" Nay, to descend even to
minor aptitudes, Sterne cannot tell a story as Swift and Fielding
can tell one; and his work is not assured of life as _Tom Jones_ and
_Gulliver's Travels_, considered as stories alone, would be assured
of it, even if the one were stripped of its cheerful humour, and the
other disarmed of its savage allegory. And hence it might be rash to
predict that Sterne's days will be as long in the land of literary
memory as the two great writers aforesaid. Banked, as he still is,
among "English classics," he undergoes, I suspect, even more than an
English classic's ordinary share of reverential neglect. Among those
who talk about him he has, I should imagine, fewer readers than
Fielding, and very much fewer than Swift. Nor is he likely to increase
their number as time goes on, but rather, perhaps, the contrary.
Indeed, the only question is whether with the lapse of years he will
not, like other writers as famous in their day, become yet more of a
mere name. For there is still, of course, a further stage to which he
may decline. That object of so much empty mouth-honour, the English
classic of the last and earlier centuries, presents himself for
classification under three distinct categories.
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