Eton, on special occasions, he would after dinner perform scenes from Aristophanes, with singular cleverness, and in the original Greek.

AFFECTATION OF LEARNING.

One of Mrs. Montagu's blue-stocking ladies fastened upon Foote at one of the routs in Portman-square with her views of Locke on the Understanding, which she protested she admired above all things; only there was one particular word very often repeated, which she could not distinctly make out, and that was the word (pronouncing it very long) "ide.., but I suppose it comes from a Greek derivation." "You are perfectly right, Madam," said Foote; "it comes from the word ideaowski." "And pray, sir, what does that mean ?" "The feminine of idiot, Madam."

Foote was much bored by a pompous physician at Bath, who told him confidentially that he had a mind to publish his own poems, but had so many irons in the fire he really did not well know what to do. "Take my advice, Doctor," said Foote," and put your poems where your irons are."

A mercantile man of Foote's acquaintance had written a poem, and exacted a promise that Foote would listen to it; but he "dropped off before the end of the first pompous line, "Hear me, O Phoebus, and ye Muses mine!" "Pray, pray be attentive, Mr. Foote." "I am," said Foote; "nine and one are ten go on!"

FOOTE'S CONVERSATION.

Charles James Fox told Mr. Rogers that Lord William Bentinck once invited Foote to meet him and some others at dinner in St. James's-street, and that they were rather angry at Lord William for having done so, expecting that Foote would only prove a bore, and a check on their conversation. "But," said Fox, we soon found that we were mistaken. Whatever we talked about-whether fox-hunting, the turf, or any other subject-Foote instantly took the lead, and delighted us all."

FOOTE'S LONDON."

Foote has thus powerfully grouped a few of the cheateries which beset the metropolis in his time:

"Of all the passions that possess mankind,

The love of Novelty rules most the mind;

In search of this, from realm to realm we roam;
Our fleets come fraught with every folly home;
From Libya's deserts hostile brutes advance,
And dancing dogs in droves skip here from France.
From Latian lands gigantic forms appear,

Striking our British breasts with awe and fear,
As once the Lilliputian-Gulliver.

Not only objects that affect the sight,

In foreign arts and artists we delight:

Near to that spot where Charles bestrides a horse,—

In humble prose the name is Charing Cross,

Close by the margin of a kennel's side,

A dirty, dismal entry opens wide;

There with hoarse voice, check'd shirt, and callous hand,

Duff's Indian English trader takes his stand,

Surveys his passenger with curious eyes,

And rustic Roger falls an easy prize?

Here's China porcelain, that Chelsea yields,
And India handkerchiefs from Spitalfields,
With Turkey carpets, that from Wilton came,

And Spanish tucks and blades from Birmingham.
Factors are forc'd to favour this deceit,

And English goods are smuggled through the street.

ADVANTAGES OF BEING IN DEBT.

One day, when Garrick and Foote were dining at Lord Mansfield's, the Drury-lane manager was enlarging upon the necessity of prudence in money matters, and he drew his illustration from Churchill's death, which was then the talk of the town. At the table of a Lord Chief Justice, Garrick's view of the morality of the subject might have been considered unanswerable. But Foote took an opposite view. He said, that every question had two sides, and he had long made up his mind on the advantages implied in the fact of not paying one's debts. In the first place it promised some time or other the possession of a fortune to be able to get credit. For, living on credit was the art of living without the most troublesome thing in the whole world, which was money. It saved the expense and annoyance of keeping accounts, and made over all the responsibility to other people. It was the panacea for the cares and embarrassments of wealth. checked and discountenanced avarice; while, people being It always more liberal of others' goods than their own, it extended every sort of encouragement to generosity. If, indeed, the genuine spark of primitive Christianity were ever to revive, from this quarter it would come, and through the communion of property by such means brought about. And

would any one venture to say, meanwhile, that paying one's debts could possibly draw to us such anxious attention from our own part of the world while we live, or such sincere regrets when we die, as not paying them? All this Foote maintained with such gravity and sarcastic illustration, that he carried the laugh against Garrick.

This reminds us of another of Foote's pleasantries upon paying debts, which occurs in his comedy of the Lame Lover, in which one of the characters, Sir Luke Limp, tells this story: "One morning a Welsh coachmaker came with his bill to my lord, whose name was unluckily Lloyd. My lord had the man up. You are called, I think, Mr. Lloyd ?' 'At your lordship's service, my lord.' What, Lloyd with an L' It was with an L, indeed, my lord.' 'Because in your part of the world I have heard that Lloyd and Floyd were synonymous, the very same names.' Very often, indeed, my lord.' 'But you always spell yours with an L?Always.' Mr. Lloyd, is a little unlucky; for you must know I am now paying my debts alphabetically, and in four or five years you might have come in with an F; but I am afraid I can give you no hopes for your L. Ha, ha, ha!'"

