Within a few miles of Sutton, at Skelton Castle, an almost
unique Roman stronghold, since modernized by Gothic hands, dwelt
his college-friend John Hall Stevenson, whose well-stocked library
contained a choice but heterogeneous collection of books--old French
"ana," and the learning of mediaeval doctors--books intentionally and
books unintentionally comic, the former of which Sterne read with an
only too retentive a memory for their jests, and the latter with an
acutely humorous appreciation of their solemn trifling. Later on it
will be time to note the extent to which he utilized these results of
his widely discursive reading, and to examine the legitimacy of the
mode in which he used them: here it is enough to say generally that
the materials for many a burlesque chapter of _Tristram Shandy_ must
have been unconsciously storing themselves in his mind in many an
amused hour passed by Sterne in the library of Skelton Castle.
But before finally quitting this part of my subject it may be as well,
perhaps, to deal somewhat at length with a matter which will doubtless
have to be many times incidentally referred to in the course of this
study, but which I now hope to relieve myself from the necessity of
doing more than touch upon hereafter.
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