Page:A political romance (IA politicalromance00sterrich).pdf/12

 reasons was then suppressed. The recovery of this satirical performance from oblivion, as worthy of so masterly a pen, will, it is hoped, be a sufficient excuse, with all lovers of literary merit, for thus bringing it to public view."

Murdoch's edition, several times reprinted by other booksellers, was afterwards incorporated in the humorist's collected works of 1780, with a new title: The History of a Good Warm Watch-Coat A Political Romance. All subsequent editors have taken the text as they found it here, and have interpreted Murdoch's remark that the pamphlet was suppressed to mean that it was not published during the author's lifetime. It was laid by, even the biographers have declared, in Sterne's desk, and at most circulated only in manuscript. Hall-Stevenson, it has been assumed, had one of the manuscripts, which he placed in Murdoch's hand for publication.

A clue to the existence of an edition of A Political Romance earlier than Murdoch's was derived from A Memoir of the York Press, 1868, by Robert Davies, a most accurate antiquary. While he was writing his book he had access to the valuable collection of Edward Hailstone, Esq., of Horton Hall, Bradford, England, and there he saw a copy of the first edition bearing the date 1759. On Mr. Hailstone's death in 1890, this copy came to the Li-