "Vergebene Nachforschung" (Unsuccessful Inquiry), which agrees with the original, Bode adds two pages covering the touching solicitude of La Fleur for his master's safety. This addition is, like the "Hündchen" episode, just mentioned, of considerable significance, for it illustrates another aspect of Sterne's sentimental attitude toward human relations, which appealed to the Germany of these decades and was extensively copied; the connection between master and man. Following this added incident, Bode omits completely three sections of Eugenius's original narrative, "The Definition," "Translation of a Fragment" and "An Anecdote;" all three are brief and at the same time of baldest, most revolting indecency. In all, Bode's direct additions amount in this first volume to about thirty-three pages out of one hundred and forty-two. The divergences from the original are in the second volume (the fourth as numbered from Sterne's genuine Journey) more marked and extensive: above fifty pages are entirely Bode's own, and the individual alterations in word, phrase, allusion and sentiment are more numerous and unwarranted. The more significant of Bode's additions are here noted. "Die Moral" (pages 32-37) contains a fling at Collier, the author of a mediocre English translation of Klopstock's "Messias," and another against Kölbele, a contemporary German novelist, whose productions have long since been forgotten.[44]

Eugenius's chapter, "Vendredi-Saint," Bode sees fit to alter in a rather extraordinary way, by changing the personnel and giving it quite another introduction. He inserts here a brief account of Walter Shandy, his disappointment at Tristram's calamitous nose and Tristram's name, and his resolve to perfect his son's education; and then he makes the visit to M'lle Laborde, as narrated by Eugenius, an episode out of Walter Shandy's book, which was written for Tristram's instruction, and, according to Bode, was delivered for safe-keeping into Yorick's hands. Bode changes M'lle Laborde into M'lle Gillet, and Walter Shandy is her visitor, not Yorick. Bode allows himself some verbal changes and softens the bald suggestion at the end. Bode's motive for this startling change is not clear beyond question. The most plausible theory is that the open and gross suggestion of immoral relation between Yorick, the clergyman and moralist, and the Paris maiden, seemed to Bode inconsistent with the then current acceptation of Yorick's character; and hence he preferred by artifice to foist the misdemeanor on to the elder Shandy.

The second extensive addition of Bode's in this volume is the section called "Die Erklärung," and its continuation in the two following divisions, a story which unites itself with the "Fragment" in Sterne's original narration. Yorick is ill and herbs are brought to him in paper wrappings which turn out to contain the story of the decayed gentleman, which, according to Sterne's relation, the Notary was beginning to write. It will be remembered that the introduction in Sterne was also brought by La Fleur as a bit of wrapping paper. This curious coincidence, this prosaic resumption of the broken narrative, is naïve at least, but can hardly commend itself to any critic as being other than commonplace and bathetic. The story itself, as related by the dying man is a tale of accidental incest told quietly, earnestly, but without a suggestion of Sterne's wit or sentiment.

In the next section, emanating entirely from Bode, "Vom Gesundheitstrinken," the author is somewhat more successful in catching the spirit of Sterne in his buoyancy, and in his whimsical anecdote telling: it purports to be an essay by the author's friend, Grubbius. The last addition made by Bode[45] introduces once more Yorick's sentiment relative to man's treatment of the animal world. Yorick, walking in the garden of an acquaintance, shoots a sparrow and meets with reproof from the owner of the garden. Yorick protests prosaically that it was only a sparrow, yet on being assured that it was also a living being, he succumbs to vexation and self-reproof at his own failure to be true to his own higher self. A similar regret, a similar remorse at sentimental thoughtlessness, is recorded of the real Yorick in connection with the Franciscan, Lorenzo. But there is present in Sterne's story the inevitable element of caprice in thought or action, the whimsical inconsistency of varying moods, not a mere commonplace lapse from a sentimental creed. In one case, Yorick errs through whim, in the other, merely through heedlessness.

Bode's attitude toward the continuation of Eugenius and the general nature of his additions have been suggested by the above account. A résumé of the omissions and the verbal changes would indicate that they were made frequently because of the indecency of the original; the transference of the immorality in the episode of M'lle. Laborde and Walter Shandy, if the reason above suggested be allowed, is further proof of Bode's solicitude for Yorick's moral reputation. Yet the retention of the episode "Les Gants d'Amour" in its entirety, and of parts of the continued story of the Piedmontese, may seem inconsistent and irreconcilable with any absolute objection on Bode's part other than a quantitative one, to this loathesome element of the Eugenius narrative.

