SOURCE: Trefman, Simon. “Foote's Establishment: The Golden Age, 1770-1774.” In Sam. Foote, Comedian, 1720-1777, pp. 189-223. New York: New York University Press, 1971.

[In the following essay, Trefman discusses Foote's most successful and productive period as a playwright and theater manager.]

Foote's theatre was becoming a summer institution, and he was even more popular than before his accident. Far from being a handicap, the false leg became the object of many of Foote's jokes, and the limp was accepted as part of the act. Tate Wilkinson, now a minor monarch of strolling players, found that he could no longer imitate his master as in the past. Once, when acting Major Sturgeon in Foote's manner, Wilkinson was hissed off the stage by the audience because he did not play the role with a limp.¹ Even the historian Gibbon valued Foote's contributions that so enlivened the traditional dullness of a London summer. Responding to his sister's request that he leave the heat of the city, Gibbon declined, saying that he found London pleasing for its solitude in the summer and “when I am tired of the Roman Empire I can laugh away the Evening at Foote's Theatre.”² That was indeed a testimonial!

Foote planned his 1770 campaign with a new three-act piece, the first new play he had written since The Devil upon Two Sticks in 1768.³ He retained Sparks and Sheridan⁴ from the previous season and hired no new starring performers. Foote used thirty-two players and kept the Haymarket open for fifty-nine performances. He himself acted in forty-three mainpieces and fourteen afterpieces.⁵

Foote opened his season by reciting his occasional prologue that mocked Jubilee sentiment and followed this with The Devil upon Two Sticks which also aimed some new thrusts at Garrick.⁶ Though the papers carried accounts of several new pieces that were to brighten Foote's season,⁷ the only new play that season was The Lame Lover. The plot, a thin one, is about a lawyer who is cuckolded by his daughter's suitor, and the satire is aimed at lawyers: their hair splitting, sharp practice, and abysmal ignorance of matters not directly pertaining to their profession.

In the course of events, Foote, whose role was that of the suitor, Luke Limp, was also able to get off many jokes on his wooden leg. And, as usual in Foote's plays, there was much personal satire and mimicry. Sergeant Whittaker, the lawyer who was a candidate for Middlesex with Wilkes and Luttrel in April, 1769, was mimicked by Foote, along with many lesser legal lights. The character of Luke Limp was based upon John Skrimshire Boothby, a snob who adored the lords of the land. Foote has him breaking one dinner engagement after another, as knight takes precedence over alderman, earl over knight, and finally, as his servant stands in a state of utter confusion about which dinner dates to confirm or deny, Limp hobbles out the door to take lunch with a waiting duke. Foote found that his satire on Boothby drew laughter as did his jokes on his wooden leg, but the audience did not respond to the second and third acts, which were aimed at the courts and the lawyers. Accordingly, he made several alterations for the performance on June 27 that pacified rather than pleased his critics.⁸ The play went on to fifteen performances that summer, a poor showing in comparison to Foote's previous successes, and it was rarely performed afterwards.⁹

During this summer, Foote fell into a quarrel with Dr. Paul Hiffernan that narrowly escaped serious consequences. Hiffernan, a hanger-on in dramatic circles, tried to have Foote employ him as dramatist for the Haymarket. Foote refused, and when Hiffernan tried to raise money through subscriptions, he used his forceful selling techniques on Foote, who promptly lost his temper and called Hiffernan a common thief. In revenge, Hiffernan then wrote a criticism of Foote's anti-Jubliee prologue, Foote's Prologue Detected; with a Miniature-Prose Epilogue of his Manner in Speaking It. By Philo-Technicus Miso-Mimicles.¹⁰ Foote, probably suspecting an attempt to win Garrick's favor, refused Hifferman free use of the Haymarket, a privilege that patentees normally extended to all practicing dramatists. Hiffernan retorted that he would pay after-money, as the fee was called, but warned Foote that if his appearance came after the second act of the mainpiece, he would pay only half the price, which was the practice in the winter houses. Hiffernan then wrote a letter to the newspapers claiming that the Haymarket should not have privileges refused to Drury Lane and Covent Garden. Fortunately, the publisher showed the letter to Foote, who, fearing for the safety of his playhouse,¹¹ sent a letter to Garrick asking him to use his influence to silence Hiffernan:

July, 1770

Dear Sir,

Last night a letter written by Doctor Hiffernan was brought me by a director of one of the newspapers, containing in express words, an invitation to the public to come and pull my playhouse down for not taking after money. … Upon the whole, it is, I think, worthy of consideration whether there is not something immoral, as well as impolitic, in encouraging a fellow, who without parts, principles, property, or profession, has subsisted these twenty years by raising contributions under false pretenses, and finding how necessary the public good opinion is to every subject of the stage, has with all the qualities of a footpad but the courage, extorted money from every individual by presenting, instead of a pistol, a pen to his breast.¹²

Garrick thanked Foote for his trust and promised his fullest cooperation.¹³ To Foote's relief, Garrick had enough influence to silence Hiffernan.

Shortly after this incident, in August, Foote made preparations to take most of his company with him to Edinburgh. Some of the arrangements for this trip were probably made by Wilkinson, who invited Foote to visit him on his way to the north. Foote accepted the invitation in a chatty letter describing the sad decline of his one-time target, Thomas Sheridan:

I have this summer entertained the veteran Sheridan, who is dwindled to a mere cock and bottle Chelsea pensioner:—He has enlisted some new recruits, unfit for service, and such as might be expected to issue from his discipline.

I shall be glad to chop upon you in my way to Edinburgh, for which place I shall set out about the middle of Oct.

Ross is with me, ill and indolent; but however, thanks to my own industry, the campaign has been lucky enough.¹⁴

Foote's trip was exceedingly daring, for, with the exception of his own previous trip to Edinburgh, no starring London actor traveled beyond Bath or Dublin, and to transport a full troupe to Scotland was unheard of. The Haymarket actors numbered twenty men and eight women, including Woodward, Weston, and Mrs. Jewel.¹⁵ The inclusion of Woodward in this venture is surprising, but Foote needed another star performer to insure the success of this risky undertaking and induced Woodward to accompany him, offering him the salary of £14 per week;¹⁶ his regular salary at Covent Garden had been £2/15s per diem.¹⁷ The former manager of the Edinburgh Theatre, David Ross, whom Foote mentioned in his letter to Wilkinson, found meagre pickings in the northern capital; and when a New Rosciad appeared in January, 1770, savagely attacking his troupe, Ross became discouraged and looked for the first opportunity to lease or sell his theatre. When Foote heard of his difficulties, he made an agreement with him to lease the theatre for three years at £500 per year.¹⁸

It is impossible to find out exactly what performances were given that season, though Dibdin gives a skeletal account. Foote opened the season on November 17 with The Commissary and The Lying Valet,¹⁹ and, in addition, he acted Mother Cole, Shylock, and Fondlewife in succeeding productions. Woodward played Marplot in Centlivre's Busybody and Boabdil in Jonson's Every Man in His Humour; Mrs. Jewel sang Polly's role in The Beggar's Opera.²⁰ These productions delighted the theatrically starved Edinburgh audience, and Boswell, in a letter to Garrick, confirmed the success of Foote's troupe:

Mar. 30, 1771

We have been kept laughing all this winter by Foote, who has made a Very good Campaign of it here. Woodward has been exceedingly admired & has been a great support to the House; for you know M^r Foot's drollery Cannot entertain long in a Theatre where there is not a variety of audiences. I hear he is not to return but has transferred his lease of the Theatre for the two remaining years.

His Favorite Mrs. Jewel has not taken here, her poorness of figure & aukward inanimate action disgust us much & we wonder how she had been praised so much in London.²¹

Garrick replied that Foote described matters differently:

April 18, 1771

Our Friend Foote has convinc'd Me that he has brought from Scotland a ballance of above one thousand pounds—but his Account of the theatrical matters there, differs widely from Yours—He tells me (this is between ourselves) that he was much follow'd & that Woodward was deserted, & that likewise Mrs. Jewel was much approv'd of—the Good People of Edinburgh will not be satisy'd with Aristophanical flashes of Merriment, & with ye Mere Sallies of Wit, & humour, they require a Substantial classical drama—to cut & come again, as the vulgar Saying is …²²

The northern trip was adventurous and profitable, but obviously it was too arduous to bear seasonal repetition, and Foote was not anxious to return to Scotland the following year. Even though he had leased the theatre from Ross for three years, upon his return to London, Foote tried to sell the remainder of the lease, and, finally, in 1771, he was forced to sell it at a loss to the actors West Digges and Bland.²³ Digges, unfortunately, was soon arrested for debt, and Ross, retaining Arthur Murphy as his lawyer, brought suit against Foote for two years' rent. After several years of litigation, Ross finally won his suit on May 26, 1774.²⁴ When Ross presented Foote with the bill, Foote paid and sarcastically remarked that he presumed that Ross would be returning to Edinburgh, after the manner of his race, in the cheapest way. “Ay Ay,” the Scot told him, tapping the money. “I shall travel on foot.” “I am heartily sorry for that,” said Foote, “for I know no man who more richly deserves horsing.”²⁵

Foote caused another altercation in Edinburgh when he produced The Minor on November 24, 1770. Whitefield had died in Massachusetts on September 30 of that year, and it is possible that the news of his death had just arrived. There seemed to be no objection by the clergy or the audience to the first performance of the play, and the theatre was well filled. But on the second showing, given on the twenty-fourth, there was spare attendance, for the women boycotted the performance. The clergy then denounced Foote for not showing proper respect for the dead.²⁶ Under these circumstances it seems likely that the news of Whitefield's death did not reach Edinburgh until between the first and second playings of The Minor.

