of many of those old curmudgeons who, about the middle of the last century-the period of Anglo-Indian prosperity-returned with dried livers from the East, rich as Chartres, and equally profligate; and the last, on the crazy commercial speculations of the day. The sketch of Sir Robert Riscounter in the " Bankrupt" is supposed to have been meant for the well-known Sir George Fordyce, who failed, in the year 1772, for an almost unparalleled amount. Of these two plays, the "Nabob" is the most carefully finished; but its breadth and grossness must ever prevent its revival.

In 1774 came out the "Cozeners," a pungent satire on the venal politicians of the day. The corruption which had been sanctioned and made systematic by Walpole and the Pelhams, was then in the full vigour of its rank luxuriance; every man had his price; never therefore was satire better applied than this of Foote's. The "Mrs. Fleec'em" of the "Cozeners," a lady of accommodating virtue, and somewhat relaxed in her notions of meum and tuum, was intended for the notorious Mrs. Catherine Rudd, who, after inducing the two brothers (Perreau) to commit forgery, gave evidence against them, on the strength of which they were hanged. Yet this creature, tainted as she was with the foulest moral leprosy, was admitted into the best society, and died at a good old age with the character of a discreet, respectable matron!

We come now to Foote's last production. In the year 1775, the famous Duchess of Kingston was tried before the House of Lords for bigamy, and found guilty. Her case excited extraordinary interest throughout the country; availing himself of which, Foote introduced her in the "Trip to Calais" under the character of Lady Kitty Crocodile, which coming to her Grace's ears, she procured its prohibition by the Lord Chamberlain, and, not content with this measure of retaliation, got up through her minions of the press, of whom she had numbers in her pay, a charge against Foote of a most odious complexion, so odious, indeed, that he had no alternative but to demand an instant public trial, which ended, as might have been anticipated, in his triumphant acquittal. But this result, satisfactory as it was, had no power to restore him to his wonted peace of mind. The dagger had struck home to the heart. His friends, too, for the first time, began to look coolly on him; the anonymous agents of the Duchess still pursued him with unrelenting acrimony; many of those whose follies and crimes he had lashed, but who had feared to retort in his hour of pride, swelled the clamour against him; and he found himself, in the decline of health and manhood, becoming just as unpopular as he once was the reverse. In vain he endeavoured to rally and make head against this combination; his moral fortitude wholly deserted him; and after performing a few times, after his trial, at the Haymarket, but with none of his former vivacity, he was seized with a sudden paralytic affection, and bade adieu to the stage for ever.

About six months subsequent to his retirement, he was attacked by a complaint which ultimately terminated his life; and, by his physician's order, quitted London for the Continent, with a view to pass the winter at Paris. But his constitution was too much shattered to admit of the fatigue of such a journey, and he was compelled to halt at Dover, where, on the morning after his arrival, a violent shivering fit came over him while seated at the breakfast table, which in a few

hours put an end to his existence. No sooner was his death known in the metropolis, than a re-action commenced in his favour. It was then discovered that, with all his errors, he had been "more sinned against than sinning;" and some of his friends even went the length of proposing the erection of a monument to his memory! Just in the same way, a few years later, was Burns treated by the world. He, too, was alternately caressed and vilified; and finally hurried to a premature grave, the victim of a broken heart. But this is the penalty that superior genius must ever be prepared to pay. It walks alone along a dizzy, dangerous height, the observed of all eyes; while gregarious common-place treads, secure and unnoticed, along the tame, flat "Bedford level" of ordinary life!

Having closed our brief memoir of Foote, it remains to say a few words of his literary peculiarities. His humour was decidedly Aristophanic; that is to say, broad, easy, reckless, satirical, without the slightest alloy of bonhommie, and full of the directest personalities. There is no playfulness or good-nature in his comedies. You laugh, it is true, at his portraits, but at the same time you hold them in contempt; for there is nothing redeeming in their eccentricities; nothing for your esteem and admiration to lay hold of. We cannot gather from his writings, as we can from every page of Goldsmith, that Foote possessed the slightest sympathies with humanity. He seems everywhere to hold it at arm's lengh, as worthy of nought but the most supercilious treatment; which accounts for, and to a certain extent justifies, the treatment he received from the world in his latter days. Foote could never have drawn a "Good-natured Man," or even a "Dennis Brulgruddery;" for, though he may have possessed the head to do so, yet he lacked the requisite sensibility. So greatly deficient is he in this respect, that, whenever he attempts to put forth a refined or generous sentiment, he almost always overdoes it, and degenerates into cant. Yet his characters with the exception of his virtuous and moral ones, which are the most insipid in the world—are admirably drawn, are sustained with unflagging spirit, and evince a wide range of observation which, however, rarely pierces beyond the surface.

