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FOOTE, SAMUEL (1720-1777)

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Originally appearing in Volume V10, Page 628 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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FOOTE, See also:SAMUEL (1720-1777) , See also:English dramatist and actor, was baptized at See also:Truro on the 27th of See also:January 1720. Of his See also:attachment to his native See also:Cornwall he gives no better proofs as an author than by making the See also:Country booby See also:Timothy (in The Knights) See also:sound the praises of that See also:County and of its manly pastimes; but towards his'farnfly he showed 'a loyal and enduring See also:affection. His See also:father was a See also:man of See also:good See also:family and position. His See also:mother, Eleanor Goodere, whom he is said in See also:person as well as in disposition to have 'strongly resembled, he liberally supported in the days of his prosperity, and after her See also:death indignantly vindicated her See also:character from the imputations recklessly See also:cast upon it by the revengeful spite of the duchess of See also:Kingston. About the See also:time when Foote came of` See also:age, he inherited his first See also:fortune through the See also:murder of his See also:uncle, See also:Sir See also:John Dinely Goodere. See also:Bart., by his See also:brother, See also:Captain Samuel Goodere. Foote was educated at the collegiate school at See also:Worcester, and at Worcester See also:College, See also:Oxford, distinguishing' himself in both places by See also:mimicry and audacious pleasantries of all kinds, and, although he See also:left Oxford without taking his degree, acquiring a classical training which afterwards enabled him neatly to turn a classical See also:quotation or allusion, and helped to give to his See also:prose See also:style a certain fluency and elegance. Foote was " designed " for the See also:law, but certainly not by nature. In his See also:chambers at the See also:Temple, and in the Grecian See also:Coffee-See also:house hard by, he learned to know something of lawyers if not of law, and was afterwards able to jest at the See also:jargon and to mimic the mannerisms of the See also:bar, and to satirize the Latitats of the other See also:branch of the profession with particular success. The famous See also:argument in Hobson v. Nobson, in The Lame Lovers; is almost as good of its See also:kind as that in Bardell v. Pickwick.

But a stronger attraction See also:

drew him to the See also:Bedford Coffee-house in Covent See also:Garden, and to the theatrical See also:world of which it was the social centre. After he had run through two fortunes (the second of which he appears to have inherited at his father's death), and had then passed through severe straits, he made his first See also:appearance on the actual See also:stage in 1744. It is said that he had married a See also:young See also:lady in See also:Worcestershire; but the traces of his wife (he affirmed himself that hewas married to his washer-woman) are mysterious, and probably apocryphal. Foote's first appearance as an actor was made little more than. two years after that of See also:Garrick, as to whose merits the critics, including Foote himself, were now fiercely at See also:war. His own first venture, as Othello, was a failure; and though he was fairly successful in genteel See also:comedy parts, and was, after a favour-able reception at See also:Dublin, enrolled as one of the See also:regular See also:company at See also:Drury See also:Lane in the See also:winter of 1745-1746, he had not as yet made any palpable See also:hit. Finding that his See also:talent See also:lay neither in tragedy nor in genteel comedy, he had begun to wonder " where the See also:devil it did See also:lie," when his successful performance of the See also:part of Bayes in The See also:Rehearsal at last suggested to him the true outlet for his extraordinary See also:gift of mimicry. Following the example of Garrick, he had introduced into this famous part imitations of actors, and had added a variety of other satirical comment in the way of " gag." Engaging a small company of actors, he now boldly announced for the 22nd of See also:April 1747, at the See also:theatre in the Haymarket " gratis," " a new entertainment called the Diversions of the See also:Morning," to which were to be added a See also:farce adapted from See also:Congreve, and an See also:epilogue " spoken by the B-d-d Coffee-house." Foote's success in these Diversions obtained for him the. name of " the English See also:Aristophanes," an absurd compliment, declined by Foote himself (see his See also:letter in The See also:Minor). The Diversions consisted of a See also:series of imitations of actors and other well-known persons, whose various peculiarities of See also:voice, gesture, manner or See also:dress were brought directly before the spectators, while the epilogue introduced the wits of the Bedford engaged in ludicrous disputation, and specially " took off " an eminent physician (probably the munificent Sir See also:William See also:Browne, whom he afterwards caricatured in The Devil on Two Sticks), and a notorious See also:quack oculist of the See also:day. The actors ridiculed in this entertainment having at once procured the aid of the constables for preventing its repetition, Foote immediately advertised an invitation to his See also:friends to drink a dish of See also:tea with him at the Haymarket on the following day at noon—" and 'tis hoped there will be a See also:great See also:deal of comedy and some joyous See also:spirits; he will endeavour to make the morning as diverting as possible. Tickets for this entertainment to be had at St See also:George's coffee-house, Temple-Bar, without which no person will be admitted. N.B.-Sir Dilbury Diddle will be there, and Lady See also:Betty Frisk has absolutely promised." The See also:device succeeded to perfection; further resistance was abandoned as futile by the actors, whom Foote mercilessly ridiculed in the " instructions to his pupils " which the entertainer pretended to impart (typifying them under characters embodying their several See also:chief peculiarities or defects—the massive and sonorous See also:James See also:Quin as a watchman, the shrill-voiced See also:Lacy See also:Ryan as a See also:razor-grinder, the charming Peg See also:Woffington, whose tones had an occasional squeak in them, as an See also:orange-woman crying her wares and the See also:bill of the See also:play); and Mr Foote's See also:Chocolate, which was afterwards converted into an evening Tea, became an established favourite with the See also:town.

