Henley probably had formed those warm conceptions of patronage in which youthful genius cradles its hopes. Till 1724 he appears, however, to have obtained only a small living, and to have existed by translating and writing. Thus, after persevering studies, many successful literary efforts, and much heavy taskwork, Henley found he was but a hireling author for the booksellers, and a salaried “Hyp-doctor” for the minister; for he received a stipend for this periodical paper, which was to cheer the spirits of the people by ridiculing the gloomy forebodings of Amhurst’s “Craftsman.” About this time the complete metamorphosis of the studious and ingenious John Henley began to branch out into its grotesque figure; and a curiosity in human nature was now 62 about to be opened to public inspection. “The Preacher” was to personate “The Zany.” His temper had become brutal, and he had gradually contracted a ferocity and grossness in his manners, which seem by no means to have been indicated in his purer days. His youth was disgraced by no irregularities—it was studious and honourable. But he was now quick at vilifying the greatest characters; and having a perfect contempt for all mankind, was resolved to live by making one half of the world laugh at the other. Such is the direction which disappointed genius has too often given to its talents.
He first affected oratory, and something of a theatrical attitude in his sermons, which greatly attracted the populace; and he startled those preachers who had so long dozed over their own sermons, and who now finding themselves with but few slumberers about them, envied their Ciceronian brothers.
| Tuning his voice, and balancing his hands. |
It was alleged against Henley, that “he drew the people too much from their parish churches, and was not so proper for a London divine as a rural pastor.” He was offered a rustication, on a better living; but Henley did not come from the country to return to it.
There is a narrative of the life of Henley, which, subscribed by another person’s name, he himself inserted in his “Oratory Transactions.”[47] As he had to publish himself this highly seasoned biographical morsel, and as his face was then beginning to be “embrowned with bronze,” he thus very impudently and very ingeniously apologises for the panegyric:—
“If any remark of the writer appears favourable to myself, and be judged apocryphal, it may, however, weigh in the opposite scale to some things less obligingly said of me; false praise being as pardonable as false reproach.”[48]
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In this narrative we are told, that when at college—
“He began to be uneasy that he had not the liberty of thinking, without incurring the scandal of heterodoxy; he was impatient that systems of all sorts were put into his hands ready carved out for him; it shocked him to find that he was commanded to believe against his judgment, and resolved some time or other to enter his protest against any person being bred like a slave, who is born an Englishman.”
This is all very decorous, and nothing can be objected to the first cry of this reforming patriot but a reasonable suspicion of its truth. If these sentiments were really in his mind at college, he deserves at least the praise of retention: for fifteen years were suffered to pass quietly without the patriotic volcano giving even a distant rumbling of the sulphurous matter concealed beneath. All that time had passed in the contemplation of church preferment, with the aerial perspective lighted by a visionary mitre. But Henley grew indignant at his disappointments, and suddenly resolved to reform “the gross impostures and faults that have long prevailed in the received institutions and establishments of knowledge and religion”—simply meaning that he wished to pull down the Church and the University!
But he was prudent before he was patriotic; he at first grafted himself on Whiston, adopting his opinions, and sent some queries by which it appears that Henley, previous to breaking with the church, was anxious to learn the power it had to punish him. The Arian Whiston was himself, from pure motives, suffering expulsion from Cambridge, for refusing his subscription to the Athanasian Creed; he was a pious man, and no buffoon, but a little crazed. Whiston afterwards discovered the character of his correspondent, he then requested the Bishop of London.
“To summon Mr. Henley, the orator, whose vile history I knew so well, to come and tell it to the church. But the bishop said he could do nothing; since which time Mr. Henley has gone on for about twenty years without control every week, as an ecclesiastical mountebank, to abuse religion.”
The most extraordinary project was now formed by Henley; he was to teach mankind universal knowledge from his lectures, and primitive Christianity from his sermons. He took apartments in Newport market, and opened his “Oratory.” He declared,
“He would teach more in one year than schools and universities 64 did in five, and write and study twelve hours a-day, and yet appear as untouched by the yoke, as if he never bore it.”
In his “Idea of what is intended to be taught in the Week-days’ Universal Academy,” we may admire the fertility, and sometimes the grandeur of his views. His lectures and orations[49] are of a very different nature from what they are imagined to be; literary topics are treated with perspicuity and with erudition, and there is something original in the manner. They were, no doubt, larded and stuffed with many high-seasoned jokes, which Henley did not send to the printer.
Henley was a charlatan and a knave; but in all his charlatanerie and his knavery he indulged the reveries of genius; 65 many of which have been realised since; and, if we continue to laugh at Henley, it will indeed be cruel, for we shall be laughing at ourselves! Among the objects which Henley discriminates in his general design, were, to supply the want of a university, or universal school, in this capital, for persons of all ranks, professions, and capacities;—to encourage a literary correspondence with great men and learned bodies; the communication of all discoveries and experiments in science and the arts; to form an amicable society for the encouragement of learning, “in order to cultivate, adorn, and exalt the genius of Britain;” to lay a foundation for an English Academy; to give a standard to our language, and a digest to our history; to revise the ancient schools of philosophy and elocution, which last has been reckoned by Pancirollus among the artes perditæ. All these were “to bring all the parts of knowledge into the narrowest compass, placing them in the clearest light, and fixing them to the utmost certainty.” The religion of the Oratory was to be that of the primitive church in the first ages of the four first general councils, approved by parliament in the first year of the reign of Elizabeth. “The Church of England is really with us; we appeal to her own principles, and we shall not deviate from her, unless she deviates from herself.” Yet his “Primitive Christianity” had all the sumptuous pomp of popery; his creeds and doxologies are printed in the red letter, and his liturgies in the black; his pulpit blazed in gold and velvet (Pope’s “gilt tub”); while his “Primitive Eucharist” was to be distributed with all the ancient forms of celebrating the sacrifice of the altar, which he says, “are so noble, so just, sublime, and perfectly harmonious, that the change has been made to an unspeakable disadvantage.” It was restoring the decorations and the mummery of the mass! He assumed even a higher tone, and dispersed medals, like those of Louis XIV., with the device of a sun near the meridian, and a motto, Ad summa, with an inscription expressive of the genius of this new adventurer, Inveniam viam aut faciam! There was a snake in the grass; it is obvious that Henley, in improving literature and philosophy, had a deeper design—to set up a new sect! He called himself “a Rationalist,” and on his death-bed repeatedly cried out, “Let my notorious enemies know I die a Rational.”[50]
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His address to the town[51] excited public curiosity to the utmost; and the floating crowds were repulsed by their own violence from this new paradise, where “The Tree of Knowledge” was said to be planted. At the succeeding meeting “the Restorer of Ancient Eloquence” informed “persons in chairs that they must come sooner.” He first commenced by subscriptions to be raised from “persons eminent in Arts and Literature,” who, it seems, were lured by the seductive promise, that, “if they