As works of art, Foote's dramas are by no means of first-rate excellence. They show no fancy, no invention, no ingenuity in constructing, or tact in developing plot; but are merely a collection of scenes and incidents huddled confusedly together for the purpose of drawing out the peculiarities of some two or three pet characters. The best thing we can say of them is, that they exhibit everywhere the keenness, the readiness, the self-possession, of the disciplined man of the world, combined with a pungent malicious humour that reminds us of a Mephistopheles in his merriest mood. It must also be urged in their favour, that they are, in every sense of the word, original. Foote copied no model, but painted direct from the life. He took no hints from others, but gave his own fresh impressions of character. He did not draw on his fancy, like Congreve, or study to make points like Sheridan, but availed himself hastily of such materials as came readiest to hand. The very extravagances of his early life were in his favour, by bringing him in contact with those marked, out-of-the-way characters, who, like Arabs, hang loose on the skirts of society, and constitute the quintessence of comedy. Thus his inveterate love of gambling furnished him with his masterly sketch of Dick Loader; and his long-continued residence at Paris

into whose various dissipations he entered with all the zeal of a devotee with his successful hits at the absurdities of our travelled fops. Foote's three best plays are his "Minor," his "Liar," and his "Mayor of Garratt." Perhaps the last is his master-piece: for it is alive and bustling throughout, is finished with more than the author's ordinary care, and contains two characters penned in his truest con amore spirit. Jerry Sneak and Major Sturgeon are, in their line, the two most perfect delineations of which the minor British drama can boast. There is no mistaking their identity. They speak the genuine, unadulterated vulgar tongue of the city. Their sentiments are cockney; their meanness and their bluster, their pompous selfconceit and abject humility, are cockney; they are cockney all over from the crown of the head to the sole of the shoe. What a rich setoff to the "marchings and counter-marchings" of the one, is the other's recital of his domestic grievances! Jerry's complaint that his wife only allows him "two shillings for pocket-money," and helps him to" all the cold vittles at table" is absolutely pathetic, if—as Hazlitt observes" the last stage of human imbecility can be called so." While Bow bells ring, and St. Paul's church overlooks Cheapside, Foote's cockneys shall endure. Nevertheless, while we acknowledge their excellence, we entertain the most intense contempt for them, and feel the strongest possible inclination to fling the Major into a horse-pond, and smother Jerry Sneak in a bason of water-gruel.

Foote's conversational abilities were, if possible, superior to his literary ones. For men of the world, in particular, they must have had an inexpressible charm. There is no wit on record who has said so many good things, or with such perfect ease and readiness. Foote never laid a pun-trap to catch the unwary. He had humour at will,

and had no need to resort to artifice. His mind was well, but not abundantly stored; and he had the tact to make his knowledge appear greater than it really was. The most sterling testimony that has been borne to his colloquial powers, is that furnished by Dr. Johnson, who says, "The first time I was in company with Foote, was at Fitzherbert's. Having no good opinion of the fellow, I was resolved not to be pleased; and it is very difficult to please a man against his will. I went on eating my dinner pretty sullenly, affecting not to mind him; but the dog was so very comical, that I was obliged to lay down my knife and fork, and fairly laugh it out. Sir, he was irresistible." Foote's favourite butt was Garrick, whose thrifty habits he was constantly turning into ridicule. Being one day in company with him, when after satirizing some individual, David had wound up his attack by saying, "Well, well, perhaps before I condemn another, I should pull the beam out of my own eye," Foote replied, " And so you would, if you could sell the timber." On another occasion, when they were dining together, Garrick happened to let a guinea drop on the floor. "Where has it gone to ?" asked Foote, looking about for it. "Oh, to the devil, I suppose," was the reply. "Ah, David," rejoined his tormentor, you can always contrive to make a guinea go farther than any one else."

Such was Samuel Foote, the wit, the satirist, the humoristwhose life inculcates this wholesome truth, that those who set themselves up, with no superior moral qualifications to recommend them, to ridicule the follies and lash the vices of the age, but "sow the wind, to reap the whirlwind !"

THE TWO BUTLERS OF KILKENNY.

In all countries and all languages we have the story of Il Bondocani. May I tell one from Ireland?

It is now almost a hundred years ago-certainly eighty-since Tom -I declare to Mnemosyne I forget what his sirname was, if I ever knew it, which I doubt,-It is at least eighty years since Tom emerged from his master's kitchen in Clonmell, to make his way on a visit to foreign countries.

