It came when he was in the dramatic and
not in the introspective mood; when he was thinking honestly of
his characters, and not of himself. But he was, unfortunately, too
prone--and a long course of moral self-indulgence had confirmed him in
it--to the habit of caressing his own sensibilities; and the result of
this was always to set him upon one of those attempts to be pathetic
of _malice prepense_ of which Maria of Moulines is one example, and
the too celebrated dead donkey of Nampont another. "It is agreeably
and skilfully done, that dead jackass," writes Thackeray; "like M. de
Soubise's cook on the campaign, Sterne dresses it, and serves it up
quite tender, and with a very piquante sauce. But tears, and fine
feelings, and a white pocket-handkerchief, and a funeral sermon, and
horses and feathers, and a procession of mutes, and a hearse with
a dead donkey inside! Psha! Mountebank! I'll not give thee one
penny-piece for that trick, donkey and all." That is vigorous
ridicule, and not wholly undeserved; but, on the other hand, not
entirely deserved. There is less of artistic trick, it seems to me,
and more of natural foible, about Sterne's literary sentiment than
Thackeray was ever willing to believe; and I can find nothing worse,
though nothing better, in the dead ass of Nampont than in Maria of
Moulines.
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