Cornish Characters and Strange Events

On Sunday, July 2nd, according to the constable, the mob again assembled in front of Stanhope's house and demolished its contents. Mr. Wilson, a woollen draper, and Mr. Actor, of the same trade, applied for protection, as their shops adjoined the house of Stanhope, and again soldiers were sent for, who dispersed the mob.

James Cecil, Constable of St. George's parish, deposed that on Monday, July 3rd, he was attending prisoners in a coach to Newgate, and he had difficulty in making his way through the mob; and he saw the rioters engaged in smashing the windows of a house near the Old Bailey.

Saunders Welsh, gent., High Constable of Holborn, deposed that on Sunday, July 2nd, he had received information from Stanhope, as to the wrecking of Owen's house on the previous night, and of his fears for his own. On returning that same evening through Fleet Street, he perceived a great fire in the Strand, upon which he proceeded to the house of Peter Wood, who informed him that the rioters had demolished the house of Stanhope, burning his furniture and goods, and that they threatened to deal in the same manner with his house. Whereupon, he, Mr. Saunders Welsh, applied at the Tilt-yard for a military force, which he could only obtain with much difficulty, as he could produce no order from a Justice of the Peace. At length he procured such order, and then an officer and forty men were sent to the scene of the riot. On reaching Cecil Street, he ordered that the drum should be beaten. When he came up to Peter Wood's house, he found that the mob had already in part demolished it, and had thrown a great part of its contents into the street, and were debating about burning them. Had they done so, the deponent said, it would infallibly have set fire to the houses on both sides of the street, which at that point was very narrow, and opposite Wood's house was the bank of Messrs. Snow and Denne. Hearing, however, the rattle of the drum, and the tramp of the advancing soldiers, the mob retreated, and it was whilst so retreating that Bosavern Penlez was arrested, carrying off with him some of the goods of Peter Wood.

Penlez and others were brought before Henry Fielding, J. P. for Middlesex, and were committed to Newgate. This was on Monday. But the same evening there was a recrudescence of the riots, and four thousand sailors assembled on Tower Hill with the resolution to march to Temple Bar. To obviate all future danger, a larger party of soldiers was called out, and these, along with the peace officers, patrolled the Strand all night.

Samuel Marsh, watchman of St. Dunstan's, had apprehended Bosavern Penlez, as he was making off with a bundle of linen, which he pretended belonged to his wife. Before he was arrested, the watchman saw him thrusting divers lace objects into his bosom and pockets, but he let fall a lace cap. When apprehended, he protested that he was conveying his wife's property, who had pawned all his clothes, and that he was retaliating by taking her articles to pawn.

There were other witnesses against Penlez, and although the evidence of Peter Wood was worthless, that of the beadles and watchmen sufficed to show that he had been collecting and making into a bundle various articles from Wood's house, with the object of purloining them. The question of Penlez having been in Wood's house was not gone into. Bosavern in vain called for witnesses to his character. His master, the peruke maker, declined to put in an appearance and give favourable testimony; for, in fact, Penlez had been leading a dissipated and disorderly life. Henry Fielding, in conclusion, says: "The first and second day of the riot, no magistrate, nor any other higher peace-officer than a petty constable (save only Mr. Welsh) interfered in it. On the third day only one magistrate took on him to act. When the prisoners were committed to Newgate, no public prosecution was for some time ordered against them; and when it was ordered, it was carried on so mildly, that one of the prisoners (Wilson) being not in prison, was, though contrary to the laws, at the desire of a noble person in great power, bailed out, when a capital indictment was then found against him. At the trial, neither an Attorney nor Solicitor-General, nor even one of the King's Council, appeared against the prisoners. Lastly, when two were convicted, one only was executed; and I doubt very much whether even he would have suffered, had it not appeared that a capital indictment for burglary was likewise found by the Grand Jury against him, and upon such evidence as I think every impartial man must allow would have convicted him (had he been tried) for felony at least."

There had been found on Penlez ten lace caps, four laced handkerchiefs, three pairs of laced ruffles, two laced clouts, five plain handkerchiefs, five plain aprons, one laced apron, all the property of the wife of Peter Wood. It was altogether false that Penlez was married. Fielding says: "I hope I have said enough to prove that the man who was made an example of deserved his fate. Which, if he did, I think it will follow that more hath been said and done in his favour than ought to have been; and that the clamour of severity against the Government hath been in the highest degree unjustifiable. To say the truth, it would be more difficult to justify the lenity used on this occasion."

