In 1737, he was entered at Worcester College, Oxford, which had been in 1714 founded anew by a connexion of the Foote family,[133] and worked tolerably hard, acquiring considerable proficiency in the lighter classical authors; but his chief delight lay in caricaturing the Provost, Dr. Gower, and in playing tricks upon him and the verger of the College Chapel. One of these tricks consisted in tying a wisp of hay to the bell-rope which hung outside the chapel, in a lane down which certain cows went to grass. The cows naturally snatched at the tempting morsel, and rung the bell in a most weird manner, to the alarm of the authorities, who determined on sitting up to watch the rope one night in order to discover the author of the trick played upon them. Another of Foote's Oxford freaks is recorded by Murphy, who says that whilst at Oxford the future player and dramatist acted in the part of Punch.
Shortly after he came of age, which was in 1741, he was entered at the Inner Temple, where he distinguished himself chiefly by the magnificence of his chambers, and by the smartness of his oral criticisms on the actors of the day, when discussing their merits and their faults with other sparks and critics at the Grecian, in Devereux Court, or at the Bedford Coffee-house in Covent Garden. The dry study of the law had little or no attraction for our volatile hero; and Dr. Barrowby (the friend and adviser of Macklin in his controversy with Foote's chief rival, Garrick[134]) has thus sketched the Truro youngster for us at this period of his life. One evening, says he, I saw a young man extravagantly dressed out in a frock-suit of green and silver lace, bag-wig, sword, bouquet, and point ruffles, enter the room,[135] and immediately join the circle at the upper end. Nobody recognised him; but such was the ease of his bearing, and the point and humour of remark with which he at once took part in the conversation, that his presence seemed to disconcert no one, and a sort of pleased buzz of 'Who is he?' was still going round the room unanswered, when a handsome carriage stopped at the door, and the servants announced that his name was Foote, that he was a young gentleman of family and fortune, a student of the Inner Temple, and that the carriage had called for him on its way to the assembly of a lady of fashion. Vanity was indeed to the last one of Foote's besetting sins, and he could not shake it off, even on the stage; for he was very greedy of applause, and often sacrificed his fellow-actors performances to his own ends. 'Fine feathers, however, do not make fine birds;' and Foote must have relied a great deal on the skill of his tailor; for he was in person rather short and stout—exactly like his mother—and his features were plain and coarse. Yet, his arch smile and merry eye, preserved to us in his likeness, when fifty years old, by Colson (engraved by Caroline Watson), redeemed his otherwise commonplace visage, and made him, on the whole, not an unattractive-looking person. Zoffani also painted two admirable portraits of him, in character; but the best is that by Sir Joshua, now at the Garrick Club, painted about the year 1760, when Foote was forty years of age.
Two of Foote's 'three fortunes' came chiefly through his mother, who succeeded to the Goodere family property, said to have been worth about £5,000 a year, in a most strange and tragic manner; but he also inherited some property left by his father. Mrs. Foote's elder brother Sir John, a man of weak intellect, was entrapped on board his brother Samuel's ship, the Ruby, in Bristol Roads, and was then and there strangled by him—a crime for which the younger Goodere was deservedly hanged.[136] Foote, at that time in terrible pecuniary straits—in fact, literally a stockingless Foote, as he himself would perhaps have said—wrote, for £20, a pamphlet, describing the murder, and endeavouring, but vainly, to exculpate his uncle and namesake. It was published anonymously in April, 1741.
With so much wealth and popularity as he had even thus early acquired, it is wonderful that Foote continued his legal studies for so long a period as three years; but, in fact, he can hardly be said to have done this, for he had already begun to earn money by his pen (chiefly by writing a few pamphlets), having contrived in a couple of years, like the prodigal of old, to 'waste all his substance in riotous living,' and to fall into sad straits.
