Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: and delighted with everything. His old friend and 2 class fellow, Whiteside, gave him a dinner to which I ; attended him, where was the late Dr. Lloyd, the I Provost of the College, a learned man, whose works i on " Optics" are well known. It was pleasant to note how Forster, like his prototype, the redoubt- I able Doctor, here " talked for ostentation." " I knew, sir," he might say, " that I was expected to talk, to talk suitably to my position as a distinguished visitor." And so he did. It was an excellent lesson in conversation to note how he took the lead—" laid down the law," while poor Whiteside flourished away in a torrent of words, and the placid Lloyd more adroitly strove occasionally to " get in." But Forster held his way with well-rounded periods, and seemed to enjoy entangling his old friend in the consequences of some exuberant exaggeration. " My dear Whiteside, how can you say so ? Do you not see that by saying such a thing you give yourself away ?" etc. Forster, however, more than redeemed himself when he issued his well-known Life of Dickens, a work that was a perfect delight to the world and to his friends. For here is the proper lightness of touch. The complete familiarity with every detail of the course of the man of whose life his had been a portion, and the quiet air of authority which he could assume in consequence, gave the work an attraction that was beyond dispute. There have been, it is said, some fifteen or sixteen official Lives issued since the writer's death ; but all these are written " from outside" as it were, and it is extraordinary what a different man each presents. But hardly sufficient credit has been given to him for the finished style which only a true and well trained critic could have brought, the easy touch, the appropriate treatment of t...