The case of Bosavern Penlez was the more hard and open to criticism, in that, in the very same year, there was a serious riot in the Haymarket Theatre, when the Duke of Cumberland, a prince of the blood, had drawn his sword, and leaping upon the stage, had called on everybody to follow him. The people, ripe for mischief, were too loyal to decline a prince's invitation. The seats were smashed, the scenery torn down, and the wreckage carried into the street, where a bonfire was made of it; and but for the timely appearance of the authorities the building itself would have been added to the fuel. For this, no one was hanged. What was sauce for the goose was not sauce for the gander.

Reference is made to the case of Bosavern Penlez in Walpole's Memoirs of the Last Ten Years of George II, I, p. 11, and in the Private Journal of John Byrom, published by the Chetham Society, as also in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1749.

SAMUEL FOOTE

This dramatic author and player was born at Truro in the year 1721.[17 - Baptized S. Mary's, Truro, Jan. 27th, 1720-1.] His father, John Foote, was a magistrate of the county of Cornwall and commissioner of the Prize office and Fine contract. He was well descended, deriving from the family of Foote of Trelogorsick, in Veryan, afterwards of Lambesso, in S. Clements, acquired by bequest in the reign of Charles II. The arms of the family were, vert a chevron between three doves argent– the doves singularly inappropriate as the cognizance of Samuel, as that bird was deemed to be without gall. Bodannan, in S. Enoder, was acquired by the Footes of Lambesso by purchase. The family did not register its arms and establish its pedigree at the visitation of the Heralds in 1620, but that it was gentle admits of no dispute. As no pedigree of the family has been recorded, it is unknown who was the grandfather of Samuel Foote, but possibly he may have been the Samuel Foote of Tiverton whose daughter Elizabeth married, 1691, Dennis Glyn of Cardinham, son of Nicolas Glyn of Cardinham, M.P. for Bodmin and Sheriff of Cornwall. Samuel's mother, descended in the female line from the Earls of Rutland, was daughter of Sir Edward Goodere, Bart., who had two surviving brothers out of six – Sir John Dinely Goodere, Bart., and Samuel Goodere, captain of His Majesty's ship Ruby. A disagreement having arisen between the two brothers, Sir John cut off the entail of his estates and settled them on his sister's family. This widened the breach, and the brothers had not spoken for years.

Matters were in this train when, by accident, both brothers met in Bristol in the January of 1741. Samuel was then in command of his ship, lying in the roads. Sir John was invited to dine with Mr. Jarrit Smith, an attorney living on College Green, and the captain called on this gentleman and requested permission to be admitted to his table to meet his brother, whom he had not seen for a very long time. Mr. Smith readily acceded to this proposal, and was glad to have the opportunity of apparently reconciling the brothers. After dinner he left the room for an hour in order to afford them a better opportunity of completing the reconciliation. On his return he found them on the most friendly terms. In this manner they parted at six o'clock in the evening, the captain taking his leave first. When some half an hour later Sir John quitted the house, as he was passing the College Green Coffee-house, on his way to his lodgings, he was fallen upon by a party of the sailors of the Ruby and the Vernon privateer, with Captain Goodere at their head; a cloak was thrown over his head to muffle his cries for help, and he was hurried to a boat, awaiting them in the river, and conveyed thence on board the Ruby. When there, they got him into the purser's cabin, and the captain, by promises of ample reward, induced two of his sailors, Matthew Mahony and Charles White, to strangle him. In order to effect this the captain cut the cord that attached his escritoire to the floor of the cabin, and himself passed it round his brother's neck. Then, drawing his sword, he stood sentinel at the door and bade the two ruffians do their duty. Owing to the struggles of Sir John and the nervousness of the men, half an hour elapsed before the baronet was dead. At last, when all was over, the captain deliberately walked to his brother's body, held a candle over it to assure himself that he was dead, and exclaimed, "Aye, this will do; his business is now done."

Next day the circumstance of a gentleman having been kidnapped on College Green induced Mr. Smith to make inquiries; when, finding that the description of the gentleman answered to the person of Sir John Dinely Goodere, he entertained strong suspicions of foul play shown by his brother, and he applied to the mayor of Bristol for a warrant to search the Ruby. This was granted, and there the baronet was found strangled in the purser's cabin, and the captain already secured by the first lieutenant and two of the men, who had overheard the conference relative to the murder.

