, esq. called the English Aristophanes, a distinguished writer and
, esq. called the English Aristophanes,
a distinguished writer and actor in comedy, was of a good
family, and born at Truro, in Cornwall, about 1720. His
father, John Foote, esq. enjoyed the offices of commissioner of the prize-office and line contract, and was finally
member of parliament for Tiverton, in Devonshire. His
mother, by an unhappy quarrel between her two brothers,
sir John Dinely Goodere, bart. and sir Samuel Goodere,
captain of the Ruby man of war, became heiress of the
Goodere family. The quarrel alluded to, after subsisting
for some years, ended in the murder of sir John by his
brother, and the subsequent execution of the latter, in
1741. Foote received his education at Worcester-college,
Oxford; and was thence removed to the Temple, as designed for the law. The dry ness and gravity of this study,
however, not suiting the vivacity and volatility of Foote' s
spirit, and his fortune, whatever it was, being soon dissipated, he left the law, and had recourse to the stage. He
appeared first in Othello; but whether he discovered that
his forte did not lie in tragedy, or that the language of
other writers would not serve sufficiently to display his humour, he soon struck out into a new and untrodden path,
by taking upon himself the double character of author and
performer. In this double capacity, in 1747, he opened
the little theatre in the Haymarket with a sort of drama of
his own, called “The Diversions of the Morning,
” This
piece was nothing more than the introduction of well-known
characters in real life; whose manner of conversing and
expressing themselves he had a most amazing talent at
imitating, copying not only the manner and voice, but in
some degree, even the persons of those he ridiculed.