enough, and showed very well by and by whither it was bound. For I

must say of Edward Sterling, after all his daily explosive
sophistries, and fallacies of talk, he had a stubborn instinctive

sense of what was manful, strong and worthy; recognized, with quick
feeling, the charlatan under his solemnest wig; knew as clearly as any

man a pusillanimous tailor in buckram, an ass under the lion's skin,
and did with his whole heart despise the same.

The sudden changes of doctrine in the _Times_, which failed not to
excite loud censure and indignantamazement in those days, were first

intelligible 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 a day's warning, lay in the nature
of the man, and could not be helped; products of his fiery impatience,

of the combined impetuosity and limitation of an intellect, which did
nevertheless continually gravitate towards what was loyal, true and

right on all manner of subjects. These, as I define them, were the
mere scoriae and pumice wreck of a steady central lava-flood, which

truly was volcanic and explosive to a strange degree, but did rest as
few others on the grand fire-depths of the world. Thus, if he stormed

along, ten thousand strong, in the time of the Reform Bill,
indignantly denouncing Toryism and its obsolete insane pretensions;

and then if, after some experience of Whig management, he discerned
that Wellington and Peel, by whatever name entitled, were the men to

be depended on by England,--there lay in all this, visible enough, a
deeper consistency far more important than the superficial one, so

much clamored after by the vulgar. Which is the lion's-skin; which is
the real lion? Let a man, if he is prudent, ascertain that before

speaking;--but above and beyond all things, _let_ him ascertain it,
and stand valiantly to it when ascertained! In the latter essential

part of the operation Edward Sterling was honorably successful to a
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 amazinglyimpetuous, hasty, explosive man, this "Captain
Whirlwind," as I used to call him! Great sensibility lay in him, too;

a real sympathy, and affectionate pity and softness, which he had an
over-tendency to express even by tears,--a singular sight in so

leonine a man. Enemies called them maudlin and hypocritical, these
tears; but that was nowise the complete account of them. On the

whole, there did conspicuously lie a dash of ostentation, a
self-consciousness apt to become loud and braggart, over all he said

and did and felt: this was the alloy of the man, and you had to be
thankful for the abundant gold along with it.

Quizzing enough he got among us for all this, and for the singular
_chiaroscuro_ manner of procedure, like that of an Archimagus

Cagliostro, or Kaiser Joseph Incognito, which his anonymous
known-unknown thunderings in the _Times_ necessitated in him; and much

we laughed,--not without explosive counter-banterings on his
part;--but, in fine, one could not do without him; one knew him at

heart for a right brave man. "By Jove, sir!" thus he would swear to
you, with radiant face; sometimes, not often, by a deeper oath. With

persons of dignity, especially with women, to whom he was always very
gallant, he had courtly delicate manners, verging towards the

wire-drawn and elaborate; on common occasions, he bloomed out at once
into jolly familiarity of the gracefullyboisterous kind, reminding

you of mess-rooms and old Dublin days. His off-hand mode of speech
was always precise, emphatic, ingenious: his laugh, which was

frequent rather than otherwise, had a sincerity of banter, but no real
depth of sense for the ludicrous; and soon ended, if it grew too loud,

in a mere dissonant scream. He was broad, well-built, stout of
stature; had a long lowish head, sharp gray eyes, with large strong

aquiline face to match; and walked, or sat, in an erect decisive
manner. A remarkable man; and playing, especially in those years

1830-40, a remarkable part in the world.
For it may be said, the emphatic, big-voiced, always influential and

often stronglyunreasonable _Times_ Newspaper was the express emblem
of Edward Sterling; he, more than any other man or circumstance, _was_

the _Times_ Newspaper, and thundered through it to the shaking of the
spheres. And let us assertwithal that his and its influence, in

those days, was not ill grounded but rather well; that the loud
manifold unreason, often enough vituperated and groaned over, was of

the surface mostly; that his conclusions, unreasonable, partial, hasty
as they might at first be, gravitated irresistibly towards the right:

in virtue of which grand quality indeed, the root of all good insight
in man, his _Times_ oratory found acceptance and influential audience,

amid the loud whirl of an England itself logically very stupid, and
wise chiefly by instinct.