Accordingly, his connexion with the stage, to which he seems to have been introduced by some excellent amateur actors, his valued friends the Delaines, now commenced, in 1743, by his taking a share with his friend Macklin in the wooden theatre in the Haymarket, known as 'The Little' or 'Summer Theatre,' and 'The Hay'—the laudable and distinguishing feature of the performances being a natural mode of elocution and gesture, as contra-distinguished from the stilted and drawling sing-song style then in vogue (from which Foote used to think Garrick himself was not entirely free), and at least an attempt to dress the characters in something like correct costume. And here it may be convenient to observe that the title of the 'English Aristophanes,' by which Foote came to be generally known, is not altogether applicable to him. Foote could lay small claim to Aristophanes' genius as a poet; whilst, on the other hand, he never libelled his country or his gods, as did the illustrious Greek.
With that strange infatuation which induces so many born comic actors to fancy themselves tragedians, he made his début as a paid actor at the above theatre on 6th February, 1744, as Othello; the performance was, as might have been expected, an utter failure, as were likewise his attempts at Shylock[137] and Pierre on other occasions. The same may be said of his essay at genteel comedy as Lord Foppington, in 'The Relapse.' But in the following winter he found his true line, and appeared at Drury Lane in the characters of Sir Paul Pliant, Fondlewife, and Bayes; in all of which (especially in the latter) he succeeded admirably, and his success determined his career as that of a comic player and writer.
His first piece, 'The Diversions of a Morning,' in which he himself played the part of Puzzle (intended for Macklin[138]), was brought out at the Haymarket in the spring of 1747; but the satire was so keenly felt by many of the persons represented, mostly prominent actors of the day, that, at their instance, the magistrates withdrew Foote's license, and he adopted an expedient which it is said had also been employed by Garrick at the Goodman's Fields Theatre, of evading the interdict of the justices by inviting his friends to 'drink tea' with him 'at playhouse prices,' and entertaining his audience with 'The Diversions of a Morning' whilst tea was getting ready,—a 'tea' which never appeared.
This venture had what was then considered the long run of forty representations; in fact, 'to drink a dish of tea with Mr. Foote' became the rage of the season. It was succeeded by a somewhat similar performance entitled 'An Auction of Pictures,'[139] in which Foote 'knocked down' sundry worthless persons of the day at ruinous prices, contriving that the stage company of purchasers should make satirical observations on the subjects of the pictures. Peter Aretine, 'the Scourge of Princes,' says Davies, was not more dreaded than Foote had now become; and in this piece the satire was again so biting that Foote made many enemies, for there was somewhat of a vindictive character in his vein. Yet, notwithstanding, perhaps partly in consequence of, the coarse and furious lampoons with which he was assailed, and of which notable specimens will be found in Churchill's 'Rosciad,' and in Chetwood's 'General History of the Stage,' the town continued to run after and applaud him. And here it may be added that Polwhele records how Foote's address and politeness had a similar soothing effect upon two gentlemen who called to cudgel him for caricaturing them, to that which Incledon's singing had on a somewhat similar occasion.
The same season saw the production of 'The Knights,' in which Foote introduces the character of Timothy, who speaks in the Cornish dialect; the performance of this part by a Mr. Castallo was warmly applauded. Foster says of this piece that 'it is the first sprightly running of a wit which to the last retained its sparkle and clearness; that its flow of dialogue is exquisitely neat, natural, and easy; and that its expression is always terse and characteristic.'
About this time, 1748, he got another windfall of money from the Goodere estates; and, not warned by the misery and poverty to which his previous recklessness and extravagance had reduced him, again went on in his old way, now setting up his carriage with the motto 'Iterum, iterum, iterumque,' on its panels, in allusion to his having been left a third fortune. The story goes that the only attempt that Foote ever made to regulate his money matters was to keep one paying and one receiving pocket. Four years of fast living in France dissipated nearly all his money, and the year 1752 witnessed his return to London, confuting by his arrival all sorts of rumours which had been circulated as to his death by many who had felt the sting of his whip, and who doubtless were believing, because they hoped, the rumours true. To these Foote alludes in the prologue (said to have been written by Garrick) to 'The Englishman at Paris'—his next production.