James Sterling was born in Ireland at Dowrass, King's County, the son of Captain James Sterling and Patience Hansard Sterling. He received his early education at Mr. Lloyd's in Dublin and on 17 April 1716 entered Trinity College, Dublin, from which he graduated in 1720. A highly regarded young writer, Sterling completed his first play, a tragedy called The Rival Generals (1722), before he was twenty-one. It was successfully produced in Dublin, and in late 1722 or early 1723 Sterling married one of the play's cast, Nancy Lyddel, who by the late 1720s had become well known as an accomplished actress. Sterling's next tragedy, The Parricide (1736), was performed as early as 1726, and his translation, The Loves of Hero and Leander from the Greek of Musaeus ... (1728), was reprinted at least three times. His happiness over his early successes was marred, however, by the death of his wife in about 1732. Soon after Sterling took an M...