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1809 v. 1

L I

I FE

O F

SAMUEL FOOTE, Efq.

TH

HIS ingenious comic writer was born at Truro in Cornwall, but at what period of time we cannot take upon ourselves to fay. His father, John Foote, was member of parliament for Tiverton in Devonfhire, and enjoyed the pofts of commiffioner of the prize-office and finecontract. His mother was heirefs of the Dinely and Goodere families. The dreadful confequence of the misunderstanding between her two brothers, Sir John Dinely Goodere, bart. and Samuel Goodere, efq. captain of his majesty's ship the Ruby, is well known; on which a confiderable part of the Goodere eftate, which was better than fifty thousand pounds per annum, defcended to Mr. Foote, her husband.

Our author was educated at Worcester college, in the university of Oxford, which owed its foundation to Sir Thomas Cockes Winford, Bart. a fecond coufin of our auther. On his quitting the univerfity, he commenced ftudent

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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 some 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 recourse to the ftage, 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 course could not be equal to his gay and extravagant mode of living: he at laft contracted fo 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 neceffities. Sir Francis Delaval

had

had long been his intimate friend, and had diffipated 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 skill 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 she 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 bufy ftage 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 représented on the

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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 conversation, 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 defervedly 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, says,

"But when I play'd Othello, thousands swore

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They never faw fuch tragedy before."

The

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