he arrived August 5, 1792, and left towards the close of November. According to his own account, his mode of life during this period was almost that of a recluse; his mental habits were undisciplined, his application to study fitful and desultory, and his purpose as to the specific employment of his future life unfixed. "I am thinking," he writes to his friend, who was then a student at Brearley, "how different is the state of the family in which you reside from that where my lot is fixed for the present. Your family seems a kind of ludicro-moral museum, comprising specimens of all the odd productions found in the world of men. Now observe the contrast. Mrs. F. is, with one of the servants, gone some time since to London, and the whole mansion is now left to Mr. F., one maid, and myself. Mr. F. was bit by the mastiff that guards the factory, so severely that he has been confined to the house, and at present does not even quit his bed-chamber. Now, then, I absolutely breakfast, dine, drink tea, and sup alone; except that beside my table places himself Pero, a large and very generous dog, my most devoted friend, and the willing companion of all my adventures. Having, you know, neither spouse nor children, I frequently amuse myself with Pero. I am mistaken, or the name of Pero shall live when your coxcombs, your consequential blockheads, and your . . . . images of fattened clay are heard of no more. Though the town is only about two or three hundred yards from the house, I never take any notice of it, and very rarely enter it, but on the Sunday. I often walk into the fields, where I contemplate horses and cows, and birds and grass; or along the river, where I observe the motions of the tide, the effect of the wind, or, if 'tis evening, the moon and stars reflected in the water. When inclined to read, I am amply furnished with books. When I am in the habit of musing, I can shut myself in my solitary chamber, and walk over the floor, throw myself in a chair, or recline on my table; or if I would dream, I can extend myself on the bed. When the day is fled, I lie down in the bosom of night, and sleep soundly till another arrives; then I awake, solitary, still, I either rise to look at my watch, and then lay myself awhile on the bed looking at the morning skies, or . ... in a magic reverie behold the varied scenes of life, and poise myself on the wings of visionary contemplation over the shaded regions of futurity . . . Such, my friend, are the situation and the train in which I pass life away." At another time, in a tone of deeper sentiment, he thus expresses himself: "I sometimes feel

the review of the past very interesting. The vicissitudes which my views and feelings have undergone have been numerous and great. They have never remained long stationary, and they were perhaps never in a more uncertain and fluctuating state than at present. I feel conscious of possessing great powers, but not happily combined, nor fully brought forth. Some habits of the most unfortunate and dangerous kind have taken root, and will not be exterminated, I am afraid, without great difficulty.* At the age of twenty-two, I feel that I have still to begin to live; I have yet in a great measure my principles to fix, my plans to form, my means to select, and habits of exertion to acquire; a Herculean labor, how shall I accomplish it?" In another letter of a later date, he says, "How dark is futurity still! how uncertain and limited our prospects! I wonder what or where my next undertaking will be! I am apprehensive it will not be in the line of preaching; but I leave it to that futurity where it dwells, and whence no conjectures can invite it."

From Newcastle Mr. Foster returned to his friends in Yorkshire, but left them again in the beginning of the year 1793, having been invited to preach to a Baptist society meeting in Swift's Alley, Dublin. Nearly all that is known of the events of his life during the three following years is contained in one of his letters to Mr. Hughes, dated October 17, 1796. The introductory sentences are too characteristic to be omitted. "Your letter surprised me," he says, " into a pleasure strong enough to survive a struggle with the guilty consciousness of neglect. My silence appears strange even to myself; and I know not whether it will be rendered less so to you, while I observe, that in our last personal intercourse, I felt the oppression of a mortifying inferiority and awkwardness, which after several months, during which I intended to write, grew into a kind of determination to become unknown till I should be quite worthy to be known. Meanwhile, I have always retained the fixed resolve of offering, at a better period, an atonement, in a more meritorious friendship; I have eagerly seized every opportunity of obtaining information concerning you; and assure you, from a heart that has not yet learned insincerity from the world, that my regard for you has

* To prevent any misapprehension of the strong language here employed by so rigid and conscientious a self-observer, it may be remarked, that on comparing it with other passages in the correspondence, it is evident Foster alludes to what he elsewhere terms," the inveterate, most unfortunate habits of indolent, desultory, musing vagrancy."

suffered no diminution. It is among my most flattering anticipa tions that I shall yet again find myself in the same room with you and Mrs. H.,' to taste (may I hope with even superior zest?) enjoyments something like those which are gone."

