A cry of pain was wrung from him. He offered to suppress the scenes that had given offence, if the Duchess would give directions that the newspaper attacks should not continue. This, it is true, was after the visit of one of her friends, a member of the Privy Council, who had eagerly interceded for her: but in whatever way elicited, it presented itself as a triumph, and so she treated it.' She rejected his offer with contempt, and called him not mony, opposed to Lord Mountstuart's, could by no means be implicitly accepted. To this Garrick refers in a letter to Colman. (Ibid.) "Not"withstanding Foster's oath, Foote "has thrown the Duchess upon her "back, and there has left her, as you or I would do. She is sick, "and has given up the cause, and "has made herself very ridiculous, "and hurt herself much in the struggle. Foote's letter is one of "his best things, in his best manner." 1 I subjoin the two letters that followed; and if Foote's is truly to be called a masterpiece of wit, of irony, and of matchless satire, that of the Duchess may be held not less supreme in foulness of allusion and cool impudence of assumption. For can publish or suppress it as best "suits the needy convenience of your 66 purse. You first had the cowardly "baseness to draw the sword; and "if I sheath it until I make you "crouch like the subservient vassal as you are, then is there not spirit "in an injured woman, nor meanness "in a slanderous Buffoon. "To a man my sex alone would "have screened me from attack-but "I am writing to the descendant of a Merry-Andrew, and prostitute "the term of manhood by applying "it to Mr. Foote. only a base coward and a slanderous buffoon, a merryandrew and a theatrical assassin, but struck at him with even fouler and more terrible imputations. Walpole has grace to have answered my letter "before dinner, or at least postponed "it to the cool hour of the morning; "you would then have found that I "had voluntarily granted that re"quest, which you had endeavoured, by so many different ways, to "obtain. your "Lord Mountstuart, for whose "amiable qualities I have the highest "respect, and whose name "agents first very unnecessarily pro"duced to the public, must recollect, "when I had the honour to meet him "at Kingston-house by your grace's "appointment, that instead of beg"ging relief from your charity, I "rejected your splendid offers to "" suppress the Trip to Calais, with "the contempt they deserved. In"deed, madam, the humanity of my "royal and benevolent master, and "the public protection, have placed "me much above the reach of your "bounty. "But why, madam, put on your "coat of mail against me? I have "no hostile intentions. Folly, not "Vice, is the game I pursue. In "those scenes which you so unac"countably apply to yourself, you "The progenitors your grace has done me the honour to give me are, "I presume, merely metaphorical "persons, and to be considered as "the authors of my muse, and not "of my manhood. A Merry-Andrew "and a prostitute are not bad poetical "parents, especially for a writer of "plays: the first to give the humour "and mirth, the last to furnish the graces and powers of attraction. "Prostitutes, and players too, must "live by pleasing the public; not "but your grace may have heard of "ladies who, by private practice, "have accumulated great fortunes. "If you mean that I really owe "my birth to that pleasant connexion, "your grace is grossly deceived. My "father was, in truth, a very useful "magistrate and respectable country "gentleman, as the whole county of "Cornwall will tell you: my mother, "the daughter of Sir Edward Goodere, "baronet, who represented the county "of Hereford. Her fortune was large, "and her morals irreproachable, till "your grace condescended to stain "them. She was upwards of four score years old when she died; and, "what will surprise your grace, was never married but once in her life. "I am obliged to your grace for "your intended present on the day, as you politely express it, when I "am to be turned off.-But where "will your grace get the Cupid to "bring me the lip salve? That described her letter and its sequel. "Drunk with triumph "she would give the mortal blow with her own hand, but, "as the instrument she chose was a goose-quill, the stroke "recoiled on herself. She wrote a letter in the Erening "Post which not the lowest of her class, who tramp in "pattens, would have set her mark to. Billingsgate from a "Ducal coronet was inviting; however, Foote, with all the "delicacy she ought to have used, replied only with wit, "irony, and confounding satire. The Pope will not "be able to wash out the spots with all the holy water in "the Tiber. I imagine she will escape a trial, but Foote "has given her the coup de grace." Soon after he wrote to Mason, "What a chef-d'œuvre is Foote's answer!" to which Mason responds, "I agree with you in thinking "Foote's answer one of the very best things in the Eng"lish language, and prefer it in its kind: Mr. Pope's "letter to Lord Hervey is nothing to it." "The Duchess "is a clever sort of woman," said a country squire who had received some services from her, "but she was never 66 so much out in her life as when she ventured to write a "letter to Mr. Foote." "She was resolved to have a new kick," said Hoadly, who, though no friend of Foote's, cannot but add his tribute to the general feeling, "and he "has given it to her to the purpose." 