"Hem! hem! here's a fine job of work broke out indeed! a feller begetting bastards under our very noses, (and let me tell you, good people, a common labouring rascal too,) when our taxes are so great, and our poor rates so high; why 'tis an abomination; we shall not have an honest servant maid in the neighbourhood, and the whole parish will swarm with bastards; therefore, I say, let him be fined for his pranks very severely; and if the rascal has not money, (as indeed how should he have it?) or can't find security, (as indeed how should such a feller find security?) let him be clapp'd up in prison till he pays it.'

"Justice A-will be milder, and say, Well, well, brother, this is not a new case, bastards have been begotten before now, and bastards will be begotten to the end of the chapter; therefore, though the man has committed a crime-and indeed I must say a crime that holds out a very bad example to a neighbourhood like this-yet let us not ruin the poor fellow for this one fault: he may do better another time, and mend his life; therefore, as the man is poor, let him be obliged to provide for the child according to the best of his abilities, giving two honest neighbours as security for the pay

ment."

He mimicked these two justices with so much humour and discrimination of character, as "to set the table in a roar ;" and, among the rest, his father, who demanded, why he was left out, as he also was one of the Quorum? Samuel for some time hesitated; but his father and the rest of the company earnestly requesting it, he began:

"Why, upon my word, in respect to this here business, to be sure it is rather an awkward affair; and to be sure it ought not to be; that is to say, the justices of the peace should not suffer such things to be done with impunity :-however, on the whole I am rather of my brother A's opinion; which is, that the man should pay ac cording to his circumstances, and be admonished-I say admonished ♦ -not to commit so flagrant an offence for the future."

After having passed through his school education with the character of an arch, clever lad, Foote was removed by election to Worcester College, of which Dr. Gower was then provost. There, we are told, he was not altogether idle in respect to study, for he had an ambition that counteracted his love of pleasure, and frequently induced him to turn his attention to his books; and thus besides rendering himself a very competent Greek and Latin scholar, he pursued a course of belles Lettres reading, very rare in young men of his description.'

*A favourite word of his father's on the bench; which, with his plain matter of-fact manner of pronouncing it, and twirling his thumbs at the same time, drew so correct a picture of the justice, as met the warmest approbation of the whole company; and even of his father, who, so far from being offended, rewarded him for his good humour and pleasantry.'

From

From College, he entered himself in the Temple: but the study of the law was little suited to the excentricities of such a character:

During his continuance in the Temple, he was seen there pro forma, situated in handsome chambers, surrounded by a well furnished library, and eating his way (via commons) to the profession of the law. He is remembered by a few now living, in that situation; and they report him to have been one of the greatest beaux (even in those days of general dress), as well as one of the most distinguished wits who frequented the Grecian and the Bedford.'

Here Foote appeared; in the flush of youth, wit, and fortune, Dr. Barrowby, no mean judge in every thing which respected elegant knowledge, was present at his first exhibition at the Bedford, and he always spoke of him as a young man of most extraordinary talents.

"He came into the room," said he, "dressed out in a frock suit of green and silver lace, bag wig, sword, bouquet, and point ruffles, and immediately joined the critical circle of the upper end of the room. No body knew him. He, however, soon boldly entered into conversation; and by the brilliancy of his wit, the justness of his remarks, and the unembarrassed freedom of his manners, attracted the general notice. The buz of the room went round, Who is he? whence comes he? &c.; which nobody could answer; until a handsome carriage stopping at the door to take him to the assembly of a lady of fashion, they learned from the servants that his name was Foote, that he was a young gentleman of family and fortune, and a student of the Inner Temple."

'He continued in the Temple but a very few years; and yet even this period was sufficient to exhaust a fortune, which, by all account, was very considerable, and which, perhaps, with a genteel economy, might have given him the otium cum dignitate independent of any profession. But he was incapable of the ordinary restraints of life: he dashed into all the prevailing dissipations of the time; and what the extravagance of dress, living, &c. had not done, the gaming table finally accomplished. He struggled with embarrassments for some time but want, imperious want, is an austere monitor, and must at last be attended to by the most thoughtless spendthrift. He accordingly soon found himself at a stand; his creditors grew obstinate and impatient, his friends, as is usual in such cases, deserted him; and be found that something must necessarily be done, to provide the means of subsistence.

:

In this situation, it was very natural for him to think of the stage. Acting was a science which he already knew theoretically; and, conversing so much with players as he usually did, he was perhaps not a little incited by their disengaged, free manner of living, to become a candidate for the profession,'

Foote's first entrée was at the Haymarket Theatre on the 6th of February, 1744, in the character of Othello: on which performance it was remarked by Macklin, that it was little better than a total failure.' He seems, however, to have been,

soon led to a better estimate of his powers, by assuming the double character of author and performer; and he opened the Haymarket Theatre with a piece of his own writing, called The Diversions of the Morning.

This consisted of the introduction of several characters in real life, then well known, whose manner of conversation and expression he very ludicrously hit off in the diction of his drama, and further represented by an imitation not only of their tones of voice, but even of their very persons. Among these characters there were a certain physician, who was much better known from the oddity and singu. larity of his appearance and conversation, than from any eminence in the practice of his profession; a celebrated oculist at that time in the height of vogue and popularity, &c. ; and in the latter part of the piece, under the character of a theatrical director he mimicked with great humour the several styles of most of the principal perforniers on the English stage.

An entertainment of this sort met at first with every degree of success that his most sanguine wishes could expect. The audience saw a species of performance quite novel to the stage brought forward and supported by a young man, independent of any other auxiliary than the fertility of his own pen, and his own powers of performance; while the author, feeling himself bold in this support, beheld his future fortunes opening before him.

