Methodism and the Rise of Popular Literary Criticism: Reviewing the Revival [1 ed.] 9781003392323, 9781032456867, 9781032491394

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Routledge Methodist Studies Series

METHODISM AND THE RISE OF POPULAR LITERARY CRITICISM REVIEWING THE REVIVAL Brett C. McInelly

Methodism and the Rise of Popular Literary Criticism

This book examines how Methodism and popular review criticism intersected with and informed each other in the eighteenth century. Methodism emerged at a time when the idea of a ‘public square’ was taking shape, a process facilitated by the periodical press. Perhaps more so than any previous religious movement, Methodism, and the publications associated with it, received greater scrutiny largely because of periodical literature and the emergence of popular review criticism. The book considers in particular how works addressing Methodism were discussed and critiqued in the era’s two leading literary periodicals – The Monthly Review and The Critical Review. Focusing on the period between 1749 and 1789, the study encompasses the formative years of popular review criticism and some of the more dramatic moments in the textual culture of early Methodism. The author illustrates some of the specific ways these review journals diverged in their critical approaches and sensibilities as well as their politics and religious opinions. The Monthly’s and the Critical’s responses to the Methodists’ own publishing efforts as well as the anti-Methodist critique are shown to be both multifaceted and complex. The book critically reflects on the pretended neutrality, reasonableness, and objectivity of reviewers, who at times found themselves negotiating between the desire to regulate literary tastes and the impulse to undermine the Methodist revival. It will be relevant to scholars of religion, history and literary studies with an interest in Methodism, print culture, and the eighteenth century. Brett C. McInelly is a Professor in the English Department at Brigham Young University, USA. His publications include Textual Warfare and the Making of Methodism (2014).

Routledge Methodist Studies Series Series Editor: William Gibson Director of the Oxford Centre for Methodism and Church History, Oxford Brookes University, UK Editorial Board: Ted A. Campbell, Professor of Church History, Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University, USA David N. Hempton, Dean, Harvard Divinity School, Harvard University, USA Priscilla Pope-Levison, Associate Dean, Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University, USA Martin Wellings, Superintendent Minister of Oxford Methodist Circuit and Past President of the World Methodist Historical Society, UK Karen B. Westerfield Tucker, Professor of Worship, Boston University, USA Methodism remains one of the largest denominations in the USA and is growing in South America, Africa and Asia (especially in Korea and China). This series spans Methodist history and theology, exploring its success as a movement historically and in its global expansion. Books in the series will look particularly at features within Methodism which attract wide interest, including: the unique position of the Wesleys; the prominent role of women and minorities in Methodism; the interaction between Methodism and politics; the ‘Methodist conscience’ and its motivation for temperance and pacifist movements; the wide range of Pentecostal, holiness and evangelical movements; and the interaction of Methodism with different cultures. The Monastic Footprint in Post-Reformation Movements The Cloister of the Soul Kenneth C. Carveley Anglican-Methodist Ecumenism The Search for Church Unity, 1920-2020 Edited by Jane Platt and Martin Wellings Henry Foxall’s Journals, 1816-1817 Transatlantic Methodism in Transition Jane Donovan John Wesley’s Political World Glen O’Brien Methodism and the Rise of Popular Literary Criticism Reviewing the Revival Brett C. McInelly For more information and a full list of titles in the series, please visit: https:// www.routledge.com/Routledge-Methodist-Studies-Series/book-series/AMETHOD

Methodism and the Rise of Popular Literary Criticism Reviewing the Revival Brett C. McInelly

First published 2023 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2023 Brett C. McInelly The right of Brett C. McInelly to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978-1-032-45686-7 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-49139-4 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-39232-3 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003392323 Typeset in Sabon by MPS Limited, Dehradun

For my children, Collin, Katherine, Tess, Cosette, and Ethan, who sustain me in my faith

Contents

Acknowledgements Introduction 1

viii 1

Popular Review Criticism, Methodism, and the Public Sphere

29

Reviewing Methodism in Devotional and Polemical Literature

57

3

Reviewing Whitefield and Wesley

83

4

Anti-Methodism and Belletristic Critique

111

5

Reviewing the Oxford Expulsion and the Minutes Controversy

134

6

The Legacy of the Monthly and the Critical Reviews

159

7

Epilogue

189

Appendix A: Anti- and Pro-Methodist Publications Reviewed, 1749–89 Index

192 216

2

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank the Department of English and the College of Humanities at Brigham Young University for providing funding for conference travel and research support as I developed this project. Iterations of each chapter have been presented at various conferences, including several sponsored by the South Central Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, at which I have received valuable feedback and encouragement from conference attendees. I offer special thanks to Nicholas Mason and David Mazella for offering their insights and feedback to early drafts of my manuscript. I also thank William Gibson, editor of the Routledge Methodist Studies Series, for his support and encouragement. I express appreciation to Antonia Forster for her scholarly work on the Monthly and Critical Reviews, which has served as a tremendous resource, and for taking the time to respond to my queries via email. I thank the editors and staff at Routledge for their professionalism in seeing the project through to publication and for the feedback provided by their external reviewers. Finally, I express deep appreciation for my wife, Kristin, and the support she has provided throughout my career. This book began as a book chapter entitled ‘When Worlds Collide: AntiMethodist Literature and the Rise of Popular Literary Criticism in the Critical Review and the Monthly Review’ that appeared in Paper, Ink, and Achievement: Gabriel Hornstein and the Revival of Eighteenth-Century Scholarship, edited by Kevin L. Cope and Cedric D. Reverand II (Bucknell UP, 2021). An earlier version of Chapter 3 appeared as ‘Reviewing John Wesley and George Whitefield in the Monthly Review and the Critical Review’ in The Journal of Religious History, Literature and Culture 8.1 (2022): 25–50. https://doi.org/10.16922/jrhlc8.1.2.