If I can well recollect dates, this event must have occurred at the end of the days of George the Second, or very close after the accession of George the Third, because in the course of the narrative it will be disclosed that the tale runs of a Jacobite lord living quietly in Ireland, and that I think must have been some time between 1740 and 1760,-or say 65. Just before the year of the young Pretender's burst, a sharp eye used to be kept upon the " honest men" in all the three kingdoms; and in Ireland, from the peculiar power which the surveillance attendant on the penal laws gave the government, this sharp eye could not be surpassed in sharpness, that is to say, if it did not choose to wink. Truth, nevertheless, makes us acknowledge that the authorities of Ireland were ever inclined at the bottom of their hearts to countenance lawlessness, if at all recommended by anything like a noble or a romantic name. And no name could be more renowned or more romantic than that of Ormond.

It is to be found in all our histories well recorded. What are the lines of Dryden ?—and Dryden was a man who knew how to make verses worth reading.

And the rebel rose stuck to the house of Ormond for many a day; --but it is useless to say more. Even I who would sing "Lilla bullalero bullen a la,"-if I could, only I can't sing,-and who give " The glorious, pious, and immortal memory," because I can toast,-even I do not think wrong of the house of Ormond for sticking as it did to the house of Stuart. Of that too I have a long story to tell some time or another.

Never mind. I was mentioning all this, because I have not a ' Peerage' by me; and I really do not know who was the Lord Ormond of the day which I take to be the epoch of my tale. If I had a 'Peerage,' I am sure I could settle it in a minute; but I have none. Those,

therefore, who are most interested in the affair ought to examine a Peerage,' to find who was the man of the time; I can only help them by a hint. My own particular and personal reason for recollecting the matter is this: I am forty, or more never mind the quantity more; and I was told the story by my uncle at least fiveand-twenty years ago. That brings us to the year 1812,-say 1811. My uncle his name was Jack told me that he had heard the story from Tom himself fifty years before that. If my uncle Jack, who was a very good fellow, considerably given to potation, was precise in his computation of time, the date of his story must have fallen in 1762- or 1763 no matter which. This brings me near the date I have already assigned; but the reader of my essay has

before him the grounds of my chronological conjectures, and he can form his opinions on data as sufficiently as myself.

I recur fearlessly to the fact that Tom-whatever his sirname may have been-emerged from the kitchen of his master in Clonmell, to make his way to foreign countries.

His master was a very honest fellow-a schoolmaster of the name of Chaytor, a Quaker, round of paunch and red of nose. I believe that some of his progeny are now men of office in Tipperary-and why should they not? Summer school-vacations in Ireland occur in July; and Chaytor-by the bye, I think he was Tom Chaytor, but if Quakers have Christian names I am not sure,-gave leave to his man Tom to go wandering about the country. He had four, or perhaps five, days to himself.

Tom, as he was described to me by my uncle over a jug of punch about a quarter of a century ago, was what in his memory must have been a smart-built fellow. Clean of limb, active of hand, light of leg, clear of eye, bright of hair, white of tooth, and two-and-twenty; in short, he was as handsome a lad as you would wish to look upon in a summer's day. I mention a summer's day merely for its length; for even on a winter's day there were few girls that could cast an eye upon him without forgetting the frost.

So he started for the land of Kilkenny, which is what we used to call in Ireland twenty-four miles from Clonmell. They have stretched it now to thirty; but I do not find it the longer or shorter in walking or chalking. However, why should we grumble at an act of "justice to Ireland?" Tom at all events cared little for the distance; and, going it at a slapping pace, he made Kilkenny in six hours. I pass the itinerary. He started at six in the morning, and arrived somewhat foot-worn, but full not only of bread, but of wine, (for wine was to be found on country roadsides in Ireland in those days,) in the ancient city of Saint Canice about noon.

Tom refreshed himself at the Feathers, kept in those days by a man named Jerry Mulvany, who was supposed to be more nearly connected with the family of Ormond than the rights of the church could allow; and having swallowed as much of the substantial food and the pestiferous fluid that mine host of the Feathers tendered him, the spirit of inquisitiveness, which, according to the phrenologists, is developed in all mankind, seized paramount hold of Tom. Tom-? ay, Tom, it must be, for I really cannot recollect his other name.

If there be a guide-book to the curiosities of Kilkenny, the work has escaped my researches. Of the city it is recorded, however, that it can boast of fire without smoke, air without fog, and streets paved with marble. And there's the college, and the bridge, and the ruins of St. John's abbey, and St. Canice, and the Nore itself, and last, not least, the castle of the Ormonds, with its woods and its walks, and its stables and its gallery, and all the rest of it, predominating over the river. It is a very fine-looking thing indeed; and, if I mistake not, John Wilson Croker, in his youth, wrote a poem to its honour, beginning with

"High on the sounding banks of Nore,"

every verse of which ended with "The castle," in the manner of Cowper's "My Mary," or Ben Jonson's "Tom Tosspot." If I had the