The Life of John Sterling | Page 7

Tredah Storm proved

ruinous, and the neck of this Irish War been broken at once. Doubtless
the Colonel Sir Robert followed or attended his Duke of Ormond into
foreign parts, and gave up his management of Munster, while it was yet
time: for after the Restoration we find him again, safe, and as was
natural, flourishing with new splendor; gifted, recompensed with
lands;--settled, in short, on fair revenues in those Munster regions. He
appears to have had no children; but to have left his property to
William, a younger brother who had followed him into Ireland. From
this William descends the family which, in the years we treat of, had
Edward Sterling, Father of our John, for its representative. And now
enough of genealogy.
Of Edward Sterling, Captain Edward Sterling as his title was, who in
the latter period of his life became well known in London political
society, whom indeed all England, with a curious mixture of mockery
and respect and even fear, knew well as "the Thunderer of the Times
Newspaper," there were much to be said, did the present task and its
limits permit. As perhaps it might, on certain terms? What is
indispensable let us not omit to say. The history of a man's childhood is
the description of his parents and environment: this is his inarticulate
but highly important history, in those first times, while of articulate he
has yet none.
Edward Sterling had now just entered on his thirty-fourth year; and was
already a man experienced in fortunes and changes. A native of
Waterford in Munster, as already mentioned; born in the "Deanery
House of Waterford, 27th February, 1773," say the registers. For his
Father, as we learn, resided in the Deanery House, though he was not
himself Dean, but only "Curate of the Cathedral" (whatever that may
mean); he was withal rector of two other livings, and the Dean's
friend,--friend indeed of the Dean's kinsmen the Beresfords generally;
whose grand house of Curraghmore, near by Waterford, was a familiar
haunt of his and his children's. This reverend gentleman, along with his
three livings and high acquaintanceships, had inherited political
connections;--inherited especially a Government Pension, with
survivorship for still one life beyond his own; his father having been
Clerk of the Irish House of Commons at the time of the Union, of
which office the lost salary was compensated in this way. The Pension
was of two hundred pounds; and only expired with the life of Edward,

John's Father, in 1847. There were, and still are, daughters of the family;
but Edward was the only son;--descended, too, from the Scottish hero
Wallace, as the old gentleman would sometimes admonish him; his
own wife, Edward's mother, being of that name, and boasting herself,
as most Scotch Wallaces do, to have that blood in her veins.
This Edward had picked up, at Waterford, and among the young
Beresfords of Curraghmore and elsewhere, a thoroughly Irish form of
character: fire and fervor, vitality of all kinds, in genial abundance; but
in a much more loquacious, ostentatious, much louder style than is
freely patronized on this side of the Channel. Of Irish accent in speech
he had entirely divested himself, so as not to be traced by any vestige in
that respect; but his Irish accent of character, in all manner of other
more important respects, was very recognizable. An impetuous man,
full of real energy, and immensely conscious of the same; who
transacted everything not with the minimum of fuss and noise, but with
the maximum: a very Captain Whirlwind, as one was tempted to call
him.
In youth, he had studied at Trinity College, Dublin; visited the Inns of
Court here, and trained himself for the Irish Bar. To the Bar he had
been duly called, and was waiting for the results,--when, in his
twenty-fifth year, the Irish Rebellion broke out; whereupon the Irish
Barristers decided to raise a corps of loyal Volunteers, and a complete
change introduced itself into Edward Sterling's way of life. For,
naturally, he had joined the array of Volunteers;--fought, I have heard,
"in three actions with the rebels" (Vinegar Hill, for one); and doubtless
fought well: but in the mess-rooms, among the young military and civil
officials, with all of whom he was a favorite, he had acquired a taste for
soldier life, and perhaps high hopes of succeeding in it: at all events,
having a commission in the Lancashire Militia offered him, he accepted
that; altogether quitted the Bar, and became Captain Sterling
thenceforth. From the Militia, it appears, he had volunteered with his
Company into the Line; and, under some disappointments, and official
delays of expected promotion, was continuing to serve as Captain there,
"Captain of the Eighth Battalion of Reserve," say the Military
Almanacs of 1803,--in which year the quarters