Introduction

Shortly after the publication of The Crooked Disciple’s Remarks Upon the Blind Guide’s Method of Preaching (1761), which was a satirical attack on George Whitefield, the Critical Review published this short notice: ‘All we can collect from this performance is, that the crooked disciple is as waggish as the blind guide is absurd.’1 The review illustrates a recurring tendency found in the pages of the Critical, as well as in its counterpart, the Monthly Review, to call out what the reviewers perceived as ‘bad’ writing while declaiming against the Methodists and their leaders: the author proves himself ‘as waggish’ as Whitefield is ‘absurd’. Although attacking Methodism was tangential to the primary goal of both journals—to offer ostensibly impartial reviews of newly published books in an effort to establish critical standards for literary merit—both review journals generally concurred with much of the anti-Methodist sentiment that circulated in the public press, and they seized upon the popularity of their productions, and the platform it afforded, to further expose the Methodists as a group of religious fanatics. When a particular anti-Methodist work aligned with the reviewers’ critical standards, the reviewers seamlessly reconciled these dual purposes by praising both the medium and the message; however, when the message came packaged in a form that violated rules of literary and satiric decorum, the reviewers found themselves negotiating between the desire to regulate literary tastes and the impulse to undermine the Methodist revival. The notice for The Crooked Disciple’s Remarks exemplifies one of the cruder strategies both the Monthly and the Critical employed to achieve their aims: to simply dismiss an author and his work as being of inferior rank while castigating the Methodists. However, an examination of both review journals, which dominated the marketplace of review criticism from 1749 until the end of the eighteenth century, indicates that reconciling the principal objective of the burgeoning genre of the review essay with a particular social agenda proved a more complex issue than this simple strategy suggests. What happened to the anti-Methodist critique—which had been disseminated in poems, plays, and other literary types from the outset of the revival in the 1730s—when it was filtered through the critical apparatus of the review essay? How was the genre of the literary review DOI: 10.4324/9781003392323-1

2 Introduction shaped by extracritical considerations and socioreligious concerns? The review journals inevitably contributed to the campaign to discredit Methodism by merely reviewing both anti- and pro-Methodist works from a clearly partisan point of view and, in numerous cases, by amplifying the negative sentiments expressed in the anti-Methodist literature. In other instances, however, hostility toward the revival and its participants was muted by the reviewers’ fidelity to their standards for making literary judgements, particularly when a given anti-Methodist work violated those standards. Reviewers encountered similar problems when reviewing a proMethodist piece that advocated doctrines with which the reviewers disagreed but that was cogently written and deftly argued. The Monthly’s and the Critical’s treatment of Methodism demonstrates (1) the extent to which Methodism in the eighteenth century took shape in the crucible of public disputation and the print culture that surrounded it; (2) how the modern literary review essay emerged out of a simultaneous pull between reviewer opinion (whether about literary or extraliterary issues) and the inclination to establish objective rules for assessing literary merit and propriety; (3) and how the public sphere as described by Jürgen Habermas and others evolved out of literary culture as well as religious debate and discussion. The reviewers effectively invited a reading public to accept or reject their opinions and to participate, directly or indirectly, in a critical conversation about the productions of the press and the ideas those productions promulgated; and their coverage of the Methodist revival ensured that this conversation spanned a wide spectrum of religious opinions and interests, from the conventional and orthodox on one end of that spectrum to the unconventional and heterodox on the other end. Finally, these journals provide a sense of how eighteenth-century readers responded to the pro- and anti-Methodist literature while representing an untapped, and unique, strain of revival-related discourse. The review literature illustrates that the response to Methodism was more nuanced than the corpus of anti-Methodist literature generally suggests. Scholars have widely recognized the preponderance of religious titles in Britain’s eighteenth-century book trade;2 religious historians and literary critics have also examined the various ways in which Methodism intersected with, participated in, and was informed by eighteenth-century literary culture.3 But scholars have hardly glimpsed how religious titles in general—and those addressing Methodism in particular—were discussed and critiqued in the era’s leading literary periodicals, the Monthly and the Critical Reviews. For reasons I more fully articulate in the chapters that follow, Methodist belief and practice attracted the attention of religious polemicists, playwrights, poets, and novelists whose works, in turn, attracted the attention of the reviewers. The Methodists’ own forays into commercial publishing, whether in the form of apologia, devotional tracts, or sacred verse, likewise brought Methodism into the world of review criticism. This convergence of perhaps the most significant religious development in eighteenth-century

Introduction 3 Britain with one of the most important literary developments of the period—namely, the rise of popular literary criticism—meant that the controversy surrounding Methodism was represented, codified, and enlarged in the pages of the Monthly and the Critical Reviews, first, by providing summaries and extracts of the publications for and against Methodism in a systematized and widely consumable form; and, second, by including the reviewers’ own, normally partisan, statements about the revival and its participants alongside those summaries and extracts. The Monthly’s and the Critical’s treatment of the publications associated with Methodism thus provides an apt case study of the ways in which the reviewers read and responded to the revival-related literature as well as how the reviewers negotiated between their critical principles and a socioreligious agenda. Methodism represented a strong enough countercultural movement that popular feelings about the Methodists and their beliefs ranged from mildly amused to vehemently antagonistic. In declaiming against the Methodists, the reviewers hardly had to mask their opinions for an unprejudiced audience since most of their readers likely shared, or at least acknowledged, the hostility directed at the Methodists. Moreover, doctrinal fault lines within Methodism ensured that, despite a clear antiMethodist bias, reviewer opinion toward the revival proved more nuanced than might at first appear. For example, both review journals’ antipathy toward the doctrines of predestination and election meant that John Wesley’s Arminianism usually fared better than Whitefield’s Calvinism. The Monthly’s and the Critical’s handling of the books and pamphlets published in connection with the Methodist revival illuminates the interplay between literary critique and reviewer engagement in distinctly non-literary matters.

