This very year, 1729, the _Dunciad_ was published, and in it this Rabelais
of the pulpit had, of course, his niche. Pope had been accused of taking
the bread out of people’s mouths. He denies this, and asks if “Colley
(Cibber) has not still his lord, and Henley his butchers;” and ends with
these lines, which, however, had no effect, for Henley went on ranting for
eighteen years longer--
“But where each science lifts its modern type,
History her pot, Divinity his pipe;
While proud Philosophy repines to show,
Dishonest sight! his breeches rent below,--
Imbrown’d with native bronze, lo! Henley stands,
Tuning his voice and balancing his hands.
How fluent nonsense trickles from his tongue!
How sweet the periods, neither said nor sung!
Still break the benches, Henley, with thy strain,
While Sherlock, Hare, and Gibson preach in vain.
O great restorer of the good old stage,
Preacher at once and zany of the age!
O worthy thou of Egypt’s wise abodes!
A decent priest when monkeys were the gods.
But Fate with butchers placed thy priestly stall,
Meek modern faith to murder, hack, and maul,
And bade thee live to crown Britannia’s praise
In Toland’s, Tindal’s, and in Woolston’s days.”[603]
In another place he says--
“Henley lay inspired beside a sink,
And to mere mortals seemed a priest in drink.”
Pope often attacked Henley in the _Grub Street Journal_, and the Orator
retaliated. A year or two after the _Essay on Man_ was published, Henley
(Dec. 1737) announced a lecture, “Whether Mr. Pope be a man of sense, in
one argument--‘Whatever is is right.’” If whatever is is right, Henley
thought that nothing could be wrong; ergo, he himself was not a proper
object of satire.
Henley’s pulpit was covered with velvet and gold lace, and over his altar
was written, “The PRIMITIVE Eucharist.” A contemporary journalist
describes him entering his pulpit suddenly, like a harlequin, through a
sort of trap-door at the back, and “at one large leap jumping into it and
falling to work,” beating his notions into the butcher-audience
simultaneously with his hands, arms, legs, and head.
In one of his arrogant puffs, he boasts that he has singly executed what
“would sprain a dozen of modern doctors of the tribe of Issachar;” that no
one dares to answer his challenges; that he can write, read, and study
twelve hours a day and not feel the yoke; and write three dissertations a
week without help, and put the Church in danger. He struck medals for his
tickets, with a star rising to the meridian upon them, and the vain
superscription “Ad summa” (“To the heights”), and below, “Inveniam viam
aut faciam” (“I will find a way or make one”).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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