ANECDOTES OF JOHN FOSTER.

North Otago Times, Volume I, Issue 12, 12 May 1864, Page 2 (Supplement)

ANECDOTES OF JOHN FOSTER.

(From the Life of Dr Liefchild.) His appearance at once impressed you with the idea of a thoughtful and intelligent, but not a great man. There was nothing commanding or striking about him, at all resembling his celebrated contemporary, Robert Hall; but when earnestly engaged in conversation with you, his look was piercing. You soon found that you were in the presence of a master mind, one who kept his mastery without the smallest effort on his part to display superior intelligence. He was remarkable for the ease and freedom of his conversational powers. His first object was to elicit from the person or persons with whom he Avas for the time associated the topics with which they were most familiar, and so to make them contributors to the discourse which followed. By this means they; invariably felt at home with him, and received, without any apparent effort, pleasure and information. The discursiveness of his knowledge was surprising, and yet so little display was made of it that persons who saw him only once miffht suppose that the immediate subject of conversation was one which had lono- and exclusively engrossed his attention; while those who met him frequently were at a loss to tell which of all the various topics that came before him had received the most attention from him. His powers of sarcasm were prodigious, so that it was dangerous to provoke him by conceit or assumed knowledge. Yet to those who would converse with him simply and unaffectedly, he was as gentle as a child. In repartee he even excelled MiHall, and had a great advantage over him in coolness. Perceiving this his advantage, he modestly shunned engaging in controversial conflicts with^ Mr Hall, though some injudicious friends would have urged them on to such conflicts. He would sometimes give expression to sarcasm not very politely. On being taken to see a place of worship for the Unitalians by their minister, a gentlemanly and erudite man, the minister remarked as they walked away from the chapel^ door down an avenue of poplar trees, that it was in contemplation to remove them. " By no means remove them," said Foster, " they are tho only things alive about the place." Mr Foster indulged more in sarcasm than verbal wit. He once called this world an untamed anduntameable animal; and, being reminded that he was a part of it, and therefore had an interest in its welfare, rejoined, " Yes, sir, a hair upon the tail." On insincerity, affectation, and cant he was unsparingly sarcastic. Some years ago, the Emperor Alexander's piety was a vcrv favorite theme at public meet-

ings. A person who leceived statements on that point with, as Foster thought, a for too easy faith, remarked to him, " that really the Emperor must be a very good man.' 5 " Yes, siv," he replied gravely, but with a significant glance, '• a very good man, very devout ; no doubt he said grace before he swallowed Poland !" He reprobated Edward Irvine's style as being at variance with all propriety of language, and as like a vessel which would not float. It was a vehicle which would not carry him long in the region of literature. His adherence to it would ruin him. Indeed, he had already lost all hope of him.