of banter which keeps actors up to the mark; out of the theatre, it would be a more serious matter.

We may here notice a trait of Foote's character which was highly creditable to him as a satirist: he invariably exercised this power upon his own judgment, and would never allow himself to be influenced by others, or his genius to be applied to their unworthy prejudices. Neither was he liable to be carried away by first appearances. When he was last in Dublin there was upon that gay city a great fop, Mr. Coote, afterwards Lord Belmont: he was extremely fond of overdressing himself, and wore a silk coat and a feathered hat, and, what was a special coxcombry of that day, satin shoes with red heels. But he was a man of sense, and so was Foote, who also over-dressed himself. The wit was asked to make a special butt of Coote, but he refused to do so, and mortified those who had made the mean application by replying: "I think this same Mr. Coote about the only well-bred sensible man in your whole city." This settled his detractors.

FOOTE'S LAST APPEARANCE.

In May, 1777, Foote played for the last time at the Haymarket in the Devil on Two Sticks. Cooke, his biographer, describes him as then emaciated in his person, and his eyes having lost their fire.

WESTON AND FOOTE.

Weston, a comic actor of great merit, performed for the last time on May Day, Oct. 28, 1775, and died on January 31 following. Foote so highly valued him, that he had his portrait painted; and about an hour before quitting his house. in Suffolk-street, on his last journey to Dover, where death arrested his progress, he went into every room, and in a way wholly unusual with him, scrupulously examined his furniture and his paintings. When he came to the portrait of Weston he made a full stop, and, as if by some sudden impulse, without uttering a syllable, firmly fixed his eyes on the countenance of his old acquaintance, and then, after some moments, turning away, he exclaimed, with tears which he could not suppress, "Poor Weston!" The words had scarcely parted from his lips, when, as if in reproach at his own seeming security, he repeated "Poor Weston! it will be very shortly poor Foote, or the intelligence of my spirits deceives me."Memoirs of the Colman Family.

Weston was an incomparable actor. Northcote said, "It was impossible, from looking at him, for any one to say that he was acting. You would suppose they had gone out and found the actual character they wanted, and brought him upon the stage without his knowing it."

DEATH OF FOOTE.

On the day after his expression of the above presentiment, Foote left town for the south of France. He reached Dover on the 20th October, 1777, attended by one servant. He put up at the Ship Inn; he was much fatigued by the journey, and next morning, at breakfast, was seized with a shivering fit; he died in three hours, in the 57th year of his age. Jewel, his faithful treasurer, had been sent for, and arrived to take charge of the remains, which were removed to Foote's house in Suffolk-street, Haymarket. It appears, however, to have been intended to inter the body in St. Martin's Church, Dover, for which purpose a vault was made; but from some unexplained circumstance, Foote's remains were never placed within it. They were privately interred from Suffolkstreet, by torchlight, on the following Monday night, October 27th, in the cloisters of Westminster Abbey. There he rests with many a brilliant genius; but no stone indicates his grave, nor is there any memorial erected to him in the abbey. He sleeps in the gloomy cloisters-the Actors' Corner it may be called; for here also lie Betterton and Mrs. Rowe, Mrs. Cibber and Mrs. Yates.

The faithful Jewel had not, however, neglected his master's memory in the place where the tree fell: he caused to be erected upon the wall of St. Martin's, at Dover, a marble tablet to the memory of Foote, with a simple inscription. His humour and genius have found more lasting commemoration in our literary history.

MEMORIAL OF FOOTE.

Upon the wall of the green-room of the present Haymarket Theatre hangs a small dial, in a richly-carved and gilt case, of the decorative age of Queen Anne. This timekeeper was brought from the old Haymarket Theatre: it has long been known as "Foote's Clock," and there is no reason to doubt its having been the property of our distinguished humorist and dramatist-Samuel Foote.

CHARACTERISTICS, PERSONAL TRAITS,
AND OPINIONS.

FOOTE'S SCHOLARSHIP.

FOOTE was very intimate with Barnard, the Provost of Eton, and assisted him in the private theatricals which he used to get up in the Lodge. At these several of the Collegers used to perform, and among the prominent actors were Parsons and Goodall.

Selwyn relates that on one occasion Foote, having received much attention from the Eton boys in showing him about the College, collected them around him in the quadrangle, and said: "Now, young gentlemen, what can I do for you to show how much I am obliged to you ?" "Tell us, Mr. Foote," said the leader, "the best thing you ever said.” "Why," says

Foote, "I once saw a little blackguard imp of a chimneysweeper mounted on a noble steed prancing and curveting in all the pride and magnificence of nature. There, said I, goes Warburton on Shakspeare."-Diary of a Lover of Literature, by Thomas Green.

HOW FOOTE BORROWED FROM THE ANCIENTS.

There are few better sayings attributed to Foote than his reply to Lord Stormont, who was boasting the great age of the wine which, in his parsimony, he had caused to be served in extremely small glasses" It is very little of its age." Yet this identical witticism is in Athenæus, where it is assigned to one Gnathæna, whose jokes were better than her character. Cicero relates that Nasica called upon Ennius, and was told by the servant that he was out. Shortly afterward Ennius returned the visit, when Nasica exclaimed from within that he was not at home. 'What,' replied Ennius, 'do not I know your own voice ?' 'You are an impudent fellow,' retorted Nasica; 'when your servant told me that you were

not at home I believed her, but you will not believe me, though I tell you so myself.' This, in modern jest-books, is said to have passed between Quin and Foote. Wit, like gold, is circulated sometimes with one head on it and sometimes with another, according to the potentates who rule its realm.” James Hannay; Quarterly Review.

"THE ENGLISH ARISTOPHANES."

Foote has been more commonly than appropriately called the English Aristophanes; seeing that such a designation conveys much too high a compliment to Foote, and a very indifferent one to the great master of the older Grecian comedy-Aristophanes. It may be sufficient to mention that his diction is extremely elegant, although he sometimes indulges in the rudest popular expressions: to Schlegel he appeared to have displayed "the richest development of almost every poetical property." But, so little had Foote's pieces. of that burlesque ideality which constituted the essential character of Aristophanes, that his exercise of the vis comica reduced itself almost exclusively to a contemporary personal satire, and in comparison with that of the learned Greek dramatist, amounting to little more than a refined species of mimicry. Hence it is, that of the many farces which Foote wrote, chiefly to exhibit in them his own powers of satirical mimicry as an actor, not more than one survives upon the stage. Hence, "the English Aristophanes" as applied to Foote is almost a sobriquet.

Mr. Forster has well stated the case. "The comparison of Foote with Aristophanes is absurd, because he had nothing of the imagination, or wealth of poetry, of the Greek; but he was like him in wit, whim, ready humour, practical jokes, keen sarcasm, vivid personation, and above all, in the unflinching audacity with which he employed all these in scorn and ridicule of living vices and hypocrisies. As it was said of the Greek satirist, that he exercised a censorship more formidable than the archons, barely less is to be said of the English wit who took a range of jurisdiction wider than Sir John Fielding's or Sir Thomas de Veil's; and for all the vast difference that remains, it is perhaps little less or more than between Athens in the age of Pericles and London in the time of Bubb Dodington.'

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When Foote visited his friend Barnard, the provost of

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-a; 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; are ten; go on!"

FOOTE'S CONVERSATION.

"nine and one

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 só, expecting that Foote would only prove a bore, and a check on their conversation. 66 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.”

66

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;