_The Drummer's Letter._--The letter from the drummer to the corporal's wife
in _The Sentimental Journey_ (it is hardly possible to give a precise
reference to any part of this little work) ends thus:
"Je suis, Madame,
"Avec toutes les sentimens les plus respectueux et les plus tendres,
tout à vous,
"JAQUES ROCQUE."
Why is the first of the adjectives agreeing with _les sentimens_ in the
wrong gender? The blot may be a trifling one, but I think I may say that it
defaces every copy of this well-known billet-doux. I have seen many
editions of _The Sentimental Journey_, some by the best publishers of the
time in which they lived, and I find the same mistake in all: I do not know
of a single exception. If Sterne wrote _toutes_, it must have been by
accident; there is nothing to prove that he wished to make the poor drummer
commit the solecism, for the rest of his letter is not only correctly, but
even elegantly written.