Sterne's Timely Affairs

To S______ C_______, Esq.

May, 1760.

Dear Sir,

I return you ten thousand thanks for the favour of your letter and the account you give me of my wife and girl. . .

On Monday we set on with a grand* retinue of Lord Rockingham's (in whose suite I move) for Windsor--they have contracted for fourteen hundred pounds for the dinner, to some general undertaker, of which the K. has bargained to pay one third. Lord George Sackville was last Saturday at the opera, some say with great effrontery,--others, with great dejection.

I have little news to add. There is a shilling pamphlet** wrote against Tristram. I wish they would write a hundred such.

Mrs. Sterne says her purse is light: will you, dear Sir, be so good as to pay her ten guineas, and I will reckon with you, when I have the pleasure of meeting you. My best compliments to Mrs. C. and all friends. Believe me, dear Sir, your obliged and faithful

Lau. Sterne.

*Prince Ferdinand, the Marquis of Rockingham, and Earl Temple, were installed Knights of the Garter, on Tuesday, May 6th, 1760, at Windsor.

**"The Clock-maker's Outcry against the author of Tristram Shandy." 8vo. [London 1760]