years the literary and dramatic departments of the Examiner were as remarkable as its political columns for originality, polish, and verve. In 1836 he began to contribute to Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopædia the series of notable "Lives of the Statesmen of the Commonwealth," and which Mr Forster has followed up by several valuable contributions to the biography and history of its pre-Cromwellian period. During his literary editorship of the Examiner, Mr. Forster also contributed to the Edinburgh Review and to the Morning Chronicle, and became for a period editor of the Foreign Quarterly Review. In 1846 on the withdrawal of his friend Mr. Charles Dickens from the editorship of the Daily News, founded not long before, Mr. Forster was for a short time its editor. In 1848 appeared his "Life of Goldsmith," which has gone through three editions, and is a most valuable contribution to the biography of British literature. Early in 1847, on the acceptance by Mr. Fonblanque of a post at the board of trade, Mr. Forster became editor-in-chief of the Examiner, a position which he retained until 1858. The nature of Mr. Forster's later literary labours has been evidenced by two publications of recent date. One is his collection of "Historical and Biographical Essays," 2 vols., London, 1858, contributed to the Edinburgh and Quarterly Review (he has also been an occasional contributor to the North British), which included, along with vigorous and lively papers on Steele, Foote, &c., an original essay on the Grand Remonstrance, the important "study" on the early history of the Long Parliament, referred to in our memoir of Sir Simonds D'Ewes, on whose MS. diary it is partly based. Within the last few months Mr. Forster has published, in one volume, another historical study, "The Arrest of the Five Members by Charles I., a chapter of English history re-written," in which the misstatements of Clarendon are corrected, and the details of that interesting episode in the history of the Long Parliament, are chronicled for the first time from original sources, with accuracy and animation. Mr. Forster is, it is understood, at present engaged on a new edition of Swift's works, and a new biography of the dean of St. Patrick's. He holds the appointment of secretary to the lunacy commission.—F. E.
FÖRSTER, Karl August, a German poet and translator, was born at Naumburg, April 3, 1784, and died Dec. 18, 1841, at Dresden, where since 1806 he had honourably filled a professorship in the military academy. He wrote a cyclus of original poems on the life and works of Raphael, and translated the poems of Petrarch and Tasso and the Vita Nuova of Dante. See Sketches of his Life by his widow: Dresden, 1846.—K. E.
FORSTER, Nathaniel, a learned divine of the church of England, born February 3, 1717, at Stadscombe in Devonshire. He received his early education at the grammar-school, Plymouth. In 1731 he removed to Eton, and also entered Pembroke college, Oxford. He became scholar of Corpus Christi college in 1733. He took the degree of B.A., 13th October, 1735; that of M.A. 10th February, 1738; that of B.D. 9th April, 1746; and that of D.D. in 1750. He was elected fellow of Corpus Christi college in 1739. He had a high reputation for critical acumen, and was a sound Latin, Greek, and Hebrew scholar. He took deacon's orders in 1739, and priest's orders in 1749. In this latter year he was presented to the chancellor's living of Hethe in Oxfordshire. In 1750 he became domestic chaplain to Dr. Butler, bishop of Bristol, on that prelate being translated to the see of Durham. This bishop, who died in his arms at Bath, appointed him his executor and left him a legacy of £200. In 1752 Dr. Forster became chaplain to Dr. Herring, archbishop of Canterbury. He was promoted to a prebendal stall in Bristol cathedral in 1754, and in the same year he became vicar of Rochdale in Lancashire. He was elected fellow of the Royal Society in 1755, appointed a chaplain to King George II. in 1756, and preacher at the Rolls chapel in 1757. He published in 1743, "Reflections on the Natural Foundation of the high antiquity of Government, Arts, and Sciences in Egypt;" in 1745, "Platonis dialogi quinque;" in 1746, "Appendix Liviana," said to be a joint work of Dr. Forster and another fellow of Corpus Christi college; also in 1746, "Popery Destructive of the Evidence of Christianity;" in 1749, "A Dissertation upon the account supposed to have been given of Jesus Christ by Josephus," &c.; in 1750, "Biblia Hebraica sine punctis," 2 vols. 4to; in 1755, "Remarks on the Rev. Dr. Stebbing's Dissertation on the power of States to deny Civil Protection to the Marriages of Minors."—W. A. B.
