No one, I should imagine, ever
more needed discipline in his youth than Sterne; and the camp is a
place of discipline for the soldier only. To all others whom necessity
attaches to it, and to the young especially, it is rather a school of
license and irregularity. It is fair to remember these disadvantages
of Sterne's early training, in judging of the many defects as a man,
and laxities as a writer, which marked his later life; though, on the
other hand, there is no denying the reality and value of some of
the countervailing advantages which came to him from his boyish
surroundings. The conception of my Uncle Toby need not have been taken
whole from Roger Sterne, or from any one actual captain of a marching
regiment; but the constant sight of, and converse with, many captains
and many corporals may undoubtedly have contributed much to the vigour
and vitality of Toby Shandy and Corporal Trim. So far as the externals
of portraiture were concerned, there can be no doubt that his art
benefited much from his early military life. His soldiers have the
true stamp of the soldier about them in air and language; and when
his captain and corporal fight their Flemish battles over again we are
thoroughly conscious that we are listening, under the dramatic form,
to one who must himself have heard many a chapter of the same splendid
story from the lips of the very men who had helped to break the pride
of the Grand Monarque under Marlborough and Eugene.
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