In spite of this success, he seems to have contrived to spend a third fortune, and to have found it necessary to eke out his means by a See also:

speculation in small-See also:beer, as is recorded in an amusing See also:anecdote told of him by See also:Johnson. But he could now command a considerable income; and when See also:money came he seems to have freely expended it in both hospitality and charity. During his engagements at Covent Garden and at Drury Lane, of which he was See also:joint-manager, and in professional trips to See also:Scotland, and more especially to See also:Ireland, he appeared both in comedies of other authors and more especially in his own. He played Hartop in his Knights (1749, printed 1754). See also:Taste (1952), in which parts of the Diversions were incorporated, was followed by some eighteen pieces, the See also:majority of which were produced at the Haymarket, the favourite See also:home of Foote's entertainments: In 176c he succeeded in obtaining for this theatre a See also:licence from the See also:lord See also:chamberlain, afterwards (in 1766) converted into a licence for summer performances for See also:life. The entertainments were a See also:succession of See also:variations on the See also:original See also:idea of the Diversions and the Tea. Now, it was an See also:Auction of Pictures (1748), of part of which an idea may be formed from the second See also:act of the comedy Taste; now, a lecture on Orators (1754), suggested by some bombastic discourses given by See also:Macklin inhis old age at the Piazza coffee-house in Covent Garden, where Foote had amused the See also:audience and confounded the See also:speaker by interposing his humorous comments. The Orators is pre-served in the shape of a hybrid piece, which begins with a See also:mock lecture on the See also:art of See also:oratory and its representatives in See also:England, and ends with a diverting See also:scene of a pot-house See also:forum debate, to which See also:Holberg's Politician-Tinman can hardly have been a stranger. At a later date (1773) a new device was introduced in a Puppet-show. The piece (unprinted) played in this by the puppets was called Piety in Pattens, and professed to show " by the moral how maidens of See also:low degree might become See also:rich from the See also:mere effects of morality and virtue, and by the literature how thoughts of the most See also:commonplace might be concealed under See also:cover of words the most high flown." In other words, it was an attack upon sentimental comedy, which was still not altogether extinguished. An attack upon Garrick in connexion with the notorious See also:Shakespeare See also:jubilee was finally left out from the Puppet-show, and thus was avoided a recurrence of the See also:quarrel which many years before had led to an interchange of epistolary thrusts, and an See also:imitation by See also:Woodward of the imitative Foote. On the whole, the relations between the two public favourites became very friendly, and on Foote's part unmistakably affectionate, and they have not been always generously represented by Garrick's biographers.

