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Parody, Controversy, Commercial Opportunity: Samuel Foote’s The Minor (1760) and Its Reception

Parodie, querelle et opportunisme commercial : la réception de The Minor (1760) de Samuel Foote
Pierre Labrune

Résumés

Cet article s’intéresse à la comédie de Samuel Foote The Minor, créée en 1760, et à la querelle qu’elle suscite. Parce que la pièce de Foote fait la satire de George Whitefield et de sa prédication, elle provoque des débats sur sa légalité. L’utilisation de citations de l’Écriture par des personnages ridicules pose en effet problème à l’époque, car les méthodistes avancent que Foote se moque de la religion en elle-même. Ce dernier défend cependant constamment son droit de rire des hypocrites, et la pièce connaît un réel succès. De plus, le scandale autour de The Minor initie un nouvel engouement pour les publications anti-méthodistes, ce qui rend d’autant plus vains les efforts pour faire censurer la pièce.

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1Even though the phrase “Streisand effect”, which describes how, paradoxically, an attempt at censoring some information or art can end up promoting said information or art, was only coined in 2003, the process itself predates it by far. It can be linked to the complex dynamics between the development of the freedom of the press and the persistent wish to control it in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. As the Licencing of the Press Act of 1662 was not renewed in 1695, printers made the best of that opportunity and periodicals flourished. However, some political control over artistic productions was reintroduced with the Licencing Act of 1737 according to which all plays were to be subjected to the control of the Lord Chamberlain and the Examiner of Plays in order to prevent political satire from reaching the London stages. It thus deeply modified the general tone of plays acted in the patent theatres and, incidentally, the production of prose narratives. Indeed, “much of the life and wit evident in the plays written before 1737 were transferred to early novels” (Widmayer 2015, 24).

2However, in recent discussions, that general trend has been deemed too simplistic since satirical comedies were still performed on London stages after 1737. Political matters disappeared nonetheless from the stage and were replaced by public figures who were duly lampooned through the performances of the actors as well as through the very text of the plays (Martinez & Rouyer-Daney 2013, 205). In this complex context for satirical playwrights and parodic actors, the figure of Samuel Foote (1720-1777) was quite exceptional, the more so as he managed to obtain a third patent for his Haymarket Theatre in London in 1766, thus joining the Theatre Royal and Drury Lane (Martinez & Rouyer-Dancy 2013, 200). Foote’s career as a playwright, actor, and theatre manager highlights the ambivalences of theatrical censorship in the second half of the eighteenth century in Britain and also shows how attempts at stifling a play can eventually backfire, as was the case with the creation of The Minor in 1760.

3Even if Samuel Foote is now predominantly known by experts in eighteenth-century culture, and is much less remembered than his fellow actor David Garrick, his popularity in his lifetime, and even more than thirty years after his death, is well documented. Indeed, Lord Byron dedicated a few lines to Foote’s memory in his Hints from Horace (1811), crowning him as the king of farce and suggesting the following epitaph: “Whoever loves a laugh must sigh for Foote!” (Byron 1811, 301). Foote’s influence in the late eighteenth century can also be traced thanks to the number of satirical pamphlets targeting Methodists published after the creation of The Minor in 1760 (Lyles 2015, 18-19). Indeed, as Brett McInelly wrote, “no single anti-Methodist work spawned as much public debate as Foote’s” (McInelly 2014, 21). I therefore intend, in this paper, to analyse Foote’s play and the controversy it launched. Foote’s comedy aimed to ridicule Methodist preachers, and specifically George Whitefield, which, according to Kinservik, stirred the controversy as the attack was personal (Kinservik 1999, 89). By considering the pamphlets that were exchanged after the creation of The Minor, I want to suggest that the controversy revolved around rhetorical and linguistic questions as well as points of honour. Foote mimicked Whitefield, but he also parodied his “cant”, or what he deemed improper use of scriptural quotations in mundane contexts. Because of the ill-adapted context for biblical references, Foote thought that the Word of God could not be properly received, and was made ridiculous. On the other hand, The Minor was heavily criticized by Methodists and by Church authorities, as I will show, because it was argued that Scripture remained Scripture, regardless of the context of reception. Moreover, far from preventing people from going to see Foote’s play, the controversy enhanced its popularity. It was performed in Drury Lane after its creation at the Haymarket Theatre and was imitated over and over again in the 1760s. The controversy surrounding The Minor illustrates how a debate about the proper reception of scriptural language only contributed to the popular success of the play. The “Streisand effect” would have been called “The Minor effect” in the second half of the eighteenth century.

