On quitting the university, Foote returned for a few months to his father's house at Truro, at which period it was that a frightful tragedy occurred in his family, which he seldom spoke of afterwards, and never without the deepest emotion. We allude to the murder of his uncle Sir John Goodere, by the baronet's brother Captain Goodere, which took place about the year 1740. The parties had been dining together at a friend's house near Bristol; apparently a reconciliation—for they had been for some time on bad terms with each other, owing to certain money transactions—had been agreed to between them; but, on his return home, Sir John was waylaid, by his brother's orders, by the crew of his vessel, which lay at anchor in the roads; carried on board, and there strangled; the assassin looking on the while, and actually furnishing the rope by which the murder was perpetrated. For this atrocious deed, the Captain and his confederates, who, it appears, made no attempt at concealment, were tried at the Bristol assizes, found guilty, and hanged.
But the strangest part of this strange story remains to be told. On the night the murder was committed, Foote arrived at his father's house at Truro, and describes himself as having been kept awake for some time by the softest and sweetest strains of music he had ever heard. At first he imagined that it was a serenade got up by some of the family, by way of a welcome home; but, on looking out of his windows, could see no trace of the musicians, so was compelled to come to the conclusion that the sounds were the mere offspring of his imagination. When, however, he learned shortly afterwards that the catastrophe to which we have alluded, had occurred on the same night, and at the same hour when he had been greeted by the mysterious melody, he became, says one of his biographers, persuaded that it was a supernatural warning, and retained this impression to the last moment of his existence. Yet the man who was thus strongly susceptible of superstitious influences, and who could mistake a singing in the head, occasioned possibly by convivial indulgence, for a hint direct from heaven, was the same who overwhelmed Johnson with ridicule for believing in the Cock-lane ghost!
At the age of twenty-two, shortly after he had quitted Oxford, Foote entered the Temple; rented an expensive set of chambers; sported a dashing equipage; gave constant convivial parties; gambled—betted—aped the man of fashion and of title—in a word, distinguished himself as one of the most exquisite fops about town. In those days the fop was quite a different sort of person from what he is now. He was a wit, and very frequently a scholar; whereas he is now, in the majority of instances,—to quote Swift's pungent sarcasm,—"a mere peg whereon to hang a trim suit of clothes." The last legitimate fop, or dandy, vanished from the scene of gay life with Brummell. He was the Ultimus Romanorum.
One of Foote's most frequent places of resort was the Bedford Coffee-house, then the favourite lounge of all the aspiring wits of the day. Here Fielding, Beauclerk, Bonnell Thornton, and a host of kindred spirits, used to lay down the law to their consenting audience; and here too many of those verdicts issued which stamped the character of the "last new piece." Such desultory habits of life—to say nothing of his inveterate propensity to gambling—soon dissipated the handsome fortune which Foote had acquired by his father's death; and, at the end of three years, he was compelled to quit the law, and resort to some other means of gaining a livelihood.
From a young and enthusiastic amateur of the stage to a performer on its boards, is no unnatural transition; and we find Foote, somewhere about the year 1743, associated with his friend Macklin in the management of a wooden theatre in the Haymarket. Having a lofty notion of his tragic capabilities, he made his debut in the character of Othello; and, like Mathews, Liston, and Keeley, who began their theatrical career in the same mistaken spirit, convulsed the audience with the grotesque extravagance of his passion, and the irresistible drollery of his pathos. Finding therefore that his forte did not lie in tragedy, he next had recourse to comedy, and made a tolerable hit at Drury-lane in the parts of Sir Paul Pliant, Bayes, and Fondlewife. We have seen a portrait of him in this last character,—one of Congreve's earliest and raciest,—and, if it be at all like him, we do not wonder at his success, for his countenance is replete with the true sly, oily, hypocritical expression.
In the ear 1747, Foote produced his first piece at the Haymarket, in which he mimicked the peculiarities of several well-known actors, and, among others, Macklin. The play was successful; but its performance having been interdicted by the Westminster magistrates, Foote brought it out in a new form, under the title of "Diversions of the Morning," and issued cards of invitation to the public, requesting the honour of their company to a tea-party (at playhouse prices) at the Haymarket. The experiment was a decided hit, and was followed up next season by an "Auction of Pictures," in which the author lashed with pitiless ridicule the Virtuoso follies of the day.
Foote was now once again in possession of a handsome competency, for, in addition to the money made by his labours as an author and an actor, an unexpected legacy was left him by some branch of his mother's family. Intoxicated by his good fortune, and unwarned by experience, he resumed his old habits of extravagance; but, finding that his funds did not disappear fast enough, he accelerated their diminution by a trip to Paris, where he remained two or three years, and did not return home until he found himself, as before, reduced to his last shilling.
Immediately on his arrival in London, Foote renewed his engagement at Drury-lane, and performed the principal character in his own play of "The Knights;" but this proving less attractive than the two former ones, he abruptly quitted town, and crossed the channel to Dublin, where, in the year 1760, he brought out at the Crowstreet theatre his celebrated comedy, "The Minor." This, which was then a mere crude sketch in two acts, was unequivocally damned; but the circumstance, so far from depressing the author's spirits, only stimulated him to fresh exertions, and after mercifully revising the play, and adding a third act, he produced it at the Haymarket. His industry did not go unrewarded. The success of the comedy equalled his most sanguine expectations, being played without intermission throughout the season, to houses crammed to the very ceiling.
It is a singular fact connected with this piquant play, that its author, doubtful of its reception, sent it in MS. to the Archbishop of Canterbury, with a request that, if he found any objectionable passages, he would do him the favour to expunge them. Of course, his Grace declined all interference with such a heterodox production, observing to a friend, that if he had made the slightest alteration, the wag might possibly have published it, as "corrected and prepared for the press by the Archbishop of Canterbury!" This is as good a story as that told of Shelley, who is said to have sent a copy of his "Queen Mab" to each of the twenty-four bishops. The part which Foote played in the "Minor" was that of the notorious Mother Cole; and the Parson Squintem, to whom this exemplary specimen of womankind—as Jonathan Oldbuck would say—makes such repeated allusions, is supposed to have been the celebrated Whitfield.
"The Minor" was followed in 1762 by "The Liar," which was brought out at Covent Garden. This drama, the idea of which is borrowed from the "Menteur" of Corneille, brought full houses for the season; and was succeeded in the same year by the "Orators,"—an amusing play, but by no means one of its author's best,—in which he ridiculed Falkner, the printer of the Dublin Journal, and for which he got entangled in a tedious law-suit that was not compromised without difficulty. About this time, too, Foote, according to Boswell, announced his intention of bringing Dr. Johnson on the stage; but the threat of a public chastisement, with which "Surly Sam" threatened him, induced him to abandon his intention. "What is the price of a good thick stick?" said the Doctor on this remarkable occasion. "A shilling," replied the individual to whom he put the question. "Then go, and buy me a half-crown one; for if that rascal, Foote, persists in his attempt to mimic me, I will step from the boxes, thrash him publicly before the audience, and then make them a speech in justification of my conduct." It is almost to be regretted that the satirist gave up his design, for a capital Philippic has been thereby lost to the world.