sore necessity to live by his wits as they. And we may note there also, as one other accession its circle has just received, a manly-looking youth of pleasant aspect, with the same weakness for fine clothes as Foote himself, but with something in his face and eyes that tells of other and higher aspirations. It is poor Collins,' hardly twentyone, bent upon earning a subsistence by writing Odes, which one day he writes and the next he burns, fretting out the best part of his brief sad life, and wasting in profitless vexations what might have made him one of the greatest of English poets. In this second clearly discernible appearance of our hero, Doctor Barrowby reappears also; and Foote for once has the laugh turned somewhat against him. A remnant of his newly-wasted fortune is clinging to him still in the shape of a gold repeater, in those times something of a rarity, which he ostentatiously parades with the surprised remark, "Why, "my watch does not go!" "It soon will go," quietly says Doctor Barrowby.

Since we last looked in at the Bedford, the theatres

1 "When Mr. William Collins came "from the university, he called on "his cousin Payne, gaily dressed, and "with a feather in his hat; at which "his relation expressed surprize, and "told him his appearance was by no means that of a young man who had "not a single guinea he could call his 66 own. To raise a present subsis"tence he set about writing his Odes. 66 when, pretending he would "alter them, he got them from me, "and threw them into the fire. "was an acceptable companion every"where; and among the gentlemen "who loved him for a genius, I may "reckon the Doctors Armstrong, "Barrowby, and Hill, Messrs. Quin, "Garrick, and Foote . . . . He was "particularly noticed by the geniuses "who frequented the Bedford and "Slaughter's Coffee-houses." Letter

He

of Mr. Ragsdale (July 1783) reprinted in the Monthly Magazine, vol. xxi. A writer, now known to have been

Gilbert White of Selborne, had written a somewhat similar account to the Gentleman's Magazine for 1781. "Going to London from Oxford, he

commenced a man of the town, "spending his time in all the dissi"pation of Ranelagh, Vauxhall, and "the Playhouses; and was romantic "enough to suppose that his superior "abilities would draw the attention "of the great world, by means of "whom he was to make his fortune.. "I met him often, and remember "he lodged in a little house with a "Miss Bundy, at the corner of King's"square-court, Soho, now a ware"house." Let me direct the reader to an edition just published (1858) of this most charming poet, admirably edited, and with an agreeable and interesting Memoir by Mr. Moy Thomas. It is among the new editions of the "Aldine Poets" at present in course of careful reproduction by Messrs. Bell and Daldy.

The

have taken new importance, and the critics found fresh employment, in a stage-success without parallel within living recollection. When Foote went first to that coffeehouse, one of its habitués was a lively little man who supplied it with "red port;" with whom he formed an acquaintance; whom he then described living in Durham-yard with three quarts of vinegar in the cellar, calling himself a wine-merchant; and whom he afterwards knew living in the same locality, when Durham-yard had become the Adelphi, and the little wine-merchant one of the first men in England for princely wealth and popularity. close of 1741 saw Garrick's triumph at Goodman's-fields; and the two short years since, which had squandered Foote's fortunes, had firmly established Garrick's as the chief English actor and ornament of Drury-lane. But what the public so freely admitted, there were still critics and actors to dispute. There is no end, as Voltaire says, to the secret capacity for factions; and apart altogether from professional jealousy, when the town has nothing better to quarrel about, a success on the stage will set everybody by the ears. Very loud and violent just now, therefore, were the factions at the Bedford; and prominent was the part taken in them by Foote, and by an Irish actor whom some strength of intellect as well as many eccentricities distinguished from his fellows, already by his half-century of years (he was born before the battle of the Boyne) entitled to be called a veteran, and destined to live for more than half a century longer, but never at any time so generally successful as his particular successes might have seemed to warrant, and now not unnaturally impatient of such complete and universal favour as little Garrick had suddenly leaped into. For the truth was, that Garrick's re-introduction of the natural school had already been attempted by this Irish actor, Charles Macklin; who, undaunted by Mr. Rich's dismissal of him from the Lincoln's-inn theatre twenty years back, as far too familiar, and wanting the grand hoity-toity vein, had nevertheless steadily persisted, and at last, eight months

