Born at Kames Castle, Bute, Scotland, July 20, 1806: died at Ventnor, Isle of Wight, Sept. 18, 1844. An English poet and author, best known as a friend of Carlyle. His father, Edward Sterling (1773–1847) was an editor of the “Times.” Sterling studied at Glasgow and Cambridge (but left without a degree); went to London and purchased the “Athenæum” in 1828, but soon gave it up; and in 1834 became curate at Hurstmonceaux, where Julius Hare was vicar. He wrote “Arthur Coningsby” (1833), “Poems” (1839), “Strafford” (1843), “Essays and Tales” edited by Hare (1848), and “The Onyx Ring” reprinted from “Blackwood” in (1856). His life was written by Carlyle (1851).

Personal

  One who hated every kind of falsehood with an intense hatred, and whose spirit burnt with a consuming love of truth; not like the fiery bush, which is the type indeed of the very highest minds, such as St. Paul’s and Luther’s, when the Spirit of God takes possession of them; but with a flame approaching more nearly thereto than is often found in this world of phantoms and interests…. The representation of his life is unsatisfactory, because the problem of his life was incomplete. That problem, as has been truly observed to me by one of his chief friends, was the same as the great problem of our age. In fact, it was the same with the great problem of all ages, to reconcile faith with knowledge, philosophy with religion, the subjective world of human speculation with the objective world in which God has manifested Himself by a twofold Revelation, outwardly to our senses, and spiritually to our spirits.

  All my thoughts of Sterling are mingled with shame and self-reproach, which it is better to lay before God, who does understand it, than before the public or even friends who could not. I quite feel with you that until Christ be presented to men as related to themselves—to every one—and not merely as a character in a book, we shall see more and more noble spirits sinking into distrust and despair. The thought is sometimes very overwhelming, yet I wish it pressed upon me more habitually; one would be obliged then to speak in season and out of season, and above all to live as if the truth were no lie.

  A lean, tallish, loose-made boy of twelve; strange alacrity, rapidity and joyous eagerness looking out of his eyes, and of all his ways and movements. I have a picture of him at this stage; a little portrait, which carries its verification with it. In manhood too, the chief expression of his eyes and physiognomy was what I might call alacrity, cheerful rapidity. You could see, here looked forth a soul which was winged; which dwelt in hope and action, not in hesitation or fear…. As a gifted amiable being, of a certain radiant tenuity and velocity, too thin and rapid and diffusive, in danger of dissipating himself into the vague, or alas into death itself: it was so that, like a spot of bright colours, rather than a portrait with features, he hung occasionally visible in my imagination…. A loose, careless-looking, thin figure, in careless dim costume, sat, in a lounging posture, carelessly and copiously talking. I was struck with the kindly but restless swift-glancing eyes, which looked as if the spirits were all out coursing like a pack of merry eager beagles, beating every bush. The brow, rather sloping in form, was not of imposing character, though again the head was longish, which is always the best sign of intellect; the physiognomy in general indicated animation rather than strength…. His address, I perceived, was abrupt, unceremonious; probably not at all disinclined to logic, and capable of dashing in upon you like a charge of cossacks, on occasion: but it was also eminently ingenious, social, guileless…. Sterling was of rather slim but well-boned wiry figure, perhaps an inch or two from six feet in height; of blonde complexion, without colour, yet not pale or sickly; dark-blonde hair, copious enough, which he usually wore short. The general aspect of him indicated freedom, perfect spontaneity, with a certain careless natural grace. In his apparel, you could notice, he affected dim colours, easy shapes; cleanly always, yet even in this not fastidious or conspicuous: he sat or stood, oftenest, in loose sloping postures; walked with long strides, body carelessly bent, head flung eagerly forward, right hand perhaps grasping a cane, and rather by the middle to swing it, than by the end to use it otherwise. An attitude of frank, cheerful impetuosity, of hopeful speed and alacrity; which indeed his physiognomy, on all sides of it, offered as the chief expression. Alacrity, velocity, joyous ardour, dwelt in his eyes too, which were of brownish gray, full of bright kindly life, rapid and frank rather than deep or strong. A smile, half of kindly impatience, half of real mirth, often sat on his face. The head was long; high over the vertex; in the brow, of fair breadth, but not high for such a man. In the voice, which was of good tenor sort, rapid and strikingly distinct, powerful too, and except in some of the higher notes harmonious, there was a clear-ringing metallic tone,—which I often thought was wonderfully physiognomic.

  John Sterling would have been a far better, happier, and greater man, had he remained a working curate to the last, instead of becoming a sort of petty Prometheus, equally miserable, and nearly as idle, with a big black crow (elegantly mistaken for a vulture) pecking at his morbid liver.

