as some one the most wise, these two superlatives
will fare very differently in the world. In the case of cunning, the
shrewdness of a whole people, of a whole generation, may doubtless be
combined against that of the one, and so triumph over it; which was
pretty much the case with Napoleon. But although a man of the greatest
cunning can hardly conceal his designs and true character from millions
of unfriendly eyes, it is quite impossible thus to club the eyes of
the mind, and to constitute by the union of ten thousand follies an
equivalent for a single wisdom. A hundred school-boys can easily unite
and thrash their one master; but a hundred thousand school-boys would
not be nearer than a score to knowing as much Greek among them as
Bentley or Scaliger. To all which, I believe, you will assent as readily
as I;--and I have written it down only because I have nothing more
important to say."--

Besides his prose labors, Sterling had by this time written, publishing
chiefly in _Blackwood_, a large assortment of verses, _Sexton's
Daughter_, _Hymns of a Hermit_, and I know not what other extensive
stock of pieces; concerning which he was now somewhat at a loss as to
his true course. He could write verses with astonishing facility, in any
given form of metre; and to various readers they seemed excellent,
and high judges had freely called them so, but he himself had grave
misgivings on that latter essential point. In fact here once more was
a parting of the ways, "Write in Poetry; write in Prose?" upon which,
before all else, it much concerned him to come to a settlement.

My own advice was, as it had always been, steady against Poetry; and we
had colloquies upon it, which must have tried his patience, for in him
there was a strong leaning the other way. But, as I remarked and urged:
Had he not already gained superior excellence in delivering, by way of
_speech_ or prose, what thoughts were in him, which is the grand and
only intrinsic function of a writing man, call him by what title you
will? Cultivate that superior excellence till it become a perfect and
superlative one. Why _sing_ your bits of thoughts, if you _can_ contrive
to speak them? By your thought, not by your mode of delivering it,
you must live or die.--Besides I had to observe there was in Sterling
intrinsically no depth of _tune_; which surely is the real test of a
Poet or Singer, as distinguished from a Speaker? In music proper he
had not the slightest ear;