Note 48 — Front matter
Reading edition
The quotation is from Tristram Shandy, vol. iii. chap. xi. In the Edinburgh Review it is preceded by the sentence: "He did not know, probably, that Sterne had been beforehand with him." As a matter of fact, Burns was well acquainted with Sterne; and it is perhaps for that reason that Carlyle omitted the line when this essay was reprinted, even though he thereby made a very abrupt transition.