This piece is by the British writer John Sterling, a friend of the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The piece seems not to appear in Specimens of the Table Talk of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1835-1836) although the title in the Australian Magazine was possibly inspired by that work. The piece is quoted in J. C. Hare, ‘Sketch of the author's life’, Essays and Tales by John Sterling, 2 vols. (1848) with minor textual variations to the version, dated 27 September 1827, that appears in the Australian Magazine of March 1838.
AustLit has not yet established the source of the Australian Magazine version. There is no evidence that Sterling visited Australia.
