work_id,theme,provenance,created_at,text,reviewed_on,id,comments,metaphor,dictionary,updated_at,context 6462,"",Reading in ECCO,2008-10-06 00:00:00 UTC,"Oh, Sterne! thou art scabby, and such is the leprosy of thy mind that it is not to be cured like the leprosy of the body, by dipping nine times in the river Jordan. Thy prophane history of Tristram Shandy is as it were an anti-gospel, and seems to have been penned by the hand of Antichrist himself; it tends to excite laughter, but you should remember that the wisest man that ever was, that the great king Solomon himself said of laughter "" it is mad,"" and of mirth ""what doth it?"" Sterne! (for brother I can no longer call [end page 2] thee, though I look upon the clergy of the Church of England as my brethren, when they discharge conscientiously the duties of their function) Sterne , apostate Sterne! if Solomon was now alive, he would not put the question ""What doth mirth."" Thy book would fully shew him, that mirth is nearly akin to wickedness, and that the tickling of laughter is occasioned but the obscene Devil.
(pp. 3-4)",,17186,"","""Oh, Sterne! thou art scabby, and such is the leprosy of thy mind that it is not to be cured like the leprosy of the body, by dipping nine times in the river Jordan.""",Disease,2011-08-25 16:02:47 UTC,""