George-Whitefield-Field-Preacher

312 GEORGE WHITEFIELD
opening sentence worthy of both author and performer
' What think you of one of those itinerant field-orators, who,
though at declared enmity with common sense, have the
address to poison the principles and, at the same time, pick
the pockets, of half our industrious fellow-subjects ? ' '
Whitefield, on hearing of the merriment of the town at his
expense, simply said, ' !
All hail such contempt ' But
his
friends were not content to remain inactive. The Rev. Mr.
Madan wrote to Garrick on the intended representation of the
play at Drury Lane. Lady Huntingdon waited upon the
Lord Chamberlain, the Duke of Devonshire, and applied for
its suppression altogether—a most proper request, apart from
anything that was levelled against Methodists ; for its impurity
condemned it. Yet his lordship could only assure her that
had the evil tendency of the play been found out before it was
licensed, licence would have been refused ; as it was, he could
do nothing immediately. The Countess next appealed to
Garrick, who promised to use his influence in excluding it for
the present, and added ' that had he been aware of the offence
that it was calculated to give, it should never have appeared
with his concurrence.' Nevertheless the offence was con-
tinued, yet not to the detriment of Whitefield's ministry, which
drew crowds of the aristocracy. Foote showed his brutality
by bringing the play upon the stage at Edinburgh within two
months after Whitefield's death ; but its indecency, combined
with the heartlessness of caricaturing a man who had never
entered the city but to bless it, and who was just dead, emptied
the theatre after the first night, and made many a pulpit
1 The favourite dish of the pocket-picking Mr. Squintum, as Foote,
alluding to Whitefield's defect, called the greatest of the field-orators, was
surprised
a cow-heel. He would cheerfully say, as he sat down to it, ' How
would the world be, if they were to peep upon Dr. Squintum, and see
a cow-heel only upon his table.'