66 Masterly and complete as the answer was, however, it was written with an aching heart. Openly Foote would not now shrink, but her stab was rankling in him. She did not escape her trial. She was arraigned for bigamy before her peers, was convicted, was stripped of her title of Duchess, and, as Dunning threatened her, might have been burnt in the hand, but that meanwhile the death of her first husband's brother, Lord Bristol, had given her still the right to that privilege of peerage she claimed, and which, enabling her to leave the court punished only by a lower step in the rank of nobility, left the record of those portentous proceedings, partly a State Trial and partly a History of Moll Flanders, to carry its traits of dignified morality and justice down to succeeding generations. But though her trial was thus over, Foote's was but to begin. He resolved to drag forth the secret libeller and fight the matter out with him. He recast the Trip to Calais; struck out Lady Kitty Crocodile; put in, under the guise of a low Irish pimp and pander whom he called Dr. Viper, his hidden slanderer Dr. Jackson; and announced the first night of the Capuchin. The comedy was played at the Haymarket a few months after the Kingston trial, when Foote played Dr. Viper, and threw into it his bitterest pungency of manner as well as words. It was successful, yet with a difference from old successes. The house was packed with enemies; and though the friends were strong enough to carry it against opposition, the opposition was also strong enough still to make itself heard. It was full of "good strokes," says one who was present, but they did not tell as usual. Jackson's libels had not been without their effect even within the walls of the Haymarket. "There was great "applause, but rather more disapprobation," says Miss Wilkes, when she saw it some nights after the first.' Nevertheless it continued to be acted until the theatre closed. Jackson had meanwhile resolved that if possible the theatre never should re-open, and he took his measures accordingly. Such was the character of the libels against Foote, and their inveterate frequency between the closing of that season and the opening of the next, that it soon became obvious the matter could not rest where it was. The impression became general that, without first applying 1 Letters of Wilkes, ii. 253. authorised means to arrest the calumny, the Haymarket must remain shut. Notices to this effect appeared in respectable journals. But, whatever Foote may have felt, his attitude betrayed no discomposure. He took no public notice of the rumours. His advertisements appeared as usual, only a little later; and at the close of May he opened his season of 1776 with the Bankrupt. house was crammed, men of rank and men of letters were in all parts of the theatre, and something too evidently was expected. It broke out as soon as Foote appeared, when such was the reception given him by a small knot of people stationed in the gallery that all the ladies present in the boxes immediately withdrew. But even then he showed no lack of courage; and the spirit and feeling with which he at once stepped forward and addressed the audience, produced a sudden revulsion in his favour among those who before had shown indifference. He appealed to their humanity and justice. summoned his libeller into the Court of King's Bench, and that very day the rule had been made absolute. Were they not too noble and too just to discard an old servant, without giving him time to prove that he had never been unworthy of their favour, and would never disgrace their protection? The comedy was permitted to proceed, and a riot was not again attempted. He had But Jackson had not yet thrown his last stake. He had hardly been convicted as a libeller in the highest common-law court, and publicly dismissed from the paper which had to make a formal apology for his libel, when there appeared suddenly at Bow-street a discarded coachman of Foote's, a fellow of the worst character, and branded by the subsequent proceedings with unspeakable infamy, who preferred a charge against his late master giving open, confessed, and distinct form to all the unspeakable rumours for which Jackson had been convicted. We spare the reader the miserable detail.' For months Foote 1 An unpublished letter of Foote's to Garrick is before me endorsed by VOL. II. the latter "Foote's letter to me about "the Footman." Garrick had been U |