Methodism and Eighteenth-Century Print Culture Not unlike the Protestant Reformation, which was made possible, in large part, by the printing press, Methodism in eighteenth-century Britain became a media event and participated in the print culture of the day from its beginnings in the 1730s. Whitefield utilized advertising media to publicize himself and his ministry (a fact routinely documented by biographers and religious historians4). Both Whitefield and Wesley published extensively; their works included sermons, spiritual biographies, devotional works, hymnals, and sacred verse. Wesley eventually owned and operated his own printing press to ensure the steady circulation of Methodist materials among his followers; and in 1779 he launched The Arminian Magazine, which was published monthly in response to rival periodicals sponsored by Calvinist evangelicals, most notably The Gospel Magazine, which was first published in 1766. The centrality of print media to the work of the revival is further evident in several of early Methodism’s more contentious moments, which were often spurred by and centred on specific publications. As Frank Lambert

4 Introduction observes, ‘George Whitefield had a history of creating controversy on his way out of town’ by printing some of his more inflammatory remarks as he prepared to move from one locale to the next in order to promote himself and his ministry.5 On the heels of his first American preaching tour in 1741, Whitefield used this strategy to good effect in the colonies by publishing his unfavourable impressions of the New England clergy.6 Referring to Wesley’s ongoing dispute with the Calvinist Methodists—a dispute that ebbed and flowed beginning in 1739 with the publication of Wesley’s sermon on Free Grace—Donald Kirkham states, ‘At the center of each [episode] was one of Wesley’s publications.’7 Albert Lyles goes as far as to suggest that ‘no part of Wesley’s career was more attacked than his publishing, and no single publication was attacked more severely than A Calm Address [to our American Colonies]’,8 which Wesley published in 1775 in an effort to sooth the colonists’ revolutionary fervour. The uptick in polemical exchanges between the Methodists and their critics in the early 1760s resulted, in large part, from the theatrical debut and publication of Samuel Foote’s The Minor in 1760 and William Warburton’s The Doctrine of Grace in 1763, both of which harshly criticized Methodist doctrine and practice. A number of pamphlets were likewise published in 1768 following the expulsion of six Methodist students from Oxford University for their religious views and practices, and even more publications flowed off English presses in the early 1770s as part of an internal dispute between Wesleyan and Calvinist Methodists over the doctrine of grace known as the Minutes Controversy. The rush of Methodist publications into the marketplace, in addition to publications produced by other evangelical groups, naturally caught the attention of—and alarmed—the reviewers for both journals. In 1763, a reviewer for the Monthly observed that of all the religious books published ‘more than half … will prove, either the wild effusions of Cornelius Cayley, the amorous devotions of William Romaine, or the indelicate visions of some entranced Methodist’.9 A year later another reviewer similarly wrote, ‘If the character of the times were to be determined by the productions of the press, the numerous and voluminous publications of Hutchinsonians, Moravians, Methodists, and other popular enthusiasts, would afford us unexceptionable reasons for characterizing the age by the grossest marks of fanaticism and credulity.’10 The Critical likewise lamented the disquieting rate at which Methodist publications had inundated the marketplace: ‘It is a melancholy consideration that the pernicious doctrine of the Methodists should daily gain ground amongst us; and that they do, is evident from the number of books lately published with a view of propagating their most dangerous tenets.’11 Such remarks help illustrate the strong anti-Methodist bias that pervaded both journals, in addition to substantiating conclusions drawn by religious historians regarding the role print media played in advancing evangelicalism. As Isabel Rivers explains, ‘The evangelical revival … was stimulated by and also generated an increasing number of

Introduction 5 publications written and distributed by Methodists and evangelicals both within and outside the Church of England.’12 No previous religious movement relied more on the printed word. But the Methodists were not the only ones who made the revival a matter of public concern via the press. Indeed, much of the information about Methodism that circulated in eighteenth-century society came from the revival’s critics in the form of theological polemic, satiric verse, dramatic script, and prose fiction. These publications set out to undermine the revival but simultaneously brought the movement, including its beliefs and practices, to the public’s attention—even if in a negative light. Whitefield recognized early on that even bad publicity was good publicity. In response to Foote’s caricature of him in the figure of Dr Squintum in The Minor, which was performed to critical and popular acclaim on the London stage, spawning a number of dramatic and literary spinoffs, including The Crooked Disciple’s Remarks, Whitefield observed, ‘I am now mimicked and burlesqued upon the public stage. All hail such contempt!’13 Not only did Whitefield see persecution as a badge of honour, something that galvanized Methodist faith and sense of community, but he readily acknowledged that anti-Methodist attacks raised public awareness of and perhaps even curiosity in the revival. Even in a century that witnessed the first daily newspapers; the proliferation of periodicals that touched on nearly every imaginable topic, including literary criticism; and the publication of numerous other literary types, including novels, plays, travel literature, biography, and sermons, the output of anti-Methodist publications is impressive. Between 1732 and the end of the century, no less than 600 anti-Methodist titles appeared in print.14 By comparison, John Sekora notes that between 1721 and 1771 about 460 books and pamphlets were published on luxury, a topic he identifies as ‘the greatest single social issue and the greatest single commonplace’ of the eighteenth century.15 Moreover, bibliographies of the era’s anti-Methodist literature include only a fraction of the anti-Methodist materials that appeared in the periodical press, and they do not include works that make peripheral and negative references to Methodism, such as Henry Fielding’s Shamela (1741) and Tobias Smollett’s Humphry Clinker (1771). No religious movement during the period received such extensive, and negative, treatment in the public press. The anti-Methodist attacks further contributed to the public discourse about Methodism by providing Whitefield and Wesley with an opportunity to respond publicly to their critics, an opportunity the men regularly seized upon in their efforts to clarify their doctrinal positions and refute criticism. As Whitefield insisted, ‘For what in an human Way can have a more natural Tendency to strengthen the Methodist’s Hands than their having a publick [sic] Occasion to shew that they preach up the great Doctrines of the Reformation, and are thrust out of the Synagogues for no other Reason, than because they preach Articles of Faith.’16 Although both Wesley and Whitefield tended to ignore the more satiric attacks published against them,

6 Introduction they routinely and publicly responded to their Anglican and clerical critics, who represented some of their staunchest antagonists. In short, both Methodists and non-Methodists alike experienced Methodism in and through the printed word—including the review literature that became popular at midcentury.