Despite the furor, Foote insisted on performing his piece, and for the next few weeks clergymen in the area thundered against its impropriety. One of these clergymen, James Baine of the Kirk of Relief, published his strictures: The Theatre Licentious and Perverted, or a Sermon for Reformation of manners. Preached on the Lord's Day, Dec. 2, 1770. Partly occasioned by the acting of a comedy entitled, The Minor, in the licensed Theatre of Edinburgh, on Saturday the 24th of November preceding. By James Baine, A.M., Minister of the Gospel at Edinburgh. Inscribed to Samuel Foote, Esq. Foote decided that, since Baine merely rehashed all the old charges made against the play in 1760 and 1761, it would not be necessary to add anything new to his reply that he had not printed before. An Apology for the Minor in a Letter to the Rev. Mr. Baine. To which is added the Original Epilogue. By Samuel Foote, Esq.,²⁷ is an almost verbatim copy of the defense Foote had made earlier in his Letter to the Reverend Author of the Christian and Critical Remarks. Foote's original letter was witty and contemptuous; in the present situation it would confirm the prejudices of those in either camp.

Foote had disposed of his detractors, but trouble was still to come from his sincerest flatterer. Shortly after his triumphant return to London with gold still jingling in his pockets, he received an interesting letter of apology from Wilkinson for illegally performing The Devil upon Two Sticks. Wilkinson had got hold of a stolen copy of the play, probably from a member of Foote's company on his way south, and naturally performed it with his strollers in the northern provinces. Afraid that Foote would hear of it and bring action against him, Wilkinson foolishly tried to forestall this possibility by writing the letter and hoping that Foote would forgive the “prank.” Foote did see the humor of the situation and responded quickly:

Your favour brought me the first account of the Devil upon Two Sticks having been played upon your stage.—Your letter has delivered me from every difficulty, and will procure me the pleasure of soon seeing you in town, as I most certainly will move the Court of King's Bench against you the first day of next term. I have the honour to be my dear Sir,

Your most oblig'd and

faithful and humble servant.²⁸

This was not the response that Wilkinson had hoped for, so he appealed to Woodward to stop Foote from bringing suit. Woodward agreed, and Foote, in a convivial moment, accepted the plea to forgive and forget, with the proviso that Wilkinson would never try the same trick again.²⁹

Foote at this time was busy writing a new play, The Maid of Bath. He took great enjoyment in reading his works in progress to his friends, and on one occasion, Foote, surprised by a chance visit of Garrick and Cumberland, was delighted to press them to stay for dinner and hear parts of his new play. They were soon joined by a titled friend of Foote's, Sir Robert Fletcher. In what seemed a calculated move, Sir Robert rose to leave and hid himself behind a conveniently placed screen that blocked sight of the door. When Foote began to ridicule him, Sir Robert suddenly revealed himself: “I am not gone, Foote; spare me until I am out of hearing; and now with your leave, I will stay till these gentlemen depart, and then you shall amuse me at their cost, as you have amused them at mine.” As Cumberland tells the story, Foote, for once, was struck dumb:

This event, which deprived Foote of all presence of mind, gave occasion to Garrick to display his genius and good nature in their brightest lustre; I never saw him in a more amiable light; the infinite address and ingenuity that he exhibited in softening the enraged guest, and reconciling him to pass over an affront, were at once the most comic and the most complete I ever witnessed. … I hope Foote was very grateful, but when a man has been completely humbled, he is not very fond in recollecting it.³⁰

Foote, of course, was famous for reviling departed guests, but rarely had he been caught so unprepared. Among the hundreds of anecdotes about Foote, this is the only one I have found which reveals him unable to top his antagonist. Garrick and Cumberland, though momentarily distracted, stayed to approve of the play, for they contributed a prologue and epilogue to The Maid of Bath.

For the 1771 season, Foote hired forty actors, including Woodward and Mrs. Fearon, whom he had brought from Scotland to play Lady Catherine Coldstream in the new piece. The Haymarket gave fifty-six performances, of which Foote appeared in forty-six mainpieces and fifteen afterpieces. The addition of Woodward to the company affected the repertory of the Haymarket considerably that year. Foote did not rely on the usual ballad-operas, and in their stead Woodward acted in Every Man in His Humour, The Busybody, Catherine and Petruchio, The Provoked Wife, The Brothers, and The West Indian. These plays provided Foote with a needed change of pace, for few of them had ever been given by his troupe before.³¹

The Maid of Bath, hawked about town and filled with current scandal, was eagerly awaited by Foote's public. This interest even extended to the Literary Club; Johnson, Colman, Garrick, Goldsmith, Steevens, and Reynolds were among those who came to applaud the play's debut.³² The inspiration for the piece was Miss Elizabeth Linley, the sixteen-year-old daughter of the composer Thomas Linley. Though young, the girl was already famous for her singing and her beauty, and when performing at the Assembly Room in Bath during 1770, she attracted many suitors. One of her favorites was Thomas Mathews, a wealthy rake who had long been a friend of the family. Mr. and Mrs. Linley, however, preferred Sir Walter Long, sixtyish and exceedingly wealthy. The will of the parents prevailed, and the marriage settlement was drawn. Suddenly, for reasons that were never made clear,³³ Long broke the match, was consequently sued for breach of contract by the heartbroken parents, and settled out of court. This is the stuff of storybooks, and it is a pity that Foote could not have foreseen Sheridan's dramatic elopement with the girl of everyone's dreams, and so provided a proper conclusion to his tale.

Foote, who supposedly was in Bath when this happened,³⁴ wrote The Maid of Bath to champion Elizabeth Linley's cause. Miss Linley becomes Kitty Linnet in the play, and her coarse, money-grubbing mother insists on marrying her to Solomon Flint (Sir Walter Long), played by Foote. Miss Linnet's crafty old friend, Major Racket (Thomas Mathews), is horrified to hear of the forthcoming nuptials from his quondam drinking crony, the aging and gout-stricken Sir Christopher Cripple. Though he has sworn to reform, Sir Christopher agrees to help Racket foil the mismatch. The two then influence Flint's companions, the tailor Billy Button, the apothecary Peter Poultice, Mynheer Sourcrouts and the port manufacturer Monsieur de Jersey, to play upon Flint's fears of losing his money and health by marrying a young and lively girl.

Flint's miserliness and disabilities are such that his friends have little trouble in cooling his ardor for marriage, but they cannot quench his lust. Flint runs to Miss Linnet's apartment and demands proof of their sexual compatibility before he will agree to marry one as insignificant as she is. Delighted by this excuse for dismissing Flint, Miss Linnet nobly points him to the door and this time is seconded by her mother. Racket, who has engineered this plot to gain Miss Linnet for himself, finds that Sir Christopher is determined to make an honest man of him. He tells Racket that he will settle an annuity on him if he agrees to marry the girl. But this time Miss Linnet has her say. She disowns Racket for his past sins and declares that she will, for the time, remain single and devote herself to pleasing her patron, the audience.

Foote brought not only the principals of the incident, Mrs. and Miss Linley, Long, and Mathews, into his play; the minor characters, though some have remained unidentified, also represented well-known people at Bath.³⁵ The play was a success, and the audience showed its appreciation repeatedly by bursting into applause.³⁶

The hit of the performance was a reference to a newspaper squabble between Horne-Tooke and John Wilkes. In earlier times when Horne was a strong supporter of Wilkes, he had left in Paris a rich and colorful collection of suits which he asked the exiled Wilkes to hold until he returned; as a parson he could not wear such gay stuff in England. Wilkes complied until near the end of 1771, when Horne decided that Wilkes was not a patriot, but a self-serving rogue. In an exchange of letters in the Public Advertiser, Horne accused Wilkes of pawning the suits to pay debts.³⁷ This controversy was alluded to in the play when Billy Button tries to discourage Flint from marrying one so young because of the expense of buying new clothes to appear the gentleman in London:

BUTTON:
And then the vast heap of fine clothes you must make—
FLINT:
What occasion for that?
BUTTON:
As you ar'n't known, there is no doing without; because why, everybody passes there for what they appears.
FLINT:
Right, Billy; but I believe I have found out a way to do that pretty cheap.
BUTTON:
Which way may be that?
FLINT:
You have seen the minister that's come down to tack us together—
BUTTON:
I have: Is he a fine man in the pulpit?
FLINT:
He don't care too much to meddle with that; but he is a prodigious patriot, and a great politician to boot.
BUTTON:
Indeed!
FLINT:
And he has left behind him, at Paris, a choice collection of curious rich cloaths, which he has promised to sell me a penn'orth.(38)

Even Horne could not take offense at this whimsy, and in a letter to Junius printed in the Public Advertiser, July 13, 1771, stated:

Sir, Farce, Comedy, and Tragedy—Wilkes, Foote, and Junius united at the same time, against one poor Parson, are fearful odds. The former two are only laboring in their vocation, and may equally plead in excuse, that their aim is a livelihood. I admit the plea for the second; his is an honest calling, and my clothes were lawful game.³⁹

In addition to its popular success, the play was well received by the reviewers. They praised the acting and the farcical qualities of the play. “Throughout the piece, the audience are perpetually incited to laugh, and that man must indeed be a cynic who can keep his muscles in form for half an hour.”⁴⁰ One dissenting writer, however, gave his “Devil's Definition” of the play:

The piece was very well received. The audience were interested without plot; surprised without incident; instructed without moral; and diverted without a new character. In short as Mr. Foote had a fine scope for displaying his inimitable talents for mimicry, the success of the piece is not to be wondered at.⁴¹

The carping critic was right; the play is thin and does not read well today. Foote did give himself wide scope for mimicry, but he failed to construct a strong plot because he followed so closely the action of the original incident; indeed, that was the reason for the play's popularity. But unlike some of his other plays which were also liberally laced with mimicry and topical references, Foote did not bring in any outrageous and exaggerated caricatures of his own creation. His satire in this play was too closely confined to reality. Neither Flint, Cripple, Button, nor Coldstream have anything like the life of the more imaginative creations of Sneak, Buck returning from Paris, Shift, or Cadwallader and Becky, since Foote was free to put the latter impersonations in any context he liked.

