THE LIFE AND OPINIONS OF TRISTRAM SHANDY,GENTLEMAN
———
Volume the Third
———
Dixero si quid fortè jocosius, hoc mihi juris
Cum venia dabis.—— HOR.
—Si quis calumnietur levius esse quam decet theologum, aut mordacius quam deceat Christianum—non Ego, sed Democritus dixit.— ERASMUS.
Si quis Clericus, aut Monachus, verba joculatoria, risum moventia, sciebat, anathema esto. Second Council of CARTHAGE.
TO THE
RIGHT HONOURABLE
J O H N,
LORD VISCOUNT SPENCER
MY LORD,
I HUMBLY beg leave to offer you these two Volumes[22]; they are the best my talents, with such bad health as I have, could produce:—had Providence granted me a larger stock of either, they had been a much more proper present to your Lordship.
I beg your Lordship will forgive me, if, at the same time I dedicate this work to you, I join Lady SPENCER, in the liberty I take of inscribing the story of Le Fever to her name; for which I have no other motive, which my heart has informed me of, but that the story is a humane one.
I am,
MY LORD,
Your Lordship’s most devoted
and most humble Servant,
LAUR. STERNE.
[22] Volumes V. and VI. in the first Edition.