The Minor, Methodism, and the parody of religious jargon

4When Foote’s The Minor was published, the playwright found it advisable to dedicate his play to the Lord Chamberlain, as if he had anticipated that the play was problematic. Significantly enough, Foote recalls in his dedication the fact that he had been allowed to open a theatre for the summer season (Foote 1760a, iv) and commends the Lord Chamberlain as a “patron of the liberal arts” rather than “an oppressor” keen on enforcing “petty tyrannies” (Foote 1760a, iii). Moreover, Foote constantly underlines the liberality of the Lord Chamberlain and links it to his “ancestors” who “so successfully struggled for national liberty” (Foote 1760a, iii) as William Cavendish, 4th Duke of Devonshire, descended from an illustrious Whig family – the first Duke being one of the peers who invited William of Orange in 1688. In other words, the playwright wanted to highlight a special link between his own dramatic production and the mythical spirit of English liberty, indirectly suggesting that his opponents might be inspired by religious bigotry.

5Foote’s wish to control the way his play should be understood is all the more obvious when one considers that the play opens with a prologue evidencing the artifices of the theatre in which Foote, the author himself, discusses the religious, ethical and political applications of his play. As a friend of his suggests that he satirize politicians and produce a play-à-clef, the character Foote answers that this would not do since “as soon as my characters begin to circulate a little successfully, my mouth is stopp’d in a minute, by the clamour of your relations” (Foote 1760, 5) and moves on to a theoretical development about the real reasons and objectives of ridicule and laughter. After refusing to use national stereotypes as a basis for comedy, Foote declares: “Now affectation I take to be the true comic object” (Foote 1760a, 6). Having thus exposed his premise, he goes on to present the main subject of his comedy, namely, Methodist preachers: “What think you of one of those itinerant field orators, who tho’ at declar’d enmity with common sense, have the address to poison the principles, and, at the same time, pick the pockets, of half of our industrious fellow subjects” (Foote 1760a, 8).

6Even if the word “Methodist” is never printed, it is obvious that Foote targets more specifically George Whitefield, whose Tabernacle church at Tottenham Court Road had recently been enlarged. And Foote, the character, explicitly states that Foote, the author, satirizes Whitefield not as a clergyman, as “ludere cum sacris” is “dangerous ground” (Foote 1760a, 8), but as an actor: “Now I look upon it in a different manner. I consider these gentlemen in the light of public performers, like myself; and whether we exhibit at Tottenham-court, or the Hay-market, our purpose is the same, and the place is immaterial” (Foote 1760a, 8).

7Foote even goes further and explains that satire is the only means to deal with Methodism as reason would prove inefficient, and legal restriction is out of the question (Foote 1760a, 9). Even before the actual play begins, careful consideration has been given to the way the play should be received and not censored. Interestingly enough, Foote himself suggests that the eponymous “Minor”, George Wealthy, is far from being the main character or even the main interest in the play.

8 The main plot, in which a father fakes his death and beguiles his son who is about to come of age so as to teach him a lesson about the moral duties that come with inheritance, can be deemed a pretext for two vehicles of bravura performance, namely the role of Shift and that of Mrs. Cole, both performed by Foote himself. In other words, The Minor is a play designed to exhibit the talents of an actor rather than a well-constructed play full of witticisms, and is therefore quite characteristic of comedy in the 1760s:

  • 1 “In this sense, theatrical practice reflects the evolution of comedy, which, over the course of the (...)

En ce sens, la pratique théâtrale reflète l’évolution de la comédie qui, au cours du xviiie siècle, opère un décentrage du ridicule. Le « wit » agressif et verbal, véhicule du ridicule satirique dans la comédie de la Restauration, est progressivement supplanté par des effets comiques corporels. Sur scène, l’expression gestuelle et faciale qui, à la fin du xviie siècle, accompagnait les répliques spirituelles sans pour autant en contester la primauté, se substitue au dialogue et constitue l’essentiel, voire l’essence même de la représentation théâtrale. (Martinez and Rouyer-Daney 2013, 195).1

9Even if a contemporary reader might find it difficult to picture the way Foote acted in the play, we know for certain that he played Shift and Mrs. Cole. On engravings representing the play Foote is dressed as a woman, frowns and makes faces.

  • 2 The Foundery Chapel, in Moorfields, was one of the first Methodist meeting houses created by John W (...)

10Shift, in the play, is a poor swindler whose main purpose is to help Sir William Wealthy to gull his son by pretending to be several different characters. At the end of the play, Shift asks George Wealthy for money and decides to start a new career and to turn Methodist preacher: “Near the mad mansions of Moorfields I’ll bawl; […] And live a rent-charge upon providence” (Foote 1760a, 90).2 As for Mrs. Cole, she is the owner of a London brothel and visits young Sir George who has already used her services. As her name suggests, she cares only for two things: flesh and money. Indeed, it is highly probable that her name is an allusion to procuress Cole in John Cleland’s Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (1748-1749) and the word “cole”, in eighteenth-century slang, meant simply “money” (Grose 1785). Right after her first appearance on stage, Mrs. Cole declares that she has converted to Methodism, which is what started the controversy about the play.

11When Cole arrives on stage, she is exhausted and, supported by two other actors, she describes her suffering thus: “No, no, I am worn out, thrown by and forgotten, like a tatter’d garment, as Mr. Squintum says. Oh, he is a dear man! But for him I had been a lost sheep; never known the comforts of the new birth; no, — There’s your old friend, Kitty Carrot, at home still” (Foote 1760a, 40).

12The reference to “Mr. Squintum” is a direct allusion to George Whitefield, who was known to be cross-eyed. As for the “lost sheep”, the biblical allusion is obvious enough, and the phrase “new birth” was widely used in Methodist circles to refer to the experience of conversion. The juxtaposition of such religious lexicon with “Kitty Carrot”, who must be one of Mrs. Cole’s protégées, is of course meant to underline the hypocrisy of the character.

13 A few moments later in the scene, Mrs. Cole exposes her situation before her acquaintance with Squintum, and delivers a parody of the vivid imagery Whitefield used in his sermons:

Oh, it was a wonderful work. There had I been tossing in a sea of sin, without rudder or compass. And had not the good gentleman piloted me into the harbour of grace, I must have struck against the rocks of reprobation, and have been quite swallow’d up in the whirlpool of despair. He was the precious instrument of my spiritual sprinkling. (Foote 1760a, 44)

14Cole’s speech is parodic not only because it imitates the rhetoric used by Methodist preachers, but because using their words in a transposed context makes them absurd, if not downright obscene. Given Cole’s profession, the traditional comparison of spiritual despair to a tempest or a shipwreck – which is reminiscent of the evangelical episode of the calming of the storm by Jesus (Matthew 8: 23-26, Mark 4: 36-39, Luke 8: 22-25) – becomes tainted by sexual innuendos. The “spiritual sprinkling” sounds eerily similar to Pangloss’s “experimental physics” at the beginning of Voltaire’s Candide, all the more so as Cole soon after says that Squintum “stepp’d in with his saving grace, got me with the new birth” (Foote 1760a, 46).

15 In Foote’s intellectual framework, Cole’s vulgarity and misuse of scriptural quotations cannot be taken seriously as an instance of blasphemy, all the more so as he took care in his prologue to exclude Methodist preachers from the field of religion in order to treat them as public performers (Kinservik 1999, 99). Moreover, obscene and gross parodies intended to ridicule dissenters or religious opponents were not something new in 1760. Jonathan Swift, in A Tale of a Tub, had described religious enthusiasts as “Aeloists” worshipping their very belches and farts (Swift 2010). Cole’s allusions to her attempt at converting to Catholicism on the ground that convents and brothels were quite similar did not stir any controversy (Foote 1760a, 45). Yet, the success of the play and Foote’s mimicry were duly criticized both in anonymous pamphlets and by Church government, as the Methodist movement was still officially part of the Church of England in 1760.

A controversy about The Minor, or a controversy on theatre?

16The Minor premiered at the Haymarket theatre on the 29th of July 1760. The play was first attacked in September 1760 in a one-shilling anonymous pamphlet claiming to give “Christian and Critical Remarks” on it (Madan 1760a). Even if the pamphlet was published with no author’s name, it is now almost certain that this critique, and other publications that followed, were written by Martin Madan (Lyles 2015, 16; McInelly 2014, 94-102), and Foote himself thought so as he attributed the Christian and Critical Remarks to the “Rev. Mr. M– d – n” (Foote 1771, 5). In 1760, Madan was closely associated with the Methodist movement and had recently published a collection of religious hymns. In this first pamphlet, he articulates traditional arguments against the very existence of theatre, listed “into the catalogue of abominations” (Madan 1760a, 2) – its conclusion is also entitled “The Following Observations on the Stage are Submitted to all Christians” (Madan 1760a, 34-41) – and specific remarks on the supposed blasphemy and immorality of Foote’s play. Madan, in another pamphlet, explicitly acknowledges his debt to well-known attacks on the immorality of drama as he commends the works of Jeremy Collier and William Law (Madan 1760d, 1-4).

17First of all, Madan suggests that Foote’s attack contradicts his main objective of targeting affectation above all. Indeed, it slanders a particular man who is to be commended as he “has preached chastity, justice, and honesty; temperance, sobriety, and loyalty” (Madan 1760a, 8). He then focusses on the scenes in which Mrs. Cole appears and calls them “such outrageous blasphemy throughout” (Madan 1760a, 19). According to Madan, there is no such thing as parodying the “cant” of Methodism, as it would eventually result in ridiculing phrases taken from the Scriptures. Even if the Methodists had deserved to be satirized, other means should have been chosen that would not have defaced gospel quotations: “[I]s that an excuse for his jumbling together things the most holy and profane; for his putting the most sacred expressions into the mouths of the most profligate and vile? in a word, are we to wound the substance of religion in order to kill the shadow?” (Madan 1760a, 19)

18Madan goes further and methodically defends Whitefield’s manner of preaching, which was ridiculed in the conclusion of The Minor, and justifies what was considered by Foote as improper images in the context of a sermon:

That the method of preaching, adopted by our methodist teacher, is in many respects very different from what is generally heard in parish churches, is not to be denied; but it must be considered, that the bulk of his congregation is very different also from the generality that go there; and such as precept would have very little effect upon, unenforced by example. This therefore has induced him frequently to bring into his discourse, short and apposite relations, (the truth of which he is able to testify) and he thinks, and finds by experience, this works stronger upon their minds, than if he was to follow the beaten track of common sermon preaching. (Madan 1760a, 31)

19Madan’s answer to Foote therefore constantly turns Foote’s theoretical apparatus against him. If Whitefield’s sermons can appear extravagant, it is because Foote has read rather than listened to them, and because he is in a way too learned to truly enjoy the relevance of trivial comparisons. Madan therefore defends the specificity of Methodist rhetoric and judges it by its main effects, namely, that poor people attend church and listen to religious teachings.

