The Project Gutenberg EBook of John Forster, by Percy Hethrington Fitzgerald

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Title: John Forster

Author: Percy Hethrington Fitzgerald

Release Date: June 12, 2007 [EBook #21815]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JOHN FORSTER ***

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JOHN

FORSTER

BY

ONE OF HIS FRIENDS

LONDON

CHAPMAN & HALL LTD.

1903

* * * * *

JOHN FORSTER.

A MAN OF LETTERS OF THE OLD SCHOOL.

One of the most robust, striking, and many-sided characters of his
time was John Forster, a rough, uncompromising personage, who, from
small and obscure beginnings, shouldered his way to the front until he
came to be looked on by all as guide, friend and arbiter. From a
struggling newspaperman he emerged into handsome chambers in Lincoln's
Inn Fields, from thence to a snug house in Montague Square, ending in
a handsome stone mansion which he built for himself at Palace Gate,
Kensington, with its beautiful library-room at the back, and every
luxury of "lettered ease."

If anyone desired to know what Dr. Johnson was like, he could have found
him in Forster. There was the same social intolerance; the same
"dispersion of humbug"; the same loud voice, attuned to a mellifluous
softness on occasion, especially with ladies or persons of rank; the
love of "talk" in which he assumed the lead--and kept it too; and the
contemptuous scorn of what he did not approve. But then all this was
backed by admirable training and full knowledge. He was a deeply read,
cultivated man, a fine critic, and, with all his arrogance, despotism,
and rough "ways," a most interesting, original, delightful person--for
those he liked that is, and whom he