Captain Samuel Goodere and his two associates were tried at the next assizes at Bristol on March 26th, 1741, were found guilty of "wilful murder," and were hanged.

Thus Mrs. Foote, deriving under the will of her brother Sir John, became heiress to his estates.

John Foote had two sons by this lady, Samuel and Edward. The first, the subject of this memoir, was designed for the Bar; the second for the Church. This latter was a feeble-minded man, who never obtained preferment, dribbled away his fortune, and was latterly in great distress, supported by the liberality of his brother.

Foote was sent to school as a boy under the worthy Mr. Conon, head-master of Truro Grammar School. There he was initiated into Terence's plays, and in acting his part excelled all his schoolfellows, and it was in consequence of his success within this little circle that he caught his first inspiration for the stage.

One of the earliest instances of his jocularity, as practised on his own father, is related by R. Polwhele in his Traditions and Recollections. Imitating the voice of Mr. Nicholas Donnithorne, from an inner apartment where his father had supposed that gentleman was sitting, he drew his father into conversation on the subject of a family transaction between the two old gentlemen, and thus possessed himself of a secret, which, whilst it displayed his power of mimicry, justly incurred his parent's displeasure.

Mr. Polwhele says: "Those (of the inhabitants of Truro) are gone who used in his presence to arise trembling with their mirth. Conscious of some oddnesses in their appearance or character, they shrunk from his sly observation. They knew that every civility, every hospitable attention, could not save them from his satire; and, after such experience, they naturally avoided his company instead of courting it. Foote, indeed, had no restraint upon himself, with respect either to his conversation or his conduct. He was, in every sense of the word, a libertine… He was certainly a very unamiable character. Polly Hicks, a pretty, silly, simpering girl, was dazzled by his wit. She had some property; he therefore made her his wife, but never treated her as such."

The father died soon after the establishment of his sons in their several professions; but the mother lived to the advanced age of eighty-four. W. Cooke says of her: —

"We had the pleasure of dining with her, in company with a granddaughter of hers, at a barrister's chambers in Gray's Inn, when she was at the age of seventy-nine; and although she had full sixty steps to ascend before she reached the drawing-room, she did it without the help of a cane, and with all the activity of a woman of forty.

"Her manners and conversation were of the same cast – witty, humorous, and convivial; and though her remarks occasionally (considering her age and sex) rather strayed beyond the limits of becoming mirth, she, on the whole, delighted everybody, and was confessedly the heroine of that day's party.

"She was likewise in face and person the very model of her son Samuel – short, fat, and flabby, with an eye that eternally gave the signal for mirth and good humour; in short, she resembled him so much in all her movements, and so strongly identified his person and manners, that by changing habits they might be thought to have interchanged sexes."

After leaving school Samuel Foote received his education at Worcester College, Oxford, formerly Gloucester Hall, which owed its refoundation and change of name to Sir Thomas Cooke, Bart., a second cousin of Samuel.

The church connected with the college fronted a lane, where cattle were sometimes turned out to graze during the night, and the bell-rope hung very low in the middle of the outside porch. Foote one night made a loop in the cord and inserted a wisp of hay. One of the cows smelling this seized it, and by tugging at the rope made the bell ring, and continue to ring at jerky intervals till the hay was consumed. This produced consternation in the neighbourhood; people ran out of their houses thinking that there must be a fire somewhere. The same happened next and the following nights, and it was concluded that the church was haunted. But Dr. Gower, the then provost, and the sexton sat up one night and watched, and discovered that this was a prank of one of the scholars.

From the University Foote was removed to the Temple, but the dryness of the law was not to his taste, and he turned to the stage.

His first appearance was in the part of Othello at the Haymarket Theatre, February 6th, 1747. But as Macklin said on this occasion, "it was little better than a total failure. Neither his figure, voice, nor manners corresponded with the character; and in those mixed passages of tenderness and rage the former was expressed so whiningly, and the latter in a tone so sharp and inharmonious, that the audience could scarcely refrain from laughing."

Probably he speedily saw that his genius did not lie in the direction of tragedy, and he soon struck out into a new and untrodden path, in which he at once attained the two great ends of affording entertainment to the people and gaining emolument for himself. He opened the Haymarket Theatre in the spring of 1747 with a piece of his own writing, entitled The Diversions of the Morning. This consisted of a mimicry of the best-known men of the day – actors, doctors, lawyers, statesmen. Had he contented himself with this he might not have been interfered with, but to the piece of mimicry he added the performance of popular farces – and he had failed to procure a licence. To evade this difficulty he announced his entertainment as a Concert of Music, after which would be given gratis his Diversions and a play.

