STERLING, JOHN (1806-1844)

—E ayist and miscellaneous writer, s. of Edward S., a well-known writer in the Times , was b. in Bute, and ed. at Glasgow and Camb. At the latter he became acquainted with a group of brilliant men, including F.D. Maurice, Trench, and Monckton Milnes. He took orders and became curate to Julius Hare ( q.v. ); but intellectual difficulties and indifferent health led to his resignation within a year, and the rest of his life was pa ed in alternating between England and warmer climes. He wrote for Blackwood's Magazine , the London and Westminster , and Quarterly Reviews , and pub. E ays and Tales , The Election , a humorous poem, Str afford , a tragedy, and Richard Cœur de Lion , a serio-comic poem of which three books out of eight were pub. His memory, perpetuated in a remarkable memoir by Carlyle, lives rather by what he was than by anything he did. His character and intellect appear to have exercised a singular influence on the eminent men he numbered among his friends.