Neither the claims of friendship nor a sense of courtesy could restrain Foote from a brutal jest when opportunity offered to make one. He had no more intimate friend than Charles Holland, who was at Drury Lane, from 1755 to 1769; and whose father was a baker, at Chiswick. Foote attended the funeral there, and on his return to town, he gaily remarked that he "had seen Holland shoved into the family oven!" As for his courtesy, it was on a par with his sense of friendship and fellowship. When down at Stratford, on the occasion of the Shakspeare Jubilee, Garrick's success embittered Foote's naturally bitter spirit. A well-dressed gentleman there, civilly spoke to him on the proceedings. "Has Warwickshire, sir," said Foote, "the advantage of having produced you as well as Shakspeare?" "Sir," replied the gentleman, "I come from Essex." "Ah!" rejoined Foote, remembering that county was famous for calves, "from Essex! Who drove you?" The better samples of Foote's wit are to be found in his own comic pieces. In his "Lame Lover," how admirable is Mr. Sergeant Circuit's remark when his wife asks for money, and protests she must have it, as her honour is in pawn! "How a century will alter the meaning of words!" cries the Sergeant. "Formerly, chastity was the honour of women, and good faith and integrity the honour of men; but now, a lady who ruins her family by punctually paying her losses at play, and a gentleman who kills his best friend in a ridiculous quarrel, are your only tip-top people of honour! Well, let them go on! It brings grist to our mill; for while both sexes stick firm to their honour, we shall never want business either at Doctors' Commons or the Old Bailey!" Again, in the "Nabob," a hard hit is made at the bold profligacy of the period, in the words of Touchet (Baddeley) to Sir Matthew Mite (Foote), both of whom had been talking of hanging, or worse, hereafter, to the bribe-taking members of an election club;--"That's right, stick to that! for though the Christian Club may have some fears of the gallows, they don't value damnation a farthing!" Some of Foote's apologists have almost worshipped him as the reformer of abuses, the scourge of hypocrites, and the terror of evil-doers. But Foote does not seem to have been moved by any higher principle than gain. If Mrs. Salmon had a Chamber of Horrors, the more murders that were committed, the better she was pleased, for the more she made by the crime. Foote endeavoured to crush Whitfield by personal ridicule; but Whitfield was a far more useful man in his very wicked generation than Foote, who did not denounce the wickedness, but mimicked the peculiarities of the reformer. "There is hardly a public man in England," says Davies, "who has not entered Mr. Foote's theatre with an aching heart, under the apprehension of seeing himself laughed at."