Thus Mrs. Foote, deriving under the will of her brother Sir John, became heiress to his estates.
John Foote had two sons by this lady, Samuel and Edward. The first, the subject of this memoir, was designed for the Bar; the second for the Church. This latter was a feeble-minded man, who never obtained preferment, dribbled away his fortune, and was latterly in great distress, supported by the liberality of his brother.
Foote was sent to school as a boy under the worthy Mr. Conon, head-master of Truro Grammar School. There he was initiated into Terence's plays, and in acting his part excelled all his schoolfellows, and it was in consequence of his success within this little circle that he caught his first inspiration for the stage.
One of the earliest instances of his jocularity, as practised on his own father, is related by R. Polwhele in his Traditions and Recollections. Imitating the voice of Mr. Nicholas Donnithorne, from an inner apartment where his father had supposed that gentleman was sitting, he drew his father into conversation on the subject of a family transaction between the two old gentlemen, and thus possessed himself of a secret, which, whilst it displayed his power of mimicry, justly incurred his parent's displeasure.
Mr. Polwhele says: "Those (of the inhabitants of Truro) are gone who used in his presence to arise trembling with their mirth. Conscious of some oddnesses in their appearance or character, they shrunk from his sly observation. They knew that every civility, every hospitable attention, could not save them from his satire; and, after such experience, they naturally avoided his company instead of courting it. Foote, indeed, had no restraint upon himself, with respect either to his conversation or his conduct. He was, in every sense of the word, a libertine.... He was certainly a very unamiable character. Polly Hicks, a pretty, silly, simpering girl, was dazzled by his wit. She had some property; he therefore made her his wife, but never treated her as such."
The father died soon after the establishment of his sons in their several professions; but the mother lived to the advanced age of eighty-four. W. Cooke says of her:—
"We had the pleasure of dining with her, in company with a granddaughter of hers, at a barrister's chambers in Gray's Inn, when she was at the age of seventy-nine; and although she had full sixty steps to ascend before she reached the drawing-room, she did it without the help of a cane, and with all the activity of a woman of forty.
"Her manners and conversation were of the same cast—witty, humorous, and convivial; and though her remarks occasionally (considering her age and sex) rather strayed beyond the limits of becoming mirth, she, on the whole, delighted everybody, and was confessedly the heroine of that day's party.