Albrecht Wittenberg[46] in a letter to Jacobi, dated Hamburg, April 21, 1769, says he reads that Riedel is going to continue "Yorick's Reisen," and comments upon the exceedingly difficult undertaking. Nothing further is known of this plan of Riedel's.

[Footnote 1: Various German authorities date the Sentimental Journey erroneously 1767. Jördens, V, p. 753; Koberstein, III, p. 463; Hirsching, XIII, pp. 291-309.]

[Footnote 2: The reviewer in the _Allg. deutsche Bibl._ (Anhang I-XII, vol. II, p. 896) implies a contemporary cognizance of this aid to its popularity. He notes the interest in accounts of travels and fears that some readers will be disappointed after taking up the book. Some French books of travel, notably Chapelle's "Voyage en Provence," 1656, were read with appreciation by cultivated Germany and had their influence parallel and auxiliary to Sterne's.]

[Footnote 3: In the Seventh Book of Tristram Shandy. III, pp. 47-110.]

[Footnote 4: III, pp. 210-213.]

[Footnote 5: The emotional groundwork in Germany which furthered the appreciation of the Journey, and the sober sanity of British common sense which choked its English sweep, are admirably and typically illustrated in the story of the meeting of Fanny Burney and Sophie la Roche, as told in the diary of the former ("The Diary and Letters of Frances Burney, Madame D'Arblay," Boston, 1880, I, p. 291), entries for September 11 and 17, 1786. On their second meeting Mme. D'Arblay writes of the German sentimentalist: "Madame la Roche then rising and fixing her eyes filled with tears on my face, while she held both my hands, in the most melting accents exclaimed, 'Miss Borni, la plus chère, la plus digne des Anglaises, dites--moi--m'aimez vous?'" Miss Burney is quite sensibly frank in her inability to fathom this imbecility. Ludmilla Assing ("Sophie la Roche," Berlin, 1859, pp. 273-280) calls Miss Burney cold and petty.]

[Footnote 6: So heartily did the Germans receive the Sentimental Journey that it was felt ere long to be almost a German book. The author of "Ueber die schönen Geister und Dichter des 18ten Jahrhunderts vornehmlich unter den Deutschen," by J. C. Fritsch (?) (Lemgo, 1771), gives the book among German stories and narratives (pp. 177-9) along with Hagedorn, Gellert, Wieland and others. He says of the first parts of the Sentimental Journey, "zwar . . . . aus dem Englischen übersetzt; kann aber für national passieren."]

[Footnote 7: Michael Montaigne's "Gedanken und Meinungen über Allerley Gegenstände. Ins Deutsch übersetzt." Berlin (Lagarde) 1793-5. Bode's life is in Vol. VI, pages III-CXLIV. For a review of Bode's Life see _Neue Bibl. der schönen Wissenschaften_, LVIII, p. 93.]

[Footnote 8: Supplementband für 1790-93, pp. 350-418.]

[Footnote 9: The references to the _Hamburgische Adress-Comptoir-Nachrichten_ are as follows: 1768, pages 241, 361 and 369 respectively.]

[Footnote 10: Pp. 71-74.]

[Footnote 11: Pp. 101-104. "The Temptation" and the "Conquest." The _Unterhaltungen_ is censured by the _Deutsche Bibliothek der schönen Wissenschaften_, III, p. 266, for printing a poor translation from Yorick when two translations had already been announced. The references to _Unterhaltungen_ are respectively pp. 12-16, and 209-213.]

[Footnote 12: See below, p. 42-3.]

[Footnote 13: It was reviewed in the _Hamburgischer unpartheyischer Correspondent_, Oct. 29.]

[Footnote 14: I, pp. XX, 168; II, p. 168.]

[Footnote 15: Lachmann's edition, 1840, XII, p. 199.]

[Footnote 16: See _Goethe-Jahrbuch_, XIV (1893), pp. 51-52.]

[Footnote 17: "Heinrich Leopold Wagner, Goethe's Jugendgenosse," 2d ed. Jena, Frommann, 1879, p. 104.]

