The father, Edward Sterling (1773–1847), traced descent from William, younger brother of Sir Robert Sterling, who had served under Gustavus Adolphus, and, subsequently attaching himself to James Butler, first duke of Ormonde [q. v.], was knighted in 1649 and exiled until 1660, when he returned and settled in Munster. Edward, born at Waterford on 27 Feb. 1773, was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and was called to the Irish bar. He fought as a loyal volunteer at Vinegar Hill, and, having attained the rank of a captain of militia, contemplated a military career, and was for a short time attached to the ‘eighth batallion of reserve.’ Shortly after his marriage, on 5 April 1804, his regiment was ‘broke,’ and he migrated to Kames Castle and then to Llanblethian, near Cowbridge, Glamorganshire. In 1811 he issued a pamphlet on ‘Military Reform,’ which led to his becoming a regular correspondent of the ‘Times’ newspaper, under the signature ‘Vetus,’ later exchanged for ‘Magus.’ Some of his letters were reprinted. During the peace interval in 1814–15 he was at Paris, and on his return to England he became a regular and important member of the ‘Times’ staff. Between 1830 and 1840 the paper became, says Carlyle, his ‘express emblem,’ and his opinions were specially identified with ‘The Thunderer's’ admiration for Wellington and Peel and detestation of O'Connell. He retired from active journalism soon after 1840, and died on 3 Sept. 1847 at South Place, Knightsbridge, at the house of his elder son, Sir Anthony Coningham Sterling [q. v.] (Gent. Mag. 1847, ii. 440).
John's infancy owed much to Wales, some of his most abiding impressions having been formed when his family were domiciled at Llanblethian. After his father's return from Paris in 1814, he permanently settled in England. He received most of his schooling at Dr. Burney's establishment at Greenwich, and, after a short trial of the university of Glasgow, proceeded to Trinity College, Cambridge, in October 1824. Here his tutor was Julius Charles Hare [q. v.], a circumstance which may be said to have determined his intellectual course for life, not so much from Hare's immediate influence upon him, as from the acquaintances, literary and personal, which he was thus led to form. His opinions had hitherto been radical and utilitarian, but the study of Niebuhr, to which Hare must have introduced him, effected a complete revolution; he became a leading member of the ‘Apostles'’ club; he was the most distinguished speaker at the Union; and formed friendships with Frederick Denison Maurice [q. v.] and Richard Chenevix Trench [q. v.] which had the most powerful effect upon his mind and character. It was most probably through Hare that he became acquainted with Coleridge, at whose feet he sat whenever possible, and through whom he came to know Wordsworth and Edward Irving. He migrated along with Maurice to Trinity Hall, with the intention of taking a legal degree, but left the university in 1827 without any, and disappointed his family by declining to study for the bar, ‘because,’ as he afterwards told Caroline Fox, ‘he knew how specially dangerous to his temperament would be the snare of it.’ A secretaryship to a political association was found for him. The object of the society was believed by Carlyle to have been the abolition of the East India Company's trading monopoly, a reform eagerly promoted at the time. If so, it would account for Sterling's acquaintance with James Silk Buckingham [q. v.], from whom in July 1828 he, with other friends, purchased the ‘Athenæum.’ This journal for a half-year was principally conducted by him and Maurice. Both had been regular writers while it was under Buckingham's management, and General Maurice shows in his life of his father that ignorance of the fact that they were not then its conductors has led Carlyle to mistake their sentiments, which were by no means ultra-liberal in politics, although daringly original in literature. Maurice's essay on Shelley, for instance, is a perfect dithyrambic, and either he or his colleague is found seriously exhorting University College to make the opium-eater its professor of logic. With much crudity there was a right spirit in the journal. Some of the little fanciful tales and sketches contributed by Sterling were especially charming. Financial considerations, however, soon made it imperative to transfer the paper to more practical and experienced hands. Sterling occupied the leisure thus gained in trying to fathom Coleridge, whose ‘Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit’ he transcribed, and in the composition of his suggestive but unsatisfying novel of ‘Arthur Coningsby,’ though this did not appear until 1833 (London, 3 vols. 8vo, published anonymously). The best thing in it is the beautiful ballad ‘A maiden came gliding over the sea,’ which alone would prove Sterling a poet. Another novel, ‘Fitzgeorge,’ brought out by the publisher of ‘Arthur Coningsby’ in 1832, has been attributed to Sterling, but it is impossible that he should have written it.
In 1830 Sterling married under romantic circumstances. He had become connected
