“A poor decayed kinsman of his sets upon him by the way, in all his jollity, and runs begging, bareheaded, by him, conjuring him by those former bonds of friendship, alliance, consanguinity, &c., ’uncle, cousin, brother, father, show some pity for Christ’s sake, pity a sick man, an old man,’ &c.; he cares not—­ride on:  pretend sickness, inevitable loss of limbs, plead suretyship or shipwreck, fire, common calamities, show thy wants and imperfections, take God and all His angels to witness ... put up a supplication to him in the name of a thousand orphans, an hospital, a spittle, a prison, as he goes by ... ride on."[1]

[Footnote 1:  Burton:  Anat.  Mel., p. 269.]

Hardly a casual coincidence this.  But it is yet more unpleasant to find that the mock philosophic reflections with which Mr. Shandy consoles himself on Bobby’s death, in those delightful chapters on that event, are not taken, as they profess to be, direct from the sages of antiquity, but have been conveyed through, and “conveyed” from, Burton.

“When Agrippina was told of her son’s death,” says Sterne, “Tacitus informs us that, not being able to moderate her passions, she abruptly broke off her work.”  Tacitus does, it is true, inform us of this.  But it was undoubtedly Burton (Anat.  Mel., p. 213) who informed Sterne of it.  So, too, when Mr. Shandy goes on to remark upon death that “’Tis an inevitable chance—­the first statute in Magna Charta—­it is an everlasting Act of Parliament, my dear brother—­all must die,” the agreement of his views with those of Burton, who had himself said of death, “’Tis an inevitable chance—­the first statute in Magna Charta—­an everlasting Act of Parliament—­all must die,[2]” is even textually exact.

[Footnote 2:  Ibid., p. 215.]

In the next passage, however, the humourist gets the better of the plagiarist, and we are ready to forgive the theft for the happily comic turn which he gives to it.

Burton: 

“Tully was much grieved for his daughter Tulliola’s death at first, until such time that he had confirmed his mind by philosophical precepts; then he began to triumph over fortune and grief, and for her reception into heaven to be much more joyed than before he was troubled for her loss.”

Sterne: 

“When Tully was bereft of his daughter, at first he laid it to his heart, he listened to the voice of nature, and modulated his own unto it.  O my Tullia! my daughter! my child!—­Still, still, still—­’twas O my Tullia, my Tullia!  Me thinks I see my Tullia, I hear my Tullia, I talk with my Tullia.  But as soon as he began to look into the stores of philosophy, and consider how many excellent things might be said upon the occasion, nobody on earth can conceive, says the great orator, how happy, how joyful it made me.”