Life of Goldsmith

JOHN FORSTER Life of Goldsmith John Forster is best remembered as writer of the biographies of the statesmen of the commonwealth, of Goldsmith, Landor, Dickens. To his own generation he was for twenty years one of the ablest of London journalists. In his later days, as a Commissioner in Lunacy, he had time to devote himself more closely to historical research. He was born at Newcastle on April 2, 1812, was turned aside from the Bar by success in newspaper work, and became editor first of the "Foreign Quarterly Review," then of the "Daily News," on which he succeeded Dickens, and lastly of "The Examiner." His "Life of Goldsmith" was published in 1848, and enlarged in 1854. Forster was different from all that he looked. He seemed harsh, exacting, and stubborn. He was one of the most loyal of friends, and tender-hearted towards all good fellows, alive or dead.