Foster says of him, in the _Quarterly Review_ for 1854, that his writings are 'not unworthy of a very high place in literature;' and that his name 'was once both a terrible and a delightful reality.' And yet, notwithstanding the amusing picture which they present of the manners and conversation of London a hundred years ago, they have not sufficed to preserve his fame. Who of the rising generation has ever read anything of Foote's besides his ever-ready and often quoted _bon-mots_; or knows anything more of his plays than has been learnt from an occasional representation of 'The Liar' on the stage? It is hardly necessary to inquire into the cause of this, for the joker's reputation is proverbially fleeting. Moreover, Foote's pieces are somewhat too slightly constructed, depending not so much upon the plot or the _dénouement_ as upon such a delineation of the various characters as seems hardly to come within the scope of our modern actors; but, nevertheless, it certainly does cause one to reflect how soon a man, not without strong claims to be remembered, may be forgotten. Yet, while he lived, his name was in every man's mouth, and in a vast number of contemporaneous books. 'No man,' says Baker, 'was more courted when in the zenith of his fame: for instance, when the Duke of York returned from the Continent, he went first to his mother's, then to His Majesty's, and directly from them to Mr. Foote's.' And yet it should be well understood that he was, withal, no toady. To the Scotch nobleman, boasting of his old wine, which he doled out in very small _glasses_--'It is very _little_, of its age,' said Foote, handling his glass. He congratulated the Duke of Cumberland on his digestion, when the Duke said he had come for the purpose of swallowing all Foote's good things--'for,' said the coarse wit, 'you never bring any of them up again.' And when the Duke of Norfolk consulted him as to going to a masquerade in a _new character_--'Go _sober_,' was Foote's instant reply. It will be the object of the following memoir not only to sketch the life of the Truro wit, and to enumerate most of his plays in chronological order, but also to give one or two short specimens of his powers as a writer: the difficulty on the latter point being to make a selection from the very numerous examples left to us. But it should always be remembered that the parts played by Foote are, as written, but a very faint reflexion of what he actually uttered, often _impromptu_.