Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 54.djvu/205

 Few men in the academic sphere have accomplished more than Stearne. Ware says of him ‘he was a very learned man, and more fond of the study of divinity than of his own profession, in which nevertheless he had great knowledge.’ That he was also a man of the world is shown by the success with which he contrived to stand well both with the Cromwellian and the royalist parties. There is a fine portrait of Stearne in the College of Physicians, Dublin.

The following is a list of his works, all of which were published in Dublin: 1. ‘Animi Medela,’ dedicated to Henry Cromwell, 1653. 2. ‘Thanatologia,’ 1656. 3. ‘Adriani Heerboordii disputationum de concursu examen,’ 1660. 4. ‘De Electione et Reprobatione,’ 1662. 5. ‘Aphorismi de Felicitate,’ 1664. 6. ‘De Destinatione,’ posthumously published and edited by Henry Dodwell, his pupil and literary executor, 1672.

[Chalmers's Biogr. Dict.; Ware's Irish Writers, ed. Harris, p. 159; Stubbs's Hist. of Dublin University; Hist. of Irish Coll. of Phys.; Dublin Quarterly Journal of Medical Science, xix. (paper by Aquilla Smith on the Early Hist. of the Irish College of Physicians); Journ. of Medical Science, May 1865 (reprinted as ‘A Memoir of Stearne,’ by Dr. T. W. Belcher); Todd's List of Graduates of Dublin University.]

 STERNE or STEARNE, JOHN (1660–1745), bishop of Clogher, only son of Dr. John Sterne or Stearne (1624–1669) [q. v.], by his wife Dorothy, daughter of Charles Ryves (d. 1700), examiner in the chancery of Ireland, was born in Dublin in 1660. He was educated at the cathedral school under ‘Mr. Ryder,’ and entered Trinity College, Dublin, on 2 April 1674, his tutor being Philip Barbour. He graduated B.A. 11 Feb. 1677, M.A. 12 July 1681, and D.D. in July 1705. Having been ordained deacon in October 1682 by Anthony Dopping, bishop of Meath, he served for a time as domestic chaplain to that prelate. About 1688 he was made vicar of Trim; in October 1692 he was instituted to the rectory of Clonmacduffe, and in June 1703 to that of Killary, both in the diocese of Meath. On 11 Sept. 1702 he was installed chancellor in St. Patrick's Cathedral. Upon the death of his mother's kinsman, Dean Jerome Ryves, Sterne was elected dean of St. Patrick's, Dublin, by the chapter, largely, it was said, owing to the exertions of Jonathan Swift, then prebendary of Dunlavin. Sterne retained with the deanery the curacy of St. Nicholas Without, which Swift afterwards maintained he had promised to make over to him as a guerdon for his support. In July 1707 Sterne was instrumental in the election of Swift to represent the chapter in convocation. Soon afterwards he joined a small social club to which belonged Swift, Stella, and their common friends, the Walls and the Stoytes, who met on Saturdays for cards and other diversions. Sterne had ample means, and was liberal to the verge of profusion in his private expenditure. Swift fully appreciated his house, his library, and his dinners, with which he often compared unfavourably the dinners of his titled friends in London during 1711. Swift's letters during this period are full of allusions to Dean Sterne; he followed with interest the building operations at the deanery, tendered advice as to the laying out of the garden, and exhorted the dean to set an example to the Irish bishops by opposing the repeal of the Test.

As Sterne was assisted in his elevation to the deanery, so likewise he owed his promotion to the episcopate to Swift. On 28 Oct. 1712 the latter wrote to Stella that if he were asked who would make a good bishop, he would name Sterne before anybody. When the vacancy of Dromore occurred, before he had any idea of the deanery for himself, Swift accordingly named the dean to Bolingbroke and Ormonde, and he says ‘I did it heartily.’ Ormonde raised difficulties; but when the tory leaders, despairing of surmounting Anne's objection to elevating Swift to the bench, determined to provide for him at St. Patrick's, Ormonde had to give way, though he declared that he would have done it for ‘no man else’ than Swift. Swift was held to have achieved a great diplomatic triumph, for, in spite of the hospitalities of which the deanery was the centre, Sterne had a host of enemies among the protestant clergy in Ireland. He was consecrated bishop of Dromore on 10 May 1713, and in March 1717, upon the removal of St. George Ashe [q. v.] to Derry, he was translated to Clogher. There, as at Dublin and Dromore, he kept up hospitalities which Jonathan Smedley [q. v.] described as the redeeming feature of a forlorn district, while of the bishop himself he rhymed: He has a purse to keep a table And eke a soul as hospitable (Gulliveriana, 1728, p. 111). In 1721 Sterne was appointed vice-chancellor of Dublin University, to which in 1726 he presented a sum of 1,000l. for the purpose of erecting a university printing-house (cf., Life of Skelton, 1792).