LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JOHN STERLING.
THE late John Sterling was one of those men the apparent and tangible results of whose life did not quite fulfil the expectations of his intimates. The shortcoming was partly owing to delicate health, which unfitted him for severe and continuous exertion, drove him to the West Indies, Ma- deira, Italy, or English wintering-places, to preserve existence, and un. dermined the powers of life itself before he bad reached his fortieth year. A good deal, however, must be ascribed to his want of original and inde- pendent genius; for though there seemed to be novelty in his style and views, it may be doubted whether he was so original as he seemed. The manner of his best poem, " The Sexton's Daughter," was derived from Wordsworth, though by no means a common imitation ; for if he wanted the originality and depth of his prototype, he escaped his affectations and prosiness. -The indistinct yearning (often visible in Sterling's prose writings) after something loftier, more imaginative, more faithful, and less sordidly material than the present age, he drew from Carlyle and Carlyle's German masters ' - " the Idea" of Fichte and other vaguenesses of the Transcendental school being frequently traceable in his writings. Had be lived, he might have modified and refined the notions for which he was indebted to others, as perhaps he was doing when sickness and death intercepted his career : but, though time might have ripened and improved his genius, and health enabled him to carry out some larger work, it could not have imparted originality, or probably independence.
Something of this want was visible in his life as well as in his writings. He seems to have begun with a species of religious indifference or thought- lessness. After his marriage he was converted to a sort of rational Evangelism, took orders, and became curate to his old tutor and friend, now his editor and biographer, the Reverend Mr. Hare. Sterling's active zeal soon aggravated his consumptive tendency and compelled him to resign this post : in the speculative life which ill health afterwards com- pelled him to lead, the German writers drew him into some heterodox views, the nature of which is not clearly stated. They appear, how- ever, to have been Rationalistic ; but Sterling at loot settled in the Lord's Prayer as superseding all doctrines and dogmas.
"On the 16th September [1844]' there was a great and sudden increase of weakness, which convinced him and those around him that the end was at hand. In this conviction be said, '1 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 lie 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, be 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 Son,
'Fwould speak with one concordant sound,
• Thy will, 0 God, be done!' But hark, a sadder, mightier prayer, From idl 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, un- til the evening, when he talked a little to his sister. As it grew dusk, he ap- peared to be seeking for something; and, on her asking what he wanted, said, Only the old Bible, which I used so often at Herstmonceaux in the cottages'; and which generally lay near him. A little later, his brother arrived from Lon- don; 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 recognize them. The last struggle was short; and before eleven o'clock his spirit had departed. [In his thirty-ninth year.] "He was buried in the beautiful little churchyard of Bonchurch." The publication of the Fcgays and Tales before us has been prompted in some degree, perhaps, by the regard of a friend rather than by a critical estimate of the wants of literature. They consist of-1. Origi. nal papers, not always of the specific character of essays, but on inde- pendent subjects, chosen by the writer, so that he is not fettered by his theme as in critical reviews : and these originally appeared in the Athe- flaunt for the years 1828–'29, except some fragmentary Thoughts, &e. published in Blackwood during 1837, '38, and '39. 2. Articles chiefly contributed to three Reviews, the London and Westminster, the Quar. terly, and the Foreign Quarterly, between 1837 and 1842. 3. Tales and Apologues, reprinted from the Atheneeum and Blackwood, with a few selections from an unsuccessful novel : of this class the most im- portant is "The Onyx Ring." Of the various papers' we incline to rate a series of characters under the title of "Shades of the Dead" as the best, in the sense of complete- ness. They partake, indeed, of the crudeness and exaggeration of youth, (the author was only about four-and-twenty when he contributed to the Athenceum,) and they display the rhetorical vice of considering rather what the writer can say well than what he can say truly. But they are more entire in themselves, with greater adherence to the proposed sub- ject, than the other miscellaneous writings of the author ; and, though they may not exhibit greater original thought, yet the thoughts are more germane and connected. As a reviewer, Sterling is above the average, yet not very greatly above it ; making no approach to the three great "article' luminaries, and not superior if even equal to Mackintosh, or Foster of the Eclectic. He is "neither one thing nor f other " : he does not discard his book and write an essay or disquisi- tion on the subject, after the manner of Macaulay, nor does he steadily adhere to the book and produce a criticism. In a notice of Tenny- son, published in the Quarterly, he begins with what poetry might be among us, goes to railroads, proceeds to elections, then to Exeter Hall meetings, and finally runs over some of our leading poets, with the na- tional characteristics as expressed in their works, before we get to the nominal theme. And then the criticism, though judicious, is not very large, or even full in proportion to the space occupied. Nor, to say truth, was Sterling sufficiently catholic for a critic. He could make sensible and even deep observations ; be could pass just enough judgments upon par- ticular cases ; and he had a genuine relish for the great classics of litera- ture—Homer, the Greek dramatists, Dante, Milton, Shakspere; and ad- mired wherever he found what he sometimes called imagination and some- times "the Idea." But in other cases he belonged to a school if not a clique; • he swore by Coleridge, Carlyle, and the German Transcendental- ists or Sentimentalists; and seemed inclined to undervalue the lesser litera- ture of all ages, and, as a sequence, to blot out from our study the life and opinion which it reflects. It would seem, however, that he was not fixed in narrowness : he modified his opinions, perhaps extended them; and had his health been better and his life been spared, he might have outgrown his sectarian bigotry altogether. His tales, though by no means bad, are not the best of his writings. Be did not want narrative power, or a clear conception of character ; but he was deficient in the imagination necessary to represent action or dia- logue, especially when taking a dramatic form or rising above common life. His most ambitious attempt, the tragedy of "Strafford," was a failure as an historical drama, and did not very distinctly evolve the theory (as we now see from his letters) on which the author wrote it, though one part was dimly visible, as we observed in our review. "The Sexton's Daughter," although limited in extent and humble in sub- ject, was perhaps the best thing Sterling did. Judging from these speci- mens, any efforts of Sterling's in the more creative class of the belles lettres would only, it seems probable, have secured him a place in the history of literature. As a describer of life and manners—an essayist, he might have given his productions a more permanent position before the world, had he devoted himself to the task ; or he might have been suc- cessful in a work requiring industrious acquisition, and the exercise of the reasoning faculties as opposed to those of the imagination. In the more fugitive walk of literature, in which he chiefly occupied himself, it cannot be said that he formed a new instrument, and scarcely gave a new tone to any existing one.