He soon found, however, that he reckoned without his host; for, whether from the alarm excited in the theatres royal, or the resentment of most of the performers who smarted under the lash of his mimicry, the civil magistrates of Westminister were called upon to interfere; and, under the sanction of an act of parliament for Fimiting a number of play-houses, opposed to Bayes's new raised troops a posse of constables, who, entering the theatre in magisterial array, dismissed the audience, and left the laughing Aristophanes to consider of new ways and means for his support.'

Foote, however, remarks his biographer, had found out his forte; and accordingly, from this time to the end of his life, he continued to amuse the public as a writer and actor, with various though generally with splendid success.

Of his inattention to pecuniary concerns, numerous proofs are given; and indeed in this particular he seems to have been incorrigible *. About,

• While we are speaking of Foote's prodigality, it would be unpardonable not to record at the same time soine instances of his generosity. We are told that "his mother, who brought a large fortune to her husband as heiress to the Goodere estates, was latterly, by a carelessness and dissipation so peculiar to this family, in a great measure a dependent on her son's bounty; as was also his brother, who was brought up to the church. To the latter he allowed sixty pounds a year, besides the freedom of his table and theatre; to the

former

About the close of this season (1748) our author had a very considerable fortune left him by a relation of his mother, which enabled him once more to move in all that splendour of dissipation which was so congenial to his temper. He remained in London for some time, in order to identify this great change of fortune to his friends; and then moved off to the Continent, to add one more English dupe to the intrigues and fripperies of the French nationt.'

We again find him figuring in a similar style of action, on the success of his celebrated comedy the Mayor of Garratt.

The receipts produced by this comedy recruited our hero's finances so powerfully, that as his purse was generally the barometer to his spirits, he dashed into all kinds of higher extravagance. He made alterations both in his town and country house, enlarged his hospitalities, and laid out no less a sum than 1200l. in a magnificent service of plate. When he was reminded by some friends of these extravagancies, and particularly the last, he turned it off by saying, "he acted from a principle of economy; for as he knew he could Rever keep his gold, he very prudently laid out his money in silver, which would not only last longer, but in the end sell for nearly as much as it originally cost."

In the year 1766, while on a visit at the house of Lord Mexborough, Foote had the misfortune to lose his leg, in consequence of a fall from an unruly horse, on which he was mounted, as is here said, by way of check to his vanity in

former a pension of one hundred pounds till her death, which happened some years before that of her son •.'

Under one of her temporary embarrassments, she wrote the following laconic epistle to our hero; which, with his answer, exhibit no bad specimen of the thoughtless dispositions of the two cha

racters:

"DEAR SAM,

"I AM in prison for debt: come and assist your lo FOOTE."

"DEAR MOTHER,

"SO am I; which prevents his duty being paid to his loving mother by her affectionate son, "SAM FOOTE."

"PS. I have sent my attorney to assist you in the mean time let us hope for better days."

This being the third fortune left him, he set up a dashing carriage, &c.; and, as emblematical of the event, chose the following

motto:

REV. FEB. 1807.

Iterum, iterum, iterumque.'

K

asserting

asserting his skill in hunting. The joke went too far in' its consequence: but the late Duke of York, who was one of the party, took care to alleviate this accident by every instance of kindness in his power; and among other good offices, he obtained for him, in the July following, a royal patent to erect a theatre in the city and liberties of Westminster, with a privi lege of exhibiting dramatic pieces there, from the 14th of May to the 14th day of September, during his natural life.'

Here, again, money flowed plentifully into his pocket, and was as usual speedily lavished away:

The receipts from "The Devil on two Sticks" exceeded his most sanguine expectations. There was little or no demand for any variation in the theatrical bill of fare during the whole season; so that it alone was said to have produced him between three and four thousand pounds. Twelve hundred pounds of this sum he lodged at his banker's, as a deposit for future contingencies; beside five hundred in cash, which he intended to take over with him to Ireland, where he was engaged for the ensuing winter.

His usual damon of extravagance, however, still haunted him; for, taking Bath in his way to Holly head, the September following, he fell in with a nest of gamblers (the usual attendants on this fashionable place of resort), who, finding him with full pockets and high spirits, availed themselves of their superior dexterity with considerable success. Several of the frequenters of the rooms saw this, but it was too common a case for private interference; besides, friendship is not the usual commerce of watering places. At last his friend Rigby, who happened just then to be at Bath, took an opportunity to tell him how grossly he was plundered; and further remarked, "that from his careless manner of playing and betting, and his habit of telling stories when he should be minding his game, he must in the long ran be ruined, let him play with whom he would."

Foote, who perhaps by this time had partly seen his error, but was too proud to take a lesson in the character of a dupe, very ridiculously and ungratefully resented this advice. He told his friend with an unbecoming sharpness, "that although he was no politican by profession he could see as soon as another into any sinister designs laid against him that he was too old to be schooled; and that as to any distinction of rank between them to warrant this liberty, he saw none; they were both the king's servants, with this difference in his favour,-that he could always draw upon his talents for independence, when perhaps a courtier could not find the king's treasury always open to him for support "

:

On receiving this return, Rigby, as may be well imagined, made his bow, and walked off; while the dupe went on, and not only lost the five hundred pounds which he had about him, but the twelve hundred at his banker's; and thus, stripped of his last guinea, was obliged to borrow a hundred pounds to carry him to Ireland.'

Fortune, however, was not yet tired of bestowing favors on this her spoiled child; and he returned from Ireland recruited