of law in the Temple; but, as the dullness and gravity of this ftudy did not fuit the volatile vivacity of his temper and genius, he foon quitted it. He married a young lady of a good family and fome fortune; but, their tempers being very oppofite to each other, a perfect harmony did not long fubfift between them. He now launched into all the fashionable foibles of the age, gaming not excepted, and in a few years spent his whole fortune. As he had long taken a difguft to the study of the law, he was obliged to have recourfe to the stage, and made his first appearance in the character of Othello, but with no great fuccefs. He afterwards performed Fondlewife, in which he fucceeded much better; and, indeed, it was one of his favourite characters ever after. next attempted Lord Foppington, but he liftened to the advice of his friends, and prudently gave it up. As Mr. Foote was never a capital actor in the plays of others, his falary of courfe could not be equal to his gay and extravagant mode of living: he at laft contracted so many debts, that he was obliged to take refuge in the verge of the court, to fecure himself from the refentment of his creditors. He A very laughable ftratagem at length relieved him from his neceffitics. Sir Francis Delaval had had long been his intimate friend, and had difsipated his fortune by fimilar extravagance. A rich lady, an intimate acquaintance of Foote, was fortunately at that time bent upon a matrimonial scheme. Foote ftrongly recommended to her to confult, on this momentous affair, the conjuror in the Old Bailey, whom he reprefented as a man of furiprfing fkill and penetration. He employed an acquaintance of his own to perfonate the conjuror, who depicted Sir Francis Delaval at full length, defcribed the time when, the place where, and the dress in which she should fee him. The lady was fo ftruck with the coincidence of every circumftance, that fhe married the knight in a few days after. For this fervice Sir Francis fettled an annuity upon Foote, which enabled him once more to appear upon the busy stage of life. Mr. Foote now affuming the double character of author and performer, in 1747 opened his Little Theatre in the Haymarket, with a dramatic piece of his own writing, called The Diverfions of the Morning. This piece confifted of nothing more than the introduction of feveral well-known characters in real life, whofe manner of converfation and expreffion our author had very happily hit off in the diction of his drama, and still more happily reprefented on the ftage, by an exact and most amazing imitation, not only of the manner and tone of voice, but even of the very perfons, whom he intended to take off. Among these characters there was in particular a certain physician, who was much better known from the oddity and fingularity of his appearance and converfation, than from his eminence in the practice of his profeffion. The celebrated Chevalier Taylor, the oculift, who was at that time in the height of his vogue and popularity, was also another object, and indeed deservedly fo, of Mr. Foote's mimicry and ridicule. the latter part of this piece, under the character of a theatrical director, our author took off, with great humour and accuracy, the feveral ftiles of acting of every principal performer on the Englifh ftage. In Among those players, with whom Mr. Foote made free, was the facetious Harry Woodward, who returned the compliment in a little piece, called Tit for Tat, of which the following was the beginning: "Call'd forth to battle, fee poor I appear, "To try one fall with this fam'd auctioneer." In the very fame piece Mr. Woodward, in the character of Foote, fays, "But when I play'd Othello, thousands swore The The Diverfions of the Morning at first met with fome little oppofition from the civil magistrates of Westminster, under the fanction of the act of parliament for limiting the number of playhouses; but our author being patronised by many of the principal nobility and gentry, the oppofition was over-ruled; and, after altering the title to that of Giving Tea, he proceeded without farther moleftation, reprefenting it through a run of upwards of forty mornings to crowded and fplendid audiences. The enfuing feafon he produced another piece of the fame kind, which he called An Auction of Pictures. In this he introduced new and popular characters, all well known, particularly Sir Thomas de Veil, then the acting juftice of peace for Westminster; alfo Mr. Cock, the celebrated auctioneer, and the equally famous orator Henley. This piece was alfo well received by the public. Notwithstanding the favourable reception these pieces met with, they have never yet appeared in print, nor would they perhaps give any great pleasure in the perufal; for, confifting principally of characters, whofe peculiar fingularities could never be perfectly reprefented in black and white, they might probably appear flat and infipid, when divefted of the ftrong colourings which Mr. Foote had given them in his perfonal representations. It may not be improper here to observe, that he himself represented all the principal characters in each piece, which flood in need of his mimic powers to execute, fhifting from one to the other with all the dexterity of a Proteus, to the wonder and astonishment of his genteel and numerous auditors. However, he now proceeded to write pieces with more dramatic accuracy and regularity, his Knights being the produce of an enfuing feafon; yet in this alfo, though his plot and characters feemed lefs immediately perfonal, it was apparent, that he kept fome particular real perfonages ftrongly in his eye in the performance, and the town took on themselves to fix them where the refemblance appeared to be the moft ftriking. Mr. Foote continued from time to time to entertain the public, by felecting for their use fuch characters, as well general as individual, as feemed most likely to contribute to the exciting our laughter, and beft anfwer the principal end of dramatic writings of the comic kind, fuch as relax the mind from the fatigue of bufinefs or anxiety. The |