Foote

Foote, Samuel (1720-1777), an English actor and dramatist, was born at Truro. He was educated at Worcester, and afterwards proceeded to Worcester College, Oxford; but, displaying there the same extravagance that marked him through life, and seems to have been hereditary, he left without a degree. He entered at the Temple, and after getting through a fortune took to the stage, where his first appearance was a failure. His further efforts as a light comedian and buffoon in a kind of society entertainment were successful. He had great powers of mimicry. Having inherited and dissipated a second fortune he went to Paris, but after two years was back in London, writing. In 1766 he lost his leg partly owing to a kind of practical joke of the Duke of York and others, and this misfortune was to his advantage, for the Duke of York obtained a valuable acting patent for him. He satirised Garrick and Johnson among others, and eventually his satire of a man named Jackson led to his being charged, by way of vengeance, with a criminal offence. He was acquitted, but the accusation broke him down, and he was starting for France in search of health, when he died at Dover. He is buried in the cloister of Westminster Abbey. His plays are now for the most part forgotten.