The collection before us is one of affection, which will be welcomed by all the friends of the late John Sterling ; and will enable them (with the editions of his poetry) to preserve the entire productions of his mind. For general use, a more rigid selection might have been advisable; and this could readily have been done, both as regards entire writings and extracts. The review of Tennyson, for instance, is of slender account ; but the extrinsic remarks are often worth preserving. Take, for example, a general election. "Look at one of our general elections. The absurdities are plain, no doubt: has not the ocean froth and bubbles? But take the thing altogether, and observe the mixture and spread of interests and faculties brought into action. Above all, the open boldness with which a nation throws itself into the streets and markets, casting off, in the faith that it can reproduce, its company of rulers, and letting the fools clamour, the poor groan, the rich humble themselves, and all men bring all to judgment, without a moment's fear, but that quiet will spring out of the tumult, and a government be born from a mob. From the castle of the highest peer to the clay-stained tipplers in the alehouse, from the bench of Bishops to the ranters in the moor-side smithy, all are stirred and fluttered, feverish with the same anxieties, debating in their different dialects the same questions, and all alike dependent on the omnipotence of an event which no man can absolutely con- troL Most of what they say is folly; most of their objects of hope and fear, chimeras: but how full of throbbing business is the whole land ! how braced are all the wishes and devices of all! Among so much of make-believe and sound, it is a great thing that the whole country must at least be willingly deceived if it is to be gained over—must seem to itself rationally persuaded; and that the most futile pretender can only cheat by aping, and so strengthening in others the qualities in which he is most deficient. At the blast of the newsmen's tin trumpets all shadows must walk out of their darkness into sunshine, and there be tried; when, if many of the umbratile fraudulently pass muster, there is at least a public recognition of the laws of light."
There is both characteristic description and sound judgment in this view of Exeter Hall.
"In the midmost rush of London business, and all the clatter of its vehicles, turn aside through an open door, and what do we see ? A large and lofty room, every yard of its floor and galleries crammed with human, chiefly female life,—a prodigious sea of bonnets, and under each of these a separate sentient sea of no- tions, and feelings, and passions, all in some measure stirred by the same tides and gales,—every one of them, however narrow at the surface, in depth un- fathomable.
"Altogether irrespectively of our present purpose, and on the most general grounds, it may be safely said, that in one of these great Exeter Hall meetings there is more to strike us than almost anywhere else we know. The room is said to hold four thousand persons; and from its form they are all clearly visible at once,—all of the middle or upper classes, well-dressed, though often many of them in Quaker uniform, and at these times probably three-fourths of them women. Such assemblages are in truth, for a large part of the members, by far the most exciting outward events of life. The faces themselves are alone quite enough to Prove no small share of moral culture in the mass. The delicately curved mouths and nostrils, the open yet quiet and observant eyes, and a look of serious yet pleasurable elevation, mark very clearly a chosen class of our country. The men are of course less pure and single in their stamp of feeling: business has marked on them its contractedness, with its strength. Yet these also have an appearance of thought, although with some coxcombical importance and com- placent theological primness. Take, however, the whole assemblage—all it is and all it represents—we know not where anything like it could be discovered. No Roman Catholic, no despotic, no poor, no barbarous, no thoroughly demoralized, we fear we mast add, no very instructed and well-organized community, could ever exhibit such a gathering,—voluntary, be it remembered, chiefly female, all with money to spare, united for such remote and often fantastic objects; above all, under such leaders. For in the kind of persons guiding these bodies, and in their discourse, consists more than half the wonder. In the House of Commons, in the Courts of Law, we may hear nonsense enough. But in these places it is not the most vehement, the most chimerical, in other words, the most out- rageous and silly, who bear the chiefest sway, but much the contrary. Now in such Strand meetings, for the purest and noblest purposes, it is plain enough that a loud tongue, combined with a certain unctuous silkiness of profession, and the most dismal obscuration of brain, may venture with success upon the maddest assertions, the most desperate appeals, and will draw sighs and even tears of sympathy, by the coarsest nonsense, from hundreds of amiable and thoughtful persons.-
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