A comparison between the two as actors is of course out of the question; but, though Foote was a buffoon, And his See also:

tongue a scurrilous tongue, there is no See also:authentic ground for the See also:suggestion that his character was one of malicious heartlessness. Of Samuel Johnson's opinions of him many records remain in See also:Boswell; when Johnson had at last found his way into Foote's company (he afterwards found it to Foote's own table) he was unable to " resist " him, and, on See also:hearing of Foote's death, he thought the career just closed worthy of a lasting See also:biographical See also:record. Meanwhile most of poor Foote's friendships in high life were probably those that are sworn across the table, and require t'other See also:bottle" to keep them up. It is not a pleasant picture --of Lord See also:Mexborough and his royal See also:guest the See also:duke of See also:York, and their companions, bantering Foote on his See also:ignorance of See also:horsemanship, and after he had weakly protested his skill, taking him out to hounds on a dangerous See also:animal. He was thrown and See also:broke his See also:leg, which had to be amputated, the " patientee " (in which character he said he was now making his first appearance) consoling himself with the reflection that he would now be able to take off " old Faulkner " (a pompous Dublin See also:alderman with a wooden leg, whom he had brought on the stage as See also:Peter See also:Paragraph in The Orators) " to the life." The duke of York made him the best reparation in his See also:power by promising him a life-patent for the theatre in the Haymarket (1766); and Foote not only resumed his profession, as if, like Sir See also:Luke Limp, he considered the leg he had lost " a redundancy, a mere nothing at all," but ingeniously turned'his misfortune to See also:account in two of his later pieces, The Lame See also:Lover and The Devil on Two Sticks, while, with the true See also:instinct of a public favourite, making See also:constant reference to it in plays and prologues. Though the characters played by him in several of his later plays are comparatively See also:short and See also:light, he continued to retain his hold over the public, and about the See also:year 1774 was beginning to think of 1ithdrawing, at least for a time, to the See also:continent, when he became involved in what proved a fatal See also:personal quarrel. Neither in his entertainments nor in his comedies had he hitherto (except in Garrick's See also:case, and it is said in Johnson's) put any visible See also:restraint upon personal See also:satire. The Author, in which, under the infinitely humorous character of Cadwallader, he had brought a Welsh See also:gentleman of the name of Ap-See also:Rice on the stage, had, indeed, been ultimately suppressed. But in See also:general he had pursued his hazardous course, mercilessly exposing to public ridicule and contempt not only fribbles and pedants, quacks or supposed quacks in See also:medicine (as in The Devil on Two Sticks), enthusiasts in See also:religion, such as Dr See also:Dodd (in The Cozeners) and George See also:Whitefield and his connexion (in The Minor). He had not only dared the wrath of the whole Society of Antiquaries (in Tl1 See also:Nabob), and been rewarded by the withdrawal, from among the pundits who rationalized away See also:Whittington's See also:Cat, of See also:Horace See also:Walpole and other eminent members of the See also:body, but had in the same play attacked a well-known representative of a very influential though detested See also:element in English society,—the " Nabobs " themselves. But there was one See also:species of cracked See also:porcelain which he was not to try to hold up to contempt with impunity. The rumour of his intention to bring upon the stage, in the character of Lady Kitty See also:Crocodile in The Trip to See also:Calais, the notorious duchess of Kingston, whose trial for See also:bigamy was then (1775) impending, roused his intended victim to the utmost fury; and the means and See also:influence she had at her disposal enabled her, not only to prevail upon the lord chamberlain to prohibit the performance of the piece (in which there is no hint as to the See also:charge of bigamy itself), but to hire agents to vilify Foote's character in every way that hatred and malice could suggest.

After he had withdrawn the piece, and letters had been exchanged between the duchess and him equally characteristic of their respective writers, Foote took his revenge upon the chief of the duchess's See also:

