[32] Epilogue to the Satires, i. 131.  Dr. James Foster, the Nonconformist preacher.  Johnson mentions ’the reputation which he had gained by his proper delivery.’ Works, viii. 384.  In The Conversations of Northcote, p. 88, it is stated that ’Foster first became popular from the Lord Chancellor Hardwicke stopping in the porch of his chapel in the Old Jewry out of a shower of rain:  and thinking he might as well hear what was going on he went in, and was so well pleased that he sent all the great folks to hear him, and he was run after as much as Irving has been in our time.’  Dr. T. Campbell (Diary, p. 34) recorded in 1775, that ’when Mrs. Thrale quoted something from Foster’s Sermons, Johnson flew in a passion, and said that Foster was a man of mean ability, and of no original thinking.’  Gibbon (Misc.  Works, v. 300) wrote of Foster:—­’Wonderful! a divine preferring reason to faith, and more afraid of vice than of heresy.’

[33] It is believed to have been her play of The Sister, brought out in 1769.  ’The audience expressed their disapprobation of it with so much appearance of prejudice that she would not suffer an attempt to exhibit it a second time.’ Gent.  Mag. xxxix. 199.  It is strange, however, if Goldsmith was asked to hiss a play for which he wrote the epilogue.  Goldsmith’s Misc.  Works, ii. 80.  Johnson wrote on Oct. 28, 1779 (Piozzi Letters, ii. 72):—­’C——­ L——­ accuses ——­ of making a party against her play.  I always hissed away the charge, supposing him a man of honour; but I shall now defend him with less confidence.’  Baretti, in a marginal note, says that C——­ L——­ is ‘Charlotte Lennox.’  Perhaps ——­ stands for Cumberland.  Miss Burney said that ’Mr. Cumberland is notorious for hating and envying and spiting all authors in the dramatic line.’  Mme. D’Arblay’s Diary, i. 272.

[34] See ante, i. 255.

[35] In The Rambler, No. 195, Johnson describes rascals such as this man.  ’They hurried away to the theatre, full of malignity and denunciations against a man whose name they had never heard, and a performance which they could not understand; for they were resolved to judge for themselves, and would not suffer the town to be imposed upon by scribblers.  In the pit they exerted themselves with great spirit and vivacity; called out for the tunes of obscene songs, talked loudly at intervals of Shakespeare and Jonson,’ &c.

[36] See ante, ii. 469.

[37] Dr. Percy told Malone ’that they all at the Club had such a high opinion of Mr. Dyer’s knowledge and respect for his judgment as to appeal to him constantly, and that his sentence was final.’  Malone adds that ’he was so modest and reserved, that he frequently sat silent in company for an hour, and seldom spoke unless appealed to.  Goldsmith, who used to rattle away upon all subjects, had been talking somewhat loosely relative to music.