biography. In that sort of composition no year. About two years had then passed man could hope wholly to please him. It since the assembling of the States-General was almost inevitable that too much would in France, and the fall of the Bastille. In be said or too little. Sometimes there was too much of the biographer, sometimes the praise bestowed on the subject of his memoir was censured as indiscriminate and exaggerated; or it might be, that the space allotted to materials concerning the departed personage was adjudged as monstrously disproportionate to his real claims. that very month, the unhappy French king, having made concession after concession, had been seized in an attempt to escape from the personal dangers which threatened him, and was reconducted to Paris. In little more than twelve months from that time, Louis was brought to the block. There was no class of men to whom the progress of the Few things were less endurable to Foster French Revolution was not in some of its than to see small men endeavoring to swell points an object of the deepest interest.— themselves into greatness, by taking upon The privileged classes over Europe looked them to become the biographers of the great upon it with horror, as menacing the de-fastening upon men of genius as a kind struction of every thing most valuable in moof peg on which to hang their own tawdry dern civilization. Even the unprivileged, imbecilities. His feeling on this point was for the greater part, saw in it a strange and not at times unwarrantable; but, like dreadful power, which seemed bent on bringmost of his strong feelings, was more a mat-ing to the dust nearly every thing which men ter of temper than of judgment. Whether the very intelligent editor of these volumes has had a fear of this kind of displeasure on the part of the subject of his narrative constantly present with him, or whether the deficiency is to be traced to an innate modesty of his own, we cannot venture to say, but we must confess that we think there should have been some more adequate representation than is given in this publication of that ever-memorable course of public affairs which so powerfully influenced the character of Foster's inner life in his early days. He was not inobservant of those signs of change, which, like an alternate light and darkness, then came over all human affairs. Those changes, hardly less than the cast of his own mind, and the circumstances of his early history, determined the ultimate complexion of his opinions and feelings. In this respect these letters are by no means a sufficient autobiography, and what is wanting in them might have been somewhat more freely supplied by the editor, without any fear of passing beyond the line of a most scrupulous humility. It is, no doubt, in strict accordance with Foster's own canons, that his biographer has acquitted himself thus modestly; and if our own estimate of his genius should be somewhat more discriminating than has been usual in nonconformist literature, we must be allowed to plead a deference to the same authority.of freedom. They mourned over them— Foster would have been among the first to condemn the language of undistinguishing eulogy, whether as applied to himself or to other men. His journey to Bristol was, as we have stated, in 1791, and in the August of that had been wont to regard as venerable and loathed them. But nothing could reconcile hearted portion of the community, bent on | subsequently made as to the inveterate and working out schemes of political and reli- most unfortunate habit of indolent, desultogious freedom, upon the other, was protract- ry, musing vagrancy into which his mind ed, envenomed, and disgraced on the part was disposed to fall. His first preaching of the ruling powers by outrageous acts of engagement after leaving the academy was tyranny. at Newcastle-on-Tyne. The place of worship was an ancient room called Tuthillstairs. It was not large enough to receive a hundred persons; and during Mr. Foster's visit was never full. But of a portion of this small auditory, the preacher writes to his friend Horse fall as follows: What happened at Birmingham, when a 'church and king' mob set fire to the house of Dr. Priestley, and compelled its owner to consult his safety by flight, was only a strong indication of the feeling and treatment to which Protestant Dissenters, even the most peaceful of them, were exposed throughout the kingdom. 'I have involuntarily caught a habit of lookmeeting. 'Tis on account of about half a doing too much on the right hand side of our zen sensible fellows who sit together there. I cannot keep myself from looking at them. I sometimes almost forget that I have any other auditors. They have so many significant looks, pay such a particular and minute attention, and they become a kind of mirror in which the so instantaneously catch any thing curious, that The spirit of John Foster was not of a sort to pass through an ordeal of this nature without deriving impression from it. His principles became decidedly republican.The maxims, temper, and conduct of the Tory and high church parties in those times became the object of his fixed and deep aversion. In the spirit and policy of those preacher may see himself. Sometimes, whethparties he saw the great antagonism of ever you will believe it or not, I say humorous ery thing just, humane, and Christian.- things. Some of these men instantly perceive These notions and feelings were somewhat it, and smile; I, observing, am almost betrayed modified by him, but their substance always into a smile myself.