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LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF JOHN
FOSTER.

Lancashire into Yorkshire, through the vale of Todmorden, was one of the most beautiful in England. Its hill-tops, thrown into every variety of shape, seemed to lift themselves aloft as if to break the force of the winter storm, or to present a natural resting-place to the summer clouds as they coursed each other from height to height, and threw their flitting shadows over the glens below. Some of those heights were barren, and have so been since the upburst of the mighty forces which made them what they are; but the less elevated were crowned, or clothed from base to summit, with ancient and richly hanging woods. The dells, which receded right and left from the main line of road, presented curves and slopes, and sometimes abrupt and jagged outlines, in almost every form, intersected with rock, and wood, and verdure; and, after rain, while the voice of birds welcomed the returning sunshine, every hill-side might be heard tossing forth its tributary waters to feed the Hebden, as it rolled through its deeper bed beneath. The little of handicraft which mixed itself with the husbandry of the district, was not more than sufficed to impart those traces of man to Nature, which make even Nature more beautiful. ABOUT a century since, the pass from This description, be it remembered, applies VOL. IX. No. III.

[The decease of a person so distinguished in the literary and religious world as the author of the Essay on Decision of Character, and the publication of his Correspondence, have naturally called forth notices of greater or less extent in many of the leading British journals. We have seen none of these more completely and candidly presenting the life, and mental and moral traits of the man, than the following from the British Quarterly, an eminent dissenting periodical. While it will be found friendly to the subject, it deals fairly with his well-known faults as an author and a man; and as Foster's fame has become almost as familiar with us as with his own countrymen, we feel sure that the sketch will be well received and profitably read.-ED]

From the British Quarterly Review.

The Life and Correspondence of John Foster. Edited by J. E. RYLAND. With Notices of Mr. Foster, as a Preacher and a Companion. By JOHN SHEPPARD, Author of Thoughts on Devotion,' &c. Two vols. 8vo. pp. 468. 590.

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to the vale of Todmorden, as it was in the particularly good, the exclamation was not last century, when its seclusion had not unfrequently heard, "That's sound divinity,' been broken in upon either by canals or or, Author, I am of thy opinion.' This railways, and when the space now occupied estimable man lived to be eighty-eight years with tall chimneys, and lofty square build- of age. He died in 1814. His wife, who ings, and with grouped or scattered multi- is described as his counterpart in soundness tudes of artizan dwelling-places, had little of understanding, integrity, and piety, surof its present appearance. vived him two years.

Such was the birth-place, and such were the parents of the Rev. John Foster, who was born on the 17th of September, 1770. On the tomb-stone of the elder Foster, is the following characteristic inscriptionJohn Foster exchanged this life for a better, March 21, 1814, in the eighty-eighth year of his age, and the sixty-third after God had fully assured him that he was one of his sons.' The subject of these memoirs was the first child of his parents, and the only further addition to their family was a second son, about four years younger. Foster saw his parents for the last time in 1801, in the thirty-first year of his age, and then said of them, They fear not death, nor need to fear it; for they are eminently ripe for heaven. I have never met with piety more active and sublime.'

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One point of this valley bears the name of Hebden bridge, and, at the time of which we speak, there stood at no great distance from that spot, in the direction of Wainsgate, a small farm-house. The couple who, about the middle of the latter half of the last century, were the occupants of that house, had their employment, after the manner of the time, partly in the labor of the farm, and partly in weaving. The husband was no common person. It was his habit of caution and forethought which had prevented his taking upon him the responsibilities of a family until he had passed his fortieth year. He was then a devout man-a Christian. Mr. Grimshaw, of Haworth, one of that small, but noble-hearted band of clergymen, who, about that time, began to preach the gospel in the manner of men who understood and believed it, had been In the early life of men of genius we see the means of giving the mind of our farm-less of the fruit of circumstances, than of ing and weaving friend this wholesome di- the power which is not to be controlled by rection. But, as often happens in such circumstances. The charm of their story cases, the convert did not remain a churchman. He became a member of the small Baptist church at Wainsgate. His temper was cheerful, and his views were much more expanded than was common with men in his circumstances; but, on the whole, his habits disposed him to avoid society rather than to seek it. Not a few of his happiest hours were given to reading, meditation, and prayer. Near Hebden bridge there is a secluded spot, at the bottom of a wood by the side of the Hebden, and marked by its projecting rock, which still bears the name of this good man. It was his cave' of refuge for thought and devotion. We can readily suppose that among his brother Baptists such a man would be a good deal of an oracle. He was not only better read than most of his neighbors in theology, but as possessing more than the commou share of acuteness and discrimination, was better qualified than most to digest what he read On the decease of the Baptist pastor, this gifted brother was one of a small number who read Gurnal's Christian Armor,' for the common benefit, on alternate Sundays. It is remembered of this reader, that when he came to passages which struck him as

