But with cunning,the matter is quite different.Cunning is not _dishonest wisdom_,which would be a contradiction in terms;it is _dishonest prudence_,acuteness in practice,not in thought:and though there must always be some one the most cunning in the world,as well 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;all music was mere impertinent noise to him,nothing in it perceptible but the mere march or time.Nor in his way of conception and utterance,in the verses he wrote,was there any contradiction,but a constant confirmation to me,of that fatal prognostic;--as indeed the whole man,in ear and heart and tongue,is one;and he whose soul does not sing,need not try to do it with his throat.Sterling's verses had a monotonous rub-a-dub,instead of tune;no trace of music deeper than that of a well-beaten drum;to which limited range of excellence the substance also corresponded;being intrinsically always a rhymed and slightly rhythmical _speech_,not a _song_.
In short,all seemed to me to say,in his case:"You can speak with supreme excellence;sing with considerable excellence you never can.