Foote, who sometimes showed good judgment on these matters, seemed to think that this was one of his better plays. Beginning in 1768 with The Devil upon Two Sticks, Foote stopped publishing his successful plays, for he thought that theatregoers might be deterred from coming to the performances more than once if they were subsequently able to read a copy of the play and thus keep the original production in mind.⁴² He sold the others, The Lame Lover and The Bankrupt, immediately after their production to profit while there was still an interest in them. He did not sell The Maid of Bath and was partially vindicated by the eleven performances given the following year. Subsequently, however, it averaged only three performances per year from 1773 through 1776.⁴³

Foote's joy at the success of his new play was dimmed on August 8 when his best friend, Sir Francis Delaval, died. Cooke writes that Foote “burst into a flood of tears, retired to his room, and saw no company for three days.” On the fourth day Jewel came in, and when Foote asked him about the burial, Jewel replied that the surgeons were going to dissect the head. Foote was incredulous. “And what will they get there? I'm sure I have known poor Frank for these five and twenty years, and I could never find anything in it.”⁴⁴ Foote could not resist the joke. But he did take his responsibilities to his dead friend's son seriously. Francis' brother, John, would not support the illegitimate son of Francis and Miss Roach. The boy had been left penniless, for his improvident father had been forced to sell his estate to John in return for an annual income. Young Delaval evidently had inherited some of his father's qualities for high living, and he fell heavily in debt. To keep the boy out of prison, Foote sold his interest in the Haymarket and paid the debts.⁴⁵ When his season was over, Foote took his usual trip to the continent.

In the spring, Boswell returned to frolic in London, and he writes the best account of Foote's merry and costly hospitality. Boswell called upon Foote shortly after his arrival in the capital and noted he was the “same man.”⁴⁶ Foote maligned Lord Mansfield's voice and mimicked Garrick's stammer. “Sir, a man born never to finish a sentence,” Foote told him. Thus greeting his visitor, Foote invited Boswell for dinner at his North End estate later in the week. Boswell arrived to find just one other guest, George Gray, an old schoolfellow who had accumulated a disreputable fortune in India. Foote entertained them by taking off George Faulkner and by telling a humorous story about Johnson. Boswell, of course, checked the story later and ascertained its falsehood. He even recounted with glee that when Foote proudly showed them his pedigree, Boswell recalled poor Cadwallader whom Foote had traduced for similar vanities in The Author. Boswell strongly disapproved of Foote though he sought his company and laughed at his jokes. Perhaps it was because Foote, unlike the people Boswell idolized, mocked the moral pieties that Boswell felt were so necessary to reinforce his own weak integrity. Throughout his Life of Johnson, Boswell frequently brought Foote into a conversation for Johnson's disapprobation; although Johnson also disapproved of Foote, he relished his wit with greater appreciation than Boswell ever dared give. But Boswell was not so unfavorably biased about food and drink:

He gave us a very elegant dinner, all served upon plate; and he did not say, “Gentlemen, there's Madeira and port and claret.” But, “Gentlemen, there's all sorts of wine. You'll call for what you choose.” He gave us noble old hock, of which he had purchased ninety dozen—“the stock of an ambassador lately deceased,” as I said. It was indeed brought from an ambassador. He gave us sparkling champagne, Constantia, and Tokay. When the latter was served round, he said, “Now you're going to drink the best wine in England”; and it was indeed exquisite. His claret flowed of course.⁴⁷

After such expense for what must have been a casual dinner, it is no wonder that Foote's finances were only as good as his last season at the Haymarket.

Foote also spent more money than was usual in preparing for the new season in 1772. About the time he returned from Edinburgh, notices in the papers spread the rumor that he was widening the stage of the Haymarket to include some of the dressing room and green room space in order to stage pantomimes by Woodward.⁴⁸ However, since Woodward did not appear again in the Haymarket and, in fact, no pantomimes were ever staged during Foote's tenure, the rumors were probably false. When Foote returned from Edinburgh, he bought the house adjacent to his own on Suffolk Street, and it is likely that the construction the Haymarket underwent during the spring was to incorporate the new property, conveniently located behind the theatre, into an easy means of entrance and exit behind the scenes. Prior to this time the servants and performers had to enter at the box door and maneuver behind the side boxes to reach the stage, and the same awkward procedure was necessary in departing.⁴⁹ Perhaps Foote made the arduous trip to Edinburgh to raise money for this additional expense.

Foote also went to the extra expense of hiring eleven more actors than the previous year, bringing the number to fifty-one, though he did not hire any starring performers.⁵⁰ Fifty-six performances were given that season at the Haymarket, Foote appearing in fifty-two mainpieces and twelve afterpieces.⁵¹

Foote's new play, The Nabob, was a timely thrust at those who made immense fortunes in India through violent and corrupt means and upon returning home to England used the same criminal tactics to advance themselves socially and politically. Public interest in the East India Company and the nabobs reached a peak in April, 1771, when Lord Clive was formally investigated by Parliament to determine the legality of his practices in India. At this time Clive defended himself before the House of Commons by claiming that among the nabobs not one had been found “sufficiently flagitious for Mr. Foote to exhibit on the theatre in the Haymarket.”⁵² He spoke just in time, though his faith in Foote as the public defender of morality must have amused many.

In the play, Sir Matthew Mite, a recently returned nabob from India, places the Oldham family in debt to him through underhanded tactics in order to foreclose on their estate and force their daughter, Sophy, to marry him. If she refuses, he threatens to bring her family into financial ruin. Sophy, though in love with her paternal cousin, Young Oldham, is prepared to sacrifice her happiness to save her parents. At the last moment she is saved by her uncle, Mr. Thomas Oldham, who appears with the necessary cash. Lady Oldham, who had sneered at her brother-in-law because he was a merchant, is then forced to admit that kind hearts are more than coronets and allows her daughter to marry his son, Young Oldham.

Though the plot seems, like The Minor, to be sentimental beyond measure, the story takes up only a few pages at the beginning and at the end of the play. The larger part of the play deals with the various swindles, machinations, and social climbing efforts of Sir Matthew Mite, and it is in these scenes that we find the farcical humor and topical satire that were celebrated by Foote's audience. Matthew Mite, played by Foote, was primarily a takeoff of General Richard Smith, the son of a cheesemonger, though the title role probably incorporates traits of Lord Clive and Nabob Gray, Boswell's schoolmate, as well.⁵³ Foote did not heap all of his opprobrium upon the nabobs alone; he also satirized the cooperative friends of the nabobs who were eager to corrupt themselves for money. In one scene the Christian Club from the parish of Bribe'em enter into negotiations with Mite to sell their votes, “humorously and satirically exposing the late proceedings of the Christian Club of Shoreham.”⁵⁴ They are called the Christian Club because, as one member, Touchit, explains, “When the bargain is struck, and the deposit is made, as a proof that we love our neighbors as well as ourselves, we submit to an equal partition.” Mite applauds these noble sentiments but wishes to withhold payment until after election. Touchit objects:

TOUCHIT:
… Our club has always found, that those who don't pay before are sure never to pay.
MITE:
How! impossible! the man who breaks his word with such faithful and honest adherents, richly deserves a halter. Gentlemen, in my opinion, he deserves to be hanged.
TOUCHIT:
Hush! … You see the fat man that is behind; he will be the returning officer at the election.
MITE:
What then?
TOUCHIT:
On a gibbet, at the end of our town, there hangs a smuggler, for robbing the custom-house.
MITE:
Well?
TOUCHIT:
The mayor's own brother, your honour: now, perhaps he may be jealous that you meant to throw some reflection on him or his family.
MITE:
Not unlikely. I say, gentlemen, whoever violates his promise to such faithful friends as you are, in my opinion, deserves to be damned!
TOUCHIT:
That's right! stick to that! for though the Christian Club may have some fears of the gallows, they don't value damnation of a farthing.(55)

In another scene, Foote dramatized an incident that was supposed to have happened to Sir Thomas Robinson of Yorkshire who made it a habit to break in unannounced on the Duke of Burlington:

CONSERVE:
Who is it?
JANUS:
That eternal teaser, Sir Timothy Tallboy. When once he gets a footing, there is no such thing as keeping him out. … He had like to have lost me the best place I ever had in my life.
CONS.:
How so?
JANUS:
Lord Lofty had given orders on no account to admit him. The first time, he got by me under a pretense of stroking Keeper, the housedog; the next, he nick'd me by desiring only just leave to scratch the poll of the parrot,” Poll, Poll, Poll!” I thought the devil was in him if he deceived me a third; but he did, notwithstanding.
CONS.:
Prithee, Janus, how?
JANUS:
By begging to set his watch by Tompion's clock in the hall; I smoked his design, and laid hold of him here [taking hold of his coat]: As sure as you are alive, he made but one leap from the stairs to the study, and left the skirt of his coat in my hand.
CONS.:
You got rid of him then?
JANUS:
He made one attempt more; and for fear he should slip by me, (for you know he is as thin as a slice of beef at Marybone-Gardens), I slapped the door in his face, and told him, the dog was mad, the parrot dead, and the clock stood; and, thank Heaven, I have never set eyes on him since.(56)

Foote also amused himself and his audience at the expense of The Society of Antiquaries by revealing their mania for explaining historical trivia and collecting odd pieces of junk. Mite, in a parody of what actually happened at the society, gave a paper before that learned body on the significance of Dick Whittington and his cat. The conclusion of Mite's dazzling research into the field of folklore was that no ordinary cat could give Whittington his wealth. “He constructed a vessel, which, from its agility and lightness, he aptly christened a cat. … it was not the whiskered, four-footed, mouse-killing cat, that was the source of the magistrate's wealth, but the coasting, sailing, coal-carrying cat; that, gentlemen, was Whittington's cat.”⁵⁷ It is possible that Foote was given this inside information by Walpole, who wanted revenge for the society's cavalier treatment of his paper on Richard III:

I had long left off going to the Antiquarian Society. This summer I learned that they intended printing some more foolish notes against my Richard III, and though I had taken no notice of their first publication, I thought they might at last provoke me to expose them. I determined to be at liberty by breaking with them first; and Foote having brought them on stage for sitting in council as they had done, on Whittington and his cat, I was not sorry to find them so ridiculous, or to make their being so, and upon that nonsense and the laughter that accompanied it, I struck my name out of their book.⁵⁸

With such topical seasoning the play could not fail. It was popular with everyone, except the nabobs, of course. One general, perhaps Smith himself, grumbled loudly enough to be put into the gossip columns:

A certain Nabob General has taken to himself a Cap held out by the facetious Aristophanes; and thinking it fits him has thought proper to wear it, though many of his Friends have taken much pains to dissuade him from putting it on, insisting it was never made for him, and might be the means of concealing his Laurels which distinguish his Brows. The General, however, ungratefully raves at Aristophanes the Maker, and cry'd lately to a Friend. “The first time I meet the Rascal, if I don't tread on his toes, I am a Cheesemonger.” “You had better take Care,” replies his Friend; “for it is possible you may not make him feel; and should he return the compliment, he might make your Feet as great Sufferers as he has your Head.”⁵⁹

Cooke reports a story that Foote was waylaid in his Suffolk Street house by two cudgel-bearing nabobs who had come to revenge their honor. Foote disarmed them by saying as a “wholesale popularmonger” he meant no harm to individuals, and, in any case, he meant to expose not honorable gentlemen like themselves, but the others. Charmed by his stories and jokes, they stayed for dinner and supported The Nabob through its run.⁶⁰ The story cannot be verified, but it was certainly within Foote's powers to win over the very people he had mocked.

Though his new play ran well, Foote was angry at Garrick throughout the season because he provided too many summer distractions. Garrick's protege, Torré, had directed fireworks at Mary-le-Bone Gardens and had proved no mean competitor. In addition, Drury Lane extended its season well into June so that Foote found it impossible to play regularly at the start of his season. Half in earnest, Foote tacked up this notice at the close of the Haymarket on September 15, 1772:

As it is uncertain to what lengths the Manager of Drury-Lane Theatre may protract his ensuing season, or what foreign artists besides his friend Torré he may import next summer into this country, for correcting its morals and improving its taste, Mr. Foote dares not risk entering into any future engagement with its present performers.⁶¹

Though Foote was joking about opening the next season, he was dead serious about the summer encroachments of the Drury Lane Theatre.⁶² Giving vent to something that had been on his mind ever since he had been disappointed with the terms of his own patent in 1766, Foote, petitioned George III on September 21 for permission to keep his theatre open all year:

To The King's Most Excellent Majesty

The Humble Petition of Samuel Foote one of his Majesty's Servants most humbly sheweth.

That your majesty was most graciously pleas'd at the intercession of his late Royal Highness the Duke of York: and in compassion to a misfortune occasioned by your Petitioner's attendance on his Royal Highness, to grant him a Patent, for the opening a Theatre from the middle of May, to the middle of September, being a Season, when from the thinness of the Town, and the Warmth of the Weather, no other Theatre would venture to open:

That from your Petitioner's productions, and Personal Labour he has been able to erect a Theatre, and hitherto support with credit, not only your Majesty's Servant under his direction, but to furnish the other Theatres with Dramatic Materials, of which they have not been spareing.

But the Public Diversions during his Season are so multiply'd, and the exhibitions of the other Theatres particularly that of Drury Lane protracted to so unusual a Length: that, your Petitioner from his advanced time of life is afraid to engage any performers, as if, from illness, or any other accident: he should be disabled from acting himself, he must be inevitably ruined.

Your Petitioner therefore Humbly hopes especially too as after Christmas the other Theatres constantly overflow that your Majesty out of your great goodness would be most graciously pleased to extend the time limited by the Patent already granted by your Majesty. To Your Majesty's most Dutiful and Most Devoted Subject and Servant.⁶³

Some years later, Foote recalled the incident to Lord Mansfield, who asked, “Well, and what answer did he give you, Mr. Foote?” “My Lord,” Foote told him, “he paid no more attention to it than if all the people of England had petitioned him.”⁶⁴

In June, however, at the start of his season, Foote had less perspective on the problem and planned to avenge himself on the winter theatres by playing the Haymarket during their season. William Kenrick recorded in his infamous Love in the Suds, which appeared in July, that “Roscius having received a formal challenge from Mr. Punch and his merry family, a pitched battle, for which great preparations are now making, will be fought between them next winter.”⁶⁵ Foote, of course, could not hope to gain permission from the Lord Chamberlain to put on plays in competition with the winter houses, but he needed no special permission to put on his puppet shows.

In the meantime Foote engaged in a war of nerves against Garrick similar to the one he had waged after the Stratford Jubilee. Nor was he alone in deviling Garrick. In addition to Kenrick's vile encomium, Murphy joined the fray with a parody of Garrick's alteration of Hamlet, though this was a personal retaliation:

O that that too, too solid house, which Foote
Has in the Haymarket, would melt at once,
Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!
Or that the Royal Pleasure had not fix'd
A patent for the summer in his hands!
Fie on't! O fie!—Foote's an unweeded garden,
That grows to seed; things rank, and gross in nature
Possess him merely. That it should come to this!
But nine months giv'n to me! nay, not so much—
Not nine!—So excellent an actor! and to him
Hyperion to a Satyr. Heav'n and earth!
Must I remember? why, the town hangs on me
As if increase of appetite did grow
By what it fed on—Yet eight little months!
But thirty weeks—a play'r no more like me
Than I to Hercules!—Most wicked speed,
To post with such dexterity from me
To him, and on this mountain leave to feed,
To batten on that moor! to quit with scorn
My Neck or Nothing for his Major Sturgeon!
It is not, nor it cannot come to good,
But break, my heart: for I must hold my tongue!(66)

Under this battering it is no wonder that Garrick finally showed the strain, and in a letter to Elizabeth Montague dated December 4, 1772, he revealed his feelings about Foote as well as his acute sensitivity to petty gossip about himself as he heatedly commented on a tale a “friend” brought him: “In the course of conversation, my name was mentioned; you must know, (to my Credit be spoken), that Foote hates me: Mr. L[yttleton] had a mind to flatter his Host [Foote], & was pleased to say—Garrick is so mean. …”⁶⁷

Finally, on February 15, after considerable publicity, much of it at Garrick's expense, Foote unveiled his Primitive Puppet Show called The Handsome Housemaid; or, Piety in Pattens. Foote had been able to arouse such curiosity through his publicity that great crowds came to see the first performance:

The Novelty of it, brought such a crowd to see it, that the Haymarket was impassable for above a hour; the doors of the theatre were broke open, and great numbers entered the house without paying anything for their admission. Several hats, swords, canes, cloaks, & etc. were lost among the mob; three ladies fainted away, and a girl had her arm broke in endeavoring to get into the pit. It did not however fully answer the expectations of the audience. At the conclusion of the Entertainment a general scene of disorder ensued; which however, soon quelled and the performance was suffered to go on.⁶⁸

The show began at seven with a long and witty exordium by Foote. He explained that he called his entertainment a “primitive puppet show” because he intended to restore this ancient form of theatre to the honor and influence it had during the days of the Roman Empire. This was a dig at the Methodists who claimed for themselves the principles of early Christianity. In praising the Roman Empire, Foote also condemned the church which so debased the art “that it escaped the jealous and prying eyes of that minister,⁶⁹ who, under the pretence of reformation, had laid every other theatrical representation under severest restraint.”⁷⁰ Foote then assured his audience that his puppets, made of native English wood, were best suited to portray the characters of that country:

We have modern patriots made from the box, it is a wood that carries an imposing gloss, and may be easily turned; for constant lovers, we have the circling ivy, crabstocks for old maids, and weeping willows for Methodist preachers: for modish wives, we have the brittle poplar; their husbands we shall give you in hornbeam: for the serenity of philosophic unimpassioned tragedy, we have frigid actors hewn out of petrified blocks; and a Theatrical manager upon stilts made out of the mulberry tree; for incorrigible poets, we have plenty of birch; and thorns for fraudulent bankrupts, directors, and nabobs; for conjugal virtue, we have the fruitful, the unfading olive; and for public spirit, that lord of the forest, the majestic oak. Of such materials, gentlemen, are our performers composed.⁷¹

Foote, however, did not forget his original motive of revenging himself upon the winter houses. His real aim, as he made clear in concluding the exordium, was to mock the present mode of sentimentalism which had so sunk English drama that the plots were no better than those in puppet shows, and the acting was so stiff that wooden puppets could be used to better advantage than the real actors who merely imitated them.

The curtain then rose, and a puppet, declaring himself to be a sapling, gave a prologue recounting his varied history as a piece of wood and concluded that in his present state, he stood as a cudgel for the follies of the age.⁷² The puppet show, a parody of Richardson's Pamela, then began. Squire Booby has designs on his servant girl, Polly, and has persuaded her to accompany him to London. Thomas, the butler, loves Polly and warns her of the squire's real intentions. The squire at first is angered at Thomas' interference, but upon reflection, and shamed by Polly's chaste refusal, he offers marriage to the girl instead. Though she loves the squire, Polly gives her hand to Thomas out of gratitude. Ennobled by such an example, the squire offers to settle a ten pound legacy on them. Polly then comes to the conclusion that she can't marry one without making the other miserable so she resolves, finally, to remain a spinster.⁷³ Foote then concluded his show with a skit that was very like his Trial of Samuel Foote. He and his puppets are arrested for vagrancy, but they are eventually released because the learned court is unable to classify Foote as man or puppet. The judges finally decide that they must wait until they can catch his body without his leg or his leg without the body.⁷⁴

At the end of the skit the audience seated in the upper gallery refused to march out to the music. Angered by the short two-hour presentation, the delicate use of puppets when they hoped for a rough and tumble Punch and Judy show, and by the fact that the upper gallery did not allow them a full view of the stage, they began to riot. Foote, to save his theatre, tried to pacify the audience by apologizing for his poor fare and by assuring them that he would make changes that would satisfy them. Those in the boxes left quietly, but some people in the gallery tore up a few benches and a few in the pit broke down the orchestra before they were satisfied they had gotten their money's worth.⁷⁵

Foote was but little daunted at this near catastrophe. Cradock, whose Zobeide had been mocked by Foote for being sentimental, gleefully told him after the performance, “I hear you have burnt your fingers.” Singed them a little,” admitted Foote, “but if we do not take liberties with our friends, with whom can we take liberties?”⁷⁶ Apparently still undiscouraged, Foote began to give morning “rehearsals” of his altered production. After three mornings of alterations before a paying audience, Foote decided to chance an evening production once more on March 6.⁷⁷ This time, two songs by Mrs. Jewel were added, and, to propitiate the galleries, Punch was introduced in a tête-à-tête with Foote. After mocking the state of the theatre, Punch, played by Hutton, asked Foote for a job and mimicked many of the well-known actors to prove his abilities. When Foote agreed to hire him, Punch insisted that his wife, Joan, be hired as well. Foote's refusal, couched in Garrick's familiar circuitous manner, ended the performance successfully.

Foote gave the performance seventeen times and closed his theatre on April 16.⁷⁸ He had only moderate financial success, especially in comparison to his earlier entertainments, but to succeed at all after his opening performance had required great persistence and some courage. Most of the newspapers and magazines praised it as a worthy antidote to the crying comedies of Cumberland and Kelly:

The leading business of this Puppet Drama is to ridicule those dull sentimental Comedies which now set our Audiences fast asleep at both the theatres. Here is a fine Field and excellent Game; and in Truth Mr. Foote gave it the Chace with good Success; for the dialogue of the Puppets teemed with those hackneyed and disjointed Sentiments which are become so fashionable of late, and the Scene exhibited those unnatural Transitions of Passion which Mr. Cumberland had the Honour of bringing into vogue. … It teemed with keen Humour and pointed Satire, but the classic Dress which covered some Part of it, concealed it from the gross Eyes of the numerous Mob.⁷⁹

Even Garrick, once he found out that Foote merely meant to direct a few jests at him, supported the piece generously in writing to a friend who intended to see it: “I hope you will be Entertain'd to Night with Aristophanes—He is a Genius, & ought to be Encourag'd, He means Me no harm I am sure; & I hope & trust y^t you and your friends go to Support the cause, the Cause of Wit, humor, & Genius,—You can't have a better—I wish him Success from my Soul.”⁸⁰ Though the piece put Foote in the forefront of those who fought the sentimental mode (it predated Goldsmith's She Stoops to Conquer by a month), he knew he had written no masterpiece. The exordium was clever, but the rest of the piece was too thin to bear print. Foote salvaged what he could by reducing it to an interlude for the Haymarket,⁸¹ but he never bothered to publish it.

For the 1773 season, Foote hired forty-six actors, gave fifty-eight performances at the Haymarket, and acted in forty-seven mainpieces and ten afterpieces.⁸² He also approved highly of Goldsmith's new play, She Stoops to Conquer, for he put it on for five performances (though he did not act in it)—an unusual honor that Foote had accorded to no other mainpiece but his own. Undoubtedly, its antisentimental bias was particularly appealing to him.

Foote's new piece, The Bankrupt, was written in response to a wave of business failures at the time, some of them suspected to be fraudulent. One bankruptcy in particular, that of Alexander Fordyce, was given the most publicity. Even though it was felt that Fordyce was a man of integrity, his speculations caused the failure of the banking firm of Neal, James, Fordyce, and Downs.⁸³ According to one account, Foote was fascinated by the banker's failure and attended almost every day the sale of Fordyce's personal belongings at Roehampton. Empathizing closely with the ruined man, Foote finally decided to buy one of his pillows. He needed it, he said, as a narcotic. “For if the original proprietor could sleep so soundly on it, at the time of owing so much as he did, it may be of singular service to me on many occasions.”⁸⁴

Foote's original intention in writing the play was to satirize those who use bankruptcy for self-enrichment, but he changed the character of the hero at the request of his friends so that there would be no association with Fordyce. Probably seeing bankruptcy as an all too likely fate of his own, Foote complied by making his hero, Robert Riscounter, a man of such integrity that the play was accused by critics of being overly sentimental. Actually the play is as much about the vicious rumor-mongering of the press as it is about bankruptcy. Robert Riscounter, who has just heard that he has lost his credit on the continent, has arranged a marriage between his daughter Lydia and Sir James Biddulph. Lydia's stepmother, however, wishes to marry her own daughter, Lucy, to the same man. To discredit Lydia, Mrs. Riscounter gets James, a clerk in love with Lydia, to plant a paragraph in the newspapers that hints at an affair between them. The conniving parties hope that the ruined Lydia will marry James to save her reputation and that Sir James Biddulph will marry Lucy. But true love wins out; Sir James stands firm in his affections, uncovers the plot, and exposes the culprits. And to add more joy to the oncoming marriage, Sir Robert is told that his credit was actually honored and that his estate is saved.

Though there are two humorous and satiric scenes in the play, one satirizing two thieving attorneys who wish Sir Robert to declare bankruptcy and one that mocks newspapers that deal in scandal and innuendo, much of the dialogue is sentimental. In his new-found mellowness, Foote took off only one person, Lord Clive, as a postscript to The Nabob. The prologue to The Bankrupt, ostensibly a comment on the play and its author, is really a clever parody of Clive's defending speech before the House of Commons on May 17.⁸⁵ The play was only a moderate financial success, and the reviews were less favorable than usual.⁸⁶ One of them stated that the play suffered because Foote's genius “rather inclines him to deviate into the extravagant and burlesque, than to trespass on the serious and sentimental.”⁸⁷ The review went on to approve of the consultation between Sir Robert and his attorneys and of the scene which mocked the newspapers.

In November Foote left London for an appearance on the Dublin stage. He had previously made arrangements with Thomas Ryder to present some of his plays with the Dublin company. He took only two actresses with him, Mrs. Williams and Mrs. Jewel as performers, and, of course, he also took with him his old friend and factotum, Jewel.⁸⁸ Foote opened with The Maid of Bath and on November 19 gave The Nabob with a prologue written especially for the event. He congratulated the Irish citizenry for their peculiar gift of humor and gave them credit for discovering the same gift in himself. He wryly concluded by saying that though age had weakened his abilities, there were some advantages to be had in lameness and old age:

If age contracts my muscles, shrills my tone,
No man will claim these foibles as his own;
Nor, if I halt or hobble through the scene,
Malice point out what citizen I mean.(89)

Unfortunately, though Foote came to praise the Dubliners, few came to applaud him and he did not do nearly as well as he had hoped.⁹⁰

Nor was he through with his woes. In a lively letter sent to Garrick on December 31, 1773, he vividly describes his narrow escape from death:

My Dear Sir, 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 candles 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 forsee the great ends for which he was born. Macklin, though a blockhead in his manhood and youth, turns out a wit and 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. …⁹¹

Foote left for London shortly after this incident. He remained only briefly in the city and then, despite the winter season and his wooden leg, took the long trip to Edinburgh to perform for three weeks. No mention is made of this trip in any of the accounts of Foote's life, nor does Boswell, who was in Edinburgh at the time, refer in his journal to Foote's presence.⁹² However, James Dibdin claimed that Foote appeared in Edinburgh on February 11, 1774, to play in The Bankrupt and gave his last performance there on March 4,⁹³ and Henry Mackenzie, the novelist, noted in his journal that Foote “bragged of the names of his comic characters, Pepper and Plaster, the most appropriate to the characters, he said to me, that ever were invented.”⁹⁴ Though the entry is undated, this reference to the rascally attorneys in The Bankrupt supports Dibdin's information and sets the date of Foote's visit as after the summer of 1773.

As might be expected, Foote's trip to Scotland during the winter months was far from smooth. He wrote to Wilkinson of the heavy snows that stopped his coach at the “dirty, dismal and desolate” village of Moffat, a watering place twenty-seven miles southwest of Edinburgh.⁹⁵ After a week at Moffat, he was so sick of primitive outposts and the stringence of travel that he told Wilkinson he would not stay at Edinburgh for more than three weeks, nor would he act for Wilkinson at York. “All my campaigns shall end with this place, and my future operations shall be confined to my own principality.”⁹⁶

Back in London, Foote turned his attention once more to the Haymarket to make arrangements for the summer season and to prepare a new play. Forty actors were hired, and Foote put on fifty-four performances, appearing in fifty mainpieces and ten afterpieces.⁹⁷

Foote's new piece, despite the rigors of the year, was in his best manner. The plot of The Cozeners was thin, but it was comic, unlike the sentimental framework found in The Minor, The Nabob, The Lame Lover, and to a greater extent in The Bankrupt. The play most closely resembled The Commissary in its continual parade of rogues and pigeons. The two rogues, Flaw, a lawyer, and Mrs. Fleece'em, a thief who has illegally returned from American exile, have set themselves in London “to procure posts, places, preferments of all conditions and sizes; to raise cash for the indigent, and procure good securities for such as are wealthy; suitable matches for people who want husbands and wives, and divorces for those who want to get rid of them.”⁹⁸ Their pigeons are an Irishman, who is offered the sinecure of exciseman in the American colonies; a Jew, who is assured that he will be admitted to those exclusive clubs that formerly blackballed him; Mrs. Simony, who has come seeking preferment for her preacher husband; and the Aircastle family from the country, who want a suitable heiress for their lout of a son, Toby. Fleece'em is finally exposed when Toby finds his future bride to be a Negro slave that Fleece'em had taken with her when she left the colonies.

As might be expected, there are topical references in almost every scene. Mrs. Simony, who has come with a hundred pound note in a hymn book to advance her husband, is a reference to Dr. William Dodd's wife. In the winter of 1773, Mrs. Dodd sent a letter to Lady Apsley promising £3000 down and an annuity of £500 for the living of St. George's at Hanover Square. Lady Apsley and her husband, the Chancellor, traced the anonymous note back to Dodd, a chaplain of the Magdalen Hospital in London, and informed the King, who promptly struck Dodd's name off the list. Though Dodd insisted that he did not know what his wife had done, the news of the incident had spread through town, so he moved to the continent in the hope that the tongues would stop wagging. It was during this period of voluntary exile that Foote brought out his play and defeated Dodd's purpose by reviving the incident nightly at the Haymarket.⁹⁹

In another scene Mrs. Fleece'em buys silks from a mercer and, pretending to be without money, asks the suspicious shopkeeper to come with her to her attorney's for payment. Instead, she takes him to Dr. Hellebore, who has previously been told that Fleece'em's merchant is a wealthy relative who imagines that he is a silk mercer. Of course the poor man is locked up when he begins to scream for his money. This incident was supposed to have been engineered by Mrs. Caroline Rudd, an adventuress who was in jail awaiting trial for forgery. She was acquitted on December 7, 1775, though her cohorts, the Perreaus, were hanged on January 17, 1776.¹⁰⁰

Lord Chesterfield, whose letters had come out posthumously earlier in the year, was also subject to Foote's satire, probably in retaliation for Chesterfield's encouragement of George Faulkner's libel suit when The Orators was first played in Dublin. With pious smugness Foote said that Chesterfield's letters

compriz'd a fine system of duplicity, deception, and adultery. That his Lordship, who seems to have studied the graces with great attention, has entirely forgot that they never appear so beautiful as when accompanied by virtue; that if the graces should be found in a brothel they would lose all their attractions, and that in the hot-bed of adultery they would be scorched to deformity.¹⁰¹

Foote is less didactic in this play, though his characters are lodged in a brothel, albeit mistakenly, and Mrs. Aircastle is in a fair way of committing adultery with an old flame. She is also most concerned about teaching her son Toby the value of Chesterfieldian grace:

MRS. Aircastle:
… Toby, hold up your head.
TOBY:
I does, mother, I does. …
MRS. Air.:
Shoulders back, Toby; and chest a little more out!
MR. Air.:
Now, child, look at his elbows! you have pinioned him down like a pickpocket.
MRS. Air.:
Grace, Mr. Aircastle, grace.
MR. Air.:
Grace! he has neither grace, nor grease; his breast-bone sticks out like a turkey's.
MRS. Air.:
Nothing but grace! I wish you would read some late Posthumous Letters; you would then know the true value of grace: Do you know that the only way for a young man to thrive in the world, is to get a large dish of hypocrisy, well garnished with grace, an agreeable person, and a clear patrimonial estate? … Toby, be mindful of grace! and, d'ye hear? don't laugh! you may grin, indeed, to show your teeth and your manners.(102)

The scene with the most promise of scandal occurs when Toby woos the heiress that Fleece'em has procured for him. Being of a pale complexion, poor Toby is blackened with cork so that he might be more alluring to a girl who has just come from India and is used to darker faces. All goes well until Toby lifts the blinds to show the girl his presents and is horrified to find his heiress is black. This was a hit at Charles James Fox, who, to replace the fortune he had gambled away, arranged with a marriage broker, Mrs. Grieve, to provide the heiress. Walpole tells the story best:

She [Mrs. Grieve] promised him a Miss Phipps, a West Indian fortune of £150,000. Sometimes she was not landed, sometimes had the small-pox. In the meantime, Miss Phipps did not like a black man; Celadon must powder his eyebrows. He did, and cleaned himself. A thousand Jews thought he was gone to Kingsgate to settle the payment of his debts—Oh! no, he was to meet Celia at Margate.¹⁰³

It must be admitted that some of the characters and situations in The Cozeners are derivative of those in Foote's previous plays, as Miss Belden points out.¹⁰⁴ Mrs. Fleece'em is similar to Mrs. Match'em of The Nabob and Mrs. Mechlin of The Commissary, and Foote's own role of Mr. Aircastle, a gentleman with a penchant for meandering conversations, reminds one strongly of Sir Penurius Trifle of The Knights.¹⁰⁵ The dialogue, however, was filled with humorous and satirical references to topical matters, especially incidents in the rebellious colonies in America. Fleece'em insists that her activities in Boston brought her the love of the people: “Did not my burning the first pound of souchong, and my speeches at Faneuil-hall and the Liberty-tree, against the colonies contributing to discharge a debt to which they owed their existence, procure me the love and esteem of the people?”¹⁰⁶ When the Irishman, O'Flannigan, is given his job of exciseman in the colonies, he is told by Flaw, “If you discharge well your duties, you will be found in tar and feathers for nothing.”

O'FLANN.:
Tar and feathers! and what the devil will I wid them, my dear?
FLAW:
When properly mixed, they make a genteel kind of dress, which is sometimes wore in that climate. … It is very light, keeps out the rain, and sticks extremely close to the skin.(107)

These timely remarks on the colonies in addition to the thrusts at Grieve, Dood, Rudd, Fox, Chesterfield, and others reduced considerably the chance that an audience in 1774 would judge the play as derivative or familiar. In fact, the satire remained current enough to be played nine times in 1775 and twelve times in 1776.¹⁰⁸

The years 1770 to 1774 were Foote's most productive. He wrote five plays and a puppet show in that span, and except for the latter all of his plays met with financial success, especially The Maid of Bath, The Nabob, and The Cozeners. Foote's theatre may have been an “eccentric, narrow establishment,” but it was a phenomenal achievement. One man broke the monopoly of the winter houses to gain a summer patent and then produced, directed, acted, and wrote his own plays to sustain a flourishing concern that employed forty to fifty actors and gave fifty to sixty performances from May 15 to September 15. This was a unique accomplishment in the history of the English theatre and done on one leg. But even at the height of his fame Foote could not take on fewer duties, as Garrick had done. He spent his money lavishly, living from season to season, and despite his years was forced to make tours to Dublin and Edinburgh to support his household and to have enough cash to start the new season.

The work during 1774 wearied him completely; after leaving London for Paris when the last play was done, Foote wrote to Garrick to inquire if he knew someone who might want to buy a theatre:

I am sorry I could not see you before my quitting this Country, and am more concern'd at the Cause, but as I find your gouty fit was in form, I flatter myself there will be a long parenthesis betwixt this and the next: consider:

You have no leisure to be sick
In such a Justling time.

Your opponents are numerous, and Solomon says in a multitude of Counsellors there is safety, but I should suppose his Counsellors were of a different stamp from the Congregation at Covent Garden.

There is more of prudence than pleasure in my Trip to the Continent. To tell you the truth I am tir'd with racking my brains toiling like a horse and Crossing Seas and Mountains in the most Dreary Seasons merely to pay Servants' wages and Tradesmen's Bills. I have therefore directed my friend Jewel to discharge the Lazy Vermin of my Hall, and let my Hall too if he can meet with a proper Tennant, help me to one if you can.

You need not doubt but I shall be happy to hear from you. My Epistolary Debts it will be always in my power to pay, the others I pay when I can: is it in Man to do more. With anything that France produces I shall be proud to supply you, their Diseases always excepted, tho' as to their Capital one you and I are I think at present pretty secure. Your commands will reach me by being directed to Panchaud.

I kiss Mrs. Garrick's Hands and am

Most Truly and Sincerely

Yours Sam^l Foote¹⁰⁹

Another letter sent to Garrick by one of his friends, Mrs. Henrietta Pye, confirms Foote's general unhappiness at the time, though perhaps she misinterprets its cause:

I saw Foote one evening … very much tired of Paris & all therein contained, that is to say he did not find himself at all known or taken notice of for which reason in a very few days he left it and went to seek homage at Bruxelles where I think he stands yet a worse chance than at Paris.¹¹⁰

Despite his low spirits, Foote could still rise to the occasion. When Foote was in Paris that year, he was invited to dinner at the house of the English ambassador. The host showed his guests a small bottle of Tokay and poured it into tiny glasses. He explained that the wine was of the most exquisite growth and very old. Foote stared disappointedly at his diminutive glass and sighed, “It is very little of its age.”¹¹¹ The travel helped his recuperation for he returned to London December 12 in “high spirits,”¹¹² stayed about two weeks, and then went with George Colman to continue his vacation at Bath.¹¹³

Notes

1. The Wandering Patentee, Vol. I, pp. 280-281.

2. The Letters of Edward Gibbon, ed. J. E. Norton (London, 1956), Vol. II, pp. 78-79.

3. Belden, pp. 132-136, describes a mock oratorio celebrating Wilkes' birthday, October 28, 1769, whose authorship is ascribed to Foote in the title: Wilkes: An Oratorio. As Performed at The Great Room in Bishopsgate-Street. Written by Mr. Foote. The Music by Signor Carlos Francesco Baritini, London. As Miss Belden states, it is impossible to prove or disprove. Foote's authorship, though the author meant the piece to be taken as Foote's work. In my opinion, this skit, which is in the Harvard Theatre Collection, was not written by Foote. Its tone is familiar and its intent is friendly, but Foote was not a close friend of Wilkes. In the past, Foote even had reason to be wary of him because of his close friendship and collaboration with Charles Churchill. Furthermore, Foote did not like to take sides in political controversy. When Foote was in Edinburgh, Cooke relates that some people in the audience asked Foote to imitate Wilkes. The request was refused because, as the comic explained, “as he intended to take himself off for London, in a few days, he did not choose to sup on brickbats and rotten eggs the first night of his arrival in the Metropolis.” Cooke Table-Talk, p. 30.

4. Thomas Sheridan was not a regular player in Foote's company. He played the lead in a number of plays, mostly Shakespearean, and received a percentage of the profits.

5. Stone, London Stage, Vol. III, pp. 1478 ff.

6. Town and Country Magazine, May, 1770, pp. 229-230.

7. Ibid. The Drugger's Jubilee and The Gallant Sharper, supposedly a new piece by Foote, were to have been shown that summer. Though neither play was performed, The Gallant Sharper might have been a tentative title for The Lame Lover. Macklin's Man of the World was also projected for the Haymarket that summer, but the author could not win the Lord Chamberlain's approval for the farce until 1781.

8. Town and Country Magazine, June, 1770, pp. 294-296.

9. According to Stone, London Stage, Vol. III, pp. 1551, 1904, the play was put on again only once in 1771 and twice in 1775.

10. Town and Country Magazine, July, 1770, p. 230.

11. The account of Hiffernan's quarrel with Foote is found in Boaden, I, 390-391. Foote had good reason to fear Hiffernan's threats. On January 25, 1763, Drury Lane was almost destroyed by rioters when Garrick would not take after-money. On the next day, another riot forced Garrick to yield. A month later, February 24, a similar occurrence at Covent Garden forced Beard to follow Garrick's retraction. (Letters of David Garrick, Vol. I, p. 373, nn. 1, 2.)

12. Boaden, Vol. I, pp. 391-392.

13. Letters of David Garrick, Vol. II, p. 703.

14. Wilkinson, Memoirs, Vol. III, p. 245.

15. John Jackson, The History of the Scottish Stage (Edinburgh, 1793), p. 78.

16. English Aristophanes, p. 26.

17. Stone, London Stage, Vol. III, p. 1269.

18. James C. Dibdin, Annals of the Edinburgh Stage (Edinburgh, 1888), pp. 152-153.

19. English Aristophanes, p. 26.

20. Dibdin, pp. 155-157.

21. The Letters of David Garrick, Vol. II, p. 733, n. 2.

22. Ibid., p. 733.

23. English Aristophanes, p. 27.

24. The Letters of David Garrick, Vol. III, pp. 935-936.

25. Cooke, Foote, Vol. II, pp. 214-215.

26. Luke Tyerman, Methodists (New York, 1872), Vol. II, p. 439; and Town and Country Magazine, December, 1770, p. 480.

27. Edinburgh, 1771.

28. Wilkinson, Memoirs, Vol. III, pp. 242-243

29. Ibid.

30. Richard Cumberland, The Memoirs of Richard Cumberland (London, 1807), Vol. I, 171-173.

31. Stone, London Stage, Vol. III, pp. 1549 ff. Foote appeared in a record thirteen different productions this year, eleven of them his own plays.

32. Ibid., p. 1556.

33. In Thomas Moore's Memoirs of the Rt. Honourable Richard Brinsley Sheridan (London, 1827), Vol. I, pp. 23 ff., it is stated that Long probably dropped the suit at the request of the unhappy girl and took all the blame upon himself. Moore rationalizes this implausible story by claiming that Long kept the friendship of Miss Linley and Richard Sheridan for many years after the two were married. In Walter Sichel's Sheridan, Vol. I (New York, 1909), p. 189 ff., it is pointed out that Long allowed the Linleys to keep his courting gifts (these were ridiculed by Foote in the play), and, further, settled on a payment of £3000 to Miss Linley to refrain from bringing a breach of promise suit. Though the reasons for the break are unknown, it is unlikely that Long was as altruistic as Moore claims. Both biographers feel that Long was not the villain that Foote made him out to be, but it is clear that Foote, who was at Bath during part of this time and was friendly with some of the principals involved, knew considerably more of the situation and perhaps was closer to the truth in his rendition of the story than Sheridan's biographers will allow.

34. Sichel, Vol. I, p. 189.

35. A review of the play in Town and Country Magazine, July, 1771, pp. 310-311, praises Weston's performance as Billy Button, “a smart, little, self-sufficient taylor (well known at Bath)” and mentions Peter Poultice as a celebrated Bath apothecary.”

36. Lloyd's Evening Post, June 26-28, 1771.

37. A. Sherrard, A Life of John Wilkes (New York, 1930), pp. 246-249; and Belden, pp. 142-143.

38. Foote, The Dramatic Works, Vol. III, pp. 165-166.

39. The Letters of Junius, ed. C. W. Everett (London, 1927), p. 106.

40. Town and Country Magazine, July, 1771, pp. 310-311; and see Lloyd's Evening Post, June 26-28, 1771, p. 612, and Exshaw's Magazine, July, 1771, pp. 414-415.

41. Walley C. Oulton, The History of the Theatres of London (London, 1796), Vol. I, p. i.

42. English Aristophanes, p. 26.

43. Stone, London Stage, Vol. III, pp. 1637 ff.

44. Cooke, Foote, Vol. II, pp. 75-76.

45. Askham, p. 170.

46. James Boswell, Boswell for the Defense, 1769-1774, eds. W. K. Wimsatt and E. A. Pottle (New York, 1959), p. 80.

47. Ibid., pp. 90-91.

48. Stone, London Stage, Vol. III, p. 1569.

49. English Aristophanes, p. 27.

50. Shuter played Hartop for Weston's benefit on August 10, but he did not perform again at the Haymarket that season (Stone, London Stage, Vol. III, p. 1649.)

51. Ibid., pp. 1569 ff.

52. Boswell for the Defense, p. 90.

53. W. K. Wimsatt, “Foote and a Friend of Boswell's: A Note on The Nabob,” MLN, LVII (May, 1942), 325-335.

54. Town and Country Magazine, July 1772, p. 374.

55. Foote, The Dramatic Works, Vol. III, pp. 217-218.

56. Ibid., p. 200. The tall knight was a remarkable figure. Town and Country Magazine, April, 1774, p. 179; describes him as “being about six feet four inches in height, with a longish hook nose, cheeks that have fallen in, his body somewhat resembling a waggoner's whip, and his legs so extremely taper, that it is astonishing how they support the superstructure.” Fielding also satirized him as a ludicrous carving on Joseph's cudgel in Joseph Andrews, ed. Martin C. Battestin (Boston, 1961), pp. 202, 311.

57. Ibid., pp. 225-226.

58. Walpole, Vol. XIV, p. 47; and see Vol. I, p. 265.

59. St. James Chronicle, July 9-11, 1772.

60. Cooke, Foote, Vol. I, pp. 176-182. Boaden, Vol. II, p. 41, prints a letter from George Garrick, perhaps alluding to the same incident, saying that Foote was to dine with General Smith and others, and that “Foote is afraid that they will put him in the coalhole.”

61. Oulton, Vol. I, p. 6.

62. Instead of closing at the end of May or the first day or two in June, the Drury Lane remained open until June 10 in 1772 (Stone, London Stage, Vol. III, p. 1645.)

63. The Correspondence of King George The Third from 1760 to December 1783, ed. Sir John Fortescue (London, 1927), Vol. II, pp. 395-396.

64. English Aristophanes, p. 29.

65. In July, William Kenrick, a venenous libeler and sometime dramatist, penned a vicious poem against Garrick, Love in the Suds; a Town Eclogue, Being the Lamentation of Roscius for the loss of his Nyky (London, 1772). Nyky was Isaac Bickerstaffe, the prolific balladeer and dramatist, who had been accused of homosexuality in May of that year and consequently had fled to France. Kenrick, who was later forced to make public apology under threat of a lawsuit, implied that Roscius was a lover of Nyky, and in one humorous section (p. 19), Roscius declaims against Foote in words that Garrick must have thought silently to himself on many occasions:

    Curse on that Foote; who in an ill-fated hour
    Turn'd on the heels of my theatric-power
    Who, ever ready with some biting joke,
    My peace hath long and would my heart have broke.
    Curse on his horse—one leg! but ONE to break!
    “A kingdom for a horse”—to break his neck!

66. Foote, pp. 263-264.

67. The Letters of David Garrick, Vol. II, pp. 835-836.

68. Gentleman's Magazine, February, 1773, p. 101.

69. This is a reference to John Wesley, who, like Whitefield, strongly denounced theatrical presentations.

70. Oulton, Vol. II, p. 15.

71. Ibid., p. 20.

72. Baker, D. E., Biographica Dramatica, Vol. III, p. 154.

73. The piece has never been printed, but an MS of this skit is in the Huntington Library. The exordium and other parts of the show are never given in their complete state in the contemporary accounts.

74. Baker, D. E., Biographica Dramatica, Vol. III, p. 154.

75. Ibid., p. 155.

76. Cradock, Vol. I, pp. 34-35.

77. Stone, London Stage, Vol. III, p. 1700. Maria Macklin wrote her father that “Foote's Rary Shew has been rehears'd three mornings—but he has got no money, so he shows off again at night instead—but it does not fill violently.”

78. Genest, Vol. IV, p. 374.

79. St. James's Chronicle, February 13-16, 1773; also see the two issues of Town and Country Magazine, February and March, 1773.

80. The Letters of David Garrick, Vol. II, p. 855. Fanny Burney reports in The Early Diary of Francis Burney, 1768-1778, ed. Annie R. Ellis (London, 1913), Vol. II, pp. 279-280, that Charlotte Burney went to the Haymarket in June 1777, where Piety in Pattens was given as an afterpiece and saw Garrick in the audience laughing “as much as he could have done at the most excellent piece in the world.”

