Upon his union with Miss Lumley, and, in a
somewhat curious fashion, by her means, he obtained in addition the
living of Stillington. "A friend of hers in the South had promised her
that if she married a clergyman in Yorkshire, when the living became
vacant he would make her a compliment of it;" and made accordingly
this singular "compliment" was. At Sutton Sterne remained nearly
twenty years, doing duty at both places, during which time
"books, painting, fiddling, and shooting were," he says, "my chief
amusements." With what success he shot, and with what skill he
fiddled, we know not. His writings contain not a few musical
metaphors and allusions to music, which seem to indicate a competent
acquaintance with its technicalities; but the specimen of his
powers as an artist, which Mr. Fitzgerald has reproduced from his
illustrations of a volume of poems by Mr. Woodhull, does not dispose
one to rate highly his proficiency in this accomplishment. We may
expect that, after all, it was the first-mentioned of his amusements
in which he took the greatest delight, and that neither the brush,
the bow, nor the fowling-piece was nearly so often in his hand as
the book.
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