commonly is, that they should have done so much for themselves, amidst an outward allotment that did so little for them. It would sometimes seem as though the gifts of the mind came from one sovereignty, and the gifts of what is called fortune from another, and that the two crowns are at issue --so marked are the apparent cross purposes observable in these two kinds of bestowments. But this is done that there may be an aristocracy of nature, placed over against the aristocracy of accident-that your high family pretensions might be counterpoised by pretensions based on a still higher relationship-that the wealth of the inner life of man, which comes from above, might be played off in the game of existence against the wealth of the outer life, which at best is only of the earth. Two things, it would seem, are necessary to the efficiency of this more natural aristocracy-that there should be power, and that the power possessed should be somewhat severely tested-that it should be power called to that kind of warfare with opposing influences which is favorable to a growing manhood.

The power of Foster was a power thus tried and matured. In his early years he

was subject to many disadvantages. His moved by indications of vastness and power, disposition was naturally—we may, perhaps, than by the merely beautiful. We remember say hereditarily-thoughtful and reserved. once standing at his side when the object His strong individuality was ever disposing before him was a caged eagle, when the him to collapse upon himself. When not anatomical display of strength in the noble more than twelve years old, this peculiarity bird was the special object of his attention, was so dominant as to cause him to feel a and he remarked on the tendency of the painful want of affinity both with the young signs of mere power to call forth admiration and old about him. As a boy, he was no in a manner which showed that the speculacompanion for boys; and with older persons tion was no novelty to his thoughts. At any it was often matter of bewilderment how the time he would probably have turned from a mind of such a child as yon' should have Claude, or a Poussin, to works in the mancome by such old-fashioned' ways of think-ner of a Salvator Rosa, or a Michael Aning and talking. No one acquainted with gelo. In his youth he was, of course, sufthe writings of Foster, and especially no ficiently innocent of knowing any thing one acquainted with his earlier letters as about the existence of such geniuses; but printed in this collection, can feel the slight-the strength of his imagination, and the alest difficulty in conceiving of his childhood and youth as being of this description. The absence of all sisterly influence, the disparity between his own years and those of his only brother, the advanced age of his parents, and the fact that he grew up almost to manhood under the parental roof-all these were circumstances tending necessarily to separate him from sympathy, and to throw him almost entirely on his own pentup musings and emotions. The natural effect followed. His manner became timid, shrinking, awkward, amounting, it is said, to an infinite shyness; and this mischief, though partly overcome in after life, left its impression on his character and manners to the end of his days. Writing, in later years, to his valued friend, the Rev. Joseph Hughes, he says 'I had, when a child, the feelings of a foreigner in the place, and some of the earliest musings that kindled my passions, were on plans for abandoning it. My heart felt a sickening vulgarity, before my knowledge could make comparisons. My involuntary unreflecting perceptions of the mental character of my very few acquaintance were probably just, as to their being qualified to reciprocate my sentiments and fancies.'

most living force of his associations, made him particularly susceptible of impressions from the great, the awful, and the mysterious, even from his earliest childhood. We suspect that the young of the present generation know little of the superstitious terrors with which the novitiate of life in the case of their fathers and grandfathers was so dreadfully beset. Foster, speaking of his childhood, says-' the time of going to bed was an awful season of each day;' and the children were few in those days who had not been taught to assign a place in their sleeping-room, in the long passage, or in some adjoining apartment, to the supernatural; though in the case of our embryo man of letters, pictures of that sort were probably more frequent and vivid than with boys of a much duller fancy. The skeleton which met him every night in the room through which he had to pass to his chamber, was seen, no doubt, by his theurgic vision, with a clearness which no other boy in Hebden bridge, or Wainsgate, could have brought to the scrutiny; and vain would have been his effort to make others see those processes of Indian torture, the sight of which, as he tells us, he could not at times himself escape from, by any effort But if the people about the place of his for the purpose. That trumpery stool there, birth were little to his mind, the scenery of in the corner of the room, what is there rethe neighborhood commanded his adinira-markable about that? The boy, John Fostion. It was good in what it was, and better, will never use it-years pass, and still ter in what it suggested. It assisted him to he will not use it-why is this? The stool revel in imagination amidst the scenes of had been the property of a man who came more profound beauty, or of more affecting by his death in a sudden and strange way, grandeur, of which his books, from time to time, gave him some conception. The very words, woods and forests, called up pictures of sublimity which filled him with emotion. Calm and grave as his temperament always seemed to be, he was generally much more