"In Ireland," he proceeds to inform his friend, "I preached little more than a year, one month of which was passed most delightfully at Cork. Nothing can be imagined less interesting than the Baptist society in Dublin. The congregation was very small when I commenced, and almost nothing when I voluntarily closed. A dull scene it was, in which I preached with but little interest, and they heard with less. The church, of which, with a very few regular or casual hearers besides, the whole congregation consisted, was composed of a rich family or two, quite people of the world of three or four families in business, emulating the show and consequence of the others of half a dozen poor individuals, so little connected with their Christian superiors, and so little regarded by them, that between them was a Gadibus ad Gangem'-and an independent character or two, tired and ashamed of such a society. With such an assemblage the soul of Foster was not formed to coalesce, and my connexions were fewer than could be supposed possible to a public person.

“I sought, and partly found, a compensation among the girls of a charity-school, connected with the meeting, to whom I talked with familiar gaiety, gave rewards of learning, and read many amusing books;* in solitary rambles, books, newspapers, converse with the few who were friends, the greater part of them not of the church; and in speculating on the varieties of a metropolis.

"I did not distinguish myself by any considerable violation of the parsonic garb; ... but my contempt of ecclesiastical formalities was avowed and apparent on all occasions; and my acquaintance did not involve a single man of cloth in the city. After an interval of several months spent in Yorkshire, I returned to Dublin to make an experiment on a classical and mathematical school, which had been left to decline to nothing but the room and

"His habits were very simple; he was fond of walking, and evidently, while he paced round our little garden, his mind was full of some subject of deep interest. I also know, that the children of an orphan school connected with the place of worship in which he officiated had much of his care, and he went daily to read to the children instructive and amusing books, and seemed most solicitous to improve their minds, and to cheer them in the midst of their dull routine."-Extract of a Letter from J. Purser, Esq., of Rathmines.

forms, by a very respectable Quaker of my acquaintance, now or lately in London. 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. I think the last letter I received predicted the extinction of the society.*

'During this latter residence in Dublin, my connection 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.

"I have in Ireland three or four cordial friends, for whose sake I shall be pleased with any future opportunity of revisiting it. I have now been here more than half a year. If you should ask, How employed? I can scarcely tell; a little in business, I might say, in which my brother is engaged; but oftener in literature, or rather its environs. I long since indulged the design of some time writing for publication; I am lately come into it more deci sively. After fluctuating among various subjects and forms of writing, I have drawn the plan of a kind of moral essay, and composed an inconsiderable part; but my intolerable tardiness in writing, together with the constitutional indolence which I have not yet overcome, threatens long to protract the accomplishment; and my dissatisfaction with what I produce, precludes that enthusiasm which is said to be necessary to excellence. However, I am resolved on a complete experiment.

"Some months since, I formed the project of attempting at Leeds, where my occasional sermons have found some admirers, a course of lectures on moral and literary subjects, in a mode somewhat similar to Thelwall's, but it was not encouraged into execution. I had conceived the plan, too, of a train of discourses, different from sermons only in being without texts, on moral and religious subjects, addressed entirely to young people, to be publicly delivered each Sunday evening, in the meeting where I attend. There could be no interest but that of benevolence here. I intended my utmost efforts to simplify, illustrate, and persuade, by every expedient in the power of a mind possessed of a measure

*This prediction has not been fulfilled. The congregation has continued and a new chapel, in a more commodious site, has been lately built,

both of amplitude and originality. But Mr., a very good and sensible, but a timid man, tenacious of modes and notions which the church and time have sanctioned, and dreading the profane and ill-omened flight of philosophy and fancy athwart the good old way, as peasants turn back in dismay at the sight of three magpies crossing their road, durst not admit such a measure, 'for it would not be preaching the gospel!' So now, you ought to applaud my activity in forming plans, and my philosophy in bearing their disappointment.

"It is now a great while 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. When I contemplate the infinite value of religion, the melancholy darkness of human minds (especially while I view the interesting counte. nances of young people, on whom alone, perhaps, any good can be operated), I am forcibly admonished that a man like me should be something else amidst the assemblies of Sunday than what I am,—a very inattentive hearer. But what should I do? It is vain to wish what would exactly gratify me-the power of building a meeting of my own, and, without being controlled by any man, and without even the existence of what is called a church, of preaching gratis to all that chose to hear.

“That denomination of people in which I have been conversant, have stronger causes of exception than the color of a waistcoat ;my opinions have suffered some alterations. 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 thoughts and feelings, 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 prefer ence of such a congregation does not arise from a conclusive coin. cidence of opinion, but from a conviction that there only I can find the candor and scope which I desire.' But I am vexed to