Scholia to Sterne’s Sermons

96 been fully legitimated and regularized within the scholarly community in which they participated. . . . In the wake of the exegetical crisis engendered by historicism and philology that had been so dramatically displayed in the public debate between Whiston and Collins, they understood more acutely than ever before the immense value of rabbinic learning for Christian self-understanding .’’ This is a very fine book, valuable for what it tells us about Christian apologetics and scholarship during the period , but also because it demonstrates to those of us who concentrate on scriblerian literature just how little we know of the actual interests of several primary targets; alas, in the hands of a satirist, the life of a scholar is rarely a happy one. Melvyn New University of Florida SCHOLIA TO STERNE’S SERMONS In ‘‘The Levite and his concubine’’ Sterne writes: ‘‘For my own part, I fear, I should never so find the way: let me be wise and religious—but let me be M A N’’ (Sermons, 4:170). The Florida edition cites a parallel passage in ASJ, ‘‘The Conquest’’ (6:124), and also the observation by Leopold Damrosch that while Sterne seems at times to embrace ‘‘a potential skepticism very similar to Hume’s, he ultimately resists . . .’’ (God’s Plots and Man’s Stories, 1985, p. 298). There is, however, a possible echo of Hume in the sermon passage that both Damrosch and the Florida editor overlooked. The note should be expanded to include what might be the only intimation available, however faint, that Sterne had some knowledge of Hume’s writings before meeting him in Paris in 1762. 170.7–14 (add at end of present note.) Significantly enough, Sterne seems to echo in lines 7–9, Hume’s Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1739), 1.6: ‘‘Be a philosopher; but, amidst all your philosophy, be still a man’’ (ed. Anthony Flew [La Salle, Illinois, Open Court, 1988], 56). Geoffrey Vincent Newton University of Exeter SCHOLIA TO A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY In the chapter ‘‘The Remise Door. Calais,’’ Yorick quotes from the Apocryphal book of Esdras and directs the reader to his source, as noted by the Florida editors, who quote 2 Esdras 10: 31: ‘‘What aileth thee? and why art thou so disquieted? and why is thine understanding troubled, and the thoughts of thine heart?’’ Several verses following are worth quoting as well, since they help to elucidate a context for Yorick’s ‘‘sentimental journey’’ and they should be added to the present note. 23.15–16 (add at end of present note.) Esdras’s disquieting vision is then several times extended and amplified: ‘‘Thou sawest a woman mourning, and thou begannest to comfort her . . . . And behold, thou sawest her likeness, and because she mourned for her son, thou begannest to comfort her . . . . For now the most High seeth that thou art grieved unfeignedly, and sufferest from thy whole heart for her, so hath he shewed thee the brightness of her glory, and the ...