TWO FAMOUS HUMORISTS.

King Country Chronicle, Volume V, Issue 343, 8 March 1911, Page 7

TWO FAMOUS HUMORISTS.

FOOTE : SELWYN. When noticing the "Wits, Beans, and Beauties of the Georgian Era" of Mr. John Fvvie. the "Daily S C ws" says that Mr. Fvvie's wits include Samuel Foots, who was rashly called "the English Aristophanes," George Amsrustns Selwyn. whose reputation for saying good things has outlived the proofs cm which it rests. Foote, who was noted as a gay do-"," as a humorist who could make Dr. Johnson laugh in spit.e of himself, came of a good Cornish family, and was early put in possession of a fortune of £SOOO a year, as a result of one of his uncles murdering the other and being hanged for it. It was when he had squandered this fortune that his unhappy mother, who had had no separate provision made for her, wrote to him this brief letter Dear Sam, -I am in prison for debt. Come and assist your loving mother. —E. Foote. His reply was : Dear Mother, —So am I, which prevents his duty being paid to his loving mother by her affectionate son. —Sam Foots.

P.S. —I have sent my attorney to assist you ; in the meantime, let us hope for better days. Before this lie had already wasted considerable possessions, but, when one of his mother's relatives died some years afterwards and left him yet. a third fortune, he expressed his unconquerable spirit of extravagance by at once setting up "a dashing carriage, with the significant motto, ' Iterum, Iterum, Iterumque,' painted on its panels." Foote is remembered now less as a playwright than as a joker. Indeed, among his many jokes is one of the best known in the English language. It is not everyone who knows the circumstances in which the "What, nc so ip !" joke was born. Mr. Fyvie tells us how Macklin, the actor, left the stage to set up a school of oratory in Co vent Garden, and how Foote used to amuse himself and the audiences at Maeklin's lectures by his questions, repartees, and humorous sallies, Une day when Mack lin, in the course of lecture on the cultivation of memory, had committed himself to the indiscreet assertion that he had brought his own memory to such a state of perfection that he was able to repeat anything by rote after a single reading, Foote waited quietly till the conclusion of the lecture, and then handed up a paper containing the following sentence, which he politely desired Mr. Macklin to read aloud once, and then repeat verbatim, in illustration and corroboration of the assertion he had just made :

•So she went into the garden tcr cut a cabbage leaf, to make an apple pic ; and at the same time a great she-bear coming up the street pops its head into the shop : ' What, no soap ?' So he died, and she very imprudently married the bnrber : and th"re were present, the Picninnies, und the .Tobiillits, and the Garyulies, and the great Panjandrum himself, with the little round button on top ; and they all fell to playing the game <>f catch as catch can, till the gunpowder ran out at the heels of their boot--." Naturally such constant Jack-in-th:'-i:ox humour made Foote a suffici lit ivmbcr of enemies. Garrick is said tii have feared him, and no wonder, for Foote's wit seemed to ha' e been at its best when lie was making tun of his fellow-actor. He was esi:eci illy fond of joking about Garr.'cVs stinginess. Foote used to say of him that he waUud out with the intention of doing some generous action, but. turning th? corner of a street, he met w'.th the ghost of a half-penny, which frightened it all out of him. A small bust of Garrick used to stand upon Foote's bureau ; and when anyone's attention was drawn to it he woiin! remark. "You may be surprised that: I allow him to be so near my gold ; but you will observe that lie has no hands." The s.irost way to appreciate Foote's wit is to place it beside Selwyn's for comparison At the same time, we can imagine that, if Foote had 1 een a member of the House of Common-;, lie would have behaved very much as did Selwyn, who sat in the House for forty-four years. Sometime.?, like Lord North, he would fall asleep in his seat. And sometimes, when that Minister was snoring aloud during a debate, Selwjn would amuse the House by cnly pretending to sleep, but ostentatiously snoring in unison with his leader.

Some of his witticisms, it must be admitted, are above the level of this buffoonery. When hia friend the beautiful Lady Coventry once showed him a splendid new dress covered with silver spangles as large as shillings, • and asked whether lie admired it, he answered, "It looks like change i'or a guinea," Mr, collected a lew more specimen.-; of Selwyn's social pleasantry and conversational wit, which are much on a level with those given by Walpole. A namesake of Charles Fox having been Imng at Tyburn, Fox inquired whether his friend had attended the execution. ''No, - ' was belw j, n s rejoinder. "I make a point of never frequenting rehearsals, Selwyn, according to Mr. Fyvie, was remarkable for a "morbid taste for criminal executions and for the sight of corpses." Of this last eccentricuv many stories, at which one cannot help laughing, a re told. Wraxall tells us that in 1756 Selwvn made a jr/.irncy to Pans for the express purpose of seeing Datni-ui broken on Hie wheel, and that when he attempted to get near the scaffold he was at first repulsed by the officials ; but when he expostulated

and explained that he nad come all the way from London for the purpose of Witnessing the procedure, he was as'.;cd if he were an executioner. He replied that lie had not that honour : lie was merely an amateur ; v, hereupon the man cleared a way £ir his approach, calling out, "Fa tes place pour monsieur ; e'est i:n Angla's, ct, iin amateur." His love of corpses was a perpetual subject of joking among his fri nds. When his old and attached friend the first Lord Holland lay on bis death-bed, he was told one day that Selwyn had called to inquire after his health. " The next time Mr. Selwyn calls," said the witty old statesman, "show him up. If I am alive I shall be delighted to see him ; and if I am dead he will be delighted to sec me."