FOOTE, SAMUEL. 



FORBES, EDWARD. 



tb. <Apok*M des Tourbillona,' and similar works, although they 

 display philosophical ipirit, are neither rigoroiu DOT profound. 



Generally indeed w ought not perhaps to look to the work* of 

 Kont. utlle to discover the secret of UM great influence and reputation 

 which he enjoyed in hU lifetime. The solution lies rather in his 

 poeteaeion of unequalled *ocial qualities, and of the most brilliant 

 acquirements, by which be wai able to enact at once the man of 

 faahioa and the man of letters. By bia wonderful akill in adapting 

 himaelf to the capacity of others, he wai able to improve and eui- 

 lellish the lightest imuetsaliuu with scientific and moral allusions ; 

 and by applying the language of ordinary life to the most ab.struso 

 topic* and idea*, he contributed greatly to traurfer the tribunal of 

 Utters from the scholarly few to a large and miscellaneous clas of 

 reader*, and, by this revolution, to favour and advance a spirit of 

 soitntific research in the 17th century. Such cervices may be for- 

 gotten, for the name* of those who hare laboured not BO much to 

 discover new truth, u to preserve and transmit the old, are too often 

 left unrecorded; bat they have not laboured in vain, fur to diffuse 

 truth is as useful aa to discover it. If the mission of the discoverer 

 bo more duxling in its course, and its track more permanent, that of 

 the diveminator U cot leas beneficial to mankind, and leaves, in a 

 more extended civilisation, a nameless but imperishable monument 



The works of Fontenelle were collected and published in 3 vole. 

 8ro, Paris, 1760. 



FOOTE, SAMUEL, was born at Truro, in the county of Cornwall, 

 in 1720. His father was a joint commissioner in the Prize Office, and 

 member of parliament for Tiverton. Samuel Kooto wai educated at 

 Worcester College, Oxford. On quitting the university, which he did 

 on account of some extravagance of conduct before the usual time, he 

 commenced the study of the law, but this his volatile disposition pre- 

 vented him from pursuing. About the same time it is commonly said 

 that he married a lady of good fortune, and that the marriage turned 

 out unhappily ; but the fact of the marriage has been doubted, and in 

 truth all this part of his life U involved in obscurity. It is certain 

 however that he plunged into all the vices of the town, particularly 

 gaming. Hit fortune being tpeedily exhausted, he turned player from 

 necessity, and made his first appearance in the character of Othello, 

 in which he produced no great sensation, if he did not wholly fail. 

 Though he was more ancceuful in comedy, be did not much distin- 

 guish himaelf as an actor till he began to perform parts of his own 

 writing. HU difficulties increannfr, he was only cxtiicated from them 

 by Sir Francis Uelaval, who allowed him an annuity for a not very 

 honourable piece of service. Sir Francis wns himself of mined fortune, 

 and I nd looked forward to a marriage with a rich lady as the means of 

 repairing it Foote, discovering a wealthy dame who was prepossessed 

 with fortune-tellers, got a friend to personate a conjurer and recommend 

 Sir Francis as a husband. The scheme succeeded, and Foote wai 

 rewarded as above mentioned. 



In 1747 be opened the little theatre in the Hay market, and here 

 commenced bis csreer as an author by writing for his own house first a 

 series of satirical entertainments, which never attained to the dignity 

 of print, and then the succession of cbort pieces by which be is so 

 well known. He did not however obtain a patent till 1766, when, 

 riding out with the Duke of York, he broke his leg by a fall from his 

 hone, and was forced to have it amputated : the patent was procured 

 by the duke as a sort of compensation for this accident. Foote did 

 not retire from the stage on account of the Ion of his limb, but acted 

 with a cork leg. Hit dtath is said to hare been accelerated by the 

 shock he received on a servant preferring against him a charge of the 

 wont nature : he was tried and honourably acquitted, but seems never 

 to have recovered bis spirits. Feeling his health decline, he let his 

 house to Mr. Colman, still occasionally appearing as an actor. While 

 performing one of hu characters he was seised with paralysis on the 

 stage. He went to Brighton for bis health, and on his return to 

 n he >et out for Paris, but died on his way, at Dover, on the 

 21st of October, 1777. 



Complete editions of Foote's works are easily procured ; but scarcely 

 a liogle pi. co is now produced on the stage. In fact, notwithstanding 

 their great merit, they refer so much to the humours and often to the 

 persons of bis own times, that they now possess rather on historical 

 Uun a dramatic interest ; and they will be read by few except those 

 who are dwiroua of having a view of the striking characters in the 

 latter part of the last century. The Methodist* are lashed in ' Tim 

 Minor;' the passion for travelling in ' Tho Khgliihtnan returned from 

 Paris ; ' the new>tpers in ' Tho Bankrupt ; ' the debating societies in 

 The Orators ; ' the bar in ' The Lame Lover ; ' and in general every 

 pfeee has Hs peculiar object of satire. In making his characters stand 

 prominently forth, Foole is not excelled ; but, like roost depictors of 

 humour, he occasionally falls into the error of giving abstractions 

 rather than probable portions. The piece* which kept the stage longcftt 

 are The Mayor of Uarratf and The Liar, 1 the humour of which is 

 not so exelomely adapted to a particular time. Probably his works 

 give but a f.ello notion of his colloquial wit, which was admitted by 

 bis eontemponrie* to be almost unrivalled. His conversational 

 talent*, sptons of repartee, and powers of mimicry and punning. 

 being .backed by perfect telf-possenloii and entire absence of regard 

 any one he fsnciid might be rendered ridiculous, 

 gre bun in society and on the stage a degree of advantage of which 



he was not slow to avail himself, and rendered him one of the most 

 dreaded as well as most amusing jesters that have appeared in this 

 country. Tho reader who may wish to see an ample and cordial appre- 

 ciation of bis merits, is referred to a long and elaborate notice of him 

 by Mr. Forster in the ' Quarterly Review' for 1S.14, No. cxo. 



