Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

1760-7

Wit and judgment are two luminaries and "their irradiations are suffered from time to time to shine down upon us."

That of these two luminaries, so much of their irradiations are suffered from time to time to shine down upon us; as he, whose infinite wisdom which dispenses every thing in exact weight and measure, knows will just serve to light us on our way in this night of our obscurity; so that your reverences and worships now find out, nor is it a moment longer in my power to conceal it from you, That the fervent wish in your behalf with which I set out, was no more than the first insinuating How d'ye of a caressing prefacer stifling his reader, as a lover sometimes does a coy mistress into silence. For alas! could this effusion of light have been as easily procured, as the exordium wished it--I tremble to think how many thousands for it, of benighted travellers (in the learned sciences at least) must have groped and blundered on in the dark, all the nights of their lives,--running their heads against posts, and knocking out their brains without ever getting to their journies end;--some falling with their noses perpendicularly into stinks,--others horizontally with their tails into kennels. Here one half of a learned profession tilting full butt against the other half of it, and then tumbling and rolling one over the other in the dirt like hogs. --Here the brethren, of another profession, who should have run in opposition to each other, flying on the contrary like a flock of wild geese, all in a row the same way.--What confusion!--what mistakes!--fiddlers and painters judging by their eyes and ears,--admirable!--trusting to the passions excited in an air sung, or a story painted to the heart,--instead of measuring them by a quadrant.
(pp. 96-8; Norton, 144)

Light::Irradiation

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At least 82 entries in ESTC (1759, 1760, 1761, 1762, 1763, 1765, 1767, 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, 1773, 1774, 1775, 1776, 1777, 1779, 1780, 1781, 1782, 1783, 1786, 1788, 1791, 1792, 1793, 1794, 1795, 1796, 1798, 1799, 1800). Complicated publication history: vols. 1 and 2 published in London January 1, 1760. Vols. 3, 4, 5, and 6 published in 1761. Vols. 7 and 8 published in 1765. Vol. 9 published in 1767.

See Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, 9 vols. (London: Printed for D. Lynch, 1760-1767). <Link to ECCO><Link to 1759 York edition in ECCO>

First two volumes available in ECCO-TCP: <Vol. 1><Vol. 2>. Most text drawn from second (London) edition <Link to LION>.

For vols. 3-4, see ESTC T14705 <R. and J. Dodsley, 1761>. For vols. 5-6, see ESTC T14706 <T. Becket and P. A. Dehondt, 1762>. For vols. 7-8, see ESTC T14820 <T. Becket and P. A. Dehont, 1765>. For vol. 9, <T. Becket and P. A. Dehondt, 1767>.

Reading in Laurence Sterne, Tristram Shandy: An Authoritative Text, Backgrounds and Sources, Criticism, Ed. Howard Anderson (New York: Norton, 1980).

Wit and Judgment

11/17/2004