Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 20.djvu/61

 sermons went through five editions. Two volumes of ‘Discourses on all the Principal Branches of Natural Religion and Social Virtue,’ published in 1749 and 1752, had two thousand subscribers. Foster's health was declining. He had a paralytic stroke in April 1750, and a second in July 1753. He died on 5 Nov. 1753.

Foster received the D.D. degree by diploma from the Marischal College, Aberdeen, in December 1748. He had a fine voice and graceful action. He was a man of generous character, so liberal that he would have died without a penny but for the subscription to his ‘Discourses.’ He is said to have declined many offers of preferment in the Irish church from Bishop Rundle. As a thinker Foster represents the drift of the dissenters of his time towards rationalism. Though he argued against Tindal and supported the historical evidences of Christianity, he substantially agrees in philosophy with the deists. In his sermons (volume of 1733, i. 175) occurs a characteristic phrase quoted by Bolingbroke and Savage (Gent. Mag. v. 213): ‘Where mystery begins, religion ends.’ He was sharply attacked by John Brine [q. v.] in a ‘Vindication of some Truths of Natural and Revealed Religion …,’ 1746, for his freethinking tendencies. The eloquence of his preaching is not very perceptible in his published works, but he shows some ability and much good feeling.

Miss Hawkins says (Anecdotes, p. 164) that the portrait by Wilkes, supposed to represent Foster, was really taken by mistake from a Mr. Morris, who was preaching for him.

[Funeral Sermon by Caleb Fleming, 5 Nov. 1753; Gent. Mag. 1753, p. 569; Murch's Presbyterian Churches of the West of England, pp. 158, 159; Ivimey's English Baptists, iii. 215, 399–404; Wilson's Dissenting Churches, ii. 270–285; Hawkins's Hist. of Music, 1776, v. 321; Life by Jared Sparks in Collection of Essays, &c., v. 171–85 (followed by selections from writings); Protestant Dissenters' Mag. iii. 309.]  FOSTER, JOHN (1731–1774), upper master of Eton School, born at Windsor, Berkshire, in 1731, was the son of a tradesman and alderman of that borough. At an early age he entered Eton School under the care of the Rev. Septimius Plumptre, then one of the assistant-masters. From Eton, where he exhibited remarkable attainments as a classical scholar, he proceeded in 1748 to King's College, Cambridge, of which he became a fellow. In 1750 he was elected to one of the Craven university scholarships. The following year he contributed to the Cambridge ‘Luctus’ on the death of Frederick, prince of Wales, an excellent copy of Latin hexameters. Two more of his college exercises were printed, as ‘Oratio habita Cantabrigiæ in Collegio Regali IV. non. Februarias die fundatoris memoriæ sacro. Accedit etiam, ab eodem scriptum, Carmen Comitiale,’ 4to, Cambridge, 1752. He took the degrees in arts, B.A. in 1753, M.A. in 1756, and was created D.D. per literas regias in 1766. In 1754 he gained one of the members' prize dissertations for middle bachelors. It was entitled ‘Enarratio et Comparatio Doctrinarum moralium Epicuri et Stoicorum Dissertatio,’ 4to, London, 1758. Shortly afterwards he returned to Eton as an assistant-master, at the personal request of Dr. Edward Barnard, then the head-master. On Barnard being elected provost, 21 Oct. 1765, he made interest for Foster to succeed him in the mastership, and carried his point. Foster was not successful in his administration of the school, ‘his government was defective, his authority insufficient.’ In March 1772 he accepted a canonry at Windsor (, Fasti, ed. Hardy, iii. 410), and in July of the following year resigned the mastership of Eton. In the hope of recruiting his health, which had been sadly shattered by his efforts to cope with the difficulties of his headship, he visited the ‘German Spa,’ but died there in the summer of 1774 (Gent. Mag. xliv. 390). His remains were afterwards removed to Windsor, and deposited near those of his father, in the parish churchyard, with a Latin inscription written by himself, which is accurately printed in Lysons's ‘Magna Britannia,’ vol. i. pt. ii. p. 472 (Berkshire). His will, the codicil of which is dated 6 June 1774, was proved at London on the following 30 Aug. (registered in P. C. C. 301, Bargrave). By his wife Mary (? Prior), who survived him, he left a daughter, Mary. Foster also published ‘An Essay on the different Nature of Accent and Quantity, with their use and application in the pronunciation of the English, Latin, and Greek languages: containing an account … of the ancient tones, and a defence of the present system of Greek accentual marks, against the objections of J. Vossius, Henninius, Sarpedonius, Dr. G[ally], and others. (Marci Musuri Cretensis ad Leonem X. Carmen … Recensuit et Latine … vertit Johannes Foster.’ Gr. and Lat.) 2 pts. 8vo, Eton, 1762. The second edition (8vo, Eton, 1763) contains ‘some additions from the papers of Dr. Taylor and Mr. Markland; with a reply to Dr. G[ally]'s second Dissertation in answer to the Essay.’ A third edition, ‘containing Dr. G[ally]'s two Dissertations against pronouncing the Greek