and whose ghost, it was said, had been seen in a barn near his house! To that timid, taciturn boy, there was more about that stool than the eye could look upon, or than any sense could recognize. To him it was an object of the imagination, and though it

ment of the future man.

might not speak to others, to him it never 'When about fourteen years old, he comfailed to speak, and the mind must be slug- municated to the associate just named, the gish in its discernment which does not see poignant anxiety he had suffered from comin that small incident a strongly-marked ele-paring his character with the requirements of the divine law, and added, that he had found rehef only by placing a simple reliance on the sacrifice of Jesus Christ for acceptance But unfavorable as this home education, before God. Six days after the completion of and much beside, may have been, the lot his seventeenth year he became a member of of young Foster was not wholly an adverse the Baptist church at Hebden bridge. His one. His parents exercised a most effect-venerable pastor, Dr. Fawcett, and other ual guard over his moral and religious his early thoughtfulness and piety, urged friends, who had watched with deep interest training. The circle in, which he grew him to dedicate his talents to the Christian up was one of kindness, and one in which ministry. Whether he had himself previousgood sense and integrity were united with ly formed such a design is not known: the sincere piety. In the objects of his filial object of their wishes soon became his delibaffection and confidence, he saw the per-erate choice, and after giving satisfactory sons who were regarded with similar feel- proofs of his abilities, he was 'set apart' for ings by the best people in all the neighbor- the ministerial office by a special religious serhood. One of his father's favorite sen- instruction and general mental improvement, vice. For the purpose of receiving classical tences, he informs us, was- The noblest he became, shortly after, an inmate at Brearmotive is the public good!' His house ley Hall, where Dr. Fawcett, in connexion was a kind of sanctuary. Religious meet- with his labors as an instructor of youth, diings were often held there. On every rected, at that time, the study of a few theoTuesday evening, Mr. Foster presided at logical candidates. Part of each day was a prayer meeting under his own roof, and still spent in assisting his parents at their in offering the concluding prayer, which time, his application to study was so intense usual employments. During the rest of the he always did, it was observed that he as to excite apprehensions for his health. Frenever omitted the petition- Oh, Lord, quently, whole nights were spent in reading bless the lads!'-the lads being John Fos- and meditation, and on these occasions his ter, and his then only companion, Henry favorite resort was a grove in Dr. Fawcett's Horsefall. Nor was the father altogether garden. His scholastic exercises were marked insensible to the intellectual aptitudes of by great labor, and accomplished very slowly. Many of his inferiors in mental power surpassed When the boy was not more him in the readiness with which they perthan four years old, the father was known formed the prescribed lessons. One method to lay his hand upon his head and say- which he adopted for improving himself in 'This head will some day learn Greek.' composition, was that of taking paragraphs Some thirteen years, however, from that from different writers, and trying to remodel time, passed away, and there was still little them, sentence by sentence, into as many forms sign that this prophecy of the good man, ture on these occasions, was to sit with a of expression as he possibly could. His posconcerning his first-born, would be fulfilled. hand on each knee, and, moving his body to The education of Foster during those years and fro, he would remain silent for a considhad been, of course, confined to his own erable time, till his invention in shaping his language. He read at times voraciously, materials had exhausted itself. This process but as will be supposed, with little system, he used to call pumping. He had a great and with a very defective and confused re-aversion to certain forms of expression which sult. During the later portion of this space he wrought at his father's craft, spinning wool to a thread by the hand-wheel, and afterwards weaving what are called double stuffs, such as lastings, &c. But nothing, we are told, was farther from the Brearley Hall, where our young divine inclination of the youth, and few things pursued his studies thus sedulously, was farther from his thoughts, than that he beautifully situated. It was inclosed at all should continue at such occupations. One points by the neighboring woods, except consequence of this sort of forecasting was, on the south, where it opened by a gentle that he made but a very indifferent weav- descent upon the valley. With the surThe change which at length opened rounding landscape, and with the many before him is thus described by the intelli-glen and woodland retreats which were gent editor of these memorials:— there accessible to him, Foster was deeply

the son.

