"SAMUEL FOOTE." Mr. Garrick, whose unrivalled powers as an actor have ever been the theme of applause and admiration, retired from the Stage in June 1776, when in full possession of his extraordinary faculties, after disposing of his share and patent of Drury-lane Theatre to Messrs. Ford, Ewart, Sheridan, and Linley, for 35,000_l._ The property of the Theatre in the Haymarket was transferred from Mr. Foote to Mr. Colman in the following year, and has remained in that gentleman's and his son's possession till very lately. It will be sufficient to observe of this place of amusement, that it is too confined for a _Summer_ Theatre, and to accommodate the crowds which attend it, attracted by the best old plays, many excellent new ones, and good performers selected from the Winter and Provincial Theatres. The reader who recollects my previous notices of the enlargement of Drury-lane Theatre will perceive, from those and the subsequent, how rapidly population and the admiration of theatrical amusements have increased. Mr. Harris, proprietor of Covent-garden Playhouse, found it necessary in 1782 to raise the roof eight feet, and make other alterations, to benefit himself, and accommodate the publick. It was then that the Theatre was adorned with those genuine ornaments in the Grecian style, which have lately given place to I know not what strange substitutes of painted deal boards. Mr. Kemble, the present Roscius of the British Stage, made his first appearance in 1784; but his accomplished and unrivalled sister had astonished and delighted the publick in the previous year. The _two_ Thalias, Farren and Jordan, were contemporaries with the celebrated tragedians; but the former is now a Countess, and the latter I had _almost_ said a Princess, though still the object of rapturous approbation on the Stage.