John Hall-Stevenson John Hall-Stevenson John Hall-Stevenson (1718–1785), in his youth known as John Hall, was an English country gentleman and writer. He is memorialised as "Eugenius" in Laurence Sterne's novels "Tristram Shandy" and "A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy". Hall-Stevenson was the son of Joseph Hall of Durham by his marriage to Catherine, sister and heiress of Lawson Trotter of Skelton Castle at Skelton-in-Cleveland, Yorkshire. On 16 June 1735, at the age of seventeen, he matriculated at Jesus College, Cambridge as a fellow-commoner. He quickly struck up a close and lifelong friendship with Laurence Sterne, who was five years older. They
Journal to Eliza 22 year old wife of an East India Company official and sister of Rawson Hart Boddam. Her husband had brought her over here to recuperate from illness. Given both parties were already married, the relationship was regarded as scandalous. The author adopts the pseudonym Parson Yorick, who previously appeared in his two best known novels, "The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman" and "A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy". In "Tristram Shandy" we are told that the parson is related to the famous, fictional jester Yorick whose skull is disinterred in Shakespeare’s "Hamlet:" "It has often come into