20 Madan’s pamphlet could have sunk into oblivion, but it was noticed by Foote who felt obliged to pen an answer to the Christian and Critical Remarks so as to defend his play. The controversy therefore really started since an exchange was established between author and critic. Foote, in his defence of his play, presents himself as the heir of a satirical tradition including Nicolas Boileau, Alexander Pope and Voltaire (Foote 1760b, 14-16). He even says that his caricaturing Whitefield as “Squintum” is not a low attack against the preacher’s physical deformity, but a means to emphasize his affectation:

But if Men, with these Infirmities, will attempt Things which those very Infirmities have rendered them incapable of properly executing, it is their own Fault, if the Source that should acquire them Compassion, degenerates into a Fountain of Ridicule. […] nor should Mr. Squintum have shown the Whites of his Eyes at the Hay-Market, if he had confined his Circumspection to the Tap-Room of the Bell at Gloucester; or, after his Admission to the Ministry, modestly submitted to the decent Duties of a Country Cure; but if, in Despight [sic] of Art and Nature, not content with depreciating every Individual of his own Order; with a Countenance, not only inexpressive, but ludicrous; a Dialect, not only Provincial, but Barbarous; a Deportment, not only awkward, but Savage; he will produce himself to the whole Public, and there deliver Doctrines equally Heretical and Absurd, in a Language at once inelegant and ungrammatical, he must expect to have his Pretensions to Oratory derided; his Sincerity suspected; and the Truth of his Mission denied. (Foote 1760b, 14-15)

21Significantly enough, Foote justifies his lampoon by Whitefield’s social origins, as he was the son of a publican in Gloucester. In other words, Whitefield should not aim for great rhetorical effects or for a complete rejuvenation of the Church of England. As Madan insisted that he mainly addressed his sermons to the lower classes, he should act accordingly and stop pretending to be what he is not.

22Foote’s strategy, in his answer to Madan, is twofold. On the one hand, he wishes to conclude the controversy by exposing the fact that debating with a Methodist is a waste of time as there is no common ground. On the other hand, he wants to make clear that he ridiculed the abuse of scriptural quotations, and not scriptural quotations per se:

I shall not enter into a Dispute with you, upon the Principles delivered at the Tabernacle; your Forms are above my Comprehension, and indeed, I believe, your own. When we want an Explanation of Regeneration, the New Birth, and that strange Kind of Spiritual Commerce, which you pretend to carry on with Superior invisible Agents, you refer us to Feelings, which, as we never experienced, we can never understand; and to acquire those Feelings, and yet preserve the right Use of our Senses, would be almost as easy as cum Ratione insanire. (Foote 1760b, 30)

23The mentions of “Regeneration”, “the New Birth” and “Feelings” are meant to completely discredit Methodist terminology. Whitefield, for instance, insisted on the necessity of knowing “experimentally” the presence of the Holy Spirit (Whitefield 1739, 27). Moreover, the mention of “that strange Kind of Spiritual Commerce” might be an allusion to one of Whitefield’s most famous sermons, in which the preacher described the relationship between a Christian and Jesus in the following terms:

Your Hearts are drawn out after Christ; your Souls pant and long for him; you cannot be at Rest 'till you are engaged to this Jesus: You, my dear Sisters, cannot be at Rest without Christ; and are ready to cry out continually, None but Christ, None but Christ: This is the Language of your Hearts, if you are truly sensible of your Need of him. (Whitefield 1740, 6)

24Whitefield’s sermon, with its insistence on the nuptial metaphor to refer to the relationship between Christ and the Church, and, more specifically, between Christians and Christ, was clearly the butt of Foote’s innuendos in his play.

  • 3 Foote rightly highlights the importance given to sensations and feelings in Methodist theology. Ind (...)

25Even if Madan argues that the words are taken from the Bible, Foote considers that they end up being so distorted in Methodist sermons that there cannot be any agreement upon their meanings, and that disputing their relevance would be pointless. Moreover, as the core of Methodist theology is, according to him, rooted in a subjective experience, rational argumentation is of no avail.3 Foote even sketches a linguistic theory in which context is everything and affirms that words “are the mere arbitrary marks of things” (Foote 1760b, 34) and, consequently, that absolute taboos are all the more absurd as Whitefield himself always mentions God “in the most trifling, common occurrences” (Foote 1760b, 35).

26Foote’s answer spurred another pamphlet, by the same author, which repeats the same arguments and condemns all plays ridiculing religious hypocrisy, whether they be Foote’s or Molière’s Tartuffe (Madan 1760b, 16). This second publication failed to kindle the controversy anew, as Foote did not deign answer it. Yet the polemical exchanges about The Minor and its legality regained momentum in late October 1760, when the play left the Haymarket Theatre for Drury Lane Theatre, which was more prestigious and whose manager, David Garrick, was the leading actor of the time.

27Two letters, published around the 25th October 1760, when King George II died, made direct references to The Minor and are commonly considered as written by Madan as well. The first letter is addressed to Methodists and broadens the attack on The Minor to consider the very legality of drama (Madan 1760c). The second letter, signed “Anti-Profanus” (Madan 1760d), has been attributed to Madan (McInelly 2014, 92-93) and is addressed to David Garrick. The change of addressee implies radical changes in the tone adopted in both publications.

28In his Exhortatory Address, Madan advises his “brethren” against reading satires or seeing comedies altogether, as “wit and humour” tend to “gild the most pernicious subjects” and are often admired, and “what we once admire, we are very near to approving” (Madan 1760c, 10). The pamphlet also adapts to the peculiar circumstances of its publication as, in a wonderful preterition, it almost accuses Foote of having provoked the demise of the monarch:

What crime we may have committed to bring down this judgment [The death of King George II] upon us, is best known to him to whom all hearts are open. I do not say, that the uncommon countenance given to the maligners of the ministers of CHRIST; to the scoffers at religion; and in a word, to the author of The Minor, may have had its share in producing this heart-breaking effect; yet surely if the crimes of individuals ever provoke the Divine Vengeance to general punishments, we may with good reason ascribe to that, among the rest of our malefactions, the heavy misfortune with which we are at present burthened. (Madan 1760c, 15-16)

29Significantly enough, the main body of the letter is dated 24th October, yet this peroration is part of an addendum from 27th October in order to make the most of the passing of the King. Moreover, in Madan’s general theology, any single event can be interpreted as a divine sign, and the national commotion seems to give a rationale to his fight.

30The Letter to David Garrick is far less vehement and apocalyptic since Garrick was the most renowned actor of the time, and Madan is careful to commend him for his “shining, nay, unequalled abilities, as a Performer” (Madan 1760d, 25). However, “Anti-Profanus” develops the same arguments in his pamphlet and even presents them, in his conclusion, in the form of a syllogism that is supposed to be unanswerable:

I sum up what has been said in the following syllogism – viz. Mr. Foote has ridiculed the doctrines of the New Birth, Regeneration, being a New Creature, the Influence and Aids of the Spirit, and Saving Grace
But these are the doctrines of the Scriptures, and of our National Church
Ergo, He hath ridiculed the doctrines of the Scriptures, and of our National Church. (Madan 1760d, 21-22)

31Yet the Letter to David Garrick remains quite unconvincing as the author is constantly trying to negotiate between his hatred for drama and the opportunities represented by Garrick’s involvement in the controversy. Madan, as he is addressing the leading actor of his time, cannot condemn theatre on the whole, even though he quotes Collier (Madan 1760d, 1-4). That is why the pamphlet’s conclusion sounds quite jarring. It contains an ambiguous reference to Ben Jonson who “could so severely satyrize [sic] the Puritans, and yet keep so clear of scripture phrases as he has done” but who nonetheless ridiculed the phrase “Holy Spirit” (Madan 1760d, 30). However, Madan’s two pamphlets of late October 1760 clearly evidence how the evolution of controversies can also be linked to external events. The pamphleteer’s aim is to prove his opponent wrong, of course, but he also wants to be as widely read as possible, and he has some difficulties articulating his two goals.

32As Foote did not answer Madan, and as his play began to be performed in Drury Lane, one might have thought that the controversy was over. Still, The Minor was an opportunity for a “print war” (Kinservik 1999, 98) and numerous plays and pamphlets about Whitefield and Methodism were published in 1760 and in the following years. As Madan himself notes, “Grub Street has taken the hint” (Madan 1760d, 24). For the year 1760 alone, Clive D. Field has numbered no less than twenty publications related to The Minor and the controversy it launched (Field 1991, 203-205). The Archbishop of Canterbury himself intervened in the debates, voicing concerns quite similar to Madan’s, namely that ridiculing preachers could mean ridiculing religion itself. Thomas Secker asked the Lord Chamberlain to withdraw the licence he had granted to the play, but the latter refused, as he explains to David Garrick on 25th October 1760:

I had a long conversation with his Grace, who would have authorized me to have used his name to stop “The Minor,” but I got off from it, and concluded with sending a recommendation by Mr. Pelham to the author, to alter those passages that are liable to objection: his Grace would not point them out, so I think very little alteration may do. (Boaden 1831, 120)