FORSTER, Valentine, born at Wittemberg in 1530, became a student under Luther, Melancthon, and Eber, and was afterwards appointed professor of jurisprudence in the university of Heidelberg. But the preference shown by the elector of the palatinate to the Reformed, as distinguished from the Lutheran church, was extremely distasteful to him; and resigning his chair, he withdrew to Worms, where he continued till 1595, when he was made professor of law at Helmstadt, and there continued to labour till his death in 1608.—P. L.
FORSTER, William, an eminent minister and philanthropist, belonging to the Society of Friends, was born at Tottenham, near London, in the year 1784. Endowed with faculties of a very high order, he devoted himself at an early age to ministerial and philanthropic pursuits. He was an able minister of the gospel; and as a christian philanthropist, he entered with profound sympathy into the sorrows and sufferings of his fellowmen. In 1846, when the terrible famine raged in Ireland, he volunteered his services as the distributor of the funds placed at his disposal by the munificence of his friends. For upwards of four months, in the depth of an inclement winter, he lived amid scenes of misery and death, visiting the cabins of the famished and dying peasantry, ministering to their present wants and arranging plans for their future relief. Like his friend, Sir T. F. Buxton, whose sister he married, the sinfulness and cruelties of the slave trade and slavery, made in early life a deep impression on his sensitive mind; and when the christian community to which he belonged resolved to plead the cause of those who could not plead for themselves with the rulers of the earth, William Forster, though now far advanced in life, undertook the task of personally presenting the address to nearly all the sovereigns of Europe, as well as to other persons of influence. But a still more arduous duty awaited him in the land of slavery itself. Accompanied by a brother and two other fellow-labourers, not only had he interviews with the president of the United States and the governors of the free states, but he passed through most of the slave states also, presenting to their governors the address of a christian church—fearlessly yet temperately denouncing slavery as a sin in the sight of God and man. But whilst engaged in these arduous services in the state of Tennessee, his labours were brought to a close. Seized with illness at a lone ferry-house in the depth of winter, far from his beloved wife and son, yet quietly and patiently submitting himself to the divine will, Forster finished his earthly course in the seventieth year of his age.—S. F.
FORSYTH, William, an eminent Scottish gardener, was born in 1737 at Old Meldrum in Aberdeenshire, and died in 1804. He went to London in 1753; and having been for some time a pupil of the celebrated horticulturist, Philip Miller, succeeded him in the management of the garden at Chelsea. In 1784 he was appointed superintendent of the royal gardens at St. James' and Kensington. Nor was he unknown in the literature of his profession. His principal writings were "A Treatise on the Culture and Management of Fruit Trees," and "Observations on the Diseases, Defects, and Injuries of Fruit and Forest Trees." He was a member of the Antiquarian, the Linnæan, and several other societies.—T. J.
FORTESCUE, John. The date of this distinguished lawyer's birth is unknown. His death is supposed to have occurred in 1485, when he was about ninety years of age. He was of an ancient Devonshire family, which traces its origin to the shield-bearer of William the Conqueror. He was son of Sir John Fortescue, who was knighted by Henry V. for services in the French wars, and made governor of Meaux. A brother of John Fortescue's was chief-justice of the king's bench in Ireland from the years 1426 to 1429. John Fortescue is said, on doubtful authority, to have been educated at Oxford; he studied law at Lincoln's inn. In 1430 he was made sergeant-at-law, and in Easter, 1441, he was named one of the king's sergeants, and in the next year was chief-justice of the king's bench. In the title of his work, "De Laudibus Legum Angliæ," he calls himself Cancellarius Angliæ—a title to which his right seems more than doubtful. Fortescue was present at the battle of Towton, which determined the fortunes of Henry VI., and the title of chancellor could only have been given or assumed during Henry's exile. The family which bears the titles of Ebrington and Fortescue descends from his half-brother Matthew. Fortescue's book, "De Laudibus Legum Angliæ," is one of high character. Its great object is to show the superiority of the English over the
