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 great increase of Papists,’ and at the same time helped to inaugurate a new whig electioneering journal, ‘The York Journal, or the Protestant Courant.’ Sterne at first contributed, but suddenly informed his uncle that he would write for the whigs no more (, Memoir of the York Press, 1868, p. 324). ‘Though my uncle was a party man,’ Sterne declared, ‘I was not, and detested such dirty work, thinking it beneath me. From that period he became my bitterest enemy.’ This is Sterne's version of the quarrel. Coffee-house gossip, on the other hand, traced it to a less respectable origin. Laurence was said to have displaced his uncle in the affections of a lady who was living under Dr. Sterne's protection, with the result that Laurence became by her the father of a natural daughter; the girl was stated to be alive in 1796, and to closely resemble her reputed father. Uncle and nephew were never reconciled. When in December 1750 Sterne sought to add to his income by offering to take the turns of such appointed preachers in the minster as might be accidentally prevented from fulfilling their engagements, Dr. Sterne intervened and wrote that on no account was extra employment to be given to ‘the one person unacceptable to me in the whole church, an ungrateful and unworthy nephew of my own.’ When Dr. Sterne died in 1759 no mention was made of his nephew in his will, at which Laurence ‘was so offended that he did not put on mourning, though he had it ready, and, on the contrary, showed all possible marks of disrespect to his uncle's memory’ (ib.)

Despite such difficulties, Sterne maintained his position in York. In 1747 he first appeared in print under his own name, publishing, at the price of sixpence, ‘The Case of Elijah and the Widow Zerephath consider'd. A charity sermon, preach'd on Good Friday, April 17, 1747, in the parish church of St. Michael-le-Belfry, before the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor, by Laurence Sterne, M.A., Prebendary of York’ (York, 1747). It was printed for John Hildyard, bookseller in Stonegate, but was sold, according to the title-page, by London booksellers. The dedication was addressed to Dean Richard Osbaldeston [q. v.] A presentation copy, inscribed by Sterne to the squire of Sutton, Philip Harland, is in the minster library at York. It was reissued in Sterne's collected sermons (vol. i. No. v.). Although this effort was, on its first publication, ‘read by very few,’ Sterne soon printed a second sermon, ‘The Abuses of Conscience, set forth in a Sermon preached in the Cathedral Church of St. Peter's, York, at the Summer Assizes, before the Hon. Mr. Baron Clive and the Hon. Mr. Baron Smythe on Sunday, July 29, 1750.’ This was stated to be ‘published at the request of the High Sheriff [Sir William Pennyman] and Grand Jury,’ to whom it was dedicated. This performance, like its forerunner, was little noticed at the time, but it acquired worldwide celebrity on being incorporated at a later date in ‘Tristram Shandy’ (bk. ii. chap. xvii.), and again in the collected ‘Sermons’ (vol. iv. No. xii.). The only literary effort, besides sermons and political paragraphs, with which Sterne has been credited in his early years is some fanciful reflections on problems of natural science, which were obviously suggested by Fontenelle's ‘Plurality of Worlds.’ These reflections were first published from a manuscript by M. Paul Stapfer in his ‘Vie de Sterne’ (pp. xvi–xlix); but their authenticity is by no means established.

On 29 Oct. 1750 Dean Fountayne, who succeeded Osbaldeston in 1747, bestowed on Sterne, despite his uncle's hostility, a second commissaryship—that of the peculiar court of Alne and Tollerton. The emoluments were insignificant, and, although a deputy exercised most of the slight functions, Sterne thenceforth made an annual visitation of the parishes which were subject to the commissary's court. They included Skelton (with Alne and Wigginton).

Soon after the issue of his second sermon a quarrel among the cathedral officials suggested to Sterne a literary effort in a different style. About 1748 Dr. Topham, a lawyer, who held many ecclesiastico-legal offices in the diocese, obtained for his son from Matthew Hutton, archbishop of York (since 1747), a promise of the reversion of one of his patent places. Dean Fountayne complained that Topham had misrepresented the matter, and the archbishop revoked his assent to the arrangement. Topham declared open war on Fountayne, and Sterne supported the dean. Subsequently Topham laid claim to the commissaryship of Pocklington and Pickering, which Sterne himself enjoyed. The dispute lingered on for many years, and Sterne amused himself by humorously satirising in a pretended letter to a friend the ferment in cathedral circles which Topham's greed aroused. He represented York as a village of which Trim (i.e. Topham) was sexton and whipper-in; the archbishop was the parson, the dean the parish clerk, and himself, Lorry Slim, an insignificant parishioner. According to Sterne's sketch, Trim was detected in carrying home ‘the warm watch-coat’ which was parish property, and was held by him in right only