before Garrick appeared, had got the town with him in Shylock; but there, unhappily, had been stopped by his hard voice and his harsh face, the tones in the one like the strokes of a hammer, the lines in the other like cordage. But for the time at least, heartily as he afterwards laughed at him, Foote's sympathy went without stint to the disappointed veteran; and together they formed a strong third party among the critics, standing between the foes and friends of Garrick: maintaining that his familiarity was right, but was not familiar enough, and that he wanted the due amount of spirit and courage to take tragedy completely off the stilts. Of this view Foote became a startling and powerful exponent. It suited his sharp, shrewd style; it drew forth his easy, sarcastic humour; and, differing from Garrick only in degree, it did not preclude his expression of what he honestly felt, when it better pleased his own originality to admit that of the great little actor. And his criticism, which took more of the wide range of the world than of the limited one of books, showed one thing undoubtedly, that, reckless as this young spendthrift's career had been, his quick natural talents had protected him against its most degrading influences. His practice of vice had not obscured his discernment of it, nor his experience of folly made his sense of it less keen; and thus early he was a man of influence in the society of the day, before he had written his first farce, or even set foot upon the stage. Such critical perception as that of his Treatise on the Passions, and his Essays on Comedy' and Tragedy, could not but make him formidable.

Meanwhile graver matters became importunate with him, from which the only immediate relief seemed to lie in the direction at present most familiar to him. He had to replace the means his extravagance had wasted, and

1 His Roman and English Comedy Compared, published in 1747, is still worth reading, and among other things contained a spirited and generous notice of Hoadly's Suspicious

Husband, which he welcomed as the best comedy since the Provoked Husband, produced exactly twenty years before.

the tendency of his habits and tastes pointed to the stage. From telling shrewdly what should be done, to showing as naturally how to do it, the transition seems easy when the necessity is great; and Foote resolved to make the trial. He consulted with his friends, prominent among whom at this time were the well-known Delavals; Francis, afterwards the baronet, and his brother, Lord Delaval; to the former of whom a few years later he dedicated his first published piece, to commemorate the "generous disinter"ested friendship" of both brothers at the particular crisis of his fortune which "enlisted him in the service "of the public." They happened to be great lovers of the stage, and the help and co-operation of both confirmed his resolution. The time also peculiarly favoured it: for now occurred the dispute between the leading Drury-lane actors and Fleetwood, which ended in the violent rupture of Garrick and Macklin; when, on the former unexpectedly returning to his allegiance, the latter drew off with the best company he could get together at the moment, went to the little "wooden theatre" in the Haymarket, and threw defiance at the patentees. The licensing-act prevented his taking money at the doors, but the public were "admitted by tickets delivered by Mr. Macklin ;" and by advertising and beginning with a concert, he evaded its other provisions. Foote joined the secession, and selected Othello for his opening part.

It was the part that Farquhar tried, and failed in; it was his friend Arthur Murphy's part, when he failed; it was his friend Delaval's, on the occasion of a grand private play at Lord Mexborough's, Delaval's brother-in-law, which was afterwards repeated at Drury-lane; it was his imitator Tate Wilkinson's part, it was Barry's, it was Mossop's; and whether a man was to fail or to succeed, to plant himself on the heights of tragedy, to occupy the lesser ground of comedy, or to fall through altogether, Othello seemed still the first object of approach: though less perhaps as a main outwork of the citadel, than as offering, in the coloured face, a means of personal disguise

often welcome to a debutant. Yet with all this it appears surprising that Foote, with his keen common sense and strong feeling for the ridiculous, should have chosen it. But some degree of gravity and enthusiasm is inseparable from youth, and as the part, moreover, was one that Garrick was held to have failed in, it was a bow remaining still to bend. "Here is Pompey," cried a wit from among the audience, when the little face-blackened man entered, in a regimental suit of King George the Second's body-guard, with a flowing Ramilies wig, "but where is "the tea-tray?" Foote shares with old Quin in the fame of this celebrated joke, which was probably not without its effect in checking Garrick's re-appearance in a part, the mere colour and costume of which must have made such an object of him. The matter of dress was a point, indeed, whereon Macklin and Foote had taken special counsel. Ever since Mr. Pope had nodded approval of his Shylock's red hat, and said, "it was very laudable," Macklin had been a great stickler for costume; and the Haymarket bill, announcing for the 6th February 1744 a concert, after which Othello, Othello by a gentleman, being his first appearance on any stage," was not less careful to announce that "the character of Othello will "be new dressed after the custom of his country."

66

But the flowing eastern robe could not hide the actor's defects. Foote failed in Othello, there can be no doubt. "Not but one could discover the scholar about the young "fellow," said Macklin, “and that he perfectly knew what "the author meant; but "Nevertheless, on a reference to the bills, we find that he repeated it three times; on the 13th, 20th, and 23rd of the same month; and that on the 10th of the following month he again acted it for a benefit at Drury-lane, being there announced as "the gentleman "who lately performed it in the Haymarket." He took the same course exactly with the next part he played, that of Lord Foppington; in which he is said to have been more successful, having had hints from Cibber himself on which he whimsically improved. Nor can it be doubted