You write me Word that the Letter I wrote to you, and now stiled _The
Political Romance_ is printing; and that, as it was drop’d by
Carelessness, to make some Amends, you will overlook the Printing of it
yourself, and take Care to see that it comes right into the World.
I was just going to return you Thanks, and to beg, withal, you would
take Care That the Child be not laid at my Door.—But having, this
Moment, perused the _Reply_ to the _Dean_ of _York_’s _Answer_,—it has
made me alter my Mind in that respect; so that, instead of making you
the Request I intended, I do here desire That the Child be filiated
upon me, _Laurence Sterne_, Prebendary of _York_, &c. &c. And I do,
accordingly, own it for my own true and lawful Offspring.
My Reason for this is plain;—for as, you see, the _Writer_ of that
_Reply_, has taken upon him to invade this _incontested Right_ of
another Man’s in a Thing of this Kind, it is high Time for every Man to
look to his own—Since, upon the _same Grounds_, and with half the
Degree of Anger, that he affirms the Production of that very Reverend
Gentleman’s, to be the Child of many Fathers, some one in his Spight
(for I am not without my Friends of that Stamp) may run headlong into
the other Extream, and swear, That mine had no Father at all:—And
therefore, to make use of _Bay_’s Plea in the _Rehearsal_, for _Prince
Pretty-Man;_ I merely do it, as he says, “for fear it should be said to
be no Body’s Child at all.”
I have only to add two Things:—First, That, at your Peril, you do not
presume to alter or transpose one Word, nor rectify one false Spelling,
nor so much as add or diminish one Comma or Tittle, in or to my
_Romance:_—For if you do,—In case any of the Descendents of _Curl_
should think fit to invade my Copy-Right, and print it over again in my
Teeth, I may not be able, in a Court of Justice, to swear strictly to
my own Child, after you had _so large a Share_ in the begetting it.
In the next Place, I do not approve of your _quaint Conceit_ at the
Foot of the Title Page of my _Romance_,—It would only set People on
finding a Page or two before I give them Leave;—and besides, all
Attempts either at Wit or Humour, in that Place, are a Forestalling of
what slender Entertainment of those Kinds are prepared within:
Therefore I would have it stand thus: