was an actor whom O'Keefe had that very morning seen drilled by Foote in rehearsal for having mispronounced a word. "Ha! ha!" cried Foote, "what's that sarcophagus? The word is sarcophagus: it's derived from the Greek, you know; I wonder that did not strike you."

Foote was generous to his actors, and much liked by them; and he was much more considerate and business-like than some of his habits would lead one to suppose. An actress complained to him one day of the low salary she had from Garrick, at Drury-lane, on which Foote asked her why she had gone to him, knowing the salary she might have had at the Haymarket. "Oh, I don't know how it was," she said; "he talked me over so by telling me he would make me immortal, that I did not know how to refuse him." "Did he so, indeed ?" said Foote. Well, then I suppose I must outbid him that way. Come to me, then, when you are free, I'll give you two pounds a-week more, and charge you nothing for immortality!"

During this winter, in Dublin, Foote was taken ill, and could not play. "Ah, Sir," said a poor actor, "if you will not play, we shall have no Christmas dinner." "Ha!" said he at once, "if my playing gives you a Christmas dinner, play I will!" and O'Keefe adds, ill as he was, he kept his word.

A NARROW ESCAPE-READING IN BED.

While in Dublin, Foote's life was endangered by an accident, which he thus described in a letter to Garrick, dated December 31, 1773, and printed for the first time by Mr. Forster. "Had it not been for the coolness and resolution of my old friend, and your great admirer, Jewel, your humble servant would last night have been reduced to ashes, by reading in bed, that cursed custom. The candle set fire to the curtains, and the bed was instantly set in a blaze. He rushed in, hauled me out of the room, tore down and trampled the paper and curtains, and so extinguished the flames. The bed was burnt, and poor Jewel's hands most miserably scorched. So you see, my dear Sir, no man can foresee the great ends for which he was born. Macklin, though a blockhead in his manhood and youth, turns out a wit and a writer on the brink of the grave; and Foote, never very remarkable for his personal graces, in the decline of his life was very near becoming a toast."

This new species of entertainment, called The Handsome Maid; or Piety in Pattens, was performed at the Haymarket Theatre, for the first time, on Feb. 15, 1773. The novelty brought such a crowd, that the street was impassable for more than an hour; and the public, in their impatience, broke open the doors of the theatre, great numbers getting into the house without paying for admission. Hats, swords, cloaks, and shoes were lost, many ladies fainted, and a girl had her arm broken in an endeavour to get into the pit. After all, the expectations of the audience were not realized by the performance; a tremendous uproar ensued, which, however, was quelled, and the exhibition was allowed to proceed.

Foote wittily improvised additions to the Puppet-Show, and recovering from the reaction the tumult produced, it be came the great favourite of the season. It showed virtue rewarded, and commonplace thoughts concealed by high-flown words; settled Goldsmith's sentimental comedy, and laughed at Garrick's Stratford Jubilee. Foote proposed a pasteboard imitation. "Pray, sir, are your puppets to be as large as life ?" asked a lady of fashion. "Oh dear, madam, no," replied Foote, "not much above the size of Garrick." the Marquis of Stafford interposed: the two managers met at his door. "What is it, war or peace ?" said Garrick. "Oh, peace by all means!" replied Foote, and he kept his word: but Foote kept in the Puppet-Show a whimsical imitation of Garrick refusing to engage in his company Mr. Punch's wife Joan.

FOOTE AND DR. JOHNSON.

But

We may here group the principal meetings of Foote and Johnson, as they are described in Boswell's popular Life.

Johnson: The first time I was in company with Foote was at Fitzherbert's. Having no good opinion of the fellow, I was resolved not to be pleased; and it is very difficult to please a man against his will. I went on eating my dinner pretty sullenly, affecting not to mind him; but the dog was so very comical, that I was obliged to lay down my knife and

fork, throw myself back upon my chair, and fairly laugh it out. No, sir, he was irresistible. He, upon one occasion experienced, in an extraordinary degree, the efficacy of his powers of entertaining. Amongst the many and various. modes which he tried of getting money, he became a partner with a small-beer brewer, and he was to have a share of the profits for procuring customers amongst his numerous acquaintance. Fitzherbert was one who took his small-beer; but it was so bad that the servants resolved not to drink it. They were at some loss how to notify their resolution, being afraid of offending their master, who, they knew, liked Foote much as a companion. At last, they fixed upon a little black boy, who was rather a favourite, to be their deputy, and deliver their remonstrance; and having invested him with the whole authority of the kitchen, he was to inform Mr. Fitzherbert, in all their names, upon a certain day, that they would drink Foote's small-beer no longer. On that day, Samuel happened to dine at Fitzherbert's, and this boy served at table he was so delighted with Foote's stories, merriment, and grimaces, that when he went downstairs he told them, "This is the finest man I have ever seen. I will not deliver your message. I will drink his small-beer." (Boswell adds a note to the above: "Foote told me, that Johnson said to him, 'For loud, obstreperous, broad-faced mirth, I know not his equal.'")

Upon another occasion, Boswell maintaining the distinction between a tragedian and a mere theatrical droll, said, “If Betterton and Foote were to walk into this room, you would respect Betterton much more than Foote. Johnson: If Betterton were to walk into this room with Foote, Foote would soon drive him out of it. Foote, sir, quatenus Foote, has

powers superior to them all."

One evening at the Essex Head Club, in a comparison between Burke and Foote, Johnson said: "If a man were to go by chance at the same time with Burke under a shed, to shun a shower, he would say-This is an extraordinary man.' If Burke should go into a stable to see his horse dressed, the ostler would say—'We have had an extraordinary man here.' Boswell: Foote was a man who never failed in conversation. If he had gone into a stable-Johnson: Sir, if he had gone into the stable, the other would have said here has been a comical fellow; but he would not have respected him. Boswell: And, sir, the other would have answered him, would

have given him as good as he brought, as the common saying is. Johnson: Yes, sir, and Foote would have answered the ostler.

Foote's merits as a humourist are more than once discussed in Boswell's Life of Johnson. Thus:

Boswell: Foote has a great deal of humour. Johnson: Yes, sir. Boswell: He has a singular talent of exhibiting character. Johnson: Sir, it is not a talent-it is a vice; it is what others abstain from. It is not comedy, which exhibits the character of a species, as that of a miser gathered from many misers: it is a farce which exhibits individuals. Boswell: Did he not think of exhibiting you, sir? Johnson: Sir, fear restrained him; he knew I would have broken his bones. I would have saved him the trouble of cutting off a leg; I would not have left him a leg to cut off.

Next are Boswell's and the Doctor's opinions of Foote as a mimic :

Boswell: I don't think Foote a good mimic, sir. Johnson: No, sir, his imitations are not like. He gives you something different from himself, but not the character which he means to assume. He goes out of himself, without going into other people. He cannot take off any person unless he is strongly marked, such as George Faulkner. He is like a painter who can draw the portrait of a man who has a wen upon his face, and who is therefore easily known. If a man hops up one leg, Foote can hop upon one leg. He has not that nice discrimination which your friend seems to possess. Foote is, however, very entertaining with a kind of conversation between wit and buffoonery.

When on their tour to the Hebrides, talking of a very penurious gentleman of their acquaintance, Johnson observed that he exceeded L'Avare in the play. Boswell concurred, and remarked that he would do well, if introduced in one of Foote's farces; and that the best way to get it done, would be to bring Foote to be entertained at his house for a week, and then it would be facit indignatio. Johnson replied: "Sir, I wish he had him. I, who have eaten his bread, will not give him to him; but I should be glad if he came honestly by him!"

Mr. Forster has thus pleasantly grouped a few of the meetings of the dramatist and the doctor: "It was at Foote's dinner-table Johnson made the memorable disclosure of having written in a garret in Exeter-street, one of the most admired of the speeches of Mr. Pitt. It is Foote who tells the story of Johnson's Jacobite sympathies breaking out so strangely on their visiting Bedlam together, when he again and again returned to the cell of the poor furious madman, who, while beating his straw, supposed he was beating the Duke of

Cumberland. It was Foote who made him roar when some one remarked of the Rockingham ministry, that they were fatigued to death, and quite at their wits' end, whereupon the humourist rejoined, that the fatigue could hardly have arisen from the length of the journey. It is from Foote he quotes the rebuke to Lord Loughborough for his ill-judged ambition to associate with the wits, "What can he mean by coming among us? He is not only dull himself, but the cause of dullness in others."

Foote threatened to bring Johnson on the stage in connexion with the Cock-lane ghost, and the Doctor never completely forgave the threat. But when he heard of Foote's death, he wrote to Mrs. Thrale, "Did you think he would so soon be gone?" his thoughts instinctively turning to Falstaff. "Life, says Falstaff, is a shuttle. He was a fine fellow in his way, and the world is really impoverished by his sinking glories. I would have his life written with diligence."

FOOTE AND "THE CLUB."

"The Club," (often misnamed "the Literary Club,") had been in existence ten years, when Foote wrote from Dublin to Garrick, in 1773, as though he had only just then heard of it. This was Johnson's and Goldsmith's Club, and probably Foote's humour would not have been relished there. However, in the letter just named, the following specimen of it occurs upon one of the members:

I have often met here a Mr. Vesey, who tells me that he belongs to a club with you and some other gentlemen of eminent talents. I could not onceive upon what motive he had procured admittance; but I find he is the Accountant-General, so I suppose you have him to cast up the reckoning.

In this same letter Foote calls the elder Colman "little Dot, the dirty director" of Covent Garden Theatre.

"THE COZENERS."

In neither of his comedies did Foote more strongly satirize traffickers in vice, and the loose leaders of fashion, than in his play of the Cozeners produced in 1774. First among the notabilities thus damned to everlasting fame was Mrs. Rudd, recently tried for selling government places and sinecures. Mrs. Fleec'em orders a quantity of silk, which she carries off in her own coach unpaid for, and with it the silk mercer, too, bewildered by her fascinations, to a mad doctor, who, being in the plot, claps a strait-waistcoat on him, while Mrs.