The Rise of Popular Review Criticism Methodism’s involvement in eighteenth-century print culture ensured that works and ideas associated with the revival made their way into the review journals, first via the Monthly Review in 1749 and then via the Critical Review seven years later. Although a handful of review journals preceded the Monthly and the Critical, most predated the evangelical revival, and those that coincided with the revival had relatively short print runs and focused on ‘the works of the learned’ rather than every newly published book.17 The short print runs and relatively narrow focus of these early review journals means that books by and about the Methodists typically were not reviewed prior to the advent of the Monthly. Both the Monthly and the Critical began with the same intention, described on the title page of the first volume of the Monthly: ‘Giving an Account, with proper Abstracts of, and Extracts from, the New Books, Pamphlets, etc. as they come out.’18 In a longer advertisement, the creators of the Monthly further explained their rationale: When the abuse of title-pages is obviously come to such a pass, that few readers care to take in a book, any more than a servant, without a recommendation; to acquaint the public that a summary review of the productions of the press, as they occur to notice, was perhaps never more necessary than now, would be superfluous and vain. The cure then for this general complaint is evidently, and only, to be found in a periodical work, whose sole object should be to give a compendious account of those productions of the press, as they come out, that are worth notice; an account, in short, which should, in virtue of its candour, and justness of distinction, obtain authority enough for its representations to be serviceable to such as would choose to have some idea of a book before they lay out their money or time on it. This is the view and aim of the present undertaking.19 Such an enterprise meant that the reviewers occupied an influential position between the producers and distributors of books and their readers. ‘The notion that books, like servants, need recommendations was,’ Antonia Forster explains, ‘a new and interesting one, placing the new Review in a mediating position between the booksellers and the reading public.’20 Tobias Smollett, who reviewed for the Monthly in the 1750s and later served as the founding editor of the Critical, had dreamed of occupying

Introduction 7 such an influential position by organizing an academy for the establishment of regulatory standards for the republic of letters. As James Basker observes, Smollett ‘fantasized’ about being ‘invested with the power to regulate the literary world’, a fantasy that was ultimately realized not in an academy but in the pages of the Critical Review.21 Smollett articulated his plan for the Critical in an advertisement for the journal in 1755. After explaining the Critical’s comprehensive scope, which would include ‘performances on the Subjects of Theology, Metaphysics, Physics, Medicine, Mathematics, History and the Belle Lettres’ as well as the other arts, Smollett detailed the qualifications of the journal’s reviewers, who would be distinct from the ‘obscure Hackney Writers, accidentally enlisted in the Service of an undistinguishing Bookseller’.22 The Critical’s reviewers, Smollett explained, ‘have resolved to task their Abilities, in reviving the true Spirit of Criticism, and exert their utmost Care in vindicating the Cause of Literature from such venal and corrupted Jurisdiction’. He then went on to stress the ethical standards that would guide their endeavours: [the reviewers] have no Prejudices to influence their Judgment; they will not presume to decide upon the Merits of a Work in an arbitrary Sentence unsupported by Evidence; they will not condemn or extol, without having first carefully perused the Performance … . In a Word, they will not commend with Reluctance, or censure with Hesitation; they scorn to act as Ministers of Interest, Faction, Envy, or Malevolence; they profess themselves indeed the Enemies of Dullness; but their favourite Aim is to befriend Merit, dignify the Liberal Arts, and contribute to the Formation of a public Taste, which is the best Patron of Genius and Science.23 As I have already stated, the extent to which reviewers for either journal achieved these objectives represents a debatable proposition at best, and authors and booksellers routinely challenged the reviewers’ claims to neutrality and questioned their critical methods and standards, which I discuss in more detail in Chapter 1. Although earlier periodicals included literary criticism and reviews of newly published books, the Monthly, as Forster explains, ‘was the first review journal in anything approaching the modern sense of the term’.24 Richard Steele and Joseph Addison included and helped popularize critical literary commentary in both the Tatler and the Spectator, and a variety of newspapers and periodicals printed notices of recently published books that included abstracts and excerpts prior to the advent of the Monthly. But the Monthly included critical commentary alongside lengthy summaries and excerpts. As Walter Graham argues, because of the Monthly’s ‘size, general quality, and long career as a periodical, the justice of calling [it] the earliest Review of importance must be granted’.25

8 Introduction Another innovation introduced by the Monthly and continued by the Critical involved the journals’ scope. Unlike its predecessors, which were confined to foreign literature and more scholarly publications,26 the Monthly initially set out to review every recently published book and pamphlet, including works and literary types produced for less-sophisticated readers,27 and both the Monthly and the Critical included books they deemed of high and low quality in their efforts to shape literary tastes and the reading habits of their consumers. This inclusive approach helps to account for the appearance of the full range of anti-Methodist publications, from astutely argued polemical pieces to more imaginative literary types, several of which, when judged on purely aesthetic grounds, are of inferior rank—a point routinely made by the reviewers and one I discuss in more detail in Chapter 4. High culture thus mingled with Grub Street in the pages of the Monthly and the Critical, thereby bringing the variety of materials available in the marketplace to the attention of a book-buying public. The review journals were undoubtedly successful in publicizing newly published books and pamphlets. Basker observes that both the Monthly and the Critical ‘printed 2,500 to 3,500 copies a month and they were read in coffeehouses, reading societies, and homes everywhere’.28 These journals, Frank Donoghue similarly argues, ‘affected virtually everyone in the English-reading public—these were the most popular magazines of the time, printed in very large numbers with each copy reaching several readers’.29 As consumers made decisions about which books were worth their time and money, both the Monthly and the Critical (theoretically) became what Basker describes as ‘a consumer’s guide for what was, after all, the first mass-production industry in history’.30 Indeed, the popularity and wide circulations of these journals meant that a reader’s first, and perhaps only, encounter with a particular book or pamphlet was in the pages of the Monthly or the Critical, a prospect that caused authors some distress. One such author felt compelled to correct ‘the gross misrepresentations’ allegedly perpetrated by the Critical since ‘their Criticism may be read by some Persons who have not read my pamphlets’.31 Consequently, booksellers and authors became keenly attuned to the influence of these journals. Booksellers quoted from both review journals in their advertisements for books, and authors who worried about how a negative review might affect sales, and perhaps their reputations, often responded in letters to the reviewers. The Monthly and the Critical regularly published these letters alongside the reviewers’ replies. Like several of her contemporaries, Fanny Burney dedicated her first novel, Evelina (1778), to the reviewers of both journals—and with good cause. She was a first-time author who recognized the generally inferior status of novels in the minds of the reviewers and in the hierarchy of literary types at the time she was writing. ‘The extensive plan of your critical observations,’ Burney wrote, ‘which, not confined to works of utility or ingenuity, is equally open to those of frivolous amusement … encourages me to seek your protection,

