Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 19.djvu/379

Foote hold their tongues. Garrick, who smarted more frequently than most, said that nobody in London thought it worth while to quarrel with him. So accustomed was Foote to this process that, when he heard his leg was to be cut off, he said, 'Now I shall take off old Faulkner to the life,' Faulkner having lost one of his legs. The privilege of the buffoon was at length to be denied him. In preparing the 'Trip to Calais ' he hit upon the celebrated Duchess of Kingston, and told his acquaintance, with customary garrulity and indiscretion, that she was to be shown in the character of Lady Crocodile. The influence of the duchess sufficed to secure the prohibition of the play. A correspondence undignified on both sides, though marvellously clever on that of Foote, took place between the author and the duchess, and resulted in Foote abandoning some hastily formed schemes of vengeance, and in the production of the 'Capuchin,' in which the satire was transferred from the duchess to Jackson, an Irish clergyman who was in her pay, and who ultimately committed suicide to avoid the penalty of death, to which he had been condemned for treason. This man, under the disguise, transparent to a large number of people, of Dr. Viper, Foote lashed in the 'Capuchin.' Jackson's answer was by insinuations conveyed in the paper of which he was editor, and copied into other periodicals, charging Foote with the most odious form of crime. For a time Foote, on the advice of his friends, kept silence. He opened the Haymarket on 20 May 1776 with his comedy, the 'Bankrupt.' An organised opposition upon the part of a portion of the audience drew Foote before the curtain to appeal for justice, and to say that he had taken steps in the court of king's bench to bring the charges to an issue. A further mine was, however, sprung beneath Foote, a discharged servant appearing (8 July 1776) to prefer a bill of indictment against the author for a criminal assault. Under these circumstances Foote received the full support of friends convinced of his innocence. Those whom he had libelled thronged to defend him. Evidence that the charge was due to Jackson was forthcoming, and on the trial in the court of king's bench the jury returned an unhesitating verdict of acquittal. Foote was, however, much shaken. On 16 Jan. 1777 he disposed of his patent to George Colman for 1,600l. a year and a specific sum for the right of acting Foote's unpublished pieces. Foote, who had undertaken to play at another house, appeared at the Haymarket in the 'Devil upon Two Sticks,' the 'Nabob,' the 'Minor,' and other pieces. A great falling off in power was, however, apparent. On 30 July, in the 'Maid of Bath,' his name appeared in the bills for the last time. Acting on medical advice he started for the South of France, and arrived at Dover 20 Oct. 1777 on his way to Calais. He was in good spirits, joking with the servants at the Ship Inn. At breakfast next morning he was seized with a shivering fit, a second followed, and on the same day, 21 Oct. 1777, he died. The body was removed to his house, Suffolk Street, Pall Mall East, by William Jewell, the treasurer to the Haymarket, who had been sent for, and on the Monday night following (3 Nov.) he was buried by torchlight in the west cloister in Westminster Abbey. The register of the abbey calls him Samuel Foote, esq., and gives his age as fifty-five (, Registers of Westminster, p. 424). No monument is erected to him, though a tablet was put up by Jewell in St. Martin's Church, Dover. His will, dated 13 Aug. 1768, was proved the day after his death. It bequeathed his possessions in trust to his illegitimate sons, Francis Foote and George Foote, with remainder in case they should die in their minority to Jewell, to Foote's mother, who, however, was dead, and to his brother, Edward Goodere Foote. In addition to the plays mentioned Foote wrote 'A Treatise on the Passions so far as they regard the Stage ; with a Critical Enquiry into the Theatrical merit of Mr. G__k, Mr. Q__n, and Mr. Barry. . .' London, 8vo (no date), 1747 ; 'The Roman and English Comedy consider'd and compar'd. With remarks on the "Suspicious Husband." And an Examen into the merits of the Present Comic Actors,' London, 1747, 8vo ; 'A Letter from Mr. Foote to the Reverend Author of the Remarks, critical and Christian, on the Minor,' London, 1760, 8vo ; 'Apology for the "Minor," with a Letter to the Rev. Mr. Bain,' Edinburgh, 1771, 8vo and 12mo (same date). He is credited with the authorship of an account of the murder of his uncle, which is said to have been his first production. There is, however, reason for sparing him this ignominy. 'Wit for the Ton! the Convivial Jester, or Sam Foote's Last Budget opened,' &c., London (no date), 1777, contains some of his jokes, but is, of course, not by him. A long list of polemical works to which his pieces gave rise, many of them claiming to be by him, but ordinarily virulent attacks upon him, is given in Mr. Lowe's useful 'Bibliographical Account of English Theatrical Literature,' 1888. Mr. Lowe believes that 'A Letter to the Licenser' (regarding the prohibition of the 'Trip to Calais') was published, but has never seen it catalogued.