A nation's taste depends on you,
Perhaps a nation's virtue too;
to which the mimic Garrick was to reply by clapping his arms, like the wings of a cock, and crowing—
Cock-a-doodle-doo!
It was with difficulty that Foote could be deterred from carrying his scheme into effect.
But, indeed, he spared no one. He had been separated practically, though not legally, from his wife, whom to his friends and acquaintances he spoke of as "the Washerwoman." She was a quiet, inoffensive, worthy woman; and his friends induced him after a while to allow her to return to his house. As it chanced, her conveyance was upset on the way, and she was thrown out and much cut and bruised in her face and person. Instead of sympathizing with her, he turned the matter into joke with his boon companions, and said, "If you want to see a map of the world, go and look at my wife's face. There is the Black Sea in her eye, the Red Sea in her gashes, and the Yellow Sea in all her bruises."
Dining once with Earl Kelly at his house at North End in the early part of the spring, his lordship, who was a bon vivant and had a very red face, apologized during dinner that he was unable to give the party cucumbers that day, as none were ripe. "Your own fault, my lord," said Foote. "Why didn't you thrust your nose into the hot-house?"
On another occasion, Foote calling on the elder Colman, the dramatist, heard him complain of want of sleep. "Read one of your own plays," said Foote.
Dining one day with Lord Stormont, he noticed the diminutive size of the decanters and glasses. His lordship boasted of the age of his wine. "Dear me," said Foote. "It is very little, considering its age."
A young parson was on his honeymoon. "I'll give you a text for your next sermon," said Foote: "Grant us thy peace so long as the moon endureth."
Some one asked Dr. Johnson whether he did not think that Foote had a singular talent for exhibiting character. "No, sir," replied the doctor. "It is not a talent, it is a vice. It is what others abstain from. His imitations are not like. He gives you something different from himself, without going into other people. He is like a painter who can draw the portrait of a man who has a wen on his face. He can give you the wen, but not the man."