-i. p. 33. remained. Nothing of moment is recorded during the three months spent by our young preacher at Newcastle, save that his mind continued to be given to rambling much more than to labor, and that his habits were tending fast to qualify him for a hermitage rather than a pastorate. The following picture is much too good to be passed over: Bristol, when it first became known to Foster, was the second city in the kingdom. Its maritime enterprise and its general traf fic were great; and its patronage of science and literature towards the close of the last century was such as to connect it largely with the early history of such men as Coleridge, Southey, Wordsworth, Lamb, and Hall. Foster's stay in the academy there did not exceed twelve months; and, if we may believe his own account of the matter, he made small progress during that time.-degree mine. The town is an immense irregWriting to Mr. Horsefall, he says:— might give you an amusing account of New'A correspondent of genius and observation castle, but such qualifications are but in a small ular mass of houses. There are a few fine uniform streets, but the greater number exhibit an 'You say I must do something great in the awkward succession of handsome and wretchpreaching line when I come into Yorkshire.-ed buildings. The lower part of the town, as Let not my Yorkshire friends expect too much. being in the bottom of a valley, is dirty in an Probably there never was a more indolent stu- odious degree. It contains thousands of wretchdent at this or any other academy. I knowed beings, not one of whom can be beheld withbut very little more of learning or any thing out pity or disgust. The general characteriselse than when I left you. I have been a tri-tic of the inhabitants seems to be a certain fler all my life to this hour. When I shall re- roughness expressive at once of ignorance and form God only knows. I am constantly wish-insensibility. I know little of the dissenters in ing and intending it; but my wishes and in-general. I was one evening lately much amutentions have thus far displayed in a striking sed at the Presbyterian, or Scotch meet ng, by degree the imbecility of human nature. Tomorrow is still the time when this unhappy system of conduct shall be rectified.'-i. p. 30 We are willing to hope something better as to the result of our student's bookish occupations and social intercourse while at Bristol, than this gloomy report would seem to warrant; but many are the complaints the stupidity of their psalms, the grimace of the clerk, the perfect insignificance of the parson, and the silly unmeaning attention of a numerous auditory. But our meeting for amplitude and elegance! I believe you never saw its than your lower school, but then so black and equal. It is to be sure considerably larger so dark! It looks just like a conjuring room, and accordingly the ceiling is all covered with curious antique figures to aid the magic. That ning which they call a pulpit, is as black as a chimney, and indeed, there is a chimney piece and a very large old fire case behind it. There is nothing by which the door of this same pulpit can be fastened, so that it remains partly open, as if to invite some good person or other to assist you when you are in s raits. My friend Pero, who I have mentioned before (his dog). did me the honor one Sunday to attempt to enter, but from some prudential notion, I suppose, I signified my will to the contrary by pulling to the door, and he very modestly retired. Yet I like this pulpit mightily, 'tis so much the reverse of that odious priestly pomp which insults your eyes in many places. I hate priestly consequence and ecclesiastical formalities. When I order a new coat I believe it will not be black.'-Vol. i. pp. 50-52. From Newcastle, Foster proceeded, in 1793, to become preacher to a small Baptist society in Swift's Alley, Dublin; and he remained in Ireland three years. Of those years in his history we know scarcely any thing, beyond the little which he has himself recorded. He preached a month at He preached a month at Cork with some acceptance, and was much pleased with the society to which he was introduced in that city. But nothing, he assures us, could be less interesting than the group of persons to whom he had to preach in Dublin. It consisted of a few rich and worldly people, and of a few from the poor'est class, wholly destitute of intelligence.In Swift's Alley, the preacher nodded, and the people did the same. The congrega tion,' says Foster, was very small when I commenced, and almost nothing when I voluntarily closed.' 'After an interval of several months spent in Yorkshire,' he writes, I returned to Dublin, to make an experiment on a classical and mathematical school. The success did not encourage me to prosecute it more than eight or nine months. I remained in Dublin several months after its relinquishment. I attended as a hearer in Swift's Alley, when there was service, but had little more connexion with the people than if I had never seen them before. 'During my last residence in Dublin my connexion with violent democrats, and my share in forming a society under the denomination of Sons of Brutus, exposed me at one period to the imminent danger, or at least the expectation, of chains and a dungeon. 'It is now a great while (1796) since I changed, very properly, the cleric habit for a second edition of tail and colored clothes, and in this guise I have preached at several places since I returned to England; but I have not preached at all lately. Yet after all I extremely regret that I am not employed in preaching. "That denomination of people with which I have been conversant, have stronger causes of exception than the color of a waistcoat-my opinions have suffered some alteration. I have discarded, for instance, the doctrine of eternal punishments. I can avow no opinion on the peculiar points of Calvinism, for I have none, nor see the possibility of forming a satisfactory one. I am no Socinian, but I am in doubt between the orthodox and Arian doctrines, not without some inclination to the latter. It is a subject for deliberate, perhaps long, investigation, and I feel a sincerity which assures me that the issue, whatever it may be, must be safe. In this state of thought and feeling, I have just written to Mr. David, of Frome, requesting to be informed whether there be within his sphere of acquaintance an Arian congregation in want of a preacher, expressing to him, however, that my preference of such a congregation does not arise from a conclusive concidence of opinion, but from a conviction that there only I can find the candor and scope which I desire.'