er.

were much in vogue among some religious peopunge them from every book by act of parliaple, and declared that, if possible, he would exment: and often said,We want to put a new face upon things.'' pp. 9, 10.

interested; and the memory of those scenes was, had his vein of humor, and knew how is often referred to in his after life as among to enjoy that thing in others; and though the most delightful visions retained from not very sprightly himself, was never a his early years. Such a mind, exposed to check on the rational buoyancy of the such influences, was not to be restricted young about him. In the matter of industry, to a dull educational routine. Beside read- his example was such as often to come uping such works in theology as seemed to on the conscience of young Foster with him most pregnant with thought and ear- the force of a painful rebuke. His views nestness, he seized with special avidity on of human nature, however, were of the books of voyages and travels,-productious sombre cast, and perhaps contributed somewhich, in that day, were immeasurably what to give a coloring of that sort to the more the staple reading of the young than early thoughts of his pupil. In regard to at present, both the old and the new world public affairs, Dr. Fawcett was one of that old being now so far explored, narrowed and school of dissent, who were more concerned exposed, as to afford small supply in that for quiet than for change. In this respect shape to a passion for the marvellous. Fond- Foster appears even then to have been litness for this kind of reading in Foster tle in sympathy with his venerated tutor. seemed to grow by what it fed upon, and Foster's education at Brearley Hall was. if prosecuted with more discrimination in preliminary to his admission into the Baphis subsequent years, we shall see that to tist Academy at Bristol. The manner of the last it was somewhat unduly indulged. our young divine's journey from TodmorBut locality as well as temperament tended den to that city should be mentioned, as to this result. Such was Foster's passion-contrasting somewhat strongly with the ate sympathy with the appearances of na- softer habitudes of not a few modern stuture, that one summer evening he pre-dents of divinity. To pedestrianize from vailed on a young man to walk with him Todmorden to Manchester was no very by the river side in the vale of Todmor- formidable business; and from Manchester den from night-fall till dawn, that they to Birmingham the youth enjoyed the luxumight watch the effect of day-break and ry, such as that was in 1791, of having his morning on the scenery of that romantic seat outside a coach. But then there was district.

the journey from Birmingham to Bristol, Dr. Fawcet, the master of Brearley Hall, and for securing the said wheel luxury was a personage of stately presence and over that space, the bank, it seems, was bearing. He was tall, and large withal, unequal, and within the next two days the possessing a countenance somewhat satur- eighty-eight miles between Birmingham nine, features which bespoke habitual seri- and Bristol were traversed by our future ousness, and a powerful voice. His preach- essayist, yard by yard, on foot. We can ing seldom rose above common-place; but imagine the arrival of the weary stranger his alinost funereal gravity, which rendered at the door of the Academy there, opposite his services somewhat repulsive to the the Full-Moon in the city of Bristol,—a young, gave weight to his utterances with house at which, all respectable as it then minds more of his own experience and was, you may now purchase drugs in the complexion. It was not one of the doc-one department, if you need them, and protor's most conspicuous virtues to bear op- vender for man and beast in the other. So position with patience, or, in truth, to sub-cometh change! In that institution Robert mit readily to correction in any way. He was considerably accustomed to deference, and was disposed to expect it; but he was a person of good sense in most things, of sincere piety, and, on the whole, of kindly feeling. His reading was more free and extended than was usual in those days with ministers boasting of their puritanical descent. He had read such books as Fielding's novels; and Foster long remembered the substance of a discriminating critique which fell one day from his old tutor at Brearley Hall on one of those productions. Indeed, the worthy gentleman, grave as he

Hall had recently been the classical tutor. His place was now supplied by the Rev. Joseph Hughes, between whom and this new student a friendship was speedily formed, not such as usually obtains between tutor and pupil, but such as binds equal to equal. Foster's friendship with that intelligent and truly estimable man was of more benefit to him than all his his other friendships taken together. That the only influence of time upon it should have been to mellow and ripen it was perfectly natural.

Foster had some peculiar notions about

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