33Foote had ignored the pamphlets but he could not openly disobey the highest Church authority, even though Horace Walpole relates that he privately ironized about the matter: “Foote says he will take out a licence to preach, Sam. Cant against Tom Cant” (Walpole 1941, 327). Indeed, the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Secker, usually signed “Thomas Cantuar.” or “Thomas Cant.”, hence the pun made by Foote on the possibility that he might turn into a preacher to oppose Church authorities. It appears nonetheless that Foote complied somehow with Secker’s demands, filtered by the Duke of Devonshire, as The London Chronicle reports the following events:

On Saturday night the Minor was performed at Drury-Lane to a crouded [sic] audience. The late clamour against many expressions in it, said to be prophane, occasioned, it was observed, several alterations; among which Mr. Foote, in Mrs. Cole, instead of saying ‘regeneration is not the work of a day,’ said ‘reformation;’ for, ‘I had been a lost sheep,’ said ‘lost woman;’ and instead of ‘got me with a new grace and I became regenerate, and another creature,’ said to this purport, ‘washed me with the soap-suds and scouring sand of the Tabernacle, and I became as clean and bright as a pewter-platter.’ (London Chronicle 1760)

34The modifications brought by Foote to his performance made it clearer that it was primarily the Methodists who were being satirized – as evidenced by the reference to “The Tabernacle”– yet they also slightly changed Foote’s target. Whereas the original version was mostly meant to question the relevance of scriptural quotations in a mundane context, the corrected version simply lampoons the supposed hypocrisy of Methodists and becomes less subtle.

35The direct controversy about The Minor ceased shortly after the play was performed in Drury Lane in October-November 1760. A secondary controversy was however rekindled when The Minor was performed again in Edinburgh, starting on 24th November 1770. This new production of the play provoked a response in a sermon by James Baine, which attacked the theatre and, more specifically, Foote’s depiction of George Whitefield, who had recently died (Baine 1770, 36-40). Yet Baine’s sermon did not develop new arguments. It mostly repeated the common grievances against theatre, and especially against theatre representing religious matters. Foote answered Baine and produced An Apology for the Minor, even if he clearly expressed in it that he had no necessity to develop new arguments as he had already explained everything eleven years before when he was debating with Madan:

But as all you say there, has been said before, and much better, I take the liberty of submitting to the public the Objections originally made to the Minor, by one of the founders of the methodistical sect, with my Answers; both which were published immediately after the first exhibition of the MINOR. (Foote 1771, 5)

36Foote’s only concession to his opponent is quite tongue-in-cheek. Indeed, he writes that he omitted the epilogue, in which he mimicked Whitefield, in some performances in Edinburgh since the preacher had died shortly before, “but this was rather a condescension to the general prejudice of mankind, than to any conviction of the propriety of the law” (Foote 1771, 33). In other words, Foote remained constant throughout the different controversies on The Minor and only accepted minor modifications to appease his audience, and nothing more. The fact is that he could feel quite justified by the public success of his play, which was still in demand eleven years after its creation, and which had been performed both at Drury Lane and Covent Garden in autumn 1760 (Kinservik 1999, 103). Moreover, Foote could feel all the more justified as his play and the scandal it caused rekindled interest for anti-Methodist satires. The controversy, far from succeeding in revoking the licence granted to Foote, gave birth to a new fashion for lampoons and satires.

The Minor effect, or controversy as commercial opportunity

  • 4 Samuel Foote was known for his mime skills, hence the mention of “The Mimic”.

37The controversy regarding The Minor mainly focussed on the importance – or not – of context for the reception of religious words, or their parody. Foote’s opponents wanted to censor the play or, at least, the most outrageous expressions in it, and yet they failed, all the more so as the scandal spurred imitations and opportunistic publications. The very author of The Letter to David Garrick noted that popular ballads ridiculed Whitefield in the manner of Foote and commented: “Grub Street has taken the hint, has seconded the attack upon our holy religion and its divine author, and sent forth such Blasphemy as I dare not mention” (Madan 1760d, 24). At least five other texts directly inspired by The Minor were published in the following months or years, as their very titles suggest: The Spiritual Minor (1760), The Methodist, a Comedy: Being a Continuation and Completion of the Plan of the Minor (1761), Friendly Advice for Dr. Squintum (1760), The Methodist and Mimic (1766)4 (McInelly 2014, 33). Moreover, even if their link with The Minor was not as obvious, many satires and plays published in the 1760s benefited from the success and scandal surrounding Foote’s comedy. The publication, in 1769, of a new adaptation of Molière’s Tartuffe by Isaac Bickerstaffe, The Hypocrite, in which “Dr. Cantwell” is now a Methodist, is one of the last instances of the craze for anti-Methodist satires in the wake of The Minor (Bickerstaffe 1769). The media agitation surrounding Foote’s comedy and the fact that the controversy spun out of control are well evidenced by an engraving printed in 1760. Satirizing the major popular successes of the year, it is entitled The Scheming Triumvirate (fig. 1).

Fig. 1. The Scheming Triumvirate, etching on paper, 198mm by 304mm, published in London by G. Gibbs and William Tringham in 1760.