The managers of the patent houses could not tolerate such an infringement of their rights. They appealed to the Westminster magistrates, and on the second night the constables entered the theatre and dispersed the audience.

But Foote was not so easily put down. The very next morning he published the following statement in the General Advertiser: "On Saturday afternoon, exactly at twelve o'clock, at the New Theatre in the Haymarket, Mr. Foote begs the favour of his friends to come and drink a dish of chocolate with him, and 'tis hoped there will be a great deal of company and some joyous spirits. He will endeavour to make the morning as diverting as possible. Tickets to be had for this entertainment at George's Coffee House, Temple Bar, without which no one will be admitted. N.B. – Sir Dilbury Diddle will be there, and Lady Betty Frisk has absolutely promised." No one knew what this advertisement meant, and a crowded house was the natural result. When the curtain rose Foote came forward and informed the audience that "as he was training some young performers for the stage, he would, with their permission, whilst chocolate was getting ready, proceed with his instructions before them." Then some young people, engaged for the purpose, were brought upon the stage, and under the pretence of instructing them in the art of acting, he introduced his imitations.

As he was not interfered with, he changed the hour to the evening and substituted tea for chocolate.

He mimicked Quin as a watchman, with deep, sonorous voice calling out, "Past twelve o'clock, and a cloudy morning"; Delane as a one-eyed beggar; Peg Woffington as an orange girl, and imitated the unpleasant squealing tone of her voice; Garrick in his dying scenes, on which he prided himself.

As may well be supposed, actors, who are peculiarly sensitive to ridicule, were offended. When they appeared in a grave play, as for instance, when Garrick was dying on the stage, the audience laughed, recalling what they had witnessed at the Haymarket. They complained, "What is fun to you is death to us," but Foote paid no regard to their remonstrances; he laughed and pursued his course. He was perfectly unscrupulous, wholly devoid of delicacy of feeling, and would turn his best friend and benefactor into ridicule in public. But when, later, Weston took him off, he was highly incensed, and bided his time to be revenged on him.

Next year Foote called his performance "An Auction of Pictures." Here is one of his advertisements: "At the forty-ninth day's sale at his auction rooms in the Haymarket Mr. Foote will exhibit a choice collection of pictures – some new lots, consisting of a poet, a beau, a Frenchman, a miser, a taylor, a sot, two young gentlemen, and a ghost. Two of which are originals, the rest copies from the best masters." In this several well-known characters were mimicked – Sir Thomas Deveil, then the acting magistrate for Westminster, Cook, the auctioneer, and orator Henley. To the attractions of his "Auction," in ridicule of the Italian Opera, he gave a "Cat Concert." The principal performer in this was a man well known at the time by the name of Cat Harris. Harris had attended several rehearsals, where his mewing gave great satisfaction to the manager and performers. However, on the last rehearsal Harris was missing, and as nobody knew where he lived, Shuter was deputed to find him, if possible. He inquired in vain for some time; at last he was informed that he lived in a certain court in the Minories, but at which house he could not exactly learn. Shuter entered the court and set up a cat solo, which instantly roused his brother musician in his garret, who answered him in the same tune. "Ho, ho! Are you there, my friend?" said Shuter. "Come along; the stage waits for you."

Fashion, as usual, flocked to the Haymarket to hear and see its tastes turned into ridicule.

At the close of the season (1748) Foote was left a considerable fortune by a relative of his mother, which enabled him to move in all that luxury of dissipation which was so congenial to his temper. Then he departed suddenly for Paris and communicated with none of his friends. Some supposed him to have been killed in a duel, some that he had been hanged, some that he had drunk himself to death. But he reappeared in London at the close of the season of 1752, having dissipated the fortune left him, but having enriched his mind with studies made in France. He brought with him a play he had composed, The Englishman in Paris, which was brought out at Covent Garden Theatre on March 24th, 1753, and it proved a success; so much so, that Murphy, the dramatic author, wrote a sequel to it, The Englishman returned from Paris, which he had the frankness to show to Foote, who was his friend. Foote, without a word, without asking leave, appropriated the plot and characters, and turned out a farce with the same title before Murphy had placed his. Murphy was, naturally, highly offended, and produced his play in another theatre, but without great success, as Foote's play had already taken with the public.

