John Sterling

John Sterling (20 July 1806 – 18 September 1844) was a Scottish author. Life He was born at Kames Castle on the Isle of Bute, the son of Edward Sterling. After studying for a year at the University of Glasgow, he in 1824 entered Trinity College, Cambridge, where he had for tutor Julius Charles Hare. At Cambridge he took part in the debates of the Cambridge Union Society, and became a member of the Cambridge Apostles, forming friendships with Frederick Denison Maurice and Richard Trench. He moved to Trinity Hall with the intention of graduating in law, but left the university without taking a degree. During the next four years Sterling resided chiefly in London, employing himself actively in literature and making a number of literary friends. With F. D. Maurice he purchased the Athenaeum magazine in 1828 from James Silk Buckingham, but the enterprise was not a financial success. He also formed an intimacy with the Spanish revolutionist General Torrijos, in whose unfortunate expedition he took an active interest. On 2 November 1830, at Christ Church, Marylebone, Sterling married Susannah, daughter of Lieutenant-General Charles Barton (1760–1819) and his wife Susannah. Shortly after his marriage in 1830 symptoms of tuberculosis induced Sterling to take up his residence in the island of St Vincent, where he had inherited some property, and he remained there for fifteen months before returning to England. While at St Vincent he wrote "So far as I see, the Slaves here are cunning, deceitful and idle; without any great aptitude for ferocious crimes, and with very little scruple at committing others. But I have seen them much only in very favorable circumstances. They are, as a body, decidedly unfit for freedom; and if left, as at present, completely in the hands of their masters, will never become so, unless through the agency of the Methodists." After spending some time on the Continent in June 1834, Sterling was ordained and became curate at Hurstmonceux, where his old tutor Julius Hare was vicar. Acting on the advice of his physician, he resigned his clerical duties in the following February, but, according to Carlyle, the primary cause was a divergence from the opinions of the Church. There remained to him the "resource of the pen," but, having to "live all the rest of his days as in continual flight for his very existence," his literary achievements were necessarily fragmentary.