Disappointed Genius Takes A Fatal Direction By Its Abuse

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Title:     Disappointed Genius Takes A Fatal Direction By Its Abuse
Author: Isaac Disraeli [More Titles by Disraeli]

How the moral and literary character are reciprocally influenced, may be traced in the character of a personage peculiarly apposite to these inquiries. This worthy of literature is ORATOR HENLEY, who is rather known traditionally than historically.[1] He is so overwhelmed with the echoed satire of Pope, and his own extravagant conduct for many years, that I should not care to extricate him, had I not discovered a feature in the character of Henley not yet drawn, and constituting no inferior calamity among authors.

Henley stands in his "gilt tub" in the Dunciad; and a portrait of him hangs in the picture-gallery of the Commentary. Pope's verse and Warburton's notes are the pickle and the bandages for any Egyptian mummy of dulness, who will last as long as the pyramid that encloses him. I shall transcribe, for the reader's convenience, the lines of Pope:--

Embrown'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.
Oh! great restorer of the good old stage,
Preacher at once, and Zany of thy age![2]

It will surprise when I declare that this buffoon was an indefatigable student, a proficient in all the learned languages, an elegant poet, and, withal, a wit of no inferior class. It remains to discover why "the Preacher" became "the Zany."

Henley was of St. John's College, Cambridge, and was distinguished for the ardour and pertinacity of his studies; he gave evident marks of genius. There is a letter of his to the "Spectator," signed Peter de Quir, which abounds with local wit and quaint humour.[3] He had not attained his twenty-second year when he published a poem, entitled "Esther, Queen of Persia,"[4] written amid graver studies; for three years after, Henley, being M.A., published his "Complete Linguist," consisting of grammars of ten languages.

The poem itself must not be passed by in silent notice. It is preceded by a learned preface, in which the poet discovers his intimate knowledge of oriental studies, with some etymologies from the Persic, the Hebrew, and the Greek, concerning the name and person of Ahasuerus, whom he makes to be Xerxes. The close of this preface gives another unexpected feature in the character of him who, the poet tells us, was "embrowned with native bronze"--an unaffected modesty! Henley, alluding to a Greek paraphrase of Barnes, censures his faults with acrimony, and even apologises for them, by thus gracefully closing the preface: "These can only be alleviated by one plea, the youth of the author, which is a circumstance I hope the candid will consider in favour of the present writer!"

The poem is not destitute of imagination and harmony.

The pomp of the feast of Ahasuerus has all the luxuriance of Asiatic splendour; and the circumstances are selected with some fancy.

The higher guests approach a room of state,
Where tissued couches all around were set
Labour'd with art; o'er ivory tables thrown,
Embroider'd carpets fell in folds adown.
The bowers and gardens of the court were near,
And open lights indulged the breathing air.

Pillars of marble bore a silken sky,
While cords of purple and fine linen tie
In silver rings, the azure canopy.
Distinct with diamond stars the blue was seen,
And earth and seas were feign'd in emerald green;
A globe of gold, ray'd with a pointed crown,
Form'd in the midst almost a real sun.

Nor is Henley less skilful in the elegance of his sentiments, and in his development of the human character. When Esther is raised to the throne, the poet says--

And Esther, though in robes, is Esther still.

And then sublimely exclaims--

The heroic soul, amidst its bliss or woe,
Is never swell'd too high, nor sunk too low;
Stands, like its origin above the skies,
Ever the same great self, sedately wise;
Collected and prepared in every stage
To scorn a courting world, or bear its rage.

But wit which the "Spectator" has sent down to posterity, and poetry which gave the promise of excellence, did not bound the noble ambition of Henley; ardent in more important labours, he was perfecting himself in the learned languages, and carrying on a correspondence with eminent scholars.

He officiated as the master of the free-school at his native town in Leicestershire, then in a declining state; but he introduced many original improvements. He established a class for public elocution, recitations of the classics, orations, &c.; and arranged a method of enabling every scholar to give an account of his studies without the necessity of consulting others, or of being examined by particular questions. These miracles are indeed a little apocryphal; for they are drawn from that pseudo-gospel of his life, of which I am inclined to think he himself was the evangelist. His grammar of ten languages was now finished; and his genius felt that obscure spot too circumscribed for his ambition. He parted from the inhabitants with their regrets, and came to the metropolis with thirty recommendatory letters.

