FOOTE, SAMUEL, was born at Truro, in the county of Cornwall, in 1720. His father was a joint commissioner in the Prize Office, and member of parliament for Tiverton. Samuel Foote was educated at Worcester College, Oxford. On quitting the university, which lie did on account of some extravagance of conduct before the usual time, he commenced the study of the law, but this his volatile disposition pre vented him from pursuing. About the same time it is commonly said that he married a lady of good fortune, and that the marriage turned out unhappily ; but the fact of the marriage has been doubted, and in truth all this part of his life is involved in obscurity. It is certain however that he plunged into all the vices of the town, particularly gaming. Ili+ fortune being speedily exhausted, he turned player from necessity, and made his first appearance in the character of Othello, in which he produced no great sensation, if he did not wholly faiL Though he was more anceeseful in comedy, he did not much distin guish himself as an actor till he began to perform parts of his own writing. His difficulties increasing, he was only Extricated from them by Sir Francis Delaval, who allowed hint an annuity for a not very honourable piece of service. Sir Francis was himself of ruined fortune, and lad looked forward to a marriage with a rich lady as the means of repairing it. Foote, discovering a wealthy dame who was prepossessed with fortunetellers, got a friend to personate a conjurer and recommend Sir Francis as a husband. The scheme succeeded, and Foote was rewarded as above mentioned.
In 1747 he opened the little theatre in the Haymarket, and hero commenced his career as an author by writing for his own house first a series of satirical entertainments, which never attained to the dignity of print, and then the succession of short pieces by which he is so well known. He did not however obtain a patent till 1766, when, riding out with the Duko of York, he broke his leg by a fall from his horse, and was foiced to have it amputated : the patent was procured by the duke as a sort of compensation for this accident. Foote did not retire from the stage on account of the loss of his limb, but acted with a cork leg. His death is said to have been accelerated by the shock he received on a servant preferring against him a charge of the worst stature : ho was tried and honourably acquitted, but seems never to have recovered his spirits. Feeling his health decline, be let his
house to Mr. Colman, still occasionally appearing as an actor. While performing one of his characters he was seized with paralysis on the stage. Ile went to Brighton for his health, and on his return to London he set out for Paris, but died on his way, at Dover, on the 21st of October, 1777.
Complete editions of Foote's works are easily procured ; but scarcely a single rhea is now produced on the stage. In fact, notwithstanding their great merit, they refer so much to the humours and often to the persona of his own times, that they now possess rather an historical than a dramatio interest ; and they will be read by few except those who are desirous of having a view of the striking characters in the latter pert of the last century. The Methodists are lashed in ' The Minor;' the passion for travelling In ' The Englishman returned from Paris • ' the newepapers in 'The Bankrupt ; ' the debating societies in the tar In ' The Lame Lover ;' and in general every piece has its peculiar object of satire. In making his characters stand prominently forth, Foote is not excelled ; but, like moat depictors of humour, he cooasionally falls into the error of giving abstractions rather than probable persons. The pieces which kept the stage longest are' Tho Mayor of Garrett* and 'The Liar,' the humour of which is not so exclosively adapted to a particular time. Probably his works give but a feeble notion of his colloquial wit, which was admitted by his contemporaries to be almost unrivalled. His conversational talent*, aptness of repartee, and powers of mimicry and punning, being backed by I edict self-possession and entire absence of regard for the feelings of any one he fancied might be rendered ridiculous, gave him in society and on the stage a degree, of advantage of which be was not slow to avail himself, and rendered him one of the moat dreaded as well as moat amusing jesters that have appeared in this country. The reader who may wish to see an ample and cordial appre ciation of his merits, is referred to a long and elaborate notice of hint by Mr. Forster in the' Quarterly Review' for 1854, No. exc.