—Vol. i. pp. 38—41. of his opinions, his recluse habits, and his Foster, in addition to this unsettled state peculiar style of preaching, had adopted notions concerning churches which exhibited them as organizations always tending to do more harm than good. His own mind did not harmonize with any fellowship so general, and his feeling in this respect, as in many beside, gave law to his judgment. On he failed to obtain a home as a pastor, either the whole, it can occasion little surprise that at Newcastle or in Dublin. But early in 1797, he became the minister of a General Baptist church in Chichester. He retained this office about two years and a half, and this interval in his history is marked much more decidedly than any previous period by the signs both of mental and spiritual progress. He generally preached three times on the Sunday. But the congregation continued as he found it, in a very low and formal state, and soon after his removal it became extinct, and the place of worship was closed. There is a walk near the town which is still known by his name; 'but his most favorite resort for meditation was the chapel, where the well-worn bricks of the aisles still exhibit the vestiges of his solitary pacings to and fro by moonlight.' His letters written while in Chichester, are many of them deeply interesting, evincing a much more settled creed, and a stronger religious feeling. From Chichester Foster removed to Battersea, and resided for a while with his friend, Mr. Joseph Hughes. During this short period he was frequently engaged in preaching in the villages of Surrey, in connexion with the Surrey Mission. But his great improvement, he tells us, by reason of this association with Mr. Hughes, and with the persons to whom Mr. Hughes introduced him, was 'in respect of manners, conversation, habits, deportment, &c.' On this subject his biographer has spoken: Up to the period of leaving Chichester, Foster's intercourse with cultivated persons had been very limited. But on his removal to Battersea, and soon after in the neighborhood of Bristol, he was introduced to several individuals of refined taste, and superior intelligence. It is said by those who knew him, that his manners were vivacious, and his society in a high degree captivating; his conversation was ardent, intellectual and imaginative, with no faint coloring of the romantic. His outward appear ance was not thought by him so unworthy of care as in later life he looked upon such matters, in relation to himself especially.-Vol. i. p. 71. should have been so. Its neighborhood, however, has its beauties, for those who are disposed to go in search of them: but Foster was so closely and anxiously employed during his stay there, as to be little disposed to make such excursions. It was soon after his settlement in Frome that he published his memorable Essays. In 1806, he resigned his charge, and was subsequently much occupied as a writer in the Eclectic Review.' In 1807, he contributed thirteen articles to that journal. His marriage took place in 1808, in the thirty-seventh year of his age, after an acquaintance of seven years, and a courtship of five. Mrs. Foster, while known as Miss Maria Snooke, resided at Bourton-on-the-Water, and Foster chose his home in that village during the nine years subsequent to his marriage. During those years he was chiefly occupied as a contributor to the Eclectic,' and in preaching on Sundays in the adjacent towns and villages. While at Bourton he lost his parents, and became himself a father. In 1817, he resumed his charge for a while at Downend. He was willing to believe that his practice for some years past as a village preacher, would be found to have qualified him for preaching with more acceptance to the rustic portion of his auditory at Downend, than when his former ex In 1800, Foster removed to the village of Downend, about five miles from Bristol, where he became preacher at a small chapel, erected chiefly through the influence of Dr. Caleb Evans, the pastor of the Baptist Church assembling in Broadmead, Bristol. The year following, Foster visited his native place for the second and last time. But we learn that,' with the exception of a wild solitary vale or two,' he felt little pleasure in 'retreading the ancient vestiges.' Every-periments were made there. But a few thing seemed to have become the memento of change, and he found it impossible to escape from the melancholy thus induced. What man can have visited his birth-place after long absence, and not know what this means! Downend, however, was a sorry region to dwell in after the vale of Todmorden. It is a flat neighborhood, with black roads, and much more valuable for its coal-pits than for its agriculture. It could never have possessed any recommendation to Foster, except from the two or three respectable families who chanced to reside there, and from its nearness to Bristol. In 1804, Foster was invited to become a minister of a Baptist congregation in Frome. This invitation was given chiefly through the strong recommendation of Robert Hall. But in Frome, as every where else, Foster was doomed to preach to a congregation in a low state, and one which hardly admitted of any speedy improvement. The town of Frome had little to commend it. It resembles the contents of a stone-cart discharged into a pit. To Foster it was sadly disagreeable; and we wonder not that it . months sufficed to convince him of his mistake. His next, and last place of abode, was