During the quarrel with the Duchess of Kingston Foote had bitterly satirized some of her worthless creatures in a piece called 'The Capucin'--the last that he ever wrote except 'The Slanderer,' which, however, he left unfinished at his death. In May, 1777, he made another attempt to appear on the stage; but illness and anxiety had made fearful havoc with his looks and his gaiety; and a paralytic stroke whilst acting in his own piece, 'The Devil on Two Sticks,' put an end for ever to his stage performances. He retired to Bath, and there his health and sprightliness somewhat recovered; but it was only a flickering of the expiring candle in its socket. The doctors advised him to try Paris, and thither, from his house in Suffolk Street, Pall Mall, he proceeded, by way of Dover, in the following October, with a presentiment that he should never return to Town alive. It was here, whilst waiting at the Ship Inn for a favourable passage, the conversation occurred with the cook-maid, and probably Foote's very last jokes, without which no account of him seems to be considered complete. The woman was boasting that _she_ had never left _her_ native place, when Foote retorted by saying that he had heard upstairs that she had been 'several times all over Greece,' and that he himself had seen her at 'Spithead.' On the following day, the 21st October, 1777, he had another paralytic seizure, and was no more. On the 3rd November he was buried by torch-light in the west cloister of Westminster Abbey.[144] No stone marks his resting-place; but there is an epitaph to his memory at St. Mary's, Dover, of which the following is a copy: Sacred to the memory of SAMUEL FOOTE, ESQ., Who had a Tear for a Friend, And a Hand and Heart ever ready To Relieve the Distressed. He departed this life Oct. 21st, 1777 (on his journey to France), at the Ship Inn, Dover, aged 55 years. This inscription was placed here by his affectionate Friend, Mr. Wm. Jewell.[145]