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 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."[5] 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."[6]

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 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[7] 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; 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."[8]

His address to the town[9] 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 had been virtuous or penitents, they should be commemorated;" an oblique hint at a panegyrical puff. In the decline of his popularity he permitted his door-keeper, whom he dignifies with the title of Ostiary, to take a shilling! But he seems to have been popular for many years; even when his auditors were but few, they were of the better order;[10] and in notes respecting him which I have seen, by a contemporary, he is called "the reverend and learned." His favourite character was that of a Restorer of Eloquence; and he was not destitute of the qualifications of a fine orator, a good voice, graceful gesture, and forcible elocution. Warburton justly remarked, "Sometimes he broke jests, and sometimes that bread which he called the Primitive Eucharist." He would degenerate into buffoonery on solemn occasions. His address to the Deity was at first awful, and seemingly devout; but, once expatiating on the several sects who would certainly be damned, he prayed that the Dutch might be undamm'd! He undertook to show the ancient use of the petticoat, by quoting the Scriptures where the mother of Samuel is said to have made him "a little coat," ergo, a PETTI-coat![11] His advertisements were mysterious ribaldry to attract curiosity, while his own good sense would frequently chastise those who could not resist it; his auditors came in folly, but they departed in good-humour.[12] These advertisements were usually preceded by a sort of motto, generally a sarcastic allusion to some public transaction of the preceding week.[13] Henley pretended to great impartiality; and when two preachers had animadverted on him, he issued an advertisement, announcing "A Lecture that will be a challenge to the Rev. Mr. Batty and the Rev. Mr. Albert. Letters are sent to them on this head, and a free standing-place is there to be had gratis." Once Henley offered to admit of a disputation, and that he would impartially determine the merits of the contest. It happened that Henley this time was overmatched; for two Oxonians, supported by a strong party to awe his "marrow-boners," as the butchers were called, said to be in the Orator's pay, entered the list; the one to defend the ignorance, the other the impudence, of the Restorer of Eloquence himself. As there was a door behind the rostrum, which led to his house, the Orator silently dropped out, postponing the award to some happier day.[14]

This age of lecturers may find their model in Henley's "Universal Academy," and if any should aspire to bring themselves down to his genius, I furnish them with hints of anomalous topics. In the second number of "The Oratory Transactions," is a diary from July 1726, to August 1728. It forms, perhaps, an unparalleled chronicle of the vagaries of the human mind. These archives of cunning, of folly, and of literature, are divided into two diaries; the one "The Theological or Lord's days' subjects of the Oratory;" the other, "The Academical or Week-days' subjects." I can only note a few. It is easy to pick out ludicrous specimens; for he had a quaint humour peculiar to himself; but among these numerous topics are many curious for their knowledge and ingenuity.

"The last Wills and Testaments of the Patriarchs."

"An Argument to the Jews, with a proof that they ought to be Christians, for the same reason which they ought to be Jews."

"St. Paul's Cloak, Books, and Parchments, left at Troas."

"The tears of Magdalen, and the joy of angels."

"New Converts in Religion." After pointing out the names of "Courayer and others, the D---- of W----n, the Protestantism of the P----, the conversion of the Rev. Mr. B----e, and Mr. Har----y," he closes with "Origen's opinion of Satan's conversion; with the choice and balance of Religion in all countries."

There is one remarkable entry:--

"Feb. 11. This week all Mr. Henley's writings were seized, to be examined by the State. Vide Magnam Chartam, and Eng Lib."

It is evident by what follows that the personalities he made use of were one means of attracting auditors.

"On the action of Cicero, and the beauty of Eloquence, and on living characters; of action in the Senate, at the Bar, and in the Pulpit--of the Theatrical in all men. The manner of my Lord ----, Sir ----, Dr. ----, the B. of ----, being a proof how all life is playing something, but with different action."

In a Lecture on the History of Bookcraft, an account was given

"Of the plenty of books, and dearth of sense; the advantages of the Oratory to the booksellers, in advertising for them; and to their customers, in making books useless; with all the learning, reason, and wit more than are proper for one advertisement."