Fig. 1. The Scheming Triumvirate, etching on paper, 198mm by 304mm, published in London by G. Gibbs and William Tringham in 1760.

© The Trustees of the British Museum.

38The engraving presents the three scandalous figures around whom controversies revolved in the year 1760, that is Laurence Sterne, who had just published the first volumes of Tristram Shandy, George Whitefield, preaching from his pulpit, and Samuel Foote, standing on the stage. The juxtaposition of Sterne with the controversy on The Minor might seem strange at first sight, but the main point of the satirical engraver was to highlight the media phenomena of the summer of 1760. Indeed, Sterne’s book had been accused of being obscene and immoral, and imitations, pamphlets and reviews had proliferated. Sterne himself relished such controversy: “There is a shilling pamphlet wrote against Tristram. – I wish they could write a hundred such” (Sterne 2009, 144). Sterne, however, soon grew afraid of the multiplication of obscene pamphlets, of “the unprecedented energy with which the literary rabble would seize upon his work” (Bosch 2007, 90). Moreover, the opportunistic link between The Minor and Tristram Shandy had been made conspicuous in July 1760 in an anonymous pamphlet. The latter was supposed to be a moral denunciation of Sterne’s book by a Methodist preacher while, in fact, it satirized Methodism and was meant to cash in on the two scandals of the summer (Anonymous 1760). That pamphlet was soon republished under the title A Letter from the Rev. George Whitefield and is depicted lying at the feet of Sterne on the engraving. The etching therefore denounces commercial opportunism: the three characters are represented with bags full of money in their hands, and the caption claims that they all “gull Mankind with this or that Pretence”. Whitefield “Bawls aloud with hypocritic face”, Sterne “to Bawdy wit becomes a Selfish Slave”, and Foote “Laughs at Religion for the sake of Gain”, “Thus disagreeing – they upon the whole/ Agree in this one Point – to get the Cole”. The engraving seems to suggest they had planned together to engineer a profitable scandal.

39In the summer of 1760 and in the following years, the arguments developed by Madan to criticize Foote’s play disappeared, and so did Foote’s defence of satiric drama. Both their positions were over-simplified and the controversy about the relevance or not of context when it came to the reception of scriptural quotations and their parody boiled down in many pamphlets to a mere opposition between an atheist ridiculing religion and a hypocrite. The debate about the ideal conditions of reception for parody and satire was received and used simply as a commercial opportunity. The controversy was quickly considered as an important event in the history of British drama, as shown by the sources collected by John Field. He planned to write a history of theatre in Britain and managed to create an entire library dedicated to drama that was eventually sold at Sotheby’s in 1827. The catalogue lists, in lot 838, almost all the publications linked to The Minor, including “thirteen tracts, in one vol. 8vo, several prints inserted” (Field 1827, 37), giving a real unity to the succession of pamphlets, plays, answers and counter-answers.

40Samuel Foote’s The Minor deserves careful scrutiny to better understand the debates about drama, Methodism, and audience reaction in the 1760s. Given the restrictions on political satire on the stage after 1737, Foote opted for short plays focussing on his contemporaries, and targeted George Whitefield and Methodists in his play. Such a choice of target was “anything but dangerous” (Kinservik 1999, 102), yet Whitefield’s sermons attracted crowds and were even commended. In the very year of Foote’s The Minor, Oliver Goldsmith issued an ambiguous praise of Whitefield’s rhetoric in an essay: “Even Whitefield may be placed as a model to some of our young divines, let them join to their own good sense his earnest manner of delivery” (Goldsmith 1966, 154). Moreover, as Paul Goring has noted, anti-Methodist satires tended to be more polite in the 1770s (Goring 2009, 77-90). Even if the controversy was fierce in its first stages and addressed important issues concerning the propriety of scriptural quotations, The Minor finally contributed to turning anti-Methodism into a commercial opportunity. The controversy about The Minor is therefore reminiscent of the controversy about Samuel Richardson’s Pamela in the 1740s. The heroine was suspected of Methodist sympathies, notably by Henry Fielding. Parodies, imitations, critiques and defences multiplied, and “the controversy took on a self-sustaining dynamism” (Keymer & Sabor 2005, 15). The calls to censor the play were never seriously considered and Foote profited from the imitations, pamphlets, and prints that his play inspired. Had the play not been depicted as a scandalous attack on religion, anti-Methodist satires might not have flourished in the 1760s. The Minor became a buzz-word, the controversy became a means to sell paper, and the debate raging around Methodism soon lost some of its virulence.

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Bibliographie

Anon. A Genuine Letter from a Methodist Preacher in the Country to Laurence Sterne, M. A. Prebendary of York. Printed from the Original Manuscript as it was Received by the General Post. London, 1760.

Anderson, Misty. Imagining Methodism in Eighteenth-Century Britain. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012.

Baine, James. The Theatre Licentious and Perverted or a Sermon for Reformation of Manners. Preached on the Lord's Day Dec. 2. 1770. Partly Occasioned by the Acting of a Comedy Entitled The Minor, in the Licensed Theatre of Edinburgh, on Saturday the 24th of November Preceding. Edinburgh, 1770.

