FOOTE, SAMUEL (1720-1777).—­Actor and dramatist, b. at Truro of a good family, and ed. at Oxf., succeeded by his extravagance and folly in running through two fortunes.  To repair his finances he turned to the stage, and began with tragedy, in which he failed.  He then took to comedy, and the mimetic representation of living characters, for which his extraordinary comic powers highly qualified him.  He also became a prolific author of dramatic pieces.  He wrote 20 plays, and claimed to have added 16 original characters to the stage.  Several of his pieces, owing to the offence they gave to persons of importance, were suppressed, but were usually revived in a slightly modified form.  His conversation was agreeable and entertaining in the highest degree.  Among his best works are An Auction of Pictures, The Liar, and The Mayor of Garratt (1763), The Lame Lover (1770), The Knights (1749), Author (suppressed) 1757, Devil upon Two Sticks (1768), The Nabob (1779), The Capuchin (1776).

FORBES, JAMES DAVID (1809-1868).—­Natural Philosopher, s. of Sir William F., of Pitsligo, was b. and ed. at Edin.  He studied law, and was called to the Bar, but devoted himself to science, in which he gained a great reputation both as a discoverer and teacher.  He was Prof. of Natural Philosophy at Edin., 1833-1859, when he succeeded Sir D. Brewster, as Principal of the United Coll. at St. Andrews.  He was one of the founders of the British Association in 1831.  His scientific investigations and discoveries embraced the subjects of heat, light, polarisation, and specially glaciers.  In connection with the last of these he wrote Travels through the Alps (1843), Norway and its Glaciers (1853), Tour of Mont Blanc and Monte Rosa (1855), and Papers on the Theory of Glaciers.

FORD, JOHN (c. 1586?).—­Dramatist, b. probably at Ilsington, Devonshire, was admitted to the Middle Temple in 1602, and appears to have practised as a lawyer.  His chief plays are The Lover’s Melancholy (1629), ’Tis Pity, The Broken Heart, and Love’s Sacrifice (1633), Perkin Warbeck (1634), The Lady’s Trial (1639), and Fancies Chaste and Noble (1638).  He also collaborated with Dekker and Rowley in The Witch of Edmonton (1624).  F. has a high position as a dramatist, though rather for general intellectual power and austere beauty of thought than for strictly dramatic qualities.  C. Lamb says, “F. was of the first order of poets.”  He had little humour; his plays, though the subjects are painful, and sometimes horrible, are full of pensive tenderness expressed in gently flowing verse.  The date of his death is uncertain.

FORD, PAUL LEICESTER (1865-1902).—­Novelist and biographer, was b. in Brooklyn.  He wrote Lives of Washington, Franklin, and others, ed. the works of Jefferson, and wrote a number of novels, which had considerable success, including Peter Sterling (1894), Story of an Untold Love, Janice Meredith, Wanted a Matchmaker, and Wanted a Chaperone.  He d. by his own hand.