bel sound did mean to say in
clear words; this, more nearly than anything else. Let the most gifted
intellect, capable of writing epics, try to write such a Leader for the
Morning Newspapers! No intellect but Edward Sterling's can do it.
An improvising faculty without parallel in my experience."--In this
"improvising faculty," much more nobly developed, as well as in other
faculties and qualities with unexpectedly new and improved figure, John
Sterling, to the accurate observer, showed himself very much the son of
Edward.

Connected with this matter, a remarkable Note has come into my hands;
honorable to the man I am writing of, and in some sort to another higher
man; which, as it may now (unhappily for us all) be published without
scruple, I will not withhold here. The support, by Edward Sterling
and the _Times_, of Sir Robert Peel's first Ministry, and generally of
Peel's statesmanship, was a conspicuous fact in its day; but the return
it met with from the person chiefly interested may be considered well
worth recording. The following Letter, after meandering through I know
not what intricate conduits, and consultations of the Mysterious
Entity whose address it bore, came to Edward Sterling as the real
flesh-and-blood proprietor, and has been found among his papers. It is
marked _Private_:--

"(Private) _To the Editor of the Times_.
"WHITEHALL, 18th April, 1835.

"SIR,--Having this day delivered into the hands of the King the Seals
of Office, I can, without any imputation of an interested motive, or any
impediment from scrupulous feelings of delicacy, express my deep sense
of the powerful support which that Government over which I had the honor
to preside received from the _Times_ Newspaper.

"If I do not offer the expressions of personal gratitude, it is because
I feel that such expressions would do injustice to the character of a
support which was given exclusively on the highest and most independent
grounds of public principle. I can say this with perfect truth, as I
am addressing one whose person even is unknown to me, and who during my
tenure of power studiously avoided every species of intercourse which
could throw a suspicion upon the motives by which he was actuated. I
should, however, be doing injustice to my own feelings, if I were to
retire from Office without one word of acknowledgment; without at
least assuring you of the admiration with which I