instruments, a " See also:Reverend See also:Doctor " See also:Jackson, who belonged to the " reptile " society of the journalists of the day, so admirably satirized by Foote in his comedy of The Bankrupt. This man he gibbeted in the character of See also:Viper in The Capuchin, under which name the altered Trip to Calais was performed in 1776. But the resources of his enemies were not yet at an end; and a discharged servant of Foote's was suborned by Jackson to bring a charge of See also:assault and apply for a See also:warrant against him. Though the See also:attempt utterly broke down, and Foote's character was thus completely cleared, his See also:health and spirits had given way in the struggle—as to which, though he seems to have had the See also:firm support of the better part of the public, including such men as See also:Burke and See also:Reynolds, the very audiences of his own theatre had been, or had seemed to be, divided in See also:opinion. He thus resolved to withdraw, at least for a time, from the effects of the See also:storm, let his theatre to See also:Colman, and after making his last appearance there in May 1777, set forth in See also:October on a See also:journey to See also:France. But at See also:Dover he See also:fell sick on the day after his arrival there, and after a few See also:hours died (October 21st). His See also:epitaph in St See also:Mary's See also:church at Dover (written by his faithful treasurer William Jewell) records that he had a See also:hand " open as day for melting charity." His resting-See also:place in See also:Westminster See also:Abbey is without any memorial. Foote's chief power as an actor lay in his extraordinary gift of mimicry, which extended to the See also:mental and moral, as well as the mere outward and See also:physical peculiarities of the personages whose likeness he assumed. He must have possessed a wonderful flexibility of voice, though his tones are said to have been harsh when his voice was not disguised, and an incomparable readiness for rapidly assuming characters, both in his entertainments and in his comedies, where he occasionally " doubled " parts. The excellent " See also:patter " of some of his plays, such as The Liar and The Cozeners, must have greatly depended for its effect upon rapidity of delivery. In person he was rather short and stout, and coarse-featured; but his over-flowing See also:humour is said to have found full expression in the irresistible sparkle of his eyes. As a dramatic author he can only be assigned a subordinate See also:rank.

He regarded comedy as " an exact See also:

representation of the See also:peculiar See also:manners of that See also:people among whom it happens to be performed; a faithful imitation of singular absurdities, particular follies, which are openly produced, as criminals are publicly punished, for the correction of individuals and as an example to the whole community." This he regarded as the utile, or useful purpose, of comedy; the dulce he conceived to be " the See also:fable, the construction, machinery, conduct, See also:plot, and incidents of the piece." For part at least of this view (advanced by him in the spirited and scholarly " Letter " in which he replied, " to the Reverend Author of the ' Remarks, See also:Critical and See also:Christian,' on The Minor "), he rather loftily appealed to classical authority. But he overlooked the indispensableness of the dulce to the comic See also:drama under its See also:primary aspect as a species of art. His comic See also:genius was particularly happy in discovering and reproducing characters deserving of ridicule; and the fact that he not only took them from real life, but closely modelled them on well-known living men and See also:women, was not in himself an See also:artistic See also:sin. Nor indeed was the novelty of this See also:process See also:absolute, though probably no other comic dramatist has ever gone so far in this course, or has pursued it so persistently. The public delighted in his " d----d See also:fine originals," because it recognized them as copies; and he was himself proud that he had taken them from real persons, instead of their being " vamped from antiquated plays, pilfered fromthe See also:French farces, or the baseless beings of the poet's See also:brain." But the real excellence of many of Foote's comic characters lies in the fact that, besides being incomparably ludicrous types of manners, they remain admirable comic types of general human nature. Sir See also:Gregory See also:Gazette, and his See also:imbecile appetite for See also:news; Lady Pentweazel, and her preposterous vanity in her superannuated charms; Mr Cadwallader, and his view of the advantages of public See also:schools (where See also:children niay " make acquaintances that may hereafter be useful to them; for between you and I, as to what they learn there, does not signify twopence ") ; See also:Major See also:Sturgeon and See also:Jerry Sneak; Sir See also:Thomas Lofty, Sir Luke Limp, Mrs Mechlin, and a See also:score or two of other characters, are excellent comic figures in themselves, whatever their origin; and many of the vices and weaknesses exposed by Foote's vigorous satire will remain the perennial subject of comic treatment so See also:long as a stage exists. The real defect of his plays lies in the abnormal weakness of their construction, in the absolute contempt which the great majority of them show for the invention or conduct of a plot, and in the unwarrantable subordination of the See also:interest of the See also:action to the See also:exhibition of particular characters. His characters are ready-made, and the action is only incidental to them. With the exception of The Liar (which Foote pretended to have taken from Lope de See also:Vega, but which was really founded on See also:Steele's See also:adaptation of See also:Corneille's Le Menteur), and perhaps of The Bankrupt, there is hardly one of Foote's " comedies " in which the conception and conduct of the action rise above the exigencies of the merest farce. Not that sentimental scenes and even sentimental characters are wanting, but these See also:familiar ingredients are as incapable of exciting real interest as an See also:ordinary farcical action is in itself unable to produce more than transitory amusement. In his earlier plays Foote constantly resorts to the most hackneyed device of farce—a disguise. Of course Foote must have been well aware of the short-comings of his rapidly manufactured productions; he knew that if he might sneer at " genteel comedy ' as suited to the dramatists of the servants' See also:hall, and pronounce the arts of the drama at the great houses to be " directed by the genius of insipidity," he, like the little theatre where he held sway, was looked upon as an See also:eccentric, a mere summer See also:fly." At the same time, he was inexhaustible in the devising of comic scenes of genuine farce.

