Foote succeeded as ill at the Temple as at Oxford; and his necessities, we are told, drove him on the stage. As, when those necessities were relieved, he preferred buying a diamond ring, or new lace for his coat, to purchasing a pair of stockings, we may fairly conclude that the stage was a more likely place wherein he might succeed than the back benches of a court of law. Indeed, he did not live to make, but to break, fortunes. Of these he "got through" three, and realised the motto on his carriage, "_Iterum, iterum, iterumque_." His connection with those great amateur actors, the Delavals, was of use to him, for it afforded him practice, and readier access to the stage, where, as a regular player, he first appeared at the Haymarket, on the 6th of February 1744, as Othello, "dressed after the manner of the country." He failed; yet "he perfectly knew what the author meant," says Macklin. Others, again, describe his Moor as a masterpiece of burlesque, only inferior in its extravagance and nonsense to his Hamlet, which I do not think he ever attempted. His Pierre and Shylock were failures, and even his Lord Foppington, played in his first season, indicated that Cibber was not to depart with the hope that he was likely to have in Foote an able successor. Nevertheless, it is difficult to assign Foote's position exactly. According to Davies, he was despicable in all parts, but those he wrote for himself; and Colman says he was jealous of every other actor, and cared little how any dramas but his own were represented. Wilkinson ascribes to him a peculiar excellence. In Dublin, 1744-45, he was well received, and drew a few good houses; and thence came to Drury Lane. He played the fine gentlemen,--Foppington, Sir Novelty Fashion, Sir Courtly Nice, Sir Harry Wildair; with Bayes, and Dick; Tinsel, and the Younger Loveless, in Beaumont and Fletcher's "Scornful Lady;" but he could not reach the height of Cibber, Booth, or Wilks. He had the defects of all three, and nothing superior to either, but in the expression of the eye and lip. His thickset figure, and his vulgar cast of features, he had not yet turned to purpose. He was conscious of a latent strength, but knew not where it lay. He had failed in tragedy, and was pronounced unfit for comedy; and he asked, almost despairingly, "What the deuce then _am_ I fit for?" As we find him the next three years, 1747-49, at the Haymarket, giving his "Diversions of the Morning," his "Tea," his "Chocolate," and his "Auction of Pictures," it is clear that he soon discovered where his fitness lay.