The Orator patronised divinity on Sundays, and secular subjects on
Wednesdays and Fridays. The admittance was one shilling. He also published
outrageous pamphlets and a weekly farrago called The _Hyp-Doctor_,
intended to antidote _The Craftsman_, and for which pompous nonsense Sir
Robert Walpole is said to have given him £100 a year. He also attacked
eminent persons, even Pope, from his pulpit. Every Saturday an
advertisement of the subject of his next week’s oration appeared in the
_Daily Advertiser_, preceded by a sarcastic or libellous motto, and
sometimes an offer that if any one at home or abroad could be found to
surpass him, he would surrender his Oratory at once to his conqueror.
In 1729 Henley, growing perhaps more popular, removed to Clare Market,
where the butchers became his warm partisans and served as his body-guard.
The following are two of his shameless advertisements:--
“At the Oratory in Newport Market, to-morrow, at half an 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, Nos. 23 and 24.”
Very shortly afterwards he advertised from Clare Market:--
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.
2. “At five--1. The postil will be on this point:--In what language our
Saviour will speak the last sentence to mankind.
3. “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, periwigs, head-dresses, modesties, tuckers,
farthingales, corkins, minnikins, slammakins, ruffles, round-robins, fans,
patches; dame, forsooth, madam, my lady, the wit and beauty of my granmum;
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.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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