This magical ingredient thrown into the wild caldron of such a mind, which we have seen occupied hitherto with Ethnicism, and revolutionary , but hungering all along for something higher and better, was sure to be eagerly welcomed and , and could not fail to produce important fermentations there. Fermentations; important new directions, and withal important new , in the spiritual life of this man, as it has since done in the lives of so many. Here then is the new manna we were all in quest of? This thrice-refined pabulum of transcendental moonshine? Whoso eateth thereof,—yes, what, on the whole, will he probably grow to?  
never much to me of his with Coleridge; and when we did compare notes about him, it was usually rather in the way of controversial discussion than of . So that, from my own resources, I can give no details of the business, nor anything in it, except the general fact of an attendance at Highgate continued for many months, which was impressively known to all Sterling's friends; and am unable to assign even the limitary dates, Sterling's own papers on the subject having all been destroyed by him. Inferences point to the end of 1828 as the beginning of this intercourse; perhaps in 1829 it was at the highest point; and already in 1830, when the intercourse itself was about to terminate, we have proof of the influences it was producing,—in the Novel of Arthur Coningsby, then on hand, the first and only Book that Sterling ever wrote. His writings hitherto had been , criticisms, brief essays; he was now trying it on a wider scale; but not yet with satisfactory results, and it proved to be his only trial in that form.
 
He had already, as was intimated, given up his brief of the Athenaeum; the commercial indications, and state of sales and of costs, ordering him to do so; the copyright went by sale or gift, I know not at what precise date, into other fitter hands; and with the copyright all connection on the part of Sterling. To Athenaeum Sketches had now (in 1829-30) succeeded Arthur Coningsby, a Novel in three volumes; indicating (when it came to light, a year or two afterwards) equally hasty and much more ambitious aims in Literature;—giving strong evidence, too, of internal spiritual revulsions going painfully forward, and in particular of the impression Coleridge was producing on him. Without and within, it was a wild tide of things this ardent light young soul was afloat upon, at present; and his outlooks into the future, whether for his spiritual or economic fortunes, were confused enough.
 
Among his familiars in this period, I might have mentioned one Charles Barton, his fellow-student at Cambridge, now an , cheerful, rather idle young fellow about Town; who led the way into certain new experiences, and fields, for Sterling. His Father, Lieutenant-General Barton of the Life-guards, an Irish landlord, I think in Fermanagh County, and a man of connections about Court, lived in a certain figure here in Town; had a wife of fashionable habits, with other sons, and also daughters, bred in this sphere. These, all of them, were amiable, elegant and pleasant people;—such was especially an daughter, Susannah Barton, a stately blooming black-eyed young woman, attractive enough in form and character; full of gay softness, of indolent sense and enthusiasm; about Sterling's own age, if not a little older. In this house, which opened to him, more decisively than his Father's, a new of society, and where his reception for Charles's sake and his own was of the kindest, he liked very well to be; and spent, I suppose, many of his vacant half-hours, lightly chatting with the elders or the youngsters,—doubtless with the young lady too, though as yet without particular intentions on either side.
 
Nor, with all the Coler............