At Edinburgh, Whitefield consulted four eminent physicians.[489] There are only two more letters to tell the remainder of his story during the year 1761: the first addressed to the Rev. John Gillies, of Glasgow; the second to Mr. Robert Keen, of London.
“Edinburgh, November 9, 1761. Though I have been very ill since my coming to Edinburgh, yet I must come to see my dear friends at Glasgow. I cannot be there till noon on the 12th inst. Little, very little, can be expected from a dying man.”
“Leeds, December 1, 1761. It is near ten at night and I am to set off to-morrow in the Leeds stage for London. Silence is enjoined me for a while by the Edinburgh physicians. They say my case is then recoverable. The great Physician will direct.”
The poor fellow apparently was dying; but, even under such circumstances, his enemies could not restrain their malice.It is a painful thing to advert again to hostile publications, but Whitefield’s history cannot be fully told without it. Some, belonging to 1761, have been already noticed; others, unfortunately, are, as yet, unmentioned:—
1. “A Funeral Discourse, occasioned by the much-lamented Death of Mr. Yorick, Prebendary of Y—k, and Author of the much-admired ‘Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy.’ Preached before a very mixed Society of Jemmies, Jessamies, Methodists, and Christians, at a nocturnal meeting in Petticoat Lane; and now Published, at the unanimous request of the hearers, by Christopher Flagellan, A.M. London, 1761.” (8vo. 48 pp.) It is enough to say that this profane and filthy production was dedicated to “the Right Honourable the Lord F——g, and to the very facetious Mr. Foote!”
2. “A Journal of the Travels of Nathaniel Snip, a Methodist Teacher of the Word. Containing an Account of the many Marvellous Adventures which befel him in his way from the town of Kingston-upon-Hull to the City of York. London, 1761.” (8vo. 32 pp.) This was an infamous production, full of burlesque and banter; but the foot-note, at the end of it, will be quite enough to satisfy the reader’s craving:—
“As Snip’s manuscript concludes thus abruptly, I beg leave to finish the whole with an account of what I observed at a puppet show, exhibited at one of the principal towns in the west of Yorkshire. Punch was introduced in the character of Parson Squintum, the field-preacher, holding forth to a number of wooden-headed puppets, mostly composed of old women and ungartered journeymen of different callings. The more noise Punch (alias Squintum) made, the more the audience sighed and groaned. At last, Squintum said something about a woman with the moon under her feet, and pointed up to the sky, on which he desired them to fix their eyes with steadfastness. They did so; and, while their eyes were thus fixed, he very fairly picked all their pockets, and stole off. Oh, Punch, Punch! Thou Alexander the Coppersmith! thou Ananias Inlignante! what will become of thee hereafter, for thus vilifying the Inspired of Heaven, the Grand Obstetrix of those chosen few, who are impregnate with the New Birth!”
3. A third of these malignant productions professed to have for its author the most notorious quack of the age, “Dr. Rock,” and was entitled, “A Letter to the Reverend Mr. G—e Wh——d, A.B., late of Pembroke College, Oxford.”(12mo. 8 pp.) The purport of this bantering tract was, a proposal that, as Rock and Whitefield were both quacks, they should enter into partnership. The thing displayed cleverness,—perhaps too great to affiliate it on the great empiric. One or two extracts must suffice:—
“If you set up for a copy of St. Paul (as it is observed you do, even to the mimicking of Raphael’s picture of him at Hampton Court), I do the same by the old stager—Hypocrites, I think they call him. If you undertake to cleanse and purify the soul, I do the like by the body. If you are an enemy to the regular drones of your profession, I am as much to those of ours. If you profess to serve the public for the sake of the public, so do I. Do you pocket the fee when it is offered?—I do the same. Are the mob your customers?—they are mine likewise. Are you called a quack in doctrinals?—I bear the same reproach in practice. Are you the scorn and jest of men of sense?—I want but very little of being as much their jest and scorn as you. In a word, as it is said that you turn the brains of your patients, it is affirmed, with equal truth, that I destroy the constitutions of mine.”
Supposing Whitefield might have objections to the proposed partnership, Rock pretends that he has objections too; for, says he:—