had secretly
furnished out of his own pocket to lessen the account of the
Hanover-score brought us to discharge. Beckford and Barrington
abused all who fought for peace and joined in the cry for it,
and Beckford added that the reasons of wishing a peace now were
the same as at the Peace of Utrecht--that the people behind the
curtain could not both maintain the war and their places too, so
were for making another sacrifice of the nation to their own interests.
After all, the cry for a peace is so general that it will certainly
end in one."
And then the letter, recurring to personal matters towards the close,
records the success of Vols. III. and IV.:
"One half of the town abuse my book as bitterly as the other half cry
it up to the skies--the best is they abuse and buy it, and at such a
rate that we are going on with a second edition as fast as possible."
This was written only in the first week of March, so that the edition
must have been exhausted in little more than a month. It was, indeed,
another triumph; and all through this spring up to midsummer did
Sterne remain in London to enjoy it. But, with three distinct flocks
awaiting a renewal of his pastoral ministrations in Yorkshire, it
would scarcely have done for him, even in those easy-going days of
the Establishment, to take up his permanent abode at the capital; and
early in July he returned to Coxwold.
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