publicly, and spreading on the table, your big purse of opulences than
his own. Abrupt too he is, cares little for big-wigs and garnitures;

perhaps laughs more than the real fun he has would order; but of
arrogance there is no vestige, of insincerity or of ill-nature none.

These must have been pleasant evenings in Regent Street, when the
circle chanced to be well adjusted there. At other times, Philistines

would enter, what we call bores, dullards, Children of Darkness; and
then,--except in a hunt of dullards, and a _bore-baiting_, which might

be permissible,--the evening was dark. Sterling, of course, had
innumerable cares withal; and was toiling like a slave; his very

recreations almost a kind of work. An enormous activity was in the
man;--sufficient, in a body that could have held it without breaking,

to have gone far, even under the unstable guidance it was like to
have!

Thus, too, an extensive, very variegated circle of connections was
forming round him. Besides his _Athenaeum_ work, and evenings in

Regent Street and elsewhere, he makes visits to country-houses, the
Bullers' and others; converses with established gentlemen, with

honorable women not a few; is gay and welcome with the young of his
own age; knows also religious, witty, and other distinguished ladies,

and is admiringly known by them. On the whole, he is already
locomotive; visits hither and thither in a very rapid flying manner.

Thus I find he had made one flying visit to the Cumberland Lake-region
in 1828, and got sight of Wordsworth; and in the same year another

flying one to Paris, and seen with no undue enthusiasm the
Saint-Simonian Portent just beginning to preach for itself, and France

in general simmering under a scum of impieties, levities,
Saint-Simonisms, and frothy fantasticalities of all kinds, towards the

boiling-over which soon made the Three Days of July famous. But by
far the most important foreign home he visited was that of Coleridge

on the Hill of Highgate,--if it were not rather a foreign shrine and
Dodona-Oracle, as he then reckoned,--to which (onwards from 1828, as

would appear) he was already an assiduous pilgrim. Concerning whom,
and Sterling's all-important connection with him, there will be much

to say anon.
Here, from this period, is a Letter of Sterling's, which the glimpses

it affords of bright scenes and figures now sunk, so many of them,
sorrowfully to the realm of shadows, will render interesting to some

of my readers. To me on the mere Letter, not on its contents alone,
there is accidentally a kind of fateful stamp. A few months after

Charles Buller's death, while his loss was mourned by many hearts, and
to his poor Mother all light except what hung upon his memory had gone

out in the world, a certain delicate and friendly hand, hoping to give
the poor bereaved lady a good moment, sought out this Letter of

Sterling's, one morning, and called, with intent to read it to
her:--alas, the poor lady had herself fallen suddenly into the

languors of death, help of another grander sort now close at hand; and
to her this Letter was never read!

On "Fanny Kemble," it appears, there is an Essay by Sterling in the
_Athenaeum_ of this year: "16th December, 1829." Very laudatory, I

conclude. He much admired her genius, nay was thought at one time to
be vaguely on the edge of still more chivalrous feelings. As the

Letter itself may perhaps indicate.
"_To Anthony Sterling, Esq., 24th Regiment, Dublin_.

"KNIGHTSBRIDGE, 10th Nov., 1829.
"MY DEAR ANTHONY,--Here in the Capital of England and of Europe, there

is less, so far as I hear, of movement and variety than in your
provincial Dublin, or among the Wicklow Mountains. We have the old

prospect of bricks and smoke, the old crowd of busy stupid faces, the
old occupations, the old sleepyamusements; and the latest news that

reaches us daily has an air of tiresome, doting antiquity. The world
has nothing for it but to exclaim with Faust, "Give me my youth

again." And as for me, my month of Cornish amusement is over; and I
must tie myself to my old employments. I have not much to tell you

about these; but perhaps you may like to hear of my expedition to the
West.

