Note 18 — Chapter II
Reading edition
Edition of 1651, 12mo, page 52. 'To a close shorne sheep, God gives wind by measure.' First printed in Witts Recreations, 1640. Sterne might have reflected that it is not usually the custom to shear lambs.
Since the above was written, a correspondent has brought to the writer's notice a sixteenth century French version:—Au brébis tondue, dieu donne le vent par mesure.