Samuel Foote (January, 1720 – October 21, 1777) was an English dramatist, actor and theatre manager from Cornwall. Born into a well to do family,Foote was baptized in Truro, Cornwall on January 27, 1720.His father, John Foote, was from good family and he held several public positions, including mayor of Truro, Member of Parliament respresenting Tiverton and a commissioner in the Prize Office.His mother, née Eleanor Goodere, was the daughter of baronet Sir Edward Goodere of Hereford.Foote may have inherited his wit and sharp humour from her and her family which was described as "eccentric. ..whose peculiarities ranged from the harmless to the malevolent."About the time Foote came of age, he inherited his first fortune when one of his uncles, baronet Sir John Dinely Goodere, was murdered by another uncle, Captain Samuel Goodere.It was this murder that was the subject of the first pamphlet that Foote published around 1741. Foote was educated at the collegiate school at Worcester, and at Worcester College, Oxford, distinguishing himself in both places by mimicry and audacious pleasantries of all kinds.An undisciplined student, he frequently was absent from his Latin and Greek classes and subsequently, Oxford disenrolled him 28 January 1740. Although he left Oxford without taking his degree, he acquired a classical training which afterwards enabled him to easily turn a classical quotation or allusion, and helped to give to his prose style a certain fluency and elegance.
the great panjandrum
So she went into the garden
to cut a cabbage-leaf
to make an apple-pie;
and at the sa...[read poem]
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to cut a cabbage-leaf
to make an apple-pie;
and at the sa...
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