that many gross errors and impostures prevailed in the various institutions and establishments of mankind; being also ambitious of restoring ancient eloquence, but as his enemies asserted, to avoid the scandalous embarrassments of illicit love, he repaired to the metropolis, and for a short time performed clerical functions at St. John's Chapel, near Bedford Row, with the prospect of succeeding to the lectureship of an adjoining parish (Bloomsbury), which soon became vacant. "Several candidates offering for this situation, a warm contest ensued; probation sermons were preached; and Henley's predominating vanity made him expect an easy victory. "We may guess at his disappointment, when this disciple of Demosthenes and Cicero was informed that the congregation had no objection to his language or his doctrine, but that he threw himself about too much in the pulpit, and that another person was chosen. "Losing his temper as well as his election, he rushed into a room where the principal parishioners were assembled, and thus addressed them, in all the vehemence of outrageous passion: "Blockheads! are you qualified to judge of the degree of action necessary for a preacher of God's word? Were you able to read, or had you sufficient sense, you sorry knaves, to understand the renowned orator of antiquity, he would tell you, almost the only requisite of a public speaker was action, action, action. ""But I despise and defy you; provoco ad populum; the public shall decide between us.' He then hastily retired, and, to vindicate his injured fame, published the probationary discourse he had delivered. "Thus disappointed in the regular routine of his profession, he became a quack divine; for this character he was eminently qualified, possessing a strong voice, fluent language, an imposing magisterial air, and a countenance, which no violation of propriety, reproach, or self-correction, was ever known to embarrass or discompose. "He immediately advertised that he should hold forth publicly, two days in the week, and hired for this purpose, a large room in or near Newport Market, which he called the Oratory; but previous to the commencement of his academical discourses,' he chose to consult Mr. Whiston, a learned clergyman of considerable mathematical and astronomical research, but who had rendered himself remarkable by eccentric simplicity of heart, and the whimsical heterodoxy of his creed. "In a letter to this gentleman he desired to be informed, whether he should incur any legal penalties by officiating as a separatist from the Church of England. Mr. Whiston did not encourage Henley's project, and a correspondence took place, which, ending in virulence and ill-language, produced, a few years after, the following letter : "To Mr. William Whiston, 'Take notice, that I give you warning not to enter my room in Newport Market, at your peril. 'JOHN HENLEY." * Henley succeeded in his speculation, by lecturing, in the most important manner, on all sorts of subjects, from the origin of evil down to a shoe. He also published a variety of pamphlets, and a periodical farrago called the 'Hyp Doctor,' for which he is said to have had pay from Sir Robert Walpole; and as his popularity rapidly increased in consequence of his addressing himself to uneducated understandings, he removed from his Oratory in Newport Market to the more capacious room in Clare Market; for he seems to have had a natural propensity to the society of butchers, and they were fond of his tranchant style. He sometimes threatened his enemies with them. Pope, in answering the assertions of those who charged him with depriving people of their bread, asks whether Colley Cibber had not "still his lord," and Henley his butchers. "And has not Colley still his lord His butchers Henley, his freemasons Moore." * " Lounger's Common Place Book," vol. ii. p. 137. Pope had been attacked by him. The poet speaks of him again, several times, in the 'Dunciad: ' " Imbrown'd with native bronze, lo! Henley stands, Book iii. v. 199. Pope says he had a "gilt tub," and insinuates that he sometimes got drunk. Among the sleeping worthies in the 'Dunciad,' "Henley lay inspired beside a sink, And to mere mortals seemed a priest in drink." A contemporary journalist, who says that the fame of Henley induced him to be present at one of the lectures in Newport Market, describes him as entering like a harlequin by a door behind the pulpit, and "at one large leap jumping into it, and falling to work." "His notions," he says, "the orator beat into the audience with hands, arms, legs, and head, as if people's understandings were to be courted and knocked down with blows." The price of admission was a shilling. The following are samples of Henley's extraordinary advertisements. "At the Oratory in Newport Market, to-morrow, at halfan-hour after ten, the sermon will be on the Witch of Endor. At half-an-hour after five, the theological lecture will be on the conversion and original of the Scottish nation, and of the Picts and Caledonians; St. Andrew's relics and panegyric, and the character and mission of the Apostles. "On Wednesday, at six, or near the matter, take your chance, *will be a medley oration on the history, merits, and praise of confusion, and of confounders, in the road and out of the way. "On Friday, will be that on Dr. Faustus and Fortunatus, and conjuration; after each, the Chimes of the Times, No. 23 and 24. N. B. Whenever the prices of the seats are occasionally raised in the week days, notice will be given of it in the prints. An account of the performances of the Oratory from the 1st of August is published, with the Discourse on Nonsense; and if any bishop, clergyman, or other subject of his Majesty, or the subject of any foreign prince or state, can at my years, and in my circumstances and opportunities, without the least assistance or any patron in the world, parallel the study, choice, variety, and discharge of the said performances of the Oratory by his own or any others, I will engage forthwith to quit the said Oratory. "J. HENLEY." * In the bill of fare issued for Sunday, September 28. 1729, the most extraordinary theological speculations are followed by a list of the fashions in dress. "At the Oratory, the corner of Lincoln's Inn Fields, near Clare Market, to-morrow, at half-an-hour after ten: 1. The postil will be on the turning of Lot's wife into a pillar of salt. 2. The sermon will be on the necessary power and attractive force which religion gives the spirit of a man with God and good spirits. "II. At five: 1. The postil will be on this point: in what language our Saviour will speak the last sentence on mankind. 2. The lecture will be on Jesus Christ's sitting at the right hand of God; where that is; the honours and lustre of his inauguration; the learning, criticism, and piety of that glorious article. "The Monday's orations will shortly be resumed. On Wednesday, the oration will be on the skits of the fashions, or a live gallery of family pictures in all ages; ruffs, muffs, puffs manifold; shoes, wedding-shoes, two-shoes, slip-shoes, heels, clocks, pantofles, buskins, pantaloons, garters, shoulder-knots, * Malcolm, et seq., p. 417. periwigs, head-dresses, modesties, tuckers, farthingales, corkins, minikins, slammakins, ruffles, round robins, tollets, fans, patches; dame, forsooth, madam, my lady, the wit and beauty of my grannum; Winnifred, Joan, Bridget, compared with our Winny, Jenny, and Biddy; fine ladies, and pretty gentlewomen; being a general view of the beau monde, from before Noah's flood to the year 29. On Friday will be something better than last Tuesday. After each, a bob at the times."* Henley must have lectured a long while; for one of his "bobs at the times" was occasioned by the dismissal of Dr. Cobden, a chaplain to George II. in the year 1748, for preaching from the following text: "Take away the wicked from before the king, and his throne shall be established in righteousness." The wicked, we believe, meant the king's mistresses. Next Saturday, Henley's advertisement appeared with an epigram on this text for a motto: " Away with the wicked before the king, And we shall know where to find him." This must be what the reviewers call a "favourable specimen." "Sometimes," says the 'Lounger's Common-Place Book,' " one of his old Bloomsbury friends caught the speaker's eye; on these occasions, he could not resist the temptation to gratify his vanity and resentment; after a short pause he would address the unfortunate interloper in words to the following effect: 'You see, sir, all mankind are not exactly of your opinion; there are, you perceive, a few sensible people in the world, who consider me as not wholly unqualified for the office I have undertaken. "His abashed and confounded adversaries, thus attacked * Malcolm's Anecdotes of the Manners and Customs of London during the Eighteenth Century, vol. i. p. 421. |