In the month of November, Garrick permitted “The Minor” to be acted in Drury Lane Theatre, but with some insignificant alterations, the chief of which was, in lieu of a filthy and profane sentence, which cannot be quoted, Mrs. Cole, the bawd, was represented as saying, “Dr. Squintum washed me with the soap-suds and scouring sand of the Tabernacle, and I became as clean and bright as a pewter-platter.”[479] The theatre was crowded, and thus even Garrick, as well asFoote, began to make money by holding up Whitefield to the ridicule of the large and fashionable assemblies of the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane. It was now that one of the personal friends of Whitefield stepped into the lists. The Rev. Martin Madan[480] published an 8vo. pamphlet of 48 pages, entitled, “A Letter to David Garrick, Esq.; occasioned by the intended Representation of ‘The Minor’ at the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane.” In an advertisement, Mr. Madan states that the first performance of ‘The Minor’ in Drury-Lane had been fixed for October 25, but the sudden death of King George the Second, on the morning of that day, occasioned a short postponement. Madan refrains from discussing “the absolute unlawfulness of stage entertainments,” because that point had been “ably and unanswerably proved by the masterly pen of the Rev. Mr. William Law.” He says, “Mr. Whitefield knows nothing of the writing of this letter;[481] and I will not say one word in behalf of him. I shall put him as much out of the case as if there was no such man breathing. I profess no attempt to defend anything but the truths of the Bible, and consequently the religion of this country, as by law established.” Madan declares that, instead of “The Minor” being styled a comedy, it deserved the name of “A Dramatic Libel against the Christian Religion;” and, by quotations, proceeds to state his reasons, for this assertion, adding:—
“Does Mr. Garrick think such language as this is fit for the entertainment of polite ears? Would any one imagine that these speeches, if weighed one moment in the balance of reason (to say nothing of religion), could possibly be introduced, with the least degree of approbation, before any audience, except the inhabitants of Bridewell or Newgate? I blush for my countrymen, when I recollect, that even this vile stuff was attended to in the Hay-Market, by crowded audiences, for above thirty nights, and that with applause; whereas it was dismissed, with deserved abhorrence, after being one night only offered to the people of Ireland, at one of their theatres. This I have been credibly informed of, and believe it to be true.”
After furnishing other quotations from “The Minor,” Madan again addresses Garrick thus:—
“Now, sir, give me leave to appeal to your own good sense and judgment, whether, upon the foregoing view of ‘The Minor,’ you think it a proper entertainment for his Majesty’s comedians to exhibit, or his Majesty’s subjects to attend to; whether you think there is such a veneration for our holy religion among the people, as to need any retrenchment; and whether making the language of the Scriptures and the doctrines of the gospel ridiculous, can be likely to answer any other end, than increasing the daily growth of impiety and infidelity amongst people of all degrees?”
“As to Mr. Foote, I would charitably think, that all the knowledge he has of the several expressions and doctrines he has ridiculed, is, in consequence of his attendance upon the preaching of Mr. Squintum, in order to laugh at him. Hence he thought (as he had not been used to such language) that they were the vapours of a distempered brain, and treated them accordingly; so that, like Solomon’s madman, he has been casting about firebrands, arrows, and death, and saying, ‘Am I not in sport?’ I hope, however, Mr. Foote will endeavour to inform himself better, and then make what amends he can to the public, for having been the promoter of an open attack upon the truths and language of the sacred volume, by the mouths of the most profligate and wicked of the people; for we can hardly walk the streets, but we hear ballads, in which the very words of our blessed Saviour are blasphemed, and treated as the rare doctrine of Dr. Squintum.”
It is hoped that quotations like these will justify the treating of this subject at so great a length. To say nothing of Foote, and his lewd audiences in the little theatre in the Haymarket, it was a serious, almost a national, crime and evil when such profanity and pollution were introduced into His Majesty’s Theatre Royal, in Drury Lane; and when, prompted by such a high example, Grub Street began to supply ballads, of the same horrible description as the farce of Foote, to the boys and girls, the drunkards and profligates, of England’s great metropolis.[482]
Besides Mr. Madan’s pamphlet, another was published, in Whitefield’s favour, in November, 1760, namely: “A Letter to Mr. Foote, occasioned by his Letter to the Reverend Author of the Christian and Critical Remarks on ‘The Minor;’ containing a Refutation of Mr. Foote’s Pamphlet, and a full Defence of the Principles and Practices of the Methodists. By the Author of the Christian and Critical Remarks.” (8vo. 28 pp.)
This was a well-written pamphlet; but another, by the same author, published in the same month, was not so prudently composed. Its title was, “An Exhortatory Address to the Brethren in the Faith of Christ. Occasioned by a Remarkable Letter from Mr. Foote to the Reverend Author of Christian and Critical Remarks on ‘The Minor.’ With a serious word or two on the present Melancholy Occasion. By a Minister of the Church of Christ.” The “serious word or two” spoilt all the rest; for the author rashly insinuated that the encouragement given to Foote was the sin which had brought upon the nation a Divine judgment, in the recent sudden death of George II. As might be expected, this gave an advantage to Foote and to his friends. On reading the pamphlet, the Monthly Review exclaimed, “O thou wrong-headed leader of the wrong-heads! Fie on thee! Fie on thee!”
On the other side, a long letter, filling nearly a page, was inserted in Lloyd’s Evening Post, of November 14. It began as follows: “We now have the pleasure of seeing Methodism ushered in in comic characters, and the ridiculous gesture of the Tabernacle Impostor mimicked in the easier attitude of the stage.” The writer proceeds to criticise what he calls Methodism’s “favourite tenet, the grace of assurance, good works being not significant;” and then wishes “we had some formal Court of Judicature, to detect the cunning cant and hypocrisy of all pretenders to sanctity and devotion, for then we should be able to guard against those who preach to us salvation with a view to make us undergo a temporal fleecing.” With a sneer, he concludes thus:—
“What a monstrous piece of inhumanity are we venerators of apostolic doctrine and episcopal dignity to these pretended saint errants and non-apostolical preachers! To complete their unhappiness, we have made them a theatrical scoff, and the common jest and scorn of every chorister in the street.”