Bickerstaffe, Isaac. The Hypocrite: A Comedy. London, 1769.

Boaden, James, ed. The Private Correspondence of David Garrick with the Most Celebrated Persons of his Time, vol. 1. London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, 1831.

Bosch, René. Labyrinth of Digressions. Tristram Shandy as Perceived and Influenced by Sterne's Early Imitators. New York and Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2007.

Byron, George Gordon (6th Baron). Hints from Horace [1811]. In The Complete Poetical Works, vol. II. Ed. Jerome McGann. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982.

Field, John. Bibliotheca Histrionica. A Catalogue of the Theatrical and Miscellaneous Library of Mr. John Field, in which are Contained Several Specimens of the Early Drama. London, 1827.

Field, Clive D. “Anti-Methodist Publications in the Eighteenth-Century: A Revised Bibliography.” Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 73.2 (1991):159-280.

Foote, Samuel. The Minor, A Comedy. London, 1760. (Foote 1760a)

Foote, Samuel. A Letter from Mr. Foote, to the Reverend Author of the Remarks, Critical and Christian, on the Minor. London, 1760. (Foote 1760b)

Foote, Samuel. Apology for the Minor. In a Letter to the Rev. Mr. Baine. Edinburgh, 1771.

Goldsmith, Oliver. “Some Remarks on the Modern Manner of Preaching”. Collected Works of Oliver Goldsmith, vol. 3. Ed. Arthur Friedman. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966. 150-155.

Goring, Paul. The Rhetoric of Sensibility in Eighteenth-Century Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.

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Madan, Martin. Christian and Critical Remarks on a Droll, or Interlude, Called The Minor. Now Acting by a Company of Stage Players in the Hay-market; and Said to be Acted by Authority. In which The Blasphemy, Falshood, and Scurrility of that Piece is Properly Considered, Answered, and Exposed. By a Minister of the Church of Christ. London, 1760. (Madan 1760a)

Madan, Martin. A Letter to Mr. Foote, Occasioned by his Letter to the Reverend Author of the Christian and Critical Remarks on the Minor, Containing, A Refutation of Mr. Foote's Pamphlet and a Full Defence of the Principles and Practices of the Methodists. By the Author of the Christian and Critical Remarks. London, 1760. (Madan 1760b)

Madan, Martin. An Exhortatory Address to the Brethren in the Faith of Christ, Occasioned by a Remarkable Letter from Mr. Foote to the Rev. Author of Christian and Critical Remarks on the Minor. With a Serious Word or two on the present Melancholy Occasion. By a Minister of the Church of Christ. London, 1760. (Madan 1760c)

Madan, Martin. A Letter to David Garrick, Esq; Occasioned by the Intended Representation of the Minor at the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane. London, 1760. (Madan 1760d)

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Notes

1 “In this sense, theatrical practice reflects the evolution of comedy, which, over the course of the eighteenth century, decentred the ridiculous. Aggressive verbal wit, the medium of satirical ridicule in Restoration comedy, was gradually supplanted by comic physical effects. On stage, the gestural and facial expressions which, at the end of the 17th century, accompanied witty retorts without challenging their primacy, replaced dialogue and became the essence of theatrical performance.” (My translation)

2 The Foundery Chapel, in Moorfields, was one of the first Methodist meeting houses created by John Wesley.

3 Foote rightly highlights the importance given to sensations and feelings in Methodist theology. Indeed, Wesley himself tried to develop a religious epistemology based on Locke’s philosophy of knowledge (Anderson 2012, 51-59).

4 Samuel Foote was known for his mime skills, hence the mention of “The Mimic”.

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Table des illustrations

Titre Fig. 1. The Scheming Triumvirate, etching on paper, 198mm by 304mm, published in London by G. Gibbs and William Tringham in 1760.
Crédits © The Trustees of the British Museum.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/sillagescritiques/docannexe/image/15592/img-1.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 326k
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Pierre Labrune, « Parody, Controversy, Commercial Opportunity: Samuel Foote’s The Minor (1760) and Its Reception »Sillages critiques [En ligne], 36 | 2024, mis en ligne le 20 juin 2024, consulté le 19 juin 2025. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/sillagescritiques/15592 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/120mk

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Auteur

Pierre Labrune

Université de Lille – CECILLE ULR 4074

Pierre Labrune is a senior lecturer in British History and translation at the University of Lille. He is a member of the CECILLE laboratory. His research focusses on literary, political and religious controversies in the long eighteenth-century and on the evolution of sociabilities. He has recently co-directed a special issue of Études anglaises with Valérie Capdeville on sociable spaces in Britain in the eighteenth-century. He participates in the DIGITENS project and has contributed several entries to the digital encyclopaedia of sociabilities, notably on “Cant”, “Methodism”, and “Boxing”, with Kimberley Page-Jones. He has also recently published an article on Fielding, Methodism and Opacity.

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