position assumes, leave the man in a worse state of moral being than if the neglected or disobeyed truths had never been presented to his mind. Within two years of his death, Sterling himself, writing of the period of life passed in active duty at Herstmonceux, said that "his inmost nature, suppressed and perverted for years by ignorance, by serious errors, and by heavy sorrows, was set right at last, and made healthy, by the moral effort and selfsacrifice of taking Orders.”

His health, unfortunately, rendered it impossible that he should remain in this happy occupation; pulmonary disease existed, and his physician insisted on perfect quiet as giving the only chance for life. He writes to Hare to communicate this "sentence." He says:

"However my present state of health may end, living or dying, I shall always look to the months of my ministry at Herstmonceux, and of my closer connexion with you, as a most bright and healthy contrast to my previous life. When I think of leaving you, I fel as if the one sabbath of my life were at an end. I may fix in London or elsewhere, and may spend more or fewer hours and words in the service of the Church; but I shall be in the midst of excitement and intentions of which I have long since swallowed many a drenching dose, and which I look forward to for the future with horror."

When we think of what Sterling's future life was, we cannot imagine that he gained much on the score of health by giving up the duties of a parish curate. He continued to reside for some months, at least, at Herstmonceux after his official connexion with the parish ceased; but London was the goal to which his thoughts verged, and literature was his object-the business to which he proposed devoting himself and to London he soon went. He had already formed an acquaintance with Carlyle, which soon ripened into intimacy and cordial affection. Sterling was busy with theological learning the Tholucks, Schleiermachers, and Neanders, were his daily study: parts of Tholuck he translated. "He looked disappointed, though full of good nature," says Carlyle, "at my obstinate indifference to them and their affairs."

For some two or three years Sterling lived in London, or the neighbourhood. He had always been fond

VOL. XXXIX.-NO. CCXXX.

of writing verse, and occasionally exhibited powers of a kind that makes us think that the direction of his talents to poetry would, probably, have secured more continued attention to his works than can now be hoped for. This does not appear to have been the feeling of either Hare or Carlyle, and we should think that Sterling heard little of the kind of praise which most animates a poet. His poems were, from time to time, printed in Blackwood; but we find Sterling complaining that the Editor used to ask him for prose and so he prosed to please the magazines, giving up his chances of a permanent name.

Ill-health drove him from London to Bordeaux. He had scarcely re-appeared in England when he was ordered to Madeira. This continued shifting of residence was unfavourable to any fixed exertion in literature, though Sterling bore the removal of his household gods better than most men. While at Madeira, he continued to write papers for Blackwood. "The Onyx-Ring," the best of them, was praised by Wilson, and his praise acted like inspiration. Again we find him in London, and again driven abroad. Italy is now, for a while, his home. Wherever he went he found friendsintellectual friends-and to the last his mind was active. At Madeira, Calvert, of the family of that Calvert whom Wordsworth commemorates as, by a large pecuniary legacy, freeing his early years from want, and the fear of want. At Italy, Carlyle, the brother of his biographer, and one who is or ought to be known to English scholars, as the person whose admirable edition and translation of Dante's "Inferno has done more for the great poet than all else that has been of late years. In May, 1839, we find him at Clifton, still the victim of ill-health. For four or five years more, life was continued ; but "disaster on disaster" came-his wife's and his mother's death within an hour of each other, and the first wholly unexpected. His mental activity continued to the last; nothing can be more beautiful than the fragments of letters to his son preserved by Carlyle and by Hare. As far as we can learn, great changes had been undergone in his religious feelings and views since he had been with Hare as his curate in Sussex. What the extent of those changes was, we do not know,-neither

P

book distinctly informs us; but, whatever they were, it is to be remembered that, ardent as was Sterling's nature, never was there a man whose opinions on every subject were so shifting and unstable-this not alone in religious speculation, but on all subjects whatever. We have far exceeded the limits we had proposed to ourselves, led on by the interest of the subject. We

must come to an end.

On the 16th of September, 1844, Sterling felt that death was near. The language of his first biographer must here assist us:

"In this conviction he said: 'I thank the All-wise One.' His sister remarked the next day that he was unusually cheerful. He lay on the sofa quietly, telling her of little things that he wished her to do for him, and choosing out books to be sent to his friends. On the 18th he was again comforted by letters from Mr. Trench and Mr. Mill, to whom he took pleasure in scribbling some little verses of thanks. Then, writing a few lines in pencil, he gave them to his sister, saying, This is for you; you will care more for this !' The lines were

"Could we but hear all Nature's voice,

From Glowworm up to Sun,
'Twould speak with one concordant sound,
Thy will, O God, be done!'

"But hark! a sadder, mightier prayer
From all men's hearts that live,
Thy will be done in earth and Heaven,
And thou my sins forgive!'"

"These were the last words he wrote. He murmured over the last two lines to himself. He had been very quiet all that day, little inclined to read or speak, until the evening, when he talked a little to his sister. As it grew dusk, he appeared to be seeking for something, and, on her asking what he wanted, said, 'Only the old Bible, which I used so often at Herstmonceux in the cottages;' and which A little later generally lay near him. his brother arrived from London, with whom he conversed cheerfully for a few minutes. He was then left to settle for the night. But soon he grew worse; and the servant summoned the family to his room. He was no longer able to recognise them. The last struggle was short: and before eleven o'clock his spirit had departed. He was buried in the beautiful little church-yard of Bonchurch."

Of the two biographies of Sterling, Hare's gives us the best account of his early life-Carlyle's of his latter years. Carlyle describes himself as led to write because Hare has not dwelt on the

went.

changes of opinion which Sterling's mind, during his latter years, underThe fact of such changes Hare has distinctly stated; and more than such fact is not learned from Carlyle. That Sterling's life should have been written, and written by two such men, is proof of the power which this highminded, energetic, affectionate man exercised over all among whom he conversed; but never was there a man whose fluctuations of opinion ought to have less effect, of any kind whatever, on the minds of others, in the way either of influence or of authority. Never was there a man whose powers of mind seem to have been less under his own command. His opinions were not formed in any serious or thoughtful habits of study; but he was fond of argument, and his power of readily clothing any proposition with impressive words, and dressing it out in lively imagery, gave it some seeming truth to himself and others. But such opinions, light as air, were blown about, or away, by trifling accidents of conversation with every one whom he met. His ready talent of disputation made him often, if not always, the victor of the moment; and hence, his love for this kind of intellectual gambling, in which, by losing his time, he lost everything except his temper, which seemed to have been improved by trials, that would have outworn the patience of most men. In literature his efforts were crude and unripe: his biographers tell of works which they had not curiosity or industry enough to read, but tell enough to inform their readers that opinions were strongly expressed in each, which the next succeeding volume or essay was intended to efface. Thus, Goethe was in one book a mere mask, in the next something more than man. We pronounce for neither opinion, nor against the mind which held each in succession; but we caution our readers against attaching any kind of authority to such things, and the habit of obtruding them, as if they were of the slightest consequence, or of more value than the accidental advocacy of this view or the other, by a man whose opinion on either side was probably the dictate of mere momentary caprice and imperfect information. With Sterling we have no quarrel; we even think that his best powers, exhibited in the calm exercise of the poetical faculty, have not