JOHN FORSTER AND HIS FRIENDSHIPS.* THE lives of good men,
able men, men sound of heart and head, do not always make interesting biographies. John Forster, friend and biographer of Dickens, was one to whom all these adjectives might be applied without straining their meaning, yet his life is not worth reading. His work survives and does him credit. With such a subject as Dickens a sensible man of exceptional mental vitality could hardly fail to produce a biography which would at any rate live out its threescore years and ten, or whatever period corresponds to that in the longevity of books. Forster is bed-rock authority for all present and future writers upon Dickens ; on that fact his memory rests. In himself he has ceased to be an interesting figure to us, and it is neither hard nor sad that this should be so ; for if ever literary man got full return for a sterling, useful talent during his lifetime it was John Forster. From pinched, unpromising beginnings be became important, influential, rich; the intimate friend of one or two of the most interesting men of the time; and (in this he was exceptionally happy) his success was earned by his merits, his friends were won by his character, and influence, when he attained it, did not spoil him. His reputation was as solid and imposing in its day as his high, heavy house at Palace Gate, Kensington, with its great library, ample and valuable enough to be left to the nation after his death. But he had not a touch of the artist about him, nor was he an original man. He was an honest, thorough journeyman of letters, with a devotion to men of strong imagination, and with a steadiness in his affections and a common-sense in dealing with men which made him a rock to lean upon : " un homme d'un commerce aim" Add to that description a robust conviviality, an agreeable downright directness, hot communicative affections, and an inexhaustible capacity for wondering at the elevations of genius. No wonder he was a friend of Dickens. He valued success too—almost as much as genius.
This biography is not at all a satisfactory work. Mr. Richard Renton has stuffed out his book with the unnecessary, and he has skimped and starved the narrative in other places. It is a poor, scrap-fed biography, " bumped out," as printers say. No biographer has a right to waste our time with such notes as these :- "My Dear Forster,—
All thanks for your kind note. I have seen Hunt's first number ! Always yours, B. W. Proctor."
Mr. Renton has no sense of proportion, and his comments are trite and ill-written. A reviewer is bound to justify criticisms of this kind, and I refer the reader to page 106 for a specimen comment (the topic is that warbler of drawing-room passions, the poetess L. E. L., round whose name some scandal once collected).
"A man may exercise his super-impressionability—or worse— with impunity, he being, from a social standpoint, "not a penny the worse." Yet let the "weaker vessel" evince but the slightest inclination towards amorous admiration for here-and-there members of the opposite sex, people hold up their hands in holy horror, and cry Shame I' each from the top of his or her pedestal, until they are throat-tired and breathless."
The main facts of Forster's life are these. He was born at Newcastle in 1812. What the circumstances of his family were his last biographer leaves us to guess. He does not tell tie how John Forster's father earned his living, only that his fOui
* John Forster and his .Friendships. By H. Beaton. Leaden: Chapman and Hall. Lies. 6d..1
children were educated at his brother's expense. John Forster started as a dramatic critic, but he made his first mark as a journalist later, as a writer of political articles in the Examiner. He edited successively the Foreign, Quarterly _Review, the Daily News, and (1847-1856) the Examiner. He was the author of a number of admirable biographical and historical essays, and of these the series dealing with the Commonwealth are of most value. His Life and Times of Goldsmith. is a sound, clear, entertaining book. His Life of Landor (1868) is not so good, but it is upon his Life of Dickens (1871-74) that his fame now rests. He was appointed Secretary to the Commissioners of Lunacy in 1855, and he died in 1876.
"The brave Forster," Carlyle used to call him. Not that his lot in life was a hard one; on the contrary each year found him higher up in the world and in the estimation of men ; his talents were eminently marketable. But he held on his course with a vigorous, cheerful energy, speaking his mind and befriending others in a manner which won for him the respect and affection of some of the most remarkable men of his generation. He loved letters and his friends.
Previous page