FORBES, IH'.N'CAN, was tho second son of Duncan Forbes of 

 Culloden, near Inverness, where, or at another seat of the family, 

 called Bunchrew, ha tho same neighbourhood, he wag born 10th of 

 November 1085. Alter studying law for some years at Leydi>u, In- 

 returned to Scotland in 1707, and was admitted an advocate 26th of 

 July 1 ""'.'. At tho bar he rapidly gained employment an. 

 For his first public appointment however, that of sheriff of Mid-I. 

 he was chiefly indebted to the friendship of the Argyll family. The 

 rebellion of 1715 gave him an opportunity of displaying bis i- 

 activity in support of government; and to his influence and exertions, 

 and those of his elder brother, who had now succeeded to the family 

 estate, the maintenance of the public tranquillity throughout a groat 

 part of the north of Scotland at this crisis is considered to have been 

 mainly owing. His services were rewarded the following year by his 

 appointment to what was then called the office of deputy lord-advocate, 

 which wai similar to that of the present solicitor-general. In this 

 office he did himself a* much honour by tho high-minded delicacy 

 which he showed in conducting the trials of the persons charged 

 with participation in tho recent treason, as by the ability and courage 

 he had displayed during tho insurrection. He even set on foot a sub- 

 scription to supply his misguided countrymen, who now crowded the 

 jails of England, with the means of making a legal defence. The cry 

 indeed that he was himself a disguised Jacobite was raii-ed by the 

 zealots of the government In 1722 ho was returned to parliament for 

 the Inverness burgh*, for which his elder brother had previously sat. 

 In the House of Commons, of which ho continued n tuetubi -r for the 

 next fifteen years, he of course generally supported the 

 Kobert Walpole, as his ofllcial situation implied. lu 1725 ho was 

 appointed lord-advocate, the place of secretary of state for Sr 

 being at the same time abolished, mid its duties devolved upon him. 

 In 1737 he was elevated to the dignity of lord-president of th 

 of session, or head of the civil judicature of his native country. A 

 few yean before this time the death of his brother had mad* him 

 proprietor of the family estate. For the lost twenty years of hi* life, 

 Forbes was regarded as a sort of lieutenant governor of Scotland ; 

 but besides the power which he exercised through his official connec- 

 tion, he secured to himself a still wider influence by his public spirit, 

 and his unwearied exertions in promoting the welfare of the country 

 in its trade, its manufactures, its agriculture, its fisheries, it 

 and every other department in which nny project of imprcn 

 suggested itself to his active and patriotic mind. The most memor- 

 able public exertions of President Forbes however, were called forth 

 by the rebellion of 1745. In this emergency he certainly contril>uti<l 

 more than any other man to keep tho rebels in check until the govern- 

 ment was enabled to meet them in tho field with an adequate military 

 force. Tet not only were his service.! never rewarded, but he was even 

 refused any compensation for his actual losses and the expenditure of 

 his private resources in the public cause; and his earnest pleas for a 

 compassionate treatment of the rebels after Culloden wen-, it is raid, 

 met by Cumberland with brutal sneer*. He had been attacked in his 

 castle of Culloden by the rebels, who probably would liavo tak< n hit 

 life if he had fallen into their hands. Tho treatment he mot with 

 from the government on this occasion is said to have shortened his 

 days. His death took place on the 1 nth of December 1747. i' 

 an only son, by a lady whom ho married soon after his admission to 

 tho Lor, but whom ho lost nfter a few years. President Forbes was 

 a man both of extensive scholarship and of elegant accomplishment*. 

 Among other branches of learning be had cultivated an acquaintance 

 with tiic Oriental tongue.*. He U the author of the following 

 which were published at Edinburgh in two volumes 8vo, soon after 

 his death : 1, ' Thoughts on Religion, Natural and 

 2, ' Reflections on tho Sources of Incredulity in regard t,. 

 .1, 'A Letter to a Ill-hop concerning some important d 

 Philosophy and Religion. To President Forbes ore also attrihir 

 well-known verses beginning 



" Ah : riilniln, could I now but sit 

 As unconcerned oft when 



infant Ix-autjr cotilJ beirct 

 Nor haiipinoM nor pain," .\.-. 



His correspondence in relation to Scottish affaire, and especially to 

 the rebellions of 1715 and 1745, was published in a quarto volume at 

 London in 1815, under tho title of ' ('ulltcleii 1'apej , Aie., from the 

 originals in the possession of Duncan George Forbes of Culloden 

 prefixed to this publication ; Introduction t- 



:c, No. xxviii. p. 320, &c. (by Scott) ; 

 Mahni apg. xivii. and xxlx.) 



AUK, a celebrated naturalist. He was born in 

 1815 in the Isle of Man, where his father was a bunker. V. 

 any one to direct his taste, he became a naturalist while yet a child. 

 Null. ing delighted him so much as to pick up the j n.dnct < i.l tl.u 

 shore of bin > .1, when an yet hu could hardly read, i 



time he was seven years of ago ho had collected n small museum. 

 His first efforta at naming three objects were made through Tnrton's 



