The southern press. [volume] (Washington City [i.e. Washington, D.C.]) 1850-1852, 1851-11-22
From c~lyls's LIE Of John Sterling.
ANevsuaper Editor.

sufficient, increasing not diminishing, had award
ed his abors in the Tints, which were now In
their full flower. He mad influence OF SORT
went busily among busy public men; and en-.
joyed, in the questionable form attached TO
Journalism and anonymity, a social consideration
and position which were abundantly gratifying
to him A singular figure OF this epoch and
when you came to know him, which it was
easily to fail of doing, if you had not eyes and
candid insight, gallant, truly gifted, and man
full figure, Of his kind. We saw much of him in
this house; much of .ll his family; and had
grown to love them all right well-him too,
though that was the difficult part of the feat.
For in his Irish way he played the conjuror
very much-"lhree hundred and sixty five opin-
ions in the year upon every subject" as wag
once said.
In fact his talk, ever ingenious, emphatic and
spirited in detail, was much effective in earnest.
ness at least in clear earnestness, of purport and
outcome, but went tumbling as if in mere wei
tiers of explosive unreason; volcano heavlng
under vague deluges of scor@, ashes and I'M
ponderous pumicstones, you could not say IN
what direction, nor well whether in any, Not
till after good study did you see the deep molten
lava-hood, which simered steadily enough, and
showed very well by and by whittier it was
bound. For must say of Edward Sterling, at
ter all his daily explosive sophstries and fala-
cies of talk he had stubborn instructive sense
of what was manful, strong, and worthy; recog-
nized with quick feeling, the charlatan under its
solemnest wig; knew rs clearly as any man
pusanimous tailor in bucram, an ass under
the lions skin, and did with his whole heart des-
pise the same. .... ,. .... ....
The sudden changes of doctrine in the Times,
which failed not to excite loud censure and in
NJ in, hos laws firSt in
telligible to you when you came to interpret
them as his changes. These sudden whirls from
east to west on his part, and total changes of
party and articulate opinion at days warning,
lay in the nature of the man, and could not be
helped products of his fiery impatence of the
combined impetuosity and limitation of an intel
lect, which did, nevertheless continually gravitate
towards what was loyal, true, and right on all
manner of subjects These, as define them,
were the mere scoria and pumice wreck of
steady central lava-food, which truly was voca.
mic and explosive to strange degree, but did
rest as few Others on the grand fre-depths Of
the world. Thus, if he stormed along, ten
thousand strong in time of the reform bill, in
dignantly denouncng torysm and its obsolete
insane pretensions; and then if, after some ex:
perience Of WING management, he siscerned that
Wellington and Peel, by whatever name entitled
were the men to be depended on by England
there lay in all this, visible enough, deeper con
sistency far more important than the superficial
one, SO much clamored after by the vulgar
Which is the lions skim which is the real lion ?
Let man, if he is prudent, ascertain that before
speaking; but above and beyond all things, let
him ascertain it, and stand vaantly to it when
ascertaned! In the latter essential part of the
operation, Edward Sterling was honorably sue
cessful to really marked degree; in the former.
or prudential part very much the reverse, as his
history in the journalistic department at least,
was continually teaching him.
An amazingly impetuous, hasty, explosive
man, this "Captain Whirlwind," as ! used to
call him Great sensibility lay in him, too
real sympathy, and affectionats pity and soft
ness, which he had an over tendency to express
even by tears-a singular sight in so leonine
man. Enemies called them maudlin and hypo.
critical, these tears; brit that was nowise the
complete account of them. On the whole, there
did conspicuously lie dash of ostentatiOn, u
self.consciousness apt 10 come loud and brag
CART, over all he said and did and felt this was
the alloy of the man. and you had to be thank
ful for the abundant gold along with it,
Quizzing enough he got among US for all this,
and for the singular chiarOscurO manner of pro.
cedure, like that of Archimagus CagIiostro,
nous known unknown thunderngs in the Times
neeessitated in him and much We laughed
not without explosive counter-bearings on his
part-but in fine, one could not do without him (.
one knew him at heart for right brave man
"By Jove, SIR" thus he would swear TO you,
with radient face sometimes, not often, by u
deeper oath. With persons Of dignity, esr ecial
iy with women, TO whom he was always very
gallant, he had courtly, delicate manners, verg
ing towards the wiredrawn and elaborate or
common occasions he bloolred out at once into
jolly familiarity of the grac efully boisierous
kind, reminding you Of mess.rooms and old
Dublin days.
His oH.hand mode Of speech was always pre-
else, emphatic, ingenious; his laugh which was
frequent rather than otherwise, had n sincerity
Of banter, but 10 real depth Of sense for the
ludicrous, and soon ended il il grew too loud, in
a more dissonant stream. lie was broad, we'll
built, stout of stature-and walked, or sat, in
an erect decisive manner. A remarkable man
and playing, especially in those years, lS30-40,
q remarkable part in the world.
For il may be said the emphatic, bgvoced,
always influential, AID often strongly unreason
abe, Times Newspaper, was the express emblem
Of Edward Sterling; he, more than any other
man Of circumstance, was the Times newspaper,
and Numbered through il TO the shaking If the
spheres. And let US assert withal that his ard
It's influence in those days was not ilgrounded,
but rather well; that the loud manifold unrea.
son, often enough yituperaied and groaned over,
was Of the surf ce mostly; that his conclusions,
unreasonable, partial, has'y, as they might at
FIRST be, grayitated irresistbly towards the right
in virtue Of which grand quality, indeed, the
root Of all good insight in man, Times oratory
found acceptance, and Influential audience, amid
the loud whirl Of an England itself logically
very stupid, and wise chiefly by instinct.
Connected with this matter a remarkable
note has come into my hands-honorable TO
the man am writing Of, aud in some sort, TO
another higher man-which, as il nay now (un.
happily for us al) be published without scruple,
| will not withhold here. The support, by
Edward Sterling and the Times, Of Sir Robert
Peel's first ministry, and generally Of PceI's
craftsmanship, was conspicuous fact in its day;
but the return il met with from the person
chiefly interested may @ considered well worth
recording. The following letter, after meander.