Introduction 9 since … it entitles me to your annotations. To resent, therefore, this offering, however insignificant, would ill become the universality of your undertaking; though not to despise it may, alas! be out of your power.’32 Determining the actual impact of the review journals on the reading public’s book-buying decisions, however, is difficult to gauge. One measurable metric is evident in the records of lending and other libraries. Several of these institutions subscribed to both the Monthly and the Critical, and they consulted these publications when deciding on which books to add to their collections. The review journals ‘actually determined the contents of libraries, public and private, throughout the English-speaking world’.33 The various book catalogues published throughout the eighteenth century support this conclusion. As booksellers acquired the private libraries of deceased and other individuals and made the books in the collections available for resale, they routinely published catalogues to advertise these books. The Monthly and the Critical appear in dozens of the published catalogues and are usually advertised as ‘neatly bound’ and as being in inclusive sets spanning multiple volumes, indicating that the original owners subscribed to one or both journals and valued them enough to have them bound.34 Although the Monthly and the Critical began as commercial ventures, and despite claims that they accepted bribes for positive reviews while also using the platform of their journals to puff their own publications, both journals framed their endeavours as a public service. The Critical lamented ‘the severe task of reading every new production’ while touting the ‘delicate task of directing the public taste with regard to literature’.35 As Donoghue documents, however, the reviewers often expressed frustration with the perceived futility of their efforts since so many of their readers seemingly ignored their recommendations, a conclusion supported by the enduring popularity of novels, a literary type the reviewers typically disparaged. Donoghue thus raises an important question: ‘We need to ask … why the conservative rationale from which review criticism sprang was not dislodged by the nascent laissez-faire consumer culture with which it seems so much at odds.’ Donoghue posits that ‘the Reviews answered a crucial need not merely by claiming to offer, hypothetically, an impartial and independent judgment about books, but by offering the consumers of those books an orderly and comprehensible way of participating in the literary culture of the day’. As he goes on to note, ‘reading a Review and abiding by its recommendations were two very different and not necessarily related activities’.36 Put another way, the Monthly and the Critical democratized literary culture by inviting readers into a critical conversation about books—and the scope of both review journals ensured that books about Methodism, and the ideas those books propagated, became a part of that conversation. The writings of both Whitefield and Wesley, including their sermons and apologia, were reviewed in both journals, as were the published writings of other Methodist leaders. Whether in the form of learned treatises by respected ecclesiastical figures or in Grub Street productions that crudely

10 Introduction satirized Methodist belief and practice, the anti-Methodist literature was similarly well represented in the Monthly and the Critical. Given their popularity and wide circulation, these journals added another influential layer to eighteenth-century readers’ experience of Methodism. The flood of publications by and about the revivalists helped make the movement a going concern, and the Monthly and the Critical, along with a host of imitators (discussed in Chapter 5), attempted to regulate the impact of the books and pamphlets about Methodism on the reading public. It is also worth noting that the review journals burst onto the literary scene at a time when Methodism had evolved from the ‘Holy Club’ at Oxford (a group of young men who met together regularly to study religious texts and to practice a regimented kind of religiosity) to an institution in its own right with a well-defined and highly organized structure that was particularly evident in the Wesleyan arm of the movement. Methodism first began to gather momentum and attract national attention in the late 1730s when Whitefield, and later Wesley, began field preaching and promoting Reformation-era doctrines—most notably, the New Birth and salvation by faith—from which they believed the church had strayed. At about the same time, Wesley began organizing his followers into religious societies, which met regularly for spiritual exhortation and testimony sharing. Both Whitefield and Wesley were ordained clergymen in the Church of England and remained so until their deaths, Whitefield’s in 1770 and Wesley’s in 1791. Their principal aim was to revive the church from the inside, not to found an independent denomination.37 Nonetheless, by midcentury, Methodism had assumed a kind of institutional status. As Richard Heitzenrater describes, ‘By 1750, the Methodists had a specific doctrinal identity expressed in the Minutes and the Sermons; a national organizational network featuring circuits of societies … with some centralized financing, led by set-apart preachers who met yearly in Conference; and a characteristic missional program that consisted of benevolent institutions as well as charitable activities.’38 Although the Methodists never represented more than one percent of Britain’s total population during the eighteenth century,39 the groundwork was laid for its unprecedented growth in the nineteenth century—on both sides of the Atlantic.

Anti-Methodism and the Review Journals The tenor of the anti-Methodist criticism, which spiked in the late 1730s and early 1740s, had been so firmly established by midcentury that the accusations levelled at the Methodists in the polemical and satiric literature produced at that time seem redundant, if not clichéd. From the outset of the revival, the Methodists had been charged with religious enthusiasm as well as antinomianism for emphasizing salvation by faith. Lay participation, particularly by women and members of the lower classes, led to accusations that Methodism disrupted the social, political, and ecclesiastical order.

