dent
of history.

SAMUEL FOOTE.--Among the many English actors who have been distinguished
for great powers of versatility in voice, feature, and manner, there is
none superior to Foote. Bold and self-reliant, he was a comedian in
every-day life; and his ready wit and humor subdued Dr. Johnson, who had
determined to dislike him. He was born in 1722, at Truro, and educated at
Oxford: he studied law, but his peculiar aptitudes soon led him to the
stage, where he became famous as a comic actor. Among his original pieces
are _The Patron_, _The Devil on Two Stilts_, _The Diversions of the
Morning_, _Lindamira_, and _The Slanderer_. But his best play, which is a
popular burlesque on parliamentary elections, is _The Mayor of Garrat_. He
died in 1777, at Dover, while on his way to France for the benefit of his
health. His plays present the comic phase of English history in his day.

RICHARD CUMBERLAND.--This accomplished man, who, in the words of Walter
Scott, has given us "many powerful sketches of the age which has passed
away," was born in 1732, and lived to the ripe age of seventy-nine, dying
in 1811. After receiving his education at Cambridge, he became secretary
to Lord Halifax. His versatile pen produced, besides dramatic pieces,
novels and theological treatises, illustrating the principal topics of the
time. In his plays there is less of immorality than in those of his
contemporaries. _The West Indian_, which was first put upon the stage in
1771, and which is still occasionally presented, is chiefly noticeable in
that an Irishman and a West Indian are the principal characters, and that
he has not brought them into ridicule, as was common at the time, but has
exalted them by their merits. The best of his other plays are _The Jew,
The Wheel of Fortune_, and _The Fashionable Lover_. Goldsmith, in his poem
_Retaliation_, says of Cumberland, referring to his greater morality and
his human sympathy,

Here Cumberland lies, having acted his parts,
The Terence of England, the mender of hearts;
A flattering painter, who made it his care
To draw men as they ought to be, not as they are.

RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN.--No man represents the Regency so completely as
Sheridan. He was a statesman, a legislator, an orator, and a dramatist;
and in social life a wit, a gamester, a spendthrift, and a debauchee. His
manifold nature seemed to be always in violent ebullition. He was born in
September, 1751, and was the