' 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.
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