Three months before, as soon as “The Minor” appeared, there was published, a shilling pamphlet, with the false title: “A Genuine Letter from a Methodist Preacher in the Country, to Laurence Sterne, M.A., Prebendary of York.” Now, in the month of October, the same “nonsensical and profane” thing was re-issued with an altered title: “A Letter from the Rev. George Whitefield, B.A., to the Rev. Laurence Sterne, M.A., the supposed Author of ‘The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy.’” Even the Monthly Review now became indignant, and said, “The impudence of our low dirty, hedge-publishers is risen to a most shameful height. To take such scandalous liberties with names, as is here done with that of Mr. Whitefield, is surely insufferable in any well-regulated community. If it is not in that gentleman’s power to procure redress of such a flagrant injury, it is high time to provide the means of punishing such audacious proceedings for the future.”
The volatile Foote also added to his previous crime, the publication of an 8vo. pamphlet, of 40 pages, entitled, “A Letter from Mr. Foote to the Reverend Author of the Remarks, Critical and Christian, on ‘The Minor.’” The mendacious reviler writes:—
“I am extremely puzzled in what manner to address you; it being impossible to determine, from the title you assume, whether you are an authorised pastor, or a peruke-maker,—a real clergyman, or a corn-cutter.”
Again:—
“I have heard George Whitefield’s mother frequently declare that hewas a dull, stupid, heavy boy, totally incapable of their business at the ‘Bell,’ a principal inn at Gloucester.
“The force and miserable effects of Whitefield’s mystic doctrines are obvious enough. Bedlam loudly proclaims the power of your preacher, and scarce a street in town but boasts its tabernacle; where some, from interested views, and others—unhappy creatures! mistaking the idle offspring of a distempered brain for divine inspiration, broach such doctrines as are not only repugnant to Christianity, but destructive even to civil society.
“I believe Whitefield is too cunning to let anybody into the secret as to the quantity of wealth he has amassed; but, from your own computation of males fit to carry arms, who are listed in his service, and the price they are well known to pay for admittance, even into the gallery of his theatre, I should suppose his annual income must double the primate’s. To this may be added private benefactions and occasional contributions.”
One more specimen of Foote’s audacious scurrility must suffice. He concludes his pamphlet thus:—
“You a reformer! Are these the proofs of your mission? Repent, and, by way of atonement and mortification, summon your misguided flock; reveal your impious frauds, and restore the poor deluded people to their senses and their proper pastors. If you still persist, I must, after your example, conclude with wishing that those teachers amongst you, who are mad, were confined closely in Bedlam, and those who are wicked, were lodged safely in Bridewell; and then, I think the public would get rid of you all. But, whilst you continue triumphantly at large, spiritualized and divine as you may think yourselves, I shall still take the liberty to follow you, as the boy did Philip, with a loud memento that you are merely men.”
The reader must pardon these long extracts from such a writer; for, without them, it is difficult to convey an adequate idea of what a sensitive man like Whitefield must have suffered from the publication of such falsehoods and abuse. Unfortunately more must follow.