[Footnote 18: It is not possible to date with absolute certainty the time of Lessing's conversation with Sara Meyer, but it was after the publication of "Werther," and must have been on one of his two visits to Berlin after that, that is, in March, 1775, on his way to Vienna, or in February, 1776, on his return from Italy.]

[Footnote 19: Bode must have come to Lessing with the information before this public announcement, for Lessing could hardly have failed to learn of it when once published in a prominent Hamburg periodical.]

[Footnote 20: Böttiger in his biographical sketch of Bode is the first to make this statement (p. lxiii), and the spread of the idea and its general acceptation are directly traceable to his authority. The _Neue Bibl. der schönen Wissenschaften_ in its review of Böttiger's work repeats the statement (LVIII, p. 97), and it is again repeated by Jördens (I, p. 114, edition of 1806), by Danzel-Guhrauer with express mention of Böttiger ("Lessing, sein Leben und seine Werke," II. Erste Abtheilung, p. 287), and by Erich Schmidt ("Lessing, Geschichte seines Lebens und seiner Schriften," Berlin, 1899, I, p. 674). The editor of the Hempel edition, VII, p. 553 claims Lessing as responsible for the translation of the Journey, and also of Shandy. The success of the "Empfindsame Reise" and the popularity of Sterne are quite enough to account for the latter translation and there is no evidence of urging on Lessing's part. A similar statement is found in Gervinus (V, p. 194). The _Frankfurter Gel. Anz._ (Apr. 21, 1775), p. 267, credits Wieland with having urged Bode to translate Shandy. The _Neue Critische Nachrichten, Greifswald_, IX, p. 279, makes the same statement. The article, however, in the _Teutscher Merkur_ (1773, II, pp. 228-30) expresses merely a great satisfaction that Bode is engaged upon the work, and gives some suggestions to him about it.]

[Footnote 21: See Bode's Introduction, p. iii, iv. Also _Allg. deutsche Bibl._, Anhang, I-XII, Vol. II, pp. 896-9.]

[Footnote 22: Strangely enough the first use of this word which has been found is in one of Sterne's letters, written in 1740 to the lady who subsequently became his wife. (Letters, p. 25). But these letters were not published till 1775, long after the word was in common use. An obscure Yorkshire clergyman can not be credited with its invention.]

[Footnote 23: Böttiger refers to Campe's work, "Ueber die Bereicherung und Reinigung der deutschen Sprache," p. 297 ff., for an account of the genesis of this word, but adds that Campe is incorrect in his assertion that Sterne coined the word. Campe does not make the erroneous statement at all, but Bode himself puts it in the mouth of Lessing.]

[Footnote 24: See foot note to page lxiii.]

[Footnote 25: For particulars concerning this parallel formation see Mendelssohn's Schriften, ed. by G. B. Mendelssohn, Leipzig, 1844. V, pp. 330, 335-7, letters between Abbt, Mendelssohn, Nicolai.]

[Footnote 26: The source of Bode's information is the article by Dr. Hill, first published in the _Royal Female Magazine_ for April, 1760, and reprinted in the _London Chronicle_, May 5, 1760 (pp. 434-435), under the title, "Anecdotes of a fashionable Author." Bode's sketch is an abridged translation of this article. This article is referred to in Sterne's letters, I, pp. 38-9, 42.]

[Footnote 27: See p. 47.]

[Footnote 28: "Dass ich das Gute, was man an meiner Uebersetzung findet, grössten Theils denen Herren Ebert und Lessing zu verdanken habe."]

[Footnote 29: _Hamburgischer Unpartheyischer Correspondent_, October 29, 1768.]

[Footnote 30: "Verschwieg ich die Namen dieser Männer."]

[Footnote 31: See p. 47.]

[Footnote 32: Jördens gives this title, which is the correct one. Appell in "Werther und seine Zeit," (p. 247) calls it "Herrn Yoricks, Verfasser (sic) des Tristram Shandy Reisen durch Frankreich und Italien, als ein Versuch über die menschliche Natur," which is the title of the second edition published later, but with the same date. See _Allg. deutsche Bibliothek_, Anhang, I-XII, Vol. II, pp. 896-9. Kayser and Heinsius both give "Empfindsame Reisen durch Frankreich und Italien, oder Versuch über die menschliche Natur," which is evidently a confusion with the better known Bode translation, an unconscious effort to locate the book.]