An oration of " old masters," an See also:

election of a suburban See also:mayor, an examination at the College of Physicians, a newspaper See also:conclave where paragraphs are concocted and reputations massacred—all these and other equally happy situations are brought before the mere reader with unfailing vividness. And everywhere the comic See also:dialogue is instinct with spirit and vigour, and the comic characters are true to themselves with a buoyancy which at once raises them above the level of mere theatrical conventionalism. Foote professed to despise the mere caricaturing of See also:national peculiarities as such, and generally used See also:dialect as a mere additional colouring; he was, however, too wide awake to the demands of his public not to treat France and Frenchmen as' See also:fair See also:game, and coarsely to See also:appeal to national See also:prejudice. His satire against those See also:everlasting victims of English comedy and farce, the Englishman in See also:Paris and the Englishman returned from Paris, was doubtless well warranted; while at the same time he made fun of the fact that Englishmen are nowhere more addicted to the society of their countrymen than abroad. In general, the purposes of Foote's social satire are excellent, and the abuses against which it is directed are those which it required courage to attack. The See also:tone of his morality is healthy, and his See also:language, though not aiming at refinement, is remarkably See also:free from intentional grossness. He made occasional mistakes; but he was on the right See also:side in the warfare against the pretentiousness of Cant and the effrontery of See also:Vice, the two See also:master evils of the age and the society in which he lived. The following is a See also:list of Foote's farces or " comedies " as he calls them, mostly in three, some in two acts, which remain in See also:print. The date of See also:production, and the character originally performed by Foote, are added to the See also:title of each: The Knights (1748: Hartop, who assumes the character of Sir Penurious Trifle) ; Taste (1.752), in which part of the Diversions is incorporated; The Englishman in Paris (1753: Young See also:Buck); The Englishman returned from Paris (1756: Sir See also:Charles Buck) ; The Author (1757: Cadwallader) ; The Minor (1760: Smirk and Mrs See also:Cole) ; The Liar (1762) ; The Orators (1762: Lecturer) ; Thee Mayor of Garratt (1763: Major Sturgeon and See also:Matthew Mug) ; The See also:Patron (1764: Sir Thomas Lofty and Sir Peter Peppercorn); The See also:Commissary (1765: Mr Zac. Fungus) ; The Devil upon Two Sticks (1768: Devil,—alias Dr See also:Hercules See also:Hellebore) ; The Lame Lover (1770: Sir Luke Limp) ; The Maid of See also:Bath (1971: Mr See also:Flint) ; The Nabob (1772: Sir Matthew See also:Mite) ; The Bankrupt (1773: Sir See also:Robert Riscounter) ; The Cozeners (1774: Mr Aircastle) ; The Capuchin, a second version of The Trip to Calais, forbidden by the See also:censor (1776: O'See also:Donovan). His dramatic See also:works were collected in 1763-1768. (John Badcoek, fl.

1816-1830, also known as " John Hands") to his useful edition of Foote's Works (3 vols., 183o). Various particulars will be found in See also:

Tate See also:Wilkinson's Wandering Patentee (York, 1795) and in other See also:sources. There is an admirable See also:essay on Foote, re-printed with additions, from the Quarterly See also:Review, in John See also:Forster's Biographical Essays (1858). A See also:recent life of Foote is W. See also:Percy See also:Fitzgerald (191o). (A. W.

End of Article: FOOTE, SAMUEL (1720-1777)

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