to Archbishop Ussher, dated from Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, 25 May 1630, says that Foster had taken some pains upon the Latin copy of Ignatius's ‘Epistles’ in Caius College Library, and adds that as he was ‘shortly to depart from the colledg by his time there allotted, finding in himself some impediment in his utterance, he could wish to be employed by your lordship in such like business. He is a good scholar, and an honest man’ (Ussher, Letters, p. 437). Despite the impediment in his speech he was afterwards rector of Allerton in Somersetshire. Twysden commends him for his skill in mathematics, and says that he communicated to him his brother's papers, which are published in his ‘Miscellanies’ (Preface to the same). There is a tetrastich of his writing among the ‘Epigrammata in Radulphi Wintertoni Metaphrasin’ published at the end of ‘Hippocratis Aphorismi soluti et metrici,’ 8vo, Cambridge, 1633. In 1652 he was living at Sherborne, Dorsetshire, and in the May of that year his brother bequeathed him ‘fourescore pounds and his library in Gresham Colledge.’
[Ward's Lives of the Gresham Professors, i. 87–8.]
FOSTER, WILLIAM (1591–1643), divine, son of William Foster of London, barber-surgeon, was born in November 1591 (School Register). He entered Merchant Taylors' School in July 1607 (ib.), and two years later (8 Dec. 1609) was admitted of St. John's College, Oxford, whence he graduated. Having taken holy orders he became chaplain (1628) to the Earl of Carnarvon, and soon afterwards rector of Hedgerley, Buckinghamshire. In 1629 he published a little treatise against the use of weapon-salve. The book is entitled ‘Hoplo-Crisma Spongus, or a Sponge to wipe away the Weapon-Salve, wherein is proved that the Cure taken up among us by applying the Salve to the Weapon is magical and unlawful,’ 4to, 1629 and 1641. It attracted some attention through the answer made to it on behalf of the Rosicrucians by Dr. Robert Fludd [q. v.] in 1631. Francis Osborne also attacked it in an essay ‘On such as condemn all they understand not a reason for’ (1659). Wood says that Foster was helped in his work (which displays considerable learning) by Dr. John Roberts, a jesuit, who, ‘because some Protestants practised this and characterical cures (which, notwithstanding, are more frequent among Roman Catholics), he therefore called them Magi, Calvinists, Characterists, &c.’ Sir Kenelm Digby [q. v.] claimed to be the first to introduce the ‘weapon-salve’ into England. Foster was killed in 1643 (Lipscomb), but under what circumstances we know not.
[Robinson's Reg. of Merchant Taylors' School; Wood's Athenæ Oxon. (Bliss), ii. 573; Lipscomb's Buckinghamshire, iv. 508.]
FOTHERBY, MARTIN (1549?–1619), bishop of Salisbury, son of Maurice Fotherby, a resident at Grimsby, Lincolnshire, was born about 1549. He entered at Cambridge, and eventually became a fellow of Trinity. He became prebendary and archdeacon of Canterbury in 1596, and in 1615 was presented to the deanery. He had married some years before his first promotion; for on 9 Sept. 1609 Lady Cooke wrote to Lord Salisbury asking him to promote the marriage of her eldest daughter with the archdeacon's eldest son, to which Fotherby objected, and in the following year, after the marriage had taken place, begged for a knighthood at the creation of the Prince of Wales for her son-in-law, because her daughter's worth and birth had been much disgraced by the match. Three years afterwards, being chaplain to James I, he was appointed to the bishopric of Salisbury. He was consecrated by Abbot, assisted by the bishops of London, Coventry, and Lincoln, 19 April 1618, and protested at his consecration that he had given nothing for his promotion. He died 29 March 1619, aged 70, and was buried in Allhallows Church, Lombard Street. In the epitaph on his tomb he is described in very high-flown terms of praise. He left an imperfect work against atheism, which was published after his death in 1622 in folio, under the title ‘Atheomastix: clearing foure Truthes against Atheists and Infidels.’ Four sermons were published together in 1608 in quarto, having been written in 1604. Copies of both these works are in the British Museum.
[Wood's Athenæ (Bliss), ii. 859; Godwin, De Præsulibus; Le Neve's Fasti; Stubbs's Registrum; Domestic State Papers.]
FOTHERGILL, ANTHONY (1685?–1761), theological writer, was the youngest son of Thomas Fothergill of Brownber, Ravenstonedale, Westmoreland. Like his forefathers and descendants for many generations he owned Brownber, and lived and died there. Though he is said to have had no ‘liberal education,’ he published several theological works, the largest of which is entitled ‘Wicked Christians Practical Atheists; or Free Thoughts of a Plain Man on the Doctrines and Duties of Religion in general, and of Christianity in particular; compared and contrasted with the Faith and Practice of Protestants of every Denomination so far as either have come under the observation or