[Footnote 33: Through some strange confusion, a reviewer in the _Jenaische Zeitungen von Gelehrten Sachen_ (1769, p. 574) states that Ebert is the author of this translation; he also asserts that Bode and Lessing had translated the book; it is reported too that Bode is to issue a new translation in which he makes use of the work of Lessing and Ebert, a most curious record of uncertain rumor.]

[Footnote 34: See p. 31, "In the Street, Calais." "If this won't turn out something, another will. No matter,--'tis an essay upon human nature."]

[Footnote 35: _Monthly Review_, XXXVIII, p. 319: "Gute Nacht, bewunderungswürdiger Yorick! Dein Witz, Deine Menschenliebe! Dein redliches Herz! ein jedes untadelhafte Stück deines Lebens und deiner Schriften müsse in einem unsterblichen Gedächtnisse blühen,--und O! mögte der Engel, der jenes aufgezeichnet hat, über die Unvollkommenheiten von beiden eine Thräne des Mitleidens fallen lassen und sie auf ewig auslöschen."]

[Footnote 36: Jördens, V, p. 753. Hirsching, Historisch-litterarisches Handbuch, XIII, pp. 291-309 (1809).]

[Footnote 37: It has not been possible to examine this second edition, but the information concerning Sterne's life may quite possibly have been taken not from Bode's work but from his sources as already given.]

[Footnote 38: "Yoriks empfindsame Reise, aus dem Englischen übersetzt," 3ter und 4ter Theil, Hamburg und Bremen, bei Cramer, 1769.]

[Footnote 39: See _Allg. deutsche Bibl._ Anhang, I-XII, Vol. II, pp. 896-9. Hirsching (Hist.-Litt. Handbuch) says confusedly that Bode wrote the fourth and fifth parts.]

[Footnote 40: See _Neue Bibl. der schönen Wissenschaften_, LVIII, p. 98, "Im dritten Bande ist die rührende Geschichte, das Hündchen, ganz von ihm." Also Jördens, I, 114, Heine, "Der deutsche Roman," p. 23.]

[Footnote 41: The following may serve as examples of inadequate, inexact or false renderings:

ORIGINAL BODE'S TRANSLATION

Like a stuck pig. P. 5: Eine arme Hexe, die Feuer-Probe machen soll.

Dress as well as undress. P. 9: Der Kleidung als der Einkleidung.

Chance medley of sensation. P. 11: Unschuldiges Verbrechen der Sinne.

Where serenity was wont to fix her reign. P. 13: Wo die Heiterkeit ihren Sitz aufgeschlagen hatte.

Wayward shades of my canvas. P. 20: Die harten Schattirungen meines Gewebes.

Caterpillars. P. 22: Heuschrecken.

The chance medley of existence. P. 23: Das unschuldige Verbrechen des Daseyns.]

[Footnote 42: Bode's story, "Das Mündel" was printed in the _Hamburgische Adress-Comptoir-Nachrichten_, 1769, p. 729 (November 23) and p. 753 (December 4).]

[Footnote 43: There will be frequent occasion to mention this impulse emanating from Sterne, in the following pages. One may note incidentally an anonymous book "Freundschaften" (Leipzig, 1775) in which the author beholds a shepherd who finds a torn lamb and indulges in a sentimental reverie upon it. _Allg. deutsche Bibl._, XXXVI, 1, 139.]

[Footnote 44: Bode inserts "Miss Judith Meyer" and "Miss Philippine Damiens," two poor novels by this Kölbele in place of Eugenius's "Pilgrim's Progress." Böttiger comments, "statt des im englischen Original angeführten schalen Romans 'The Pilgrim's Progress.'" Bode, in translating Shandy several years later, inserts for the same book, "Thousand and one Nights." In speaking of this, Böttiger calls "Pilgrim's Progress" "die schale engländische Robinsonade," an eloquent proof of Böttiger's ignorance of English literature.]

[Footnote 45: Pp. 166 ff.]

[Footnote 46: _Quellen und Forschungen_, XXII, p. 129.]