STRANGE INCONSISTENCIES.

That,

Foote dressed ridiculously. His clothes were tawdily splashed with gold lace, and with his linen were generally bedaubed with snuff. They tell of him, that in his young days, and in the fluctuation of his finances, he walked about in boots to conceal his want of stockings; and that on receiving a supply of money, he expended it all upon a diamond ring, instead of purchasing the necessary articles of hosiery.

Foote appears to have entertained a sovereign contempt for port wine. He was ostentatious and vulgarly fine before his guests. As soon as the cloth was removed from the table, he would ask, "Does anybody drink port ?" If the unanimous answer happened to be "no," he always called out to the servant in waiting-"take away the ink."

In the hey-day of his extravagance, in his own kitchen port is said to have been drunk oftener than beer. And the story goes, that dining at the table of a nobleman, whose taste ran to the opposite extreme, and who drank nothing but port wine himself, and restricted his guests to the same,

Foote met his wine-merchant, who asking how the last supply of port wine turned out, he replied, "Why, I should suppose, pretty well, as I have had no complaints from the kitchen."

FUNERAL OF HOLLAND.

Holland, the actor, of Drury-lane theatre, was the son of a baker, and became a pupil of Garrick. He died suddenly, and Foote being a legatee, as well as one of the bearers appointed by Holland's will, attended the corpse to the family vault at Chiswick, which so subdued his vivacity as to affect him even to tears. On his return to town, however, he called in at the Bedford Coffee-house, where an acquaintance inquiring as to his paying the last tribute to his friend Holland, he replied: Yes, poor fellow! I have just seen him shoved into the family oven?"

FOOTE AND THE ATTORNEY.

Attorneys have ever been fair game for a joke, and Foote certainly made the most of them. One day, a simple farmer, who had just buried a rich relation, an attorney, was com plaining of the great expense of a funeral cavalcade in the country. "Why! do you bury your attorneys here ?" asked Foote. "Yes, to be sure we do: how else ?" "Oh, we never do that in London." "No!" said the other, much surprised; “how do you manage ?" Why! when the patient happens to die, we lay him out in a room overnight by himself, lock the door, throw open the sash, and in the morning he is entirely off." "Indeed!" said the other, with amazement; "what becomes of him ?" 66 Why, that we cannot exactly tell; all we know is, there's a strong smell of brimstone in the room the next morning."

THE STRATFORD JUBILEE.

Foote being asked his opinion of this famous Commemoration of Shakspeare, at Stratford, replied:

A Jubilee is a public invitation, urged by puffing, to go post without horses, to an obscure borough without representatives, governed by a mayor and aldermen who are no magistrates, to celebrate a great Poet, whose own works have made him immortal, by an ode without poetry; music without melody; a dinner without victuals; lodgings without beds; a crowd without company; a masquerade where half the people appear barefaced; a horse-race up to the knees in water; fireworks

extinguished as soon as they were lighted; and a boarded booth by way of amphitheatre, which was to be taken down in three days, and sold by public auction.

FOOTE AND HIS FURNISHED HOUSE.

Foote took a house at Hammersmith that was advertised to be completely furnished; but he had not been there long before the cook complained there was not a rolling-pin. "No!" said he; "then bring me a saw, I will soon make one;" which he accordingly did of one of the mahogany bedposts. The next day it was discovered that a coal-scuttle was wanted, when he supplied this deficiency with a drawer from a curious japan chest. A carpet being wanted in the parlour, he ordered a new white cotton counterpane to be laid, to save the boards. His landlord paying him a visit, to inquire how he liked his new residence, was greatly astonished to find such disorder, as he considered it: he remonstrated with Foote, and complained of the injury his furniture had sustained; but Foote insisted upon it, all the complaint was on his side, considering the trouble he had been at to supply these necessaries, notwithstanding he had advertised his house completely furnished. The landlord now threatened the law, and Foote threatened to take him off, saying an auctioneer was a fruitful character. This last consideration weighed with the landlord, and he quietly put up with his loss.

FOOTE AND LORD KELLY.

Lord Kelly, at whose table Foote was a frequent guest, had a Bardolphian nose, which often warmed the dramatist's wit into coarse personality; though the subject of it enjoyed the joke as well as the utterer.

One day, at dinner, "Lord Kelly," said Foote, "do you ever pass my house at Hammersmith ?" "Oh, frequently," replied the goodnatured lord. "Heavens how lucky; the next time, do me the favour to look over my garden-wall, because I have shortly a large dinner-party, and I want my peaches ripened." The joke is likewise told applied to cucumbers.

"I tell you what, Mr. Foote," said a friend, meeting him. one day, "Lord Kelly has reflected on me, and I shall pull his nose.' "What! pull his nose !" exclaimed Foote; "why, man, you would not thrust your fingers into a furnace, would you ?"