2"d S. No 106., Jak. 9. '58.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



23 



ford, the Chamberlain, and the following corre- 

 spondence was the result. I think the readers of 

 " N. & Q,," as well as of Horace Walpole, will be 

 amused by its perusal. 



" To her Grace the Duchess o/ Kingston. 



" Madam, 

 " A Member of the Privj' Couucil, and a friend of your 

 Grace's (he has begged me not to mention his name, but 

 I suppose your Grace will easily guess who) has just left 

 me — he has explained to me, what I did not conceive, 

 that the publication of the scenes in the.Trtjp to Calais, at 

 this juncture, with the dedication and preface, might be 

 of infinite ill consequence to your affairs. 



" I really, madam, wish you no ill, and should be sorry 

 to do you an injury. 



" I therefore give up to that consideration what neither 

 your Grace's offers, nor the threats of your agents could 

 obtain ; the scenes shall not be published, nor shall any 

 thing appear at my theatre, or from me, that can hurt 

 you, provided the attacka made on me in the newspapers 

 do not make it necessary for me to act in defence of my- 

 self. 



" Your Grace will therefore see the necessity of giving 

 proper directions. . 



"I have the honour to be 

 " Your Grace's most devoted servant, 

 " Samuel Foote. 

 "North-End, Stindat/, 

 " Aug. 13, 1775." 



« To Mr. FoOTE. 



" Sir, 



" I was at dinner when I received your ill-judged letter. 

 As there is little consideration required, I shall sacrifice a 

 moment to answer it. 



" A member of your Privy Council can never hope to 

 bo of a lady's cabinet. 



" I know too well what is due to my own dignity to 

 enter into a compromise with an extortionable assassin of 

 jM-ivate reputation. If I before abhorred you for your 

 slander, I now despise you for your concessions ; it is a 

 |)roof of the illiberality of your satire, when you can pub- 

 lish or suppress it as best suits the needy convenience of 

 your purse. You first had the cowardly baseness to draw 

 the sword, and if I sheath it until I make you crouch like 

 the subservient vassal as you are, then is there not spirit 

 in an injured woman, nor meanness in a slanderous buf- 

 foon. 



" To a man my sex alone would have screened me from 

 attack — but I am w-riting to the descendant of a Merry- 

 Andrew *, and prostitute the term of manhood by apply- 

 ing it to Mr. Foote. 



" Cloathed in my innocence, as in a coat of mail, I am 

 proof against an host of foes, and, conscious of never 

 having intentionally offended a single individual, I doubt 

 not but a brave and generous public will protect me from 

 the malevolence of a theatrical assassin. You shall have 

 cause to remember, that though I would have given libe- 



* " Mr. Foote is said to be descended in the female line 

 from one Harnass, a Merry-Andrew, who exhibited at 

 Totness, in Devonshire, and afterwards figured in the 

 character of a Mountebank at Plymouth. This same 

 Merry-Andrew's daughter married a justice Foote, of 

 Truro, in Cornwall. There is a man now living, who has 

 oftcjn been more delighted with the nimble feats of this 

 active Merry-Andrew, than with all the grimace of fea- 

 tures it is in the power of our modern Aristophanes to 

 assume." 



rally for the relief of your necessities, I scorn to be bullied 

 into a purchase of your silence. 



" There is something, however, in your pity at which 

 my nature revolts. To make me an offer of pity at once 

 betrays your insolence and your vanity. T will keep the 

 pity you send until the morning before you are turned off, 

 when I will return it by a Cupid with a box of lip-salve, 

 and a choir of choristers shall chaunt a stave to your re- 

 quiem. 



" E. Kingston. 

 " Kingston-house, 



" Sunday, iSth August. 



" P.S. You would have received this sooner, but the 

 servant has been a long time writing it." 



" To the Duchess o/ Kingston. 

 " Madam, 



" Though I have neither time nor inclination to answer 

 the illiberal attacks of your agents, yet a public corre- 

 spondence 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 tlie 

 morning ; you would then have found that I had volun- 

 tarily granted that request, which you had endeavoured, 

 by so many different waj's, to obtain. 



" Lord Mountstuart, for whose amiable qualities I have .^. 

 the highest respect, and whose name your agents first ^T^ 

 very unnecessarily produced to the public, must recollect, 

 when I had the honour to meet him at Kingston-house, ^jf 

 by your grace's appointment, that instead of begging re- ,^\ 

 lief from j-our charity, I rejected your splendid offers to ^^ 

 suppress the Trip to Calais, with the contempt they de- ^*^ 

 served. Indeed, madam, the humanity of my royal and A 

 benevolent master, and the public protection, have placed ^ 

 me much above the reach of j'our 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 unaccount- ^ 

 ably applj' to yourself, you must observe, that there is not -^ 

 the slightest hint at the little incidents of your life. I 

 am happy, madam, however, to hear that your robe of 

 innocence is in such perfect repair ; I was afraid it might '^^C 

 have been a little the worse for the wearing : may it hold ^^ 

 out to keep you warm the next winter ! ^ i 



" The progenitors your grace has done me the honour ^C 

 to give me are, I presume, merely metaphorical persons, i 

 and to be considered as the authors of my muse, and not of J« 

 my manhood: a Merry-Andrew and a prostitute are no j 

 bad poetical parents, especially for a writer of plays : the ^^ 

 first to give the humour and mirth, the last to furnish C^ 

 the graces and powers of attraction. Prostitutes and 

 players too must live by pleasing the public ; not but jf 

 your grace may have heard of ladies who, by private ^3* 

 practices, have accumulated amazing great fortunes. If ^^ 

 you mean that I really owe my birth to that pleasant i 

 connexion, your grace is grossly deceived. My fathcr""*>^ 

 was, in truth, a very useful magistrate and respectable 

 country gentleman, as the whole county of Cornwall 

 will tell you. My mother, the daughter of Sir Edward 

 Goodere, Bart, who represented the county of Hereford ; 

 her fortune was large, and her morals irreproachable, till 

 j'our grace condescended to stain them ; she was upwards 

 of fourscore years old when she died, and, what will sur- 

 prize your grace, was never married but once in her life. 

 I am obliged to your grace for your intended present on 

 the day, as you politely express it, when I am to be 

 turned off. — But where will your grace get the Cupid to 

 bring me the lip salve? — That famih', I am afraid, has 

 long quitted your service. 



" Pray, madam, is not J n the name of your female 