England listened to this voice, as all might observe; and to one who
knew England and it, the result was not quite a strange one, and was

honorable rather than otherwise to both parties. A good judge of
men's talents has been heard to say of Edward Sterling: "There is not

a _faculty of improvising_ equal to this in all my circle. Sterling
rushes out into the clubs, into London society, rolls about all day,

copiously talking modish nonsense or sense, and listening to the like,
with the multifarious miscellany of men; comes home at night; redacts

it into a _Times_ Leader,--and is found to have hit the essential
purport of the world's immeasurable babblement that day, with an

accuracy beyond all other men. This is what the multifarious Babel
sound did mean to say in clear words; this, more nearly than anything

else. Let the most giftedintellect, capable of writing epics, try to
write such a Leader for the Morning Newspapers! No intellect but

Edward Sterling's can do it. An improvising faculty without parallel
in my experience."--In this "improvising faculty," much more nobly

developed, as well as in other faculties and qualities with
unexpectedly new and improved figure, John Sterling, to the accurate

observer, showed himself very much the son of Edward.
Connected with this matter, a remarkable Note has come into my hands;

honorable to the man I am writing of, and in some sort to another
higher man; which, as it may now (unhappily for us all) be published

without scruple, I will not withhold here. The support, by Edward
Sterling and the _Times_, of Sir Robert Peel's first Ministry, and

generally of Peel's statesmanship, was a conspicuous fact in its day;
but the return it met with from the person chiefly interested may be

considered well worth recording. The following Letter, after
meandering through I know not what intricate conduits, and

consultations of the Mysterious Entity whose address it bore, came to
Edward Sterling as the real flesh-and-blood proprietor, and has been

found among his papers. It is marked _Private_:--
"(Private) _To the Editor of the Times_.

"WHITEHALL, 18th April, 1835.
"SIR,--Having this day delivered into the hands of the King the Seals

of Office, I can, without any imputation of an interested motive, or
any impediment from scrupulous feelings of delicacy, express my deep

sense of the powerful support which that Government over which I had
the honor to preside received from the _Times_ Newspaper.

"If I do not offer the expressions of personal gratitude, it is
because I feel that such expressions would do injustice to the

character of a support which was given exclusively on the highest and
most independent grounds of public principle. I can say this with

perfect truth, as I am addressing one whose person even is unknown to
me, and who during my tenure of power studiously avoided every species

of intercourse which could throw a suspicion upon the motives by which
he was actuated. I should, however, be doing injustice to my own

feelings, if I were to retire from Office without one word of
acknowledgment; without at least assuring you of the admiration with

which I witnessed, during the arduouscontest in which I was engaged,
the daily exhibition of that extraordinaryability to which I was

indebted for a support, the more valuable because it was an impartial
and discriminating support.--I have the honor to be, Sir,

"Ever your most obedient and faithful servant,
"ROBERT PEEL."

To which, with due loftiness and diplomaticgravity and brevity, there
is Answer, Draught of Answer in Edward Sterling's hand, from the

Mysterious Entity so honored, in the following terms:--
"_To the Right Hon. Sir Robert Peel, Bart., &c. &c. &c_.

"SIR,--It gives me sinceresatisfaction to learn from the Letter with
which you have honored me, bearing yesterday's date, that you estimate

so highly the efforts which have been made during the last five months
by the _Times_ Newspaper to support the cause of rational and

wholesome Government which his Majesty had intrusted to your guidance;
and that you appreciate fairly the disinterested motive, of regard to

the public welfare, and to that alone, through which this Journal has
been prompted to pursue a policy in accordance with that of your

Administration. It is, permit me to say, by such motives only, that
the _Times_, ever since I have known it, has been influenced, whether

in defence of the Government of the day, or in constitutional
resistance to it: and indeed there exist no other motives of action

for a Journalist, compatible either with the safety of the press, or
with the political morality of the great bulk of its readers.--With