Introduction

11

Methodist preachers reportedly used their rhetorical acumen to prey on the pockets and petticoats of their followers, and the Methodists were criticized for having a sanctimonious and ascetic bent while masking their carnal appetites behind a seemingly pious exterior. Stereotypes of Methodists as overzealous hypocrites became commonplace in much of mainstream culture, so much so that the term ‘Methodist’ was used in a variety of contexts to convey a sense of unconventionality and extremism. As early as 1741, a writer in The Champion satirically described a group of ‘Political Methodists … lately sprung up’ who claimed that ‘Regeneration is as necessary in Politics as Religion. That all Men in a State of Patriotism are in a State of Reprobation’.40 Methodism and the ideas associated with it oriented this writer and his readers to a way of seeing people of a particular political persuasion as being as radical in their views as a group of religious enthusiasts. Another commentator, writing in 1773, similarly relied on the conventional notion that Methodism was synonymous with enthusiasm when he described his countrymen’s esteem for Shakespeare: ‘We are Methodists with regard to Shakespeare; we carry our enthusiasm so far, that we entirely suspend our senses towards his absurdities and his blunders.’41 Reviewers likewise perpetuated Methodist stereotypes in the Monthly and the Critical: first, by publicizing anti-Methodist works and the ideas those works expressed; and second, by explicitly conveying the reviewers’ own disdain for the revival and its participants, all the while reaching an audience that far exceeded the reach of most pro- or anti-Methodist publications. As Basker observes, ‘Before ever reading booksellers’ advertisements in newspapers or books, before encountering title pages, prefaces and other physical aspects of books in shops or libraries, consumers might well already have seen—and sometimes paid for—the opinions of reviewers.’42 The reviews thus exposed readers to newly published books, most of which these readers would never read first-hand, in much the same way that movie trailers today expose moviegoers to films they might not see. In longer notices, some of which extend for several pages or even into later instalments of the journals, detailed abstracts and lengthy excerpts provided a comprehensive overview of a work’s content.43 The ways in which the review journals mediated a reader’s experience with printed texts can be gleaned from an issue of The Old Maid, a weekly periodical published by Frances Brooke between 1755 and 1756. Brooke pulled heavily from the Critical in the issue, which she devoted entirely to lambasting Whitefield and the Methodists. Although she claimed to quote directly from ‘the printed discourses’ of a Methodist divine for her evidence against the revivalists, she went on to explain, ‘The passages I have quoted from this author are to be found in the Critical Review.’44 In other words, Brooke relied exclusively on the Critical’s review for her information about the treatise she criticized as well as for the passages from which she quoted. The review in question runs for nearly six pages and consists of mostly quotation and summary,45 thereby providing Brooke with the material for

12 Introduction her critique of the Methodists and their beliefs—without her having to consult the primary source. John Free similarly depended on a review in the Monthly for his information about a sermon on imputed righteousness. The sermon was published by Richard Elliot, whom Free identified as a Methodist disciple. Directing his remarks to John Wesley, Free attempted to ‘shew how the Doctrines of [the Methodists] are founded entirely on Ignorance and Deception’. As proof for the claim, Free referred to Elliot’s recent publication: ‘This Man hath lately published a Vindication … under the Tittle [sic] Sin Destroyed, &c. By which I suppose we are to understand, that there is now no such thing as Sin, I have not seen this Pamphlet myself, for it is by no means pleasing to rake in such Filth.’ Free then explained, But by the Account of it in the Monthly Review for October, it appears full of the same shocking Principles, which the Author impudently attributes to the Articles of the Church of England: And to shew how well this tallies with the Opinions of your acknowledged Associate, and Fellow-methodist [sic] Mr. Whitfield [sic], I have heard, that this Man has been prayed for, at his Tabernacle as a Brother under Persecution.46 Like Brooke, Free relied entirely on the Monthly’s review—which consists mostly of summary of Elliot’s argument delivered from a clearly partisan point of view—for the information to support the accusation, and Free assumed his audience accepted the Monthly as a credible source. The reviewer described Elliot’s sermon as a ‘wretched performance’, which he summed up in a single, scathing sentence: ‘In a word, we are told, that a man may be eminently distinguished for his knowledge, piety, morality, and works of charity, &c. and yet, after all, be damned—a damnable doctrine this!’47 Although Free hardly needed coaching in his anti-Methodist sentiments, his reference to Elliot’s sermon via the Monthly demonstrates how his experience with this particular publication was ultimately mediated by the Monthly’s subjective review. Because the journals relied heavily on abstracts and quoted material, readers could, theoretically, sample a book’s content and form their own opinions. But this does not mean that such material did not colour a reader’s experience, even in instances when summaries and extracts were presented without partisan commentary. According to Basker, ‘Smollett knew that the reviewer’s mere choice of passages to quote and his presentation of them affected the reader’s perception, sometimes in subtle ways.’48 A short review of a pamphlet entitled An Address to the Clergy of the Church of England (1761) and reportedly written by ‘some enthusiastic follower of Whitefield’ who rails against the established clergy ‘in the grossest manner’ illustrates how extracted material might steer reader opinion in a particular direction. The reviewer included lengthy quotations to illustrate the nearly euphoric ways by which the writer expressed his

