Thomas Amory (1691?-1788), if not born in Ireland, was at least of Irish descent and was educated in Dublin.  He is known in literature for two books.  The first, with the very mixed title of Memoirs containing the Lives of several Ladies of Great Britain; A History of Antiquities; Observations on the Christian Religion, was published in 1755, and the second, The Life of John Buncle, Esq., came out in two volumes in 1756-1766.  It appears to have been the author’s aim in both works to give us a hotch-potch in which he discourses de omnibus rebus et quibusdam aliis.  We have dissertations on the cause of earthquakes and of muscular motion, on the Athanasian Creed, on fluxions, on phlogiston, on the physical cause of the Deluge, on Irish literature, on the origin of language, on the evidences for Christianity, and on all other sorts of unrelated topics.  Hazlitt thought that the soul of Rabelais had passed into Amory, while a more recent critic can see in his long-winded discussions naught but the “light-headed ramblings of delirium.”  If we try to read John Buncle consecutively, the result is boredom; but if we open the book at random, we are pretty sure to be interested and even sometimes agreeably entertained.

The bizarre figure of Laurence Sterne (1713-1768) next claims our attention.  The son of a captain in the British army, he was born at Clonmel, Co.  Tipperary.  Of him almost more than of any of the writers so far dealt with, it may be said that he was Irish only by the accident of birth.  His parents were English on both sides, and practically the whole life of their son was spent out of Ireland.  He was sent to school at Halifax, in Yorkshire, and thence went to Cambridge University, where he graduated in due season.  Taking Anglican orders in 1738, he was immediately appointed to the benefice of Sutton-in-the-Forest, near York, and on his marriage in 1741 with Elizabeth Lumley he received the additional living of Stillington.  He was also given sundry prebendal and other appointments in connection with the chapter of the archdiocese of York.  He spent nearly twenty years in the discharge of his not very onerous duties and in reading, painting, shooting, and fiddling, without showing the least sign of any literary leanings.  Then suddenly, in 1760, he took the world by storm with the first two volumes of Tristram Shandy.  He at once became the lion of the hour, was feted and dined to his heart’s content, and had his nostrils tickled with the daily incense of praise from his numerous worshippers.  He repeated the experiment with equal success the following year with two more volumes of Tristram, and so at intervals until 1767, when he published the ninth and last volume of this most peculiar story.  In 1768 he brought out A Sentimental Journey, and within three weeks he died in his lodgings in London.  His other publications include Sermons and Letters. Tristram