  Of all those very remarkable young men, John Sterling was by far the most brilliant and striking in his conversation, and the one of whose future eminence we should all of us have augured most confidently. But though his life was cut off prematurely, it was sufficiently prolonged to disprove this estimate of his powers. The extreme vividness of his look, manner, and speech gave a wonderful expression of latent vitality and power; perhaps some of this lambent, flashing brightness may have been but the result of the morbid physical conditions of his existence, like the flush on his cheek and the fire in his eye; the over stimulated and excited intellectual activity, the offspring of disease, mistaken by us for morning instead of sunset splendor, promise of future light and heat instead of prognostication of approaching darkness and decay. It certainly has always struck me as singular that Sterling, who in his life accomplished so little and left so little of the work by which men are generally pronounced to be gifted with exceptional ability, should have been the subject of two such interesting biographies as those written of him by Julius Hare and Carlyle. I think he must have been one of those persons in whom genius makes itself felt and acknowledged chiefly through the medium of personal intercourse; a not infrequent thing, I think, with women, and perhaps men, wanting the full vigor of normal health.

  “Poor Sterling,”—such is the ever recurring burden of Carlyle’s tribute to his friend, which he seems to have been pricked into writing largely because Sterling’s other loyal friend and biographer, Archdeacon Hare, who had loved and labored with him in the Church of England, deplored overmuch his throwing off its rule and vestments. Though Carlyle has no sympathy for Sterling’s knightly efforts to help the exile and the slave, and for his apostolic labors among the poor of England, scouts his verses and makes light of his essays and romance, and ever chafes because this fine courser was not a mighty drag-horse like himself,—yes, sad and soured by physical ailments, he more than half blamed his brave friend for having the cruel and long disease through which he worked, even to his censor’s admiration,—yet, in spite of all, Carlyle’s “Life of Sterling” shows in every page that this man’s short, brave course lifted and illuminated all about him, even that weary and sad-eyed Jeremiah himself as he sat apart and prophesied and lamented.

Poetry

  We began to read his volume of poetry with considerable expectations, both from the commendations bestowed upon it by some of our friends, whose judgment we esteemed, and from the ability which his prose had unquestionably displayed, but we confess ourselves to have been somewhat disappointed. It has, it is true, all those good elements to recommend it, which can be drawn from the moral nature and from the affections. It is the work of one, who thinks justly and feels rightly, who fears God and loves his neighbour, but it wants poetic power, originality, and grace. The tone of his mind seems too cold for poetry, and more adapted to philosophy. He reflects and moralizes when he ought to feel and paint. He dwells too long upon particulars and details; his figures want life and his coloring warmth, and we are too often reminded of Hamlet’s pithy criticism, “What read you? Words, Words, Words.”

  This work has fairly taken us by surprise. On first reading its announcement we had many misgivings. That it would be a work worthy of serious attention, that it would be a work of unquestionable talent, we felt assured; the author’s previous writing, various in form, but all the offspring of the same earnest, thoughtful spirit, were sufficient guarantee: but John Sterling a dramatist! The very advertisement was a paradox; and we will venture to assert that hardly one of his warmest friends and admirers (and among the latter we beg to rank ourselves) took up “Strafford” without an uneasy sense of the author’s having chosen a wrong path. We would advise all, therefore, not to be satisfied with a first reading; it was not till our second reading that we fairly estimated it; prejudice and astonishment had marred our judgment, and we had to get accustomed to its excellence before we could believe in it…. In conclusion we may say that, although judged by the high and severe standard we are wont to erect as the model of the dramatic poet, the foundations of which are in truth of human passion, “Strafford” is found wanting; yet, judged by the standard of the day, it is an admirable production. It springs from a cultivated, thoughtful mind, and it bears the marks of its parentage in every scene. Of all the works of its author it is the most perfect and mature. The traces of imitation have almost completely vanished. His mind seems more self-sufficing and sustained. The expression does not struggle with the meaning, as in his former writings; there is less struggle and more victory, less artifice and more art. In his next venture we hope to meet him on less formidable, less ungrateful ground than that of the Historical Drama.

  Superior to the prose articles:—beautiful and highly wrought as these are—are the author’s poetical writings, distinguished alike for purity of thought, delicacy of fancy, and depth and tenderness of feeling.

  Strafford never alters, never is kindled by or kindles the life of any other being, never breathes the breath of the moment. Before us, throughout the play, is the view of his greatness taken by the mind of the author; we are not really made to feel it by those around him; it is echoed from their lips, not from their lives.

