FOOTE, SAMUEL English dramatist and actor, was baptized at Truro on Jan. 27, 172o. His father was a man of good family. Foote was educated at the collegiate school, Worcester, and at Worcester college, Oxford, but left Oxford with out taking a degree. He was designed for the law, and his days at the Temple at least taught him something of lawyers, and enabled him later to satirize the profession with success. The argument in Hobson v. Nobson (The Lame Lover) is comparable to that in Bardell v. Pickwick. Through the Bedford Coffee-house he found his way into the theatrical world. He inherited two for tunes, on the deaths of his father and uncle, and ran through them both. There is a story that he was married in Worcestershire (he said himself that he was married to his washerwoman), but nothing is known of it.
His first appearance on the stage was in 1744• But he was a failure in tragedy (as Othello), and only partially successful in genteel comedy. At last he succeeded in exploiting his real gift, an astonishing talent for mimicry. His first essay in this form of entertainment, which he carried on under various names for years, was called Diversions of the Morning, consisting of a series of "take-offs" of actors and other well-known people, with an epi logue satirising the wits of the Bedford Coffee-house. An attempt to suppress it failed, and it became, in its successive forms, an established favourite. Meanwhile he also played at Covent Garden and Drury Lane and toured in Scotland and Ireland, mostly in his own comedies. At a later date (1773) a new device was intro duced in a puppet-show. The piece played in this by the puppets was called Piety in Pattens, and was an attack on sentimental comedy. It contained originally an attack on Garrick, but in the end trouble was avoided by leaving this out. On the whole, rela tions between the two public favourites became very friendly, and on Foote's part definitely affectionate. Boswell states that John son liked his company, found him "irresistible," and thought his career worthy of biographical record. Lord Mexborough and the duke of York teased Foote into boasting of his horsemanship, and then took him out to hounds on a dangerous animal. He fell and broke his leg, which was amputated. The duke of York made him the best reparation in his power by promising him a life-patent for the Haymarket ; and Foote not only resumed his profession, but ingeniously turned his misfortune to account in The Lame Lover and The Devil on Two Sticks.
He still retained his hold over the public, but about 1774, when he was thinking of retiring at least temporarily, he became in volved in a fatal quarrel. Never so far had he put any restraint on his personal satire. The Author, with its attack on Ap-Rice, had ultimately been suppressed, but otherwise he had continued to ridicule whom he liked, medical quacks, religious enthusiasts like Dr. Dodd, the whole Society of Antiquaries (in The Nabob), and even the Nabobs themselves. But he took one risk too many. It was rumoured that he intended to bring on the stage the duchess of Kingston, whose trial for bigamy was then impending (1775). She got the Lord Chamberlain to prohibit the piece. After its withdrawal, and an exchange of characteristic letters between him and the Duchess, he took his revenge on one of her chief instruments, Dr. Jackson, whom he gibbeted as Viper in The Capuchin (performed 1776), Jackson then suborned a discharged servant of Foote's to bring a charge of assault against him. Though this broke down, the struggle broke down his health, and even his audiences seemed to be divided. He resolved to withdraw for a time, let his theatre and set out for a journey to France. He fell sick at Dover and died there on Oct. 21, 1777. He is buried in Westminster Abbey.
See W. Cooke, Memoirs of Samuel Foote (3 vols., 1805), The Dramatic works of Samuel Foote (ed. by "John Bee," 3 vols., 1839), P. Fitzgerald, Samuel Foote, A Biography (191o).