and then, if we are to judge by your last production, your state of health was never more firmly established. All here join in wishing you and Mrs. Garrick every human happiness. Dear sir, yours most sincerely and affectionately, SAML. FOOTE.

SAMUEL FOOTE TO MR. GARRICK.
Cannon Park, Wednesday.

I THINK friendship is by somebody emphatically called the balsam of life. I honour the author, be he sacred or profane, since nothing has, I am sure, so much contributed to soothe the solitude, and mitigate the anguish of my bed of sickness and of sorrow, as dear Mr. Garrick's very kind and sympathizing letters.

Perhaps I have sustained this fiery trial with a little more fortitude than was expected from so equivocal a character; but, whether from our original construction we are furnished with a secret resource of animal spirits, that but wait for the occasion to rush to our aid,-or whether "present fears are less than horrible imaginings," I can't say that I have experienced either much dejection or impatience; and yet I have gone through operations, that the whole world should not bribe me to see performed on another. Scissors, knives, saws, lancets, and caustics are now grown familiar to me; and as to potions-what bushels of bark have I taken! Poets talk of their Dryades and Faunes, the fabulous tenants

:

of forests and groves, now I have literally swallowed a wood; and I don't suppose but that my inside is as well tanned as a buckskin pair of breeches but that process is now at an end; my pains are abated, my opiates are withdrawn, and my wound visibly healing every day. The pharmacopals of the neighbouring villages-you know them I make no doubt but Hampton boasts one at least, a set of ingenious gentlemen, who deck themselves as the heathen mythologists did the goddess of Hunting, with triple titles; she, indeed, was Luna in heaven, Diana on earth, and Hecate in hell; but they are physicians, surgeons, and apothecaries in the compass of half a score miles: nay, it is great odds if they are contented with that, you rarely see a row of stumps on a red rag, and a pewter porringer of blood in a country window, but the shop within can furnish you with coffee or calomel, rappee snuff or rhubarb. My Esculapius from Newberry has a tolerable collateral support from vending candles and soap: whilst his Galenical brother at Overton depends chiefly on mops, brushes, and Birmingham ware; but, however, these sons of Apollo (as legitimate, I warrant, as Derrick) flatter me with the hopes of getting to town in a fortnight, but I think they are mistaken :-pray when do you turn your back on the Bath?

As to summer projects, they have never once entered my thoughts; the short intermissions allotted me from pain, have been all employed in acknowledging the goodness of those whose humanity, like Mr. Garrick's, has interested them in the fate of the poor unfortunate Foote-amongst

the foremost and warmest of which is the gentleman to whose virtues you have inscribed an ode. I must see it,-on my discretion you may safely rely. Non sum qualis eram. Calamities of the magnitude that I have sustained are powerful preachers, and I think I have not been deaf to their voice.

Your asking leave to bring Mr. Clutterbuck here is pleasant enough; it is just as if you was to make an apology to an epicure for taking the liberty to send him a turtle, or to beg Lady Vane's pardon for the introduction of a young tall rawboned Milesian.

So long as I love cheerfulness, good humour, and humanity, I shall be glad to meet that gentleman any where; happy if it chances to be where the rights of hospitality call upon me to pay him a particular attention. Sir Francis, who is unalterably yours, though we were a little piqued at your passing us by, begs that upon this occasion I would say "all that you can suppose." Mr. Beard's answer to mine was such as you guessed: it came accompanied by a letter from Smith, just to let me know, that as to cutting the Commissary (for that I think is the phrase, and a pretty expressive one too), nothing so remote from his thoughts; his design was only to sink the two best scenes in the piece.

The duke of York, lord and lady Mexborough, &c. &c. have been here for three or four days, totally ignorant about my unfortunate artery, and expecting to find me upon crutches, but they are gone, and I am still on my back. To-morrow I have leave to resume my great chair, and, per

haps, the next day—but lerius fit patientiâ, quicquid corrigere nefas. Poor Derrick! I expected every day to see him, by some of his irascible countryman, sowsed in the neighbouring stream-the only chance, I think, he has of resembling the swans of the Avon.

Sir Francis has conceived, from your letter, that we are not to see Mrs. Garrick, but we all think and hope he is mistaken. Adieu, dear sir; it is lucky for you that I am at the end of my paper, otherwise I should not tell you this hour how sincerely I am your affectionate servant,

SAML. FOOTE.

SAMUEL FOOTE TO THE DUCHESS OF

MADAM,

KINGSTON.

[August, 1775].

THOUGH I have neither time nor inclination to answer the illiberal attacks of your agents, yet a public correspondence with your grace is too great an honour for me to decline. I can't help thinking but it would have been prudent in your grace to have answered my letter before dinner, or at least postponed it to the cool hour of the morning; you would then have found that I had voluntarily granted that request which you had endeavoured, by so many different ways, to obtain.

Lord Mountstuart, for whose amiable qualities I have the highest respect, and whose name your agents first very unnecessarily produced to the public, must recollect, when I had the honour to

meet him at Kingston House, by your grace's appointment, that instead of begging relief from your charity, I rejected your splendid offers to suppress the "Trip to Calais," with the contempt they deserved. Indeed, madam, the humanity of my royal and benevolent master, and the public protection, have placed me much above the reach of your bounty.

But why, madam, put on your "coat of mail" against me? I have no hostile intentions. Folly, not vice, is the game I pursue. In those scenes which you so unaccountably apply to yourself, you must observe, that there is not the slightest hint at the little incidents of your life, which have excited the curiosity of the grand inquest for the county of Middlesex. I am happy, madam, however, to hear that your robe of " innocence" is in such perfect repair; I was afraid it might have been a little the worse for wearing; may it hold out to keep you warm the next winter.

The progenitors your grace has done me the honour to give me, are, I presume, merely metaphorical persons, and to be considered as the authors of my muse, and not of my manhood: a merry andrew and a prostitute are no bad poetical parents, especially for a writer of plays; the first to give the humour and mirth, the last to furnish the graces and powers of attraction.Prostitutes and players must live by pleasing the public: not but your grace may have heard of ladies, who, by private practice, have accumulated amazing great fortunes. If you mean that I really owe my birth to that pleasing connexion, your grace is grossly deceived. My father was,

VOL. V.

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