One of the most supple-wristed, dexterous, graceful and successful fencers in that kind.

A man, as Mr.
Hare has said, "able to argue with four or five at once;" could do the parrying all round, in a succession swift as light, and plant his hits wherever a chance offered.

In Parliament, such a soul put into a body of the due toughness might have carried it far.

If ours is to be called, as I hear some call it, the Talking Era, Sterling of all men had the talent to excel in it.
Probably it was with some vague view towards chances in this direction that Sterling's first engagement was entered upon; a brief connection as Secretary to some Club or Association into which certain public men, of the reforming sort, Mr.Crawford (the Oriental Diplomatist and Writer), Mr.Kirkman Finlay (then Member for Glasgow), and other political notabilities had now formed themselves,--with what specific objects I do not know, nor with what result if any.

I have heard vaguely, it was "to open the trade to India." Of course they intended to stir up the public mind into co-operation, whatever their goal or object was: Mr.Crawford, an intimate in the Sterling household, recognized the fine literary gift of John; and might think it a lucky hit that he had caught such a Secretary for three hundred pounds a year.