Johnson, personally, disliked Foote, yet was forced into admiration by Foote's wonderful powers of wit and laughter-compelling humour. Johnson, probably, was trying to excuse himself when he said that if the grave Betterton had come into the room where Foote was, the latter would have driven him from it by his broad-faced, obstreperous mirth. But Foote's conversational powers and wide knowledge, which charmed Fox, would have charmed Betterton too, and I do not think either could have been like Johnson's imaginary hostler, who, encountering Foote in a stable, thought him a comic fellow, but parted from him without a feeling of respect. Johnson thought less of Foote's conversation than Fox did; he described it as between wit and buffoonery, but admitted that Foote was a "fine fellow in his way," and he hoped somebody would write his life with diligence. Walpole tersely described him as "a Merry Andrew, but no fool." So the black boy thought, who hated the small beer which Foote (who sneered at Garrick for having been a wine merchant) at one time brewed and sold, through a partner. The boy was so delighted with Foote's wit, as he waited on him at dinner, that he declared, in the kitchen, he could drink his bad beer for ever, and would certainly never complain of it again. Foote had so little moral courage, and was so thin-skinned, that attacks upon him in the newspapers caused him exquisite pain, and he stooped so far to the Duchess of Kingston as to offer to suppress his "Trip to Calais," if she would put a stop to the assaults made on him through the press. The notorious lady, who was tried for bigamy, called him the "descendant of a Merry Andrew," and Foote informed her that though his good mother had lived to fourscore, she had never been married _but once_. Something, however, is to be said for this well-abused person. She did not marry the Duke of Kingston till the Ecclesiastical Court had broken her marriage with Lord Hervey. The House of Lords reversed the decree of the Ecclesiastical Court, after the lady had married a second time, and it was this reversal of an old judgment which exposed her to the penalties of bigamy. When these facts are remembered, half the jokes against Foote's adversary fall to the ground.