548 
F O O 
Scheme; plan; fettlement.—There is no well-wifher to 
this country without a little hope that in time the king¬ 
dom may be on a better foot. Swift. —A ftate of incipient 
exifience ; firft motion. Little ufed but in the following 
phrafe : — If fuch a tradition were at any time ft on foot, 
ii is not eafy to imagine how it fhould at firfi gain entertain¬ 
ment ; but much more difficult how it fhould come to be 
univerfally propagated. Tillctfon. —it feems to have been 
once proverbially ufed for the level, the fquare, par.— 
Vfere it not tor this eafy borrowing upon intereft, men’s 
neceflities would draw upon them a mod hidden undoing, 
in that they would be forced to fell their means, be it 
lands or goods, far under J<$t. Bacon. —A certain number 
ot fyllables conftituting a diftinft part of a verfe. See 
the article Poetry. — Feet, in our Englifh verifying, 
without quantity and joints, be fure figns that the verfe 
is either born deformed, unnatural, or lame. Afch'am. — 
Motion; action: 
While other jefts are fomething rank on foot, 
Her father hath commanded her to marry. Skakefpeare. 
Step.—This man’s fon would, every foot and anon, be 
taking fome of his companions into the orchard. L’E- 
f range. —A meafure containing twelve inches: fuppofed 
to be the length of a man’s foot. When it fignifies mea¬ 
fure, it has often, but vicioufly_/eo< in the plural,—An 
orange, lemon, and.apple, wrapt in a linen cloth, being 
buried for a fortnight’s fpace four foot deep within the 
earth, came forth no ways mouldy or rotten. Bacon. 
To FOOT, v. n. To dance; to tread wantonly; to 
trip : 
He faw a quire of ladies in a round, 
That footing Teem’d to fkim the ground. Dryden. 
To walk; not ride ; not fly.—The man fet the boy upon 
the afs, and footed it himfelf. VEf range. 
By this the dreadful bead drew nigh to land, 
Half flying, and half footing in his hade. Spenfer. 
To FOOT, v. a. To fpurn ; to kick.—You, that did 
void your rheum upon my beard, and foot me as you fpurn 
a ftranger cur over your threfhold. Skakefpeare. —To fet¬ 
tle ; to begin to fix : 
What confed’racy have you with the traitors 
Late footed in the kingdom ? Skakefpeare. 
To tread: 
Thete haply by the ruddy damfel feen, 
Or fliepherd boy, they featly foot the green. Ticket. 
To hold with the foot. Not in ufe: 
We are the earth, and they, 
Like moles within us, heave and cafi about ; 
And till they foot and clutch their prey, 
1 hey never cool, much lefs give out. Herbert. 
Geometricians divide the foot into ten digits, and the 
digit into ten lines, &c. The French divide their foot, 
as we do, into twelve inches;' but their inch they divide 
into twelve lines. The foot is alfo of different lengths 
in different countries. The Paris royal foot is to the 
Englifh foot, as 4263 to 4000, and exceeds the Englifh 
by nine lines and a half; the ancient Roman foot of the 
capitol confided of four palms, equal to eleven inches 
and feven-tenths Englifh; the Rhinland, or Leyden foot, 
ufed by the northern nations, is to the Roman foot, as 
nineteen to twenty. For the proportions of the foot of 
feveral nations, compared with the Englifh, fee the arti¬ 
cle Measure. 
Square Foot, is a fquare whofe fide is one foot, or 
twelve inches, and confequently its'area is 144 fquare 
inches. 
Cubic Foot, is a cube whofe fide is one foot, or twelve 
inches, and confequently it contains 12 3 or 1728 cubic 
inches. 
FOOT'BALL, f. A ball commonly made of a blown 
bladder, cafed witfc leather, driven by the foot.—A win- 
F O O 
ter-piece fliould be beautified with all manner of works 
and exercif'es of winter; as Jcotbalis , felling of wood, and 
Aiding upon the ice. Peacham. 
As when a fort of lufiv fliepherds try 
Their force at football, care of victory 
Makes them falute fo rudely, bread to bread, 
That their encounter feems too rough for jefi. Waller. 
The fport or practice of kicking the football.—He was 
fenfible the common football was a very imperfect imita¬ 
tion of that exercife. Arl.uthnot. v 
FOOT'BANK, f. A bank of earth in fortifications on 
which the men mount to fire. 
FOOT'BOY, f A lovv menial attendant: 
Was it diferetion, lords, to let this man. 
This h'oneft man, wait like a lowfy footboy 
At chamber-door ? Skakefpeare. 
FOOT'BRIDGE, f. A bridge on which pafiengers 
walk; a narrow bridge.—Palemon’s fhepherd, fearing 
the footbridge was not firq.ig enough, loaded it fo long, 
’till he broke that which would have born a bigger bur¬ 
den. Sidney. 
FOOT'CLOTH, /. A flump ter cloth : 
Three times a day my footclotk horfe did (tumble, 
And (farted when he look’d upon the Tower, 
As loth to bear me to the fiaughter-houfe. Skakefpeare. 
FOOTE (Samuel), a celebrated comic writer, born in 
1721, at Truro in Cornwall. His father was a commif- 
fioner in the prize office, and fometime a member of par¬ 
liament ; his mother was a defeendant of the families of 
Dineley and Goodere. Samuel was educated at War. 
cefter college, Oxford, and afterwards entered at the 
Temple for the ftudy of the law. But, like fo many 
other young men of lively difpofition, he was fed need 
from the drynefs of this purfuit by the gaieties of the 
metropolis. He ran into a courfe of fafhionable diflipa- 
tion of every kind, which was not checked by a marriage 
that was attended with little harmony ; and a few years 
brought him to the end of all his patrimony. He then 
applied to the common refource of extravagance,the fiage, 
and performed various characters, but without riling 
above mediocrity. The (canty emoluments arifing from, 
this profeflion were not likely to maintain a man with his 
habits of life, and he was obliged to take refuge from his 
creditors by redding within the verge of the court. He 
is faid at this time to have obtained a temporary relief 
by being concerned in a ftratagem which obtained a rich 
wife for his gay friend, Mr. (afterwards fir Francis) De- 
laval. His ingenuity, however, opened to him a more 
permanent fupport, by finking out a new path for the en¬ 
tertainment of the public. In 1747 he exhibited at the 
theatre in the Huymarket a dramatic piece which he en¬ 
titled The Diverftons of the Morning. It confided of 
foir.e difplays of mimicry, in detached feenes, by which 
certain well-known characters were taken o^Fwith much 
pleafantry and accuracy of imitation. He was himfelf 
the principal performer, as well as the compqfer, in this 
exhibition; which took fo well, that, under another 
title (that of Mr. Foote’s giving Tea to his Friends; by 
which he avoided the penalties of the aCt for limiting 
playhoufes), it attracted fafhionable audiences for more 
than forty mornings. It was fucceeded by another difh 
of mimicry, called The Auction of Pictures, which 
proved equally fuccefsful. Having thus difeovered his 
own ftrength, lie began to adopt a more regular mode of 
compofition, and wrote feveral pieces of two aCts, which 
fucceflively appeared from 1751 to 1757, under the titles 
of Tafie, T.he Englifhman in Paris, I he Knights, The 
Englifhman returned from Paris, and, The Author. 
The general fpirit of thefe fliort compofitions was to 
feize feme point of fafhionable folly, and expofe it in a 
few feenes of broad humour; with the addition of the 
mimetic reprefentation of fome real character difiin- 
guifhed by whimfical peculiarities. There was Tittle of 