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faith: ‘“O the heighth, the length, the breadth, and depth of the love of God in Christ Jesus! Oh that every one [sic] would earnestly seek for this redemption … . Behold all you whose faces are set Sion-ward, here is a new and living way paved with promises; believing is the ready way, the seat of habitation of faith is the heart.”’ In response to such declarations, the reviewer added this summative, and ironic, statement: ‘To those who are yet untainted with methodism [sic], this short specimen of our author’s genius and abilities will be sufficient: those who have already caught this epidemical distemper will read the whole of this valuable performance with the greatest satisfaction.’49 In other words, the reviewer’s more discerning readers would presumably understand the quoted passages in the sense he presents them—as illustrations of an overzealous and diseased mind. When reviewers agreed with the sentiments of an anti-Methodist tract, a strategically chosen extract could deliver on its own what a reviewer might have added by way of commentary. A reviewer for the Critical attacked Wesley and Whitefield by introducing a lengthy quotation from William Cooper’s Discourses on Several Subjects (1766) with a brief but pointed opening statement: ‘By the following extract the reader will see that Mr. Cooper is no friend to enthusiasm or bigotry.’50 A review of Two Charges Delivered to the Clergy … as Preservatives against Sophisticated Arts of the Papists and the Doctrine of the Methodists (1766) consists almost exclusively of summary interlaced with the reviewer’s ratifying opinions about the Methodists. The author, the reviewer synopsized, considers the delusions of the Methodists; and particularly shews, that their teachers … are guilty of a notorious violation of their original engagements, and the peace and order of the church. They pretend, he says, to preach the doctrine of the Gospel in greater truth and purity than they are generally taught by the regular appointed ministers of the church. But this, he thinks, is a groundless pretense. (emphases added)51 In the passage, the reviewer attributed the hostile attitudes toward the Methodists to the author and provided little to no amplification or critical explanation of the text, yet the passage conveys a sense of implicit agreement. The reviewer, after all, referenced ‘the delusion of the Methodists’ and their ‘notorious violation’. Nonetheless, the reviewer essentially merged his own voice and opinions with the voice and opinions of the author, effectively transmitting the author’s negative views into the public domain in a seemingly disinterested way. Even the most neutral way of presenting an author’s work—an extract offered without corroborating commentary—might perform significant rhetorical work. In its review of the collected works of Thomas Newton, Bishop of Bristol, the Monthly included extracts relating to the bishop’s opinions of various Christian denominations, including Catholics, Dissenters, Hutchinsonians, and the Methodists: ‘From different parts of the Bishop’s

14 Introduction Works, we will transcribe his sentiments of some distinguished sects of Christians; and from thence the judicious Reader will be able to discover the leading bias of his mind, with respect to theological principles and institutions.’ The mere selection and arrangement of the review’s transcriptions positioned Methodism in an unholy alliance with other maligned religious groups, and the transcription of the bishop’s sentiments regarding Methodism presented the Methodists in a heterodox and dangerous light. The bishop’s opening line made the intent of the extract clear: ‘“Every tabernacle of Methodists is, in truth, a school and seminary for Papists; and the teachers … are agents and factors for Popery.”’52 The review presented the bishop’s words and ideas without commentary but presented those negative views nonetheless. In so doing, the review reinforced the idea that Methodism and popery were cut from the same cloth. A review of Chiron: or, the Mental Optician (1758), a satiric novel in which the protagonist learns that people and things are not what they seem, similarly foregrounded anti-Methodist sentiment via extracted material from the novel. The review included several passages intended to show ‘the author no stranger to men and manners’. Although the author satirizes a wide swath of customs and behaviours, the reviewer selected the author’s ‘description of a methodist [sic] preacher’, a minor episode in the novel, to include among the extracted material. The passage, which the reviewer claimed was ‘not without humour’, details the protagonist’s befuddled reaction when he spies a man in a room applying makeup to his face. The protagonist’s companion explains, ‘“He is one of the new sect called Methodists, and having naturally a full and rosy cheek, they hardly believe him one of their fraternity.”’ Because the Methodists think a preacher should be a man in affliction, a man of sorrow and cares, rejected, scorn’d, despised and buffeted … he now paints himself of a pale and livid colour, and not a man of the whole body is so caressed, so followed, and so applauded! he is all of a sudden a man after God’s own heart; has an utter contempt for money, as they think … . But … to-night will sup more elegantly than any alderman of this great city, and eat as heartily too.53 In endorsing the humour of the passage, the reviewer implicitly validated the sentiment as well. At the very least, citing this passage confirmed the stereotype that the Methodists and their preachers were duplicitous, hypocritical, and worldly. The reviewers for the Monthly and the Critical, however, were usually more forthright in offering their opinions about Methodism, despite occasional claims to the contrary. The Critical, for example, took a relatively neutral stance in its review of the Twelve Discourses upon the Law and

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Gospel (1760) by William Romaine, an evangelical divine of the Church of England who had ties to Methodism: The name of the author of these discourses will doubtless prejudice many readers against them, and prepossess perhaps, still more in their favour. Since there are parties in religion as well as politics, he will be considered by some as a profound divine, and by others as an enthusiast. As it is our intention to give every author a fair hearing, we shall observe a medium between these two extremes. This preacher is by no means destitute of learning and abilities, though we cannot entirely acquit him of enthusiasm.54 Another review of an anti-Methodist publication similarly avoided taking sides, even if not in wholly convincing fashion. Responding to the writer’s charge that ‘hypocrisy and methodism are, it seems, only two different words for the same thing’, the reviewer insisted, ‘It is no part of our business to enquire whether this convertibility of terms be right or wrong. The Author’s acquaintance with the subject is so superior to our own, that we must give him credit for the truth of his assertion.’55 But such statements appear disingenuous when compared to the corpus of reviews in either journal. As Forster explains, ‘There are few reviews, long or short, in which opinions of some sort are not given; the traditional idea of simply presenting neutral information and leaving judgment up to readers is given lip service but seldom followed.’56 Indeed, the reviewers for both journals registered few, if any, qualms about venturing beyond a summary view of the books that fell within their purview and expressing their own negative opinions about the Methodists and Methodist beliefs and practices. One reviewer for the Monthly summed up the aim of The History of Modern Enthusiasm (1752) by the Welsh clergyman Theophilus Evans in a clearly partisan way: ‘To expel the venom of [the Methodists’] pernicious and heretical tenets.’ The reviewer went on to concur with Evans, who he insisted ‘justly observes, [that] it is in vain to reason with [enthusiasts], argument having been always thrown away upon this sort of people’.57 Another reviewer stated that ‘the methodists [sic] are justly chargeable with superstition’,58 while another concluded that an author59 whose ‘pious discourses’ were incoherently assembled ‘seems to have been pretty highly tinctured with methodism [sic]’.60 The Critical was even more prejudicial in its treatment of Methodism. This fact is not surprising given that the journal ‘was established under Tory and Church patronage’ and took up a more conservative position on political and religious matters than its counterpart did.61 Although Smollett did not attempt to regulate the judgements of his reviewers, he did insist on conformity to ‘general principles—religious orthodoxy, political moderation, high standards of criticism and taste’.62 He was particularly leery of religious enthusiasm and believed that Methodism disrupted social and political order,