"I wrote to Polvellan (Mr. Buller's) to announce the day on which I
intended to be there, so shortly before setting out, that there was no

time to receive an answer; and when I reached Devonport, which is
fifteen or sixteen miles from my place of destination, I found a

letter from Mrs. Buller, saying that she was coming in two days to a
Ball at Plymouth, and if I chose to stay in the mean while and look

about me, she would take me back with her. She added an introduction
to a relation of her husband's, a certain Captain Buller of the

Rifles, who was with the Depot there,--a pleasant person, who I
believe had been acquainted with Charlotte,[7] or at least had seen

her. Under his superintendence--...
"On leaving Devonport with Mrs. Buller, I went some of the way by

water, up the harbor and river; and the prospects are certainly very
beautiful; to say nothing of the large ships, which I admire almost as

much as you, though without knowing so much about them. There is a
great deal of fine scenery all along the road to Looe; and the House

itself, a very unpretending Gothic cottage, stands beautifully among
trees, hills and water, with the sea at the distance of a quarter of a

mile.
"And here, among pleasant, good-natured, well-informed and clever

people, I spent an idle month. I dined at one or two Corporation
dinners; spent a few days at the old Mansion of Mr. Buller of Morval,

the patron of West Looe; and during the rest of the time, read, wrote,
played chess, lounged, and ate red mullet (he who has not done this

has not begun to live); talked of cookery to the philosophers, and of
metaphysics to Mrs. Buller; and altogethercultivated indolence, and

developed the faculty of nonsense with considerable pleasure and
unexampled success. Charles Buller you know: he has just come to

town, but I have not yet seen him. Arthur, his younger brother, I
take to be one of the handsomest men in England; and he too has

considerabletalent. Mr. Buller the father is rather a clever man of
sense, and particularly good-natured and gentlemanly; and his wife,

who was a renowned beauty and queen of Calcutta, has still many
striking and delicate traces of what she was. Her conversation is

more brilliant and pleasant than that of any one I know; and, at all
events, I am bound to admire her for the kindness with which she

patronizes me. I hope that, some day or other, you may be acquainted
with her.

"I believe I have seen no one in London about whom you would care to
hear,--unless the fame of Fanny Kemble has passed the Channel, and

astonished the Irish Barbarians in the midst of their bloody-minded
politics. Young Kemble, whom you have seen, is in Germany: but I

have the happiness of being also acquainted with his sister, the
divine Fanny; and I have seen her twice on the stage, and three or

four times in private, since my return from Cornwall. I had seen some
beautiful verses of hers, long before she was an actress; and her

conversation is full of spirit and talent. She never was taught to
act at all; and though there are many faults in her performance of

Juliet, there is more power than in any female playing I ever saw,
except Pasta's Medea. She is not handsome, rather short, and by no

means delicately formed; but her face is marked, and the eyes are
brilliant, dark, and full of character. She has far more ability than

she ever can display on the stage; but I have no doubt that, by
practice and self-culture, she will be a far finer actress at least

than any one since Mrs. Siddons. I was at Charles Kemble's a few
evenings ago, when a drawing of Miss Kemble, by Sir Thomas Lawrence,

was brought in; and I have no doubt that you will shortly see, even in
Dublin, an engraving of her from it, very unlike the caricatures that

have hitherto appeared. I hate the stage; and but for her, should very
likely never have gone to a theatre again. Even as it is, the

annoyance is much more than the pleasure; but I suppose I must go to
see her in every character in which she acts. If Charlotte cares for

plays, let me know, and I will write in more detail about this new
Melpomene. I fear there are very few subjects on which I can say

anything that will in the least interest her.
"Ever affectionately yours,

"J. STERLING."
Sterling and his circle, as their ardentspeculation and activity

fermented along, were in all things clear for progress, liberalism;
their politics, and view of the Universe, decisively of the Radical

sort. As indeed that of England then was, more than ever; the crust
of old hide-bound Toryism being now openly cracking towards some

incurable disruption, which accordingly ensued as the Reform Bill
before long. The Reform Bill already hung in the wind. Old