Augustan prose other novelists should be mentioned, for they, like Fielding and Richardson, were in dialog through their works. Laurence Sterne and Tobias Smollett held a personal dislike for one another, and their works similarly offered up oppositional views of the self in society and the method of the novel. Laurence Sterne was a clergyman, and he consciously set out to imitate Jonathan Swift with his "Tristram Shandy" (1759–1767). "The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, gentleman" was a stylistic and formal revolution for the novel. Like Swift's satires, it begins with radical skepticism and a willingness to break apart figurative language
USS Tristram Shandy (1864) gunboat operated subsequently in mercantile service under a succession of owners until she ran aground off Havana, Cuba, and was declared a total loss in 1874. USS Tristram Shandy (1864) USS "Tristram Shandy" (1864) was a 444-ton steamer and blockade runner captured by the Union Navy during the American Civil War. With her Parrott rifle installed, she was used by the Navy as a gunboat to patrol navigable waterways of the Confederate States of America to prevent the South from trading with other countries. "Tristram Shandy" took her name from the hero—and the shortened title—of the novel, "The Life and