Amid these eccentricities it is remarkable that "the Zany" never forsook his studies; and the amazing multiplicity of the MSS. he left behind him confirm this extraordinary fact. "These," he says, "are six thousand more or less, that I value at one guinea apiece; with 150 volumes of commonplaces of wit, memoranda," &c. They were sold for much less than one hundred pounds; I have looked over many; they are written with great care. Every leaf has an opposite blank page, probably left for additions or corrections, so that if his nonsense were spontaneous, his sense was the fruit of study and correction.

Such was "Orator Henley!" A scholar of great acquirements, and of no mean genius; hardy and inventive, eloquent and witty; he might have been an ornament to literature, which he made ridiculous; and the pride of the pulpit, which he so egregiously disgraced; but, having blunted and worn out that interior feeling, which is the instinct of the good man, and the wisdom of the wise, there was no balance in his passions, and the decorum of life was sacrificed to its selfishness. He condescended to live on the follies of the people, and his sordid nature had changed him till he crept, "licking the dust with the serpent."[15]

FOOTNOTES:

[1]So little is known of this singular man, that Mr. Dibdin, in his very curious "Bibliomania," was not able to recollect any other details than those he transcribed from Warburton's "Commentary on the Dunciad." In Mr. Nichols' "History of Leicestershire" a more copious account of Henley may be found; to their facts something is here added. It was, however, difficult to glean after so excellent a harvest-home. To the author of the "Life of Bowyer," and other works devoted to our authors, our literary history is more indebted, than to the labours of any other contemporary. He is the Prosper Marchand of English literature.

[2] It is, perhaps, unnecessary to point out this allusion of Pope to our ancient mysteries, where the Clergy were the actors; among which, the Vice or Punch was introduced. (See "Curiosities of Literature.")

[3] Specimens of Henley's style may be most easily referred to in the "Spectator," Nos. 94 and 518. The communication on punning, in the first; and that of judging character by exteriors, in the last; are both attributed to Henley.--ED.

[4] The title is, "Esther, Queen of Persia, an historical Poem, in four books; by John Henley, B.A. of St. John's College, Cambridge. 1714."

[5] Many of the rough drafts of his famed discourses delivered at the Oratory are preserved in the library of the Guildhall, London. The advertisements he drew up for the papers, announcing their subject, are generally exceedingly whimsical, and calculated to attract popular attention.--ED.

[6] This narrative is subscribed A. Welstede. Warburton maliciously quotes it as a life of Henley, written by Welsted--doubtless designed to lower the writer of that name, and one of the heroes of the Dunciad. The public have long been deceived by this artifice; the effect, I believe, of Warburton's dishonesty.

[7] Every lecture is dedicated to some branch of the royal family. Among them one is on "University Learning," an attack.--"On the English History and Historians," extremely curious.--"On the Languages, Ancient and Modern," full of erudition.--"On the English Tongue," a valuable criticism at that moment when our style was receiving a new polish from Addison and Prior. Henley, acknowledging that these writers had raised correctness of expression to its utmost height, adds, though, "if I mistake not, something to the detriment of that force and freedom that ought, with the most concealed art, to be a perfect copy of nature in all compositions." This is among the first notices of that artificial style which has vitiated our native idiom, substituting for its purity an affected delicacy, and for its vigour profuse ornament. Henley observes that, "to be perspicuous, pure, elegant, copious, and harmonious, are the chief good qualities of writing the English tongue; they are attained by study and practice, and lost by the contrary: but imitation is to be avoided; they cannot be made our own but by keeping the force of our understandings superior to our models; by rendering our thoughts the original, and our words the copy."--"On Wit and Imagination," abounding with excellent criticism.--"On grave conundrums and serious buffoons, in defence of burlesque discourses, from the most weighty authorities."--"A Dissertation upon Nonsense." At the close he has a fling at his friend Pope; it was after the publication of the Dunciad. "Of Nonsense there are celebrated professors; Mr. Pope grows witty like Bays in the 'Rehearsal,' by selling bargains (his subscriptions for Homer), praising himself, laughing at his joke, and making his own works the test of any man's criticism; but he seems to be in some jeopardy; for the ghost of Homer has lately spoke to him in Greek, and Shakspeare resolves to bring him, as he has brought Shakspeare, to a tragical conclusion. Mr. Pope suggests the last choice of a subject for writing a book, by making the Nonsense of others his argument; while his own puts it out of any writer's power to confute him." In another fling at Pope, he gives the reason why Mr. Pope adds the dirty dialect to that of the water, and is in love with the Nymphs of Fleet ditch; and in a lecture on the spleen he announced "an anatomical discovery, that Mr. Pope's spleen is bigger than his head!"

