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Reviews g o gWhat LeMay and Zall oficr us here, however, is not an edited dear text of 7^Autobiography, but a literal transcript of Franklin's much-altered holograph manu-script, including all his deletions, and indicating by means of arrows, and so on,whether his numerous alterations were interlinear, columnar (that is written incolumns left blank for the purpose), or overwritten. The resulting genetic text isfrequently obscure, as thefollowingsample shows:

[^. 5i,n)B(,]In f our i House the{ir}relodg'd f a young J.Wom{e}an; a wGllener,

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g io Reviewsfrom distracting allusions to Sterne's frequently eccentric raids on the tradition olearned wit. We are distracted only when Sterne wants to distract us with hitypographic trickery, his blank and marbled pages, and the odd reference to Rom isbaptism al rites.This edition is not the first to take the York edition as copy text. The Floridedition, edited by Jo an and Melvyn New (Gainesville, 1978), also follows the Yoredition, but in two heavy volumes it is better suited to the library than to the classroom. Its notes have been allocated to a third volume, tartly described by Dr Ross a'announced as forthcoming'. Such scepticism may be fair enough after five yearsThe Oxford edition exists to serve the scholar and student in the here and now inbotb paperbound and hardback copy, complete with notes promised to be 'fresh andetailed'. Too often, however, the notes turn out to be relatively stale versions oWork's original annotations. It is somewhat depressing to compare Work's notewith those of the later editions of Ian Watt (Riverside; Boston, 1965), HowardAnderson (Norton; New York, 1980), and now with the work of Dr Ross. (Oddlenough, neither Watt's nor Anderson's edition is included in the 'select' Oxfordbibliography.) Whether tracing references to sailing chariots, St Radagundaanim al spirits, or Jo hn Burton, Work got there first. Wa tt's comprebensive criticaintroduction and Anderson's valuable inclusicm of contemporary and modemcritical responses to St.eme distinguish their editions from W ork's. The redeeminvirtues of Dr Ross's edition are less obvious.Occasionally 'fresh' information is added. 'The line of beauty' is more sharplydefined in reference to Hogarth's Analysis ofBeauty (n . 17); 'the lean and slippepan taloon ' of m an's 'second childishness' is traced to Sterne 's conflation of the sixthand seventh ages of man as described by Jacjues in J4J YouLike It (n, 19). But for thmost part the Oxford notes add little that is new, and even take away from whaWork has already provided. T he character Eugenius, for itistance, is quite rightidentified with Jo hn Hali-Stevenson, Sterne 's lifelong friend who attended him in hlast illness. 'The name derives from the Greek, implying "well-bom" or "noble"(i. 12). What is missing from such a note is the irony implicit in Sterne'characterization . In his note on Hall-Stevenson, Work hints brojwily at irregularitand sends the reader back to his introduction where he discusses Sterne'transformation of the 'Demoniac' master of 'Crazy Castle' into the discreetadmonitory Eugenius.But then, no thing odd will do long. So Samuel Johnson grumbled about Stemeaccomplishment. In his biographical sketch of the author, Dr Ross manages to makthe early Sterne downright dull. The 'odd' aspects of his life simply disappearSteme's Uncle Jacques, for instance. Archdeacon of Cleveland and Precentor oYork, get points for aiding his nephew in the making of 'a modestly successfuecclesiastical career' (p.xi). This same unde also contrived to spread rumoursuggesting that Sterne 's lack of filial and financialsupport sent his widowed motheto tihe poorhouse. T he slur stuck long enosagh to inspire Byron, for one, to sneeabout 'th at dog S tem e, who preferred whirling over a dead ass to relieving a livinm other'. Stem e's wife Elizabeth also settles into a cotnmonplace respectabiUty. Rorefers to a late deterioration in the marriage, but om its mention of her career as thself-styled Queen of Bohem ia: those giddy moments when Steme, trea ting his wif'with all the supposed respect dtie to a crawjiI hea d', took her 'coursiiw' as theydiin Bohemia, tying bladders filled w ith beans to the wheels ofhe r single horse chiais

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Reviews g r ibawdy, his work is genuinely moral. To rescue his author from detractors, heexplains away Steme's sensibility by alluding all too briefly to 'the cult of feeling(sentimentaJism) which exploited the indivitfual's capacity for sympathetic iden-tification with another person, actual or imaginary, not least in their misfortunes'.Ian W att devotedfivepages, Jam es Work six, to the same crucial subject.Dr Ross attends effectively to the formal aspects of Tristram Shandy. His Stemappears to be the m ost modem of writers, as easily oampared to Cafvino, Borges,and Beckett as he is to Defoe, Richardson, and Fielding. Battling against thedemands of linear narrative , Tristram both depends upon and resists the medium oflanguage, which always in the end falsifies experience. His ba ttle is waged againsttime and death itself, yet in thisfinalbattle Ross sees Steme as above all a Christianmoralist, and finally a contemporary to that 'fellow-Anglican Samuel Johnson'.Johnson 's judgem ent of the odd company he is made to keep would be worth having.NEW YORK UNIVERSITY CAROL HOUL IHAN FLYNN

Bibliography of William Hazlitt. Revised by GEOFFREY KEYNES. (St Paul's Bibliographies, 4) G odalming: St Paul's Bib lit^ ap bie s. Second Edition. 1981.XX -I- 152 p p . 1 6 . 0 0 .Since the late Sir G eoffrey Keynes's Bibliography ofWilliam Hazlitt wasfirstpublisheby the Nonesuch Press in 1931 it has been a s tandard tool for literary scholars andbibliographers. N evertheless, as Sir G eoffrey anticipated in his original preface, anumber of errors have been pointed out by colleagues, and many nuggets ofadditional information have come to light. The work now appears, therefore,extensively revised in a new format, with updated references and terminology, morethan half the items having received some attention in the process. In general thealterations and additions will be found to render it yet more valuable, though notquite all the errors have been expunged and a few small ones have found their wayin. At the heart of the revision are several emended collations, notably for no. i (AnEssay on the Principles ofHuman Action, where the first two leaves [A]'' are conjuand replace the first leaf Bi of the text and there is a cancel), no . 3 (Tucker's AnAbridgment of the Light ofNature Pursued, with a newly-discovered singleton), and 44, 57, 95, and 102 (which have one or more freshly-noted cancels apiece). SirGeoffrey h as retained his 1931 txAliiXion of Lectures on tke English Poets at 1^1^ (no. 34)[a]^ B-Y', but has changed the number of leaves from 178 to 170. However, theBritishLibraxy'scopy (11860. fr. 66) has [a]*, consisting of i blank, 2a balf-title andimprint, 2 J advertisement, 3 tide, and 4 ConiCTif, contributing to a leaf count of 172.Among the most interesting items of additional information included in therevised Bibliography are: a newly-discovered first printing of A New and ImprovGrammar (no. 8) in The Christ's Hospital Dictionary of the English Tongtu in 1809, theyear before its separate appearance, and an inscription by Hazlitt in the editor'spersonal copy (reproduced): 'A Christmas PresentfromA Father to his Son. 1822';an inscription in a copy of the Political Essays (no. 49): 'M r G odwin with the author'best respects'; a n incomplete sentence in Sketches of the Principal Pictare-Galleries inEngland (no. 76) and a copy with an in serta i 'Cataic^ue of the Angerstein Collec-tion' ; an embossed-leather binding ofSelect British Poets (no. 77) apparently supplieby the publisher 'for, at any rate, par t of the edition of what was intended to be animportant book'; and further details of the curious history of Sir G eoffrey's own

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