Stapleton, a genteel and remarkably quiet village about two miles from Bristol. ་ Subsequently to this last removal, Foster wrote little for the periodical press. The affairs of the Baptist academy, and the controversy respecting the Serampore mission, engaged much of his attention: and of his chiet literary labors, we have the fruit in his Missionary Discourse,' his Essay on the Evil of Popular Ignorance,' his 'Introduction to Doddridge's Rise and Progress of Religion,' and in his Letters' published in the Morning Chronicle.' These publications, together with his volume of Essays, his collected Reviews, and the contents of the volume before us, constitute his works -all at least that are at present published in an authentic form, or that are likely to throw any material light upon his outward or his mental history. In 1826, Mr. Foster had to mourn the loss of his son, an amiable and pious youth, in the sixteenth year of his age. Six years later he was bereft of Mrs. Foster. These events, and the decease of so many of his early friends, whose place he had no dispo-tigation and analysis; on the contrary, few sition to supply by new acquaintance, threw men ever saw a topic more distinctly, in its a gloomy shadow over his remaining days. parts, its causes, and. its consequences. In For some years before his death, his weak general, his mind came in upon his subject ness, and particularly the great failure of -if we may so speak-with the authority his sight and memory, had rendered all lit-of a field-marshal, calling the stragglers, erary labor impracticable. Of that event, and the broken sections to their places, and which took place in his own house in Sta-imparting relation, order, and unity to the pleton, on the fifteenth of October, 1843, whole, with an admirable skill and promptthere was little to record. It came almost itude. If he failed, it was in the want without pain. His mind was calm, resigned, and confiding-full of those solemn, but hopeful thoughts, which became the closing scene of such a life. of comprehensiveness, not as overlooking the distinctness of the parts which were really before him, but as not seeing the subject in its entireness, and as leaving his conclusion in consequence more open to objection than he supposed. In any other man, his faculty even in this respect would have been extraordinary; if it be not so spoken of in him, it is because he possessed another in a much higher degree. When Foster was about thirty years of age, he questioned himself after this wise Have I so much originality as I suppose myself to have? The question arises from the reflection that very few original plans of action or enterprise ever occurred to my In no respect was the mind of Foster so thoughts.'-(i. 198.) About the same date, much distinguished from the mind of Hall he makes the following entry in his Jour- as on this one point. Hence it happened, nal, suggested by his having been several that originality, which was the strength of times in company with Mr. Hall-The Foster, can hardly be said to have been a question that leads most directly to the true matter of effort, and certainly was no matestimate of a man's talents is this-How ter of pretension with Hall. The aim of much of new would prove to be gained to Robert Hall, through the greater portion of the region of truth, by the assemblage of his life, was to establish, to commend, and all that his mind has contributed? The to diffuse the received truth, in the best poshighest order of talent is certainly the sible form, and with the best possible acpower of revelation-the power of impart-companiments. To a mind like that of ing new propositions of important truth: Foster, the more fervid genius of Hall must inspiration, therefore, while it continued in often have appeared as much too eager to a given mind, might be called the para- give enthronement to its applauded dogma, mount talent. The second order of talent and as not by any means suspicious enough is perhaps the power of development-the in the examination of its credentials. The power of disclosing the reasons and proofs of principles, and the causes of facts. The third order of talent perhaps is the power of application--the power of adapting truth to effect.'-(i. 216.) From many passages now printed from the pen of Foster, and from passages still stronger to the same effect which we have seen in manuscript, we conclude that Foster would have described Hall as being most powerful in what he has designated as the third order of talent,' as possessing his next degree of power in the second order, and as least powerful in the first. And we feel obliged to admit the substantial correctness of this judgment. The extraordinary talent of Robert Hall was not that which discovers truth, nor that which profoundly investigates its reasons or its causes; but that which presents and applies it with clearness, and with singular beauty and effect. Not that Hall should be accounted deficient in the power of inves great essayist would feel disposed to ask many questions, and to indulge in many discriminations, while the great orator would see no occasion for submitting to the one kind of impediment or the other. The one always wrote in the manner of the preacher-the other always preached in the manner of the writer. The one, accordingly, would not suffer his course to be hindered by attending to subsidiary points, which, in his own judgment, did not affect the main question; the other took the greater questions and the less within his ample range, and knew nothing of rest until he had equally disposed of them all. The one challenged the cultivated, but still the popular thinking and sentiment in his favor; the other made no such appeals, but seemed to fall back, as if in sullen pride, on the pure reason of the thing, and calmly left the scrutiny of the most intellectual to do its worst. The more popular effect might |