That was the salary agreed upon; and for some months actually worked for and paid; Sterling becoming for the time an intimate and almost an inmate in Mr.Crawford's circle, doubtless not without results to himself beyond the secretarial work and pounds sterling: so much is certain.

But neither the Secretaryship nor the Association itself had any continuance; nor can I now learn accurately more of it than what is here stated;--in which vague state it must vanish from Sterling's history again, as it in great measure did from his life.

From himself in after-years I never heard mention of it; nor were his pursuits connected afterwards with those of Mr.Crawford, though the mutual good-will continued unbroken.
In fact, however splendid and indubitable Sterling's qualifications for a parliamentary life, there was that in him withal which flatly put a negative on any such project.

He had not the slow steady-pulling diligence which is indispensable in that, as in all important pursuits and strenuous human competitions whatsoever.

In every sense, his momentum depended on velocity of stroke, rather than on weight of metal; "beautifulest sheet-lightning," as I often said, "not to be condensed into thunder-bolts." Add to this,--what indeed is perhaps but the same phenomenon in another form,--his bodily frame was thin, excitable, already manifesting pulmonary symptoms; a body which the tear and wear of Parliament would infallibly in few months have wrecked and ended.
By this path there was clearly no mounting.