In the season of 1757 Foote produced at Drury Lane his comedy of The Author, that principally turns on the distresses incident to a writer dependent on his pen for his daily bread, and on the caricature of a gentleman of family and fortune, whom he entitled Cadwalader, who appears ambitious to be thought a patron of the arts and sciences, of which he is profoundly ignorant. Cadwalader was a caricature of one of his most intimate friends, a Mr. Ap Rice, a man of fortune and education, and allied to many families of distinction. At his table, where Foote was hospitably received, in open and unguarded familiar discourse, Ap Rice had laid himself open to ridicule. The Welsh gentleman was stout, had a broad, unmeaning stare, a loud voice, and boisterous manner, and as he spoke his head was continually turning to his left shoulder. The farce was performed for several nights to crowded audiences before Mr. Ap Rice felt the keenness of the satire. At last the joke became so serious, that whenever he went abroad, in the park, the coffee-house, or the assembly, he heard himself spoken of as Cadwalader, and pointed at with suppressed laughter, or heard quotations from his part in the play: "This is Becky, my dear Becky." Mightily offended, and really hurt, he applied to Foote to have the piece suppressed. But this Foote would not hear of – it was drawing crowded houses. Then Ap Rice applied to the Lord Chamberlain and obtained an injunction to restrain the performance.

Dr. Johnson was informed by a mutual friend that Foote was going to produce an impersonation of him on the stage. "What is the price of a cane?" asked the doctor. "Sixpence." "Then," said he, "here is a shilling; go and fetch me the stoutest you can purchase, and tell Mr. Foote that at his first performance I shall visit the theatre, go on the stage, and thrash him soundly."

This was repeated to the mimic, and he deemed it advisable to desist from this impersonation.

In A Trip to Calais he threatened to ridicule the notorious Duchess of Kingston unless bought off. The audacity of his personalities was astounding, where he thought he could use his gift of mimicry without being subject to chastisement. In the Orators, 1762, he personated, under the name of Peter Paragraph, a noted printer and publisher and alderman of Dublin, known as One-legged Faulkener. The imitation was perfect. The Irishman brought an action for libel against him, and a trial ensued. But Nemesis of another sort fell on him four years later. In 1766 he was on a visit to Lord Mexborough, where he met the Duke of York, Lord Delaval, and others, when some of the party, wishing to have a little fun with Foote, drew him into conversation on horsemanship, and the comedian boasted "that although he generally preferred the luxury of a post-chaise, he could ride as well as most men he knew." He was urged to join that morning in the chase, and was mounted on a high-spirited, mettlesome horse belonging to the Duke of York, that flung him as soon as he was in the saddle, and his leg was so fractured that it had to be amputated, and its place supplied by one of cork.

The Duke of York was not a little concerned at the part he had taken in this practical joke, and to make what amends he could obtained for him a royal patent to erect a theatre in the city and liberties of Westminster, from the 14th May to the 14th September, during the term of his natural life. This was giving him a fortune at one stroke, and Foote immediately purchased the old premises in the Haymarket and erected a new theatre on the same ground, which was opened in the May following, 1767. He made considerable profits, and lodged twelve hundred pounds at his banker's and kept five hundred in cash.

But his usual demon of extravagance haunted him. He went to Bath and fell in with a nest of gamblers, who rapidly swindled him, not only out of his five hundred, but also out of the sum he had placed with his banker. Several of the frequenters of the rooms saw that he was being cheated, and the Right Hon. Richard Rigby, Paymaster of the Forces, took an opportunity of telling him that he was being plundered, "that from his careless manner of playing and betting, and his habit of telling stories when he should be minding his game, he must in the long run be ruined." Foote, instead of taking this hint in good part, answered angrily and so insultingly that Rigby withdrew.

When he had money he spent it in play and profligacy. Three fortunes had been left him, and he threw all away, and adopted as his motto, "Iterum, iterum, iterumque."

His mother, as has been said, had inherited a large fortune, but she had squandered it and was locked up in the Fleet Prison for debt. Thence she wrote to her son: —

"Dear Sam,

"I am in prison for debt; come and assist your loving mother,

    "E. Foote."

To this brief note he replied: —

"Dear Mother,

"So am I; which prevents his duty being paid to his loving mother by her affectionate son,