81. It was given twenty-one performances at the Haymarket from 1773-1776 (Stone, London Stage, Vol. III, pp. 1737 ff.).

82. Ibid., pp. 1735 ff.

83. Belden, p. 157.

84. Cooke, Table-Talk, p. 23.

85. Belden, pp. 158-159, compares the two speeches.

86. Westminster Magazine, July, 1773, wrote that the satire on the venality of the press was not as successful as the rest of the play; but perhaps that comment exposes the magazine more than it does Foote's play.

87. Monthly Review, July, 1776, p. 67.

88. Hitchcock, Vol. II, pp. 238-239.

89. Foote, The Dramatic Works, Vol. III, p. 184.

90. Exshaw's Magazine, February, 1774, p. 76, claimed that Foote met with great success and was held over by the managers. As will be discussed below, there is good reason to believe that Foote was not held over, and that the magazine exaggerated Foote's success. In Hitchcock, Vol. II, pp. 238-239, and Thomas Snagg, Recollections of Occurrences, The Memoirs of Thomas Snagg, ed. Harold Harrison (London, 1951), p. 93, it is stated that Foote's tour was not the success that Foote expected.

91. Forster, pp. 446-447. Foote also wrote in this letter that “at this season the winds are so variable, that I may possibly see you before you can acquaint me with this reaching your hands.”

92. Boswell for the Defense, 1769-1774, p. 198. In an entry dated December 3, 1774, p. 42, Boswell wrote that he “dined at Fortune's with the Stoic Club, a society begun by Foote.” Foote may have founded the club during his last visit in February, 1774.

93. Dibdin, Annals of the Edinburgh Stage, p. 163. Dibdin also states that Foote received £250 for seven nights' work, though Foote probably acted more than seven times during his stay.

94. The Anecdotes and Egotisms of Henry Mackenzie, ed. Harold W. Thompson (Oxford, 1927), p. 197.

95. David M'Culloch of Ardwall wrote a short account of Foote's enforced stay that was reprinted in the Gallovidian, XVII (1919), 159-161. According to him, Foote kept in good humor despite the circumstances.

96. Wilkinson, Memoirs, Vol. IV, pp. 246-247. This letter is dated February 16, but it does not have the year. It is evident that the year could not be 1771, the only other possibility besides 1774, because in 1770 Foote set out in October when traveling weather was still good, and he stayed in Edinburgh for three months, not the three weeks he actually did stay in 1774. Furthermore, M'Culloch (see above note), though he did not give the year or exact time of Foote's mishap, gives the month as early January. This was an impossibility in 1771, for at that time Foote had been performing in Edinburgh since November, 1770.

97. Stone, London Stage, Vol. III, pp. 1822 ff.

98. Foote, The Dramatic Works, Vol. III, p. 309.

99. Belden, pp. 163-165; and Town and Country Magazine, July, 1777, pp. 372-377. Dodd was later hanged on June 27, 1777, for forgery despite Johnson's generous efforts to get him a remission. (Life, Vol. III, pp. 139, 144, 145, 147.)

100. James Boswell, The Ominous Years, 1774-1776, edd. Charles Ryskamp and Frederick A. Pottle (New York, 1963), pp. 352-361. Also see Belden, pp. 162-163.

101. Town and Country Magazine, November, 1777, p. 600.

102. Foote, The Dramatic Works, Vol. III, pp. 334-336.

103. Walpole, Vol. XXXII, pp. 162-163.

104. Belden, pp. 159-160.

105. Belden, p. 160, states that Mr. Aircastle was a takeoff of a Mr. Gahagan, a man who wrote a well organized and stringently critical account of Foote which was printed in Boaden's Memoirs of Mrs. Siddons (Philadelphia, 1827), pp. 31 ff.

106. Foote, The Dramatic Works, Vol. III, p. 308.

107. Ibid., pp. 315-316.

108. Stone, London Stage, Vol. III, pp. 1895 ff.

109. A.L.S. in Victoria and Albert Museum. This letter is partially quoted by Boaden, Private Correspondence, Vol. II, pp. 5-6.

110. A.L.S. in Garrick Correspondence, IV, no. 34, Folger Shakespeare Library. The letter is dated November 21, 1774.

111. Cooke, Table-Talk, p. 3.

112. Letters of David Garrick, Vol. III, p. 971.

113. Gibbon, Vol. II, p. 49.

Bibliography

Askham, Francis. The Gay Delavals. New York, 1955.

Asmodeus. London, 1776.

Baine, James. The Theatre Licentious and Perverted … Partly Occasioned by the acting of a comedy entitled, The Minor. Edinburgh, 1770.

Baker, D. E., I. Reed, and S. Jones, edd. Biographical Dramatica; or a Companion to the Playhouse. 3 vols. London, 1812.

Belden, Mary M. The Dramatic Work of Samuel Foote. New Haven, 1929.

Boaden, James. Memoirs of Mrs. Siddons. 2 vols. London, 1827.

———, ed. Private Correspondence of David Garrick. 2 vols. London, 1831-32.

Boswell, James. Boswell for the Defense, 1769-1774, edd. W. K. Wimsatt and F. A. Pottle. New York, 1959.

———. The Life of Samuel Johnson, L.L.D., ed. G. B. Hill, rev. L. F. Powell. 6 vols. Oxford, 1934-50, 64.

———. The Ominous Years, 1774-1776, edd. C. Ryskamp and F. A. Pottle. New York, 1963.

Burney, Francis. The Early Diary of Francis Burney, ed. A. R. Ellis. 2 vols. London, 1913.

Chesterfield, Philip Dormer Stanhope, Fourth Earl of. The Letters of Philip Dormer Stanhope, ed. Bonamy Dobree. 6 vols. London, 1932.

Cooke, William. Memoirs of Samuel Foote Esq. 3 vols. London, 1805.

———. The Table-Talk and Bon-Mots of Samuel Foote. New Southgate, 1889.

Cradock, Joseph. Literary and Miscellaneous Memoirs. 4 vols. London, 1828.

Cumberland, Richard. Memoirs of Richard Cumberland. Written by Himself. 2 vols. London, 1807.

Dibdin, James C. The Annals of the Edinburgh Stage. Edinburgh, 1888.

Fielding, Henry. Joseph Andrews, ed. Martin C. Battestin. Boston, 1961.

Foote, Samuel. Apology for the Minor. In a Letter to the Rev. Mr. Baine. Edinburgh, 1771.

———. The Dramatic Works of Samuel Foote. 4 vols. London, n.d. [ca. 1778].

———. The Dramatic Works of Samuel Foote, With Remarks on each Play and an Essay on the Life, Genius, and Writings of the Author, ed. Jon Bee [pseud. for John Badcock.] 3 vols. London, 1830.

Forster, John. Biographical Essays. London, 1860.

Garrick, David. The Letters of David Garrick, edd. David Little and George Kahrl. 3 vols. Cambridge, Mass., 1963.

———. Some Unpublished Correspondence of David Garrick, ed. George P. Baker. Boston, 1907.

Genest, John. Some Account of the English Stage from the Restoration in 1660 to 1830. 10 vols. Bath, 1832.

George The Third, King. The Correspondence of King George The Third from 1760 to December 1783, ed. Sir John Fortescue. 6 vols. London, 1927.

Gibbon, Edward. The Letters of Edward Gibbon, ed. J. E. Norton. 3 vols. London, 1956.

Hitchcock, Robert. An Historical View of the Irish Stage. 2 vols. Dublin, 1788.

Jackson, John. The History of the Scottish Stage, from its First Establishment to the Present Times. Edinburgh, 1793.

Junius. The Letters of Junius, ed. C. W. Everett. London, 1927.

Kenrick, William. Love in the Suds; a Town Eclogue, Being the Lamentation of Roscius for the loss of his Nyky. London, 1772.

The London Stage 1660-1800, Pts. 3, 4, and 5, ed. Arthur H. Scouten and George Winchester Stone, Jr., Charles B. Hagan, 2, 3 and 2 vols. respectively. Carbondale, Ill., 1961, 1962, 1969. Carbondale, Ill., 1961, 1962.

Mackenzie, Henry. The Anecdotes and Egotisms of Henry Mackenzie, ed. Harold W. Thompson. Oxford, 1927.

M'Culloch, David. Gallovidian. XVII (1919), 159-161.

Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Samuel Foote Esq., the English Aristophanes: To Which are added the Bon-mots, Repartees, and Good Things Said by that Great Wit and Excentrical Genius. … London, 1777.

Moore, Thomas. Memoirs of the Rt. Honourable Richard Brinsley Sheridan. 2 vols. London, 1827.

Oulton, Walley C. The History of the Theatres of London. 2 vols. London, 1796.

Sherrard, O. A. A Life of John Wilkes. New York, 1930.

Sichel, Walter. Sheridan. 2 vols. New York, 1909.

Snagg, Thomas. Recollections of Occurrences, The Memoirs of Thomas Snagg, ed. Harold Halison. London, 1951.

Tyerman, Luke. The Life and Times of the Reverend George Whitefield, B.A. of Pembroke College, Oxford. 2 vols. New York, 1877.

Walpole, Horace. The Yale Edition of Horace Walpole's Correspondence, ed. W. S. Lewis. Vols. 1-22, 28-29. New Haven, 1937.

Wilkes: An Oratorio. As Performed at The Great Room in Bishopsgate-Street. Written by Mr. Foote. The Music by Signor Carlos Francesco Baritini. London, 1769.

Wilkinson, Tate. Memoirs of His Own Life. 4 vols. York, 1790.

———. The Wandering Patentee. 4 vols. York, 1795.

Wimsatt, W. K. “Foote and a Friend of Boswell's: A Note on The Nabob.” MLN, LVII (May, 1942), 325-335.