A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature

by John W. Cousin

FOSTER, STEPHEN COLLINS (1826-1864). —Song-writer, was b. in Pittsburgh. He wrote over 100 songs, many of which had extraordinary popularity, among which may be mentioned The Old Folks at Home, Nelly Bly, Old Dog Tray, Camp Town Races, Massa's in de cold, cold Ground, and Come where my Love lies Dreaming. He composed the music to his songs.

FOX, CHARLES JAMES (1749-1806). —Statesman and historian, s. of Henry F., 1st Lord Holland, was one of the greatest orators who have ever sat in the House of Commons. His only serious literary work was a fragment of a proposed History of the Reign of James the Second. An introductory chapter sketching the development of the constitution from the time of Henry VII., and a few chapters conducting the history up to the execution of Monmouth are all which he completed.

FOX, GEORGE (1624-1691). —Religious enthusiast, and founder of the Society of Friends, b. at Drayton, Leicestershire, was in youth the subject of peculiar religious impressions and trances, and adopted a wandering life. The protests which he conceived himself bound to make against the prevailing beliefs and manners, and which sometimes took the form of interrupting Divine service, and the use of uncomplimentary forms of address to the clergy, involved him in frequent trouble. The clergy, the magistrates, and the mob alike treated him with harshness amounting to persecution. None of these things, however, moved him, and friends, many of them influential, among them Oliver Cromwell, extended favour towards him. From 1659 onwards he made various missionary journeys in Scotland, Ireland, America, and Holland. Later he was repeatedly imprisoned, again visited the Continent, and d. in 1691. F.'s literary works are his Journal, Epistles, and Doctrinal Pieces. He was not a man of strong intellect, and the defence of his doctrines was undertaken by the far more competent hand of his follower, [Barclay] (q.v.). The Journal, however, is full of interest as a sincere transcript of the singular experiences, religious and others, of a spiritual enthusiast and mystic.

The best Life is that by Hodgkin, 1896. Journal (reprint, 1885).

FOXE, JOHN (1516-1587). —Martyrologist, was b. at Boston, Lincolnshire, and ed. at Oxf., where he became a Fellow of Magdalen Coll. While there he gave himself to the study of the theological questions then in debate, and ended by becoming a Protestant, in consequence of which he in 1545 left his coll. He then became tutor in the family of Sir T. Lucy of Charlecote, and afterwards to the children of the recently executed Earl of Surrey. During the reign of Mary he retired to the Continent, and pub., at Strasburg, his Commentarii (the first draft of the Acts and Monuments). Removing to Basel he was employed as a reader for the press by the famous printer Oporinus, who pub. some of his writings. On the accession of Elizabeth, F. returned to England, was received with kindness by the Duke of Norfolk, one of his former pupils, and soon afterwards (1563) pub. the work on which his fame rests, the English version of the Acts and Monuments, better known as The Book Martyrs. Received with great favour by the Protestants, it was, and has always been, charged by the Roman Catholics with gross and wilful perversion of facts. The truth of the matter appears to be that while Foxe was not, as in the circumstances he could hardly have been, free from party spirit or from some degree of error as to facts, he did not intentionally try to mislead; and comparison of his citations from authorities with the originals has shown him to have been careful and accurate in that matter. F., who had been ordained a priest in 1560, became Canon of Salisbury in 1563. He wrote sundry other theological works, and d. in 1587. There is a memoir of him attributed to his s., but of doubtful authenticity. Some of his papers, used by [Strype] (q.v.), are now in the British Museum.

FRANCIS, SIR PHILIP (1740-1818). —Reputed author of The Letters of Junius, s. of the Rev. Philip F., a scholar of some note, was b. in Dublin. On the recommendation of Lord Holland he received an appointment in the office of the Sec. of State, and was thereafter private sec. to Lord Kinnoull in Portugal, and to Pitt in 1761-2. He was then transferred to the War Office, where he remained from 1762-72, during which period he contributed to the press under various pseudonyms. His next appointment was that of a member of Council of Bengal, which he held from 1773-80. While in India he was in continual conflict with the Governor-General, Warren Hastings, by whom he was wounded in a duel in 1779. He returned to England in 1780 with a large fortune, and entered Parliament as a Whig. In 1787 he was associated with Burke in the impeachment of Hastings, against whom he showed extraordinary vindictiveness. Later he was a sympathiser with the French Revolution, and a member of the association of the Friends of the People. He retired from public life in 1807, and d. in 1818. He was the author of about 20 political pamphlets, but the great interest attaching to him is his reputed authorship of the Letters of Junius. These letters which, partly on account of the boldness and implacability of their attacks and the brilliance of their literary style, and partly because of the mystery in which their author wrapped himself, created an extraordinary impression, and have ever since retained their place as masterpieces of condensed sarcasm. They appeared in The Public Advertiser, a paper pub. by Woodfall, the first on January 21, 1769, and the last on the corresponding day of 1772, and were chiefly directed against the Dukes of Grafton and Bedford, and Lord Mansfield; but even the king himself did not escape. Not only were the public actions of those attacked held up to execration, but every circumstance in their private lives which could excite odium was dragged into the light. Their authorship was attributed to many distinguished men, e.g. Burke, Lord Shelburne, J. Wilkes, Horne Tooke, and Barré, and recently to Gibbon; but the evidence appears to point strongly to F., and, in the opinion of Macaulay, would "support a verdict in a civil, nay, in a criminal trial." It rests upon such circumstances as the similarity of the MS. to what is known to be the disguised writing of F., the acquaintance of the writer with the working of the Sec. of State's Office and the War Office, his denunciation of the promotion of a Mr. Chamier in the War Office, which was a well-known grievance of F., his acquaintance with Pitt, and the existence of a strong tie to Lord Holland, the silence of Junius when F. was absent, and resemblances in the style and the moral character of the writer to those of F.