[8] Thus he anticipated the term, since become so notorious among German theologians.

[9] It is preserved in the "Historical Register," vol. xi. for 1726. It is curious and well written.

[10] "Gentleman's Magazine," vol. lvii. p. 876.

[11] His "Defence of the Oratory" is a curious performance. He pretends to derive his own from great authority. "St. Paul is related, Acts 28, to have dwelt two whole years in his own hired house, and to have received all that came in unto him, teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ with all confidence, no man forbidding him. This was at Rome, and doubtless was his practice in his other travels, there being the same reason in the thing to produce elsewhere the like circumstances." He proceeds to show "the calumnies and reproaches, and the novelty and impiety, with which Christianity, at its first setting out, was charged, as a mean, abject institution, not only useless and unserviceable, but pernicious to the public and its professors, as the refuse of the world."--Of the false accusations raised against Jesus--all this he applies to himself and his oratory--and he concludes, that "Bringing men to think rightly will always be reckoned a depraving of their minds by those who are desirous to keep them in a mistake, and who measure all truth by the standard of their own narrow opinions, views, and passions. The principles of this institution are those of right reason: the first ages of Christianity; true facts, clear criticism, and polite literature--if these corrupt the mind, to find a place where the mind will not be corrupted will be impracticable." Thus speciously could "the Orator" reason, raising himself to the height of apostolical purity. And when he was accused that he did all for lucre, he retorted, that "some do nothing for it;" and that "he preached more charity sermons than any clergyman in the kingdom."

[12] He once advertised an oration on marriage, which drew together an overflowing assembly of females, at which, solemnly shaking his head, he told the ladies, that "he was afraid, that oftentimes, as well as now, they came to church in hopes to get husbands, rather than be instructed by the preacher;" to which he added a piece of wit not quite decent. He congregated the trade of shoemakers, by offering to show the most expeditious method of making shoes: he held out a boot, and cut off the leg part. He gave a lecture, which he advertised was "for the instruction of those who do not like it; it was on the philosophy, history, and great use of Nonsense to the learned, political, and polite world, who excel in it."

[13] Dr. Cobden, one of George the Second's chaplains, having, in 1748, preached a sermon at St. James's from these words, "Take away the wicked from before the king, and his throne shall be established in righteousness," it gave so much displeasure, that the doctor was struck out of the list of chaplains; and the next Saturday the following parody of his text appeared as a motto to Henley's advertisement:

"Away with the wicked before the king,
And away with the wicked behind him;
His throne it will bless
With righteousness,
And we shall know where to find him."
CHALMER'S "Biographical Dictionary."

[14] The history of the closing years of Henley's life is thus given in "The History of the Robin Hood Society," 1764, a political club, whose debates he occasionally enlivened:--"The Orator, with various success, still kept up his Oratory, King George's, or Charles's Chapel, as he differently termed it, till the year 1759, when he died. At its first establishment it was amazingly crowded, and money flowed in upon him apace; and between whiles it languished and drooped: but for some years before its author's death it dwindled away so much, and fell into such an hectic state, that the few friends of it feared its decease was very near. The doctor, indeed, kept it up to the last, determined it should live as long as he did, and actually exhibited many evenings to empty benches. Finding no one at length would attend, he admitted the acquaintances of his door-keeper, runner, mouth-piece, and some other of his followers, gratis. On the 13th of October, however, the doctor died, and the Oratory ceased; no one having iniquity or impudence sufficient to continue it on."--ED.

[15] Hogarth has preserved his features in the parson who figures so conspicuously in his "Modern Midnight Conversation." His off-hand style of discourse is given in the Gray's-Inn Journal, 1753 (No. 18), in an imaginary meeting of the political Robin Hood Society, where he figures as Orator Bronze, and exclaims:--"I am pleased to see this assembly--you're a twig from me; a chip of the old block at Clare Market;--I am the old block, invincible; coup de grace as yet unanswered. We are brother rationalists; logicians upon fundamentals! I love ye all--I love mankind in general--give me some of that porter."--ED.

[The end]
Isaac Disraeli's essay: Disappointed Genius Takes A Fatal Direction By Its Abuse

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