Samuel Foote
(1720-1777)

Charles Howard of Greystock published a silly book he called `Thoughts'. He meets Foote at a coffee-house. `And have you read my Thoughts?' says he. `No,' replies the other, `I wait for the second volume.'— 'And why so?'—'Because I have heard', says Foote, `that Second Thoughts were best.'

— Thraliana, i. 151. The Hon. Charles Howard published Thoughts, Essays, and Maxims, Chiefly Religious and Political (1768).
In 1777 he succeeded a second cousin as tenth Duke of Norfolk.

MY Lord Sandwich had dined one day in Foote's company, in Covent Garden, at the famous Beef Steak Club. The glass had gone profusely round; and at the unguarded time, when the bold idea of the moment sallies forth without any regard to good manners`Foote,' said Lord Sandwich, `I have often wondered what catastrophe would bring you to your end; but I think you must either die of the pox, or the halter.''My Lord,' replied Foote instantaneously, `that will depend upon one of two contingencies—whether I embrace your lordship's mistress, or your lordship's principles.'

—Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Percival Stockdale, Written by Himself (1890), I. 318.

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