threatened with consumption; for a short time he was a curate in
the English Church, but drifted away from that. He lived for a time
at Falmouth, and afterwards at Ventnor. He must have been a man of
extraordinary charm, and with quite unequalled powers of
conversation. Even Carlyle seems to have heard him gladly, and that
is no ordinary compliment, considering Carlyle's own volubility,
and the agonies, occasionally suppressed but generally trenchantly
expressed, with which Carlyle listened to other well-known talkers
like Coleridge and Macaulay.

Carlyle certainly had a very deep affection and admiration for
Sterling; he rains down praises upon him, in that wonderful little
biography, which is probably the finest piece of work that Carlyle
ever did.

He speaks of Sterling as "brilliant, beautiful, cheerful with an
ever-flowing wealth of ideas, fancies, imaginations . . . with
frank affections, inexhaustible hopes, audacities, activities, and
general radiant vivacity of heart and intelligence, which made the
presence of him an illumination and inspiration wherever he went."

But all Carlyle's love and admiration for his friend did not induce
him to praise Sterling's writings; he looked upon him as a poet,
but without the gift of expression. He says that all Sterling's
work was spoilt by over-haste, and "a lack of due inertia." The
fact is that Sterling was a sort of improvisatore, and what was
beautiful and natural enough when poured out in talk, and with the
stimulus of congenial company, grew pale and indistinct when he
wrote it down; he had, in fact, no instinct for art or for design,
and he failed whenever he tried to mould ideas into form.