Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 19.djvu/381

Foote back upon my chair, and fairly laugh it out No, sir, he was irresistible' (, Johnson, ed. Hill, iii. 69, 70). Fox told Rogers that, meeting Foote at Lord William Bentinck's, ie anticipated that the actor would prove a bore, and continued : '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' (, Table Talk, ed. Dyce, pp. 101-2). Sir Joshua Reynolds is credited with having said that 'by Foote's buffoonery and broad-faced merriment, private friendship, public decency, and everything estimable among men were trod under foot' (, Representative Actors, p. 137). Tate Wilkinson declared that 'if any man possessed the gift of pleasing more than another Mr. Foote was the man,' and Colman the younger says Foote always made him laugh. Testimony of the kind may be indefinitely extended. He was short, fat, and flabby in appearance, his face intelligent, and his eye bright. He was a gourmand, an egotist, and a thoroughly selfish man, with a few redeeming traits, which the contrast with his general character gave almost the appearance of virtues. A portrait of Foote by Sir Joshua Reynolds is in the Mathews collection in the Garrick Club. Another portrait by Zoffany in a scene from 'The Commissary' was given by the actor to Fitzherbert, and is now in the collection of the Earl of Carlisle. Zoffany also painted Foote as Sturgeon in the 'Mayor of Garratt,' and in other characters. [The chief authorities for the life of Foote are the Memoirs of Samuel Foote, esq., with a Collection of his Genuine Bon Mots, Anecdotes, Opinions, &c., by William Cooke, 3 vols. 1805, and the Memoir prefixed to the Works of Samuel Foote, esq., by John Bee (Badcock), esq., 3 vols. 1830; Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Samuel Foote, esq., the English Aristophanes, &c., London (no date), 1777, is an anonymous and untrustworthy work; the Garrick Correspondence ; Walpole's Letters ; Forster's Historical and Biographical Essays ; Boswell's Life of Johnson, ed.Dr. Birkbeck Hill ; Genest's Account of the Stage ; Tate Wilkinson's Memoirs and Wandering Patentee and Davies's Life of Garrick overflow with information ; George Colman's Random Recollections ; Peake's Memoirs of the Colman Family; O'Keeffe's Recollections ; Boaden's Life of Siddons and Life of Bannister. The Life and Times of Frederic Reynolds, by himself, Notes and Queries, 2nd and 4th ser., and Dibdin's History of the Edinburgh Stage, 1888, may also be consulted, as may the Town and Country Magazine, and other periodicals of the last century. Lives of Foote appear in the Biographical Dictionaries of Chalmers and of Rose. Lowe's Bibliography of the Stage and Boase and Courtney's Bibliotheca Cornubiensis, i. 152-7, 1181-3, supply useful bibliographies. There are few books dealing with the stage from which particulars, frequently untrustworthy and contradictory, may not be gleaned.] 

FORANNAN, and  (d. 982), was, according to the 'Book of Leinster,' eighteenth in descent from Fiacha Suidhe, brother of Conn the Hundred Battler [q. v.] His clan held the plain of Magh Feimhin, near Clonmel. Forannan was chosen bishop by popular election, and consecrated, according to his 'Life,' in 'the city called in the barbarous dialect of the Irish Domhnach mor,' i.e. Donoughmore, which, it is added, is the metropolis of Ireland. From this Lanigan erroneously inferred it to have been in Armagh. But the 'Book of Leinster,' the 'Lebar Brecc,' and the 'Martyrology of Donegal' all term him of 'Donoughmore in Magh Feimhin,' the territory of his family. In obedience to a vision directing him to go to the Meuse, Forannan, with twelve companions, left Ireland about 969, and, as usual with Irish saints, was miraculously conveyed across the sea. While in search of the appointed place they met Count Eilbert, who had built many churches, and among them one dedicated to St. Patrick. He then led them to Rome, that they might obtain the instruction in monastic learning which they sought for. There Forannan received the episcopal dignity and the title of abbot ; he was ordered to turn aside for further instruction in the Benedictine rule to a monastery named Gorzia. Thence he went to Walciodorus, now Wassor, between Dinant and Givet. The pious emperor Otto heard of his fame, and, after some hesitation in acknowledging Forannan's rank, took the abbey under his protection. Walciodorus had been founded in 945 by Eilbert, and Macallen, an Irishman, was the first abbot. Macallen, on leaving Ireland, had first gone to Peronne, the Irish monastery founded by St. Fursa [q. v.], and there won the patronage of Hersendis, the wife of Count Eilbert. Walciodorus was one of a group of such monasteries supplied with inmates from Ireland. By Forannan's influence a place called Hasteria (now Hastieres) was added to his monastery. He also obtained a village called Gruthen, which he made over to the monastery, in order that its vineyards might supply the monks with wine. Several interpretations of the name Walciodorus have been proposed; some taking it to be from 'vallis decora,' the beautiful valley, others from 'waltz-dor,' the torrent of the wood. Seven years after his arrival Count Eilbert died. He was attended during his illness by Forannan, and was buried in the Basilica