16 Introduction points of view he would later register in such novels as Sir Lancelot Greaves (1760–61) and Humphry Clinker (1771). When reporting on the religious currents of his day in his History of England (1766), Smollett explained that the progress of reason, and free cultivation of the human mind, had not … entirely banished those ridiculous sects and schisms of which the kingdom had been formerly so productive. Imposture and fanaticism still hung upon the skirts of religion. Weak minds were seduced by the delusion of a superstition styled Methodism, raised upon the affectation of superior sanctity, and maintained by pretensions to divine illumination. Many thousands of the lower ranks of life were infected with this species of enthusiasm, by the unwearied endeavours of a few obscure preachers, such as Whitefield and the two Wesleys.63 Smollett honed his anti-Methodist sensibilities while writing for and editing the Critical.64 Referring to the journal’s attacks on Methodism, Brooke applauded the journal’s ‘ingenious and judicious authors’ who ‘have, with true wit and humour, exposed the folly of this prevailing and pernicious spirit of enthusiasm’.65 Brooke’s praise of the Critical’s treatment of Methodism derived from the journal’s consistent, and mostly hostile, attitude toward the revival. As one reviewer claimed, Methodists were not true Christians: ‘The absurdity of those doctrines which distinguish the Methodists from other sober Christians and members of the Protestant church, are in this pamphlet fairly and clearly refuted.’66 Another reviewer described the progress of Methodism in England by echoing a common charge levelled against the Methodists—that they were tainted with the same religious and political zeal that sparked the civil wars of the previous century: ‘A new sect of enthusiasts, that would have disgraced the canting age of Cromwell, when hypocrisy was in the zenith, hath of late years gained considerable ground.’67 Referring to A Rationale of the Literal Doctrine of Original Sin (1766) by James Bate, a reviewer lauded Bate’s achievement by juxtaposing his style of writing with ‘the incoherent rant and rhapsody of a Methodist’.68 Since the review journals were popular and widely circulated, the books and pamphlets associated with the Methodist revival received a kind of exposure these texts could not have received on their own. In addition, the format that came to distinguish the review essay—extract combined with critical commentary—as it developed in the Monthly and the Critical effectively introduced readers to newly published books and pamphlets at the same time that the format afforded the reviewers a platform to take part in the public debate about Methodism. The combination of extract and critical commentary, at least in theory, presented consumers with the kind of detailed information that allowed them to make informed choices about what books they purchased and read while introducing them to a multiplicity of ideas and opinions, most of them negative, about the revival.

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Scope and Logistics I have deliberately narrowed my focus to popular review criticism and how the two most influential review journals of the period responded to early Methodism.69 As the chapters that follow demonstrate, review criticism provides especially fertile ground for a study of the ways in which literary and periodical culture intersected with the Methodist revival. Methodism represents the first religious movement to be subjected to the literary criticism of the emerging popular press, and Methodism’s place in the review journal’s coverage foregrounds the centrality of the textual culture that ultimately gave shape to the revival, whether in its public reception or its private practice. So how extensive was that coverage? Given the increasing number of titles published from year to year, the reviewers necessarily had to choose which books and pamphlets to review, despite their initial plan of reviewing every newly published book. This was particularly true of religious works, which dominated the marketplace throughout much of the eighteenth century. Even though sermons ‘constituted the largest category of religious publishing’,70 the review journals usually only included lists of newly published sermons without providing any summative or evaluative commentary. The Critical reviewed just 2 of 50 published sermons between January and April of 1756.71 Nonetheless, works by and about the Methodists turn up in most volumes of the Monthly and the Critical. The two journals combined published just over 400 reviews of approximately 300 different publications associated with the Methodist revival between 1749 and 1789 (which encompasses the entire first series of the Monthly), including 155 antiMethodist works, 127 pro-Methodist pieces, and 25 pamphlets published in response to the Minutes controversy (a doctrinal dispute between Wesleyan and Calvinist Methodists in the 1770s). Taken together, the Monthly and the Critical published an average of ten reviews of works connected to Methodism per year in a 40-year span (see Appendix A).72 These numbers represent less than half of the revival-related publications printed during this time. Clive Field’s bibliographies of anti-Methodist publications printed during the eighteenth century include over 400 titles between 1749 and 1789.73 A smaller percentage of pro-Methodist publications found their way into the Monthly and the Critical. The English Short Title Catalogue (ESTC) includes about thirty entries for Whitefield between 1749 and 1770, the year of Whitefield’s death, nine of which were reviewed by the Monthly and the Critical. The ESTC includes nearly 160 entries for Wesley during the same time span, not counting reprints and later editions of previously published works; the review journals critiqued about eight of these publications. Wesley and Whitefield wrote and published many of their works specifically for their followers rather than a general audience, a fact that may explain why most of their publications escaped notice. About half of the works by Wesley and Whitefield reviewed

18 Introduction in the Monthly and the Critical consist of rebuttals to their critics, presumably because these works proved more relevant to a wider audience than did devotional materials printed specifically for Methodist devotees. Nevertheless, the journals’ subscribers were regularly apprised of a variety of publications about the Methodist revival, and readers would have been hard-pressed to miss the reviews of these publications in years in which anti-Methodist hostility peaked. Foote’s caricature of Whitefield in the figure of Dr Squintum spawned a heated pamphlet war as Whitefield’s and Foote’s supporters went toe-to-toe in the public press. The review journals, not coincidentally, reviewed 16 different pro- and anti-Methodist publications in 1760, the year The Minor debuted. The Monthly and the Critical reviewed seven pro- and nine anti-Methodist publications in 1763. That year, Warburton attacked the Methodists in The Doctrine of Grace, a publication that garnered a good deal of public attention, including responses from Wesley and Whitefield. Following the Oxford expulsion in 1768, the Monthly and the Critical reviewed 14 pamphlets addressing the proceedings (which I examine in Chapter 4). Reviews of pro- and antiMethodist works also spiked in the year following Whitