John Sterne (bishop of Dromore)

[2] The only son of John Stearne,[3] by his wife Dorothy, daughter of Charles Ryves (died 1700), examiner in the chancery of Ireland, he was born in Dublin.

[4] He was educated at the cathedral school under Mr. Ryder, and entered Trinity College, Dublin, on 2 April 1674, his tutor being Philip Barbour.

[6] Having been ordained deacon in October 1682 by Anthony Dopping, bishop of Meath, Sterne served for a time as his domestic chaplain.

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.

He left £50 per annum in exhibition to Trinity College, Dublin, poor scholars of the diocese of Clogher to have the preference.

His manuscripts, of which he had a significant collection, he bequeathed to Trinity College, Dublin; among them are the depositions of the sufferers in the Irish Rebellion of 1641.

The Tractatus was reprinted in the Clergyman's Instructor of 1807 and 1813; then in the 1843 edition it was replaced by Bishop Thomas Wilson's Parochialia.