  John Sterling has some high qualities of mind, but he was utterly destitute of the self-reliance necessary to constitute a great poet. The finest of all his productions, as a mere poem, is “The Sexton’s Daughter,” a striking lyrical ballad produced in early youth, ere he sank into poetic misgivings.

  John Sterling, the subject of this short memoir, was a Poem. He had the quick discerning soul in which knowledge passed rapidly into feeling, and feeling flashed back into new knowledge. And while he himself ever remained more poetical than his poetry, he did not “leave out” the poems. Though truth compels the statement that his poetry, diligently as he laboured over it, never secured success or admiration in his own day, even from those who loved and honoured him, and only are read nowadays because he has been immortalised in one of the finest biographies in our language, “The Life of John Sterling,” by his friend Thomas Carlyle.

General

  In broken tones and by lapses he obtained utterance. No shapely and complete temple rose beneath the hand whose nerves disease had unstrung; and hints instead of revelations are bequeathed by a mind seldom allowed to work continuously.

  The life of John Sterling, however, has intrinsic interest, even if it be viewed simply as the struggle of a restless aspiring soul, yearning to leave a distinct impress of itself on the spiritual development of humanity, with that fell disease which, with a refinement of torture, heightens the susceptibility and activity of the faculties, while it undermines their creative force. Sterling, moreover, was a man thoroughly in earnest, to whom poetry and philosophy were not merely another form of paper currency or a ladder to fame, but an end in themselves—one of those finer spirits with whom, amid the jar and hubbub of our daily life,

	“The melodies abide
	Of the everlasting chime.”

But his intellect was active and rapid, rather than powerful, and in all his writings we feel the want of a stronger electric current to give that vigor of conception and felicity of expression, by which we distinguish the undefinable something called genius; while his moral nature, though refined and elevated, seems to have been subordinate to his intellectual tendencies and social qualities, and to have had itself little determining influence on his life.

  Though not an exact scholar, Sterling became well and extensively read, possessing great facilities of assimilation for all kinds of mental diet. His studies were irregular and discursive, but extensive and encyclopedic.

  Of John Sterling a few words must suffice. His name cannot be omitted, and yet we cannot dwell on it, nor are we called upon to do so. There must have been an infinite attractiveness in the man to have drawn out as he did such treasures of affection from teachers so different as Hare and Maurice on the one side and Carlyle on the other…. It must have been a lovable character which drew around him so much love. There must also have seemed in Sterling a marvellous potency as if, with due maturity, he might have done great things in literature if not in theology. But the brightness of his promise soon spent itself. It may be doubted even whether if he had lived he would have achieved much. “Over-haste,” says Carlyle, “was his continual fault. Over-haste and want of due strength.” His genius flashed and coruscated like sheet-lightning round a subject rather than went to the heart of it. He lacked depth and capacity of continuous thought. He was moved, if not by “every wind of doctrine,” by every breath of speculation that braced his intellectual lungs for a time. It was now Coleridge, and now Edward Irving, and now Schleiermacher and now Carlyle that swept the strings of his mind and made them vibrate…. Sterling was not destined to be any force of religious thought for his generation. With all his “sleepless intellectual vivacity” he was “not a thinker at all.” The words are Carlyle’s and not ours. Yet he deserves to be remembered, as he will continue to be associated with the great Teacher who first kindled both his intellectual and religious enthusiasm. Carlyle has embalmed his name and discipleship in beautiful form, and the picture will remain while English literature lasts. But students of religious opinion will always also think of him as a disciple of Coleridge and the friend of Maurice and Hare.

  His writings were edited in 1848 by Julius Hare (“Essays and Tales by John Sterling,” 2 vols. London, 8vo), with a memoir in many respects most admirable, but its inadequacy, inevitable from the writer’s point of view, stimulated Carlyle to the composition in 1851 of the biography which has made Sterling almost as widely and intimately known as Carlyle himself. The book is remarkable for its inversion of the usual proportion between biographer and hero. Johnson for once writes upon Boswell. Sterling is a remarkable instance of a man of letters of no ordinary talent and desert who nevertheless owes his reputation to a genius, not for literature, but for friendship.

  Posterity has not preserved the name of John Sterling as his contemporaries must have believed it was worthy to be preserved. What we know of him now is not by his own writings, but by the curious fact that two biographies of a man who did nothing in his short life of importance, and left nothing behind him to justify such a double record, were given to the world shortly after his death, one of which at least has a high place in permanent literature,—the extraordinary elegy, apology, eulogium of Thomas Carlyle. That there were reasons besides the merits of their subject for the two books—that of Archdeacon Hare on the side of his own benign and moderate churchmanship, and Carlyle’s on that of a wilder freedom and negation—no one would deny.