"My uncle," writes Sterne, describing their subsequent rupture,
"quarrelled with me because I would not write paragraphs in the
newspapers; though he was a party-man, I was not, and detested such
dirty work, thinking it beneath me. From that time he became my
bitterest enemy." The date of this quarrel cannot be precisely fixed;
but we gather from an autograph letter (now in the British Museum)
from Sterne to Archdeacon Blackburne that by the year 1750 the two men
had for some time ceased to be on friendly terms. Probably, however,
the breach occurred subsequently to the rebellion of '45, and it may
be that it arose out of the excess of partisan zeal which Dr. Sterne
developed in that year, and which his nephew very likely did not, in
his opinion, sufficiently share. But this is quite consistent with the
younger man's having up to that time assisted the elder in his party
polemics. He certainly speaks in his "Letters" of his having "employed
his brains for an ungrateful person," and the remark is made in a way
and in a connexion which seems to imply that the services rendered
to his uncle were mainly _literary_. If so, his declaration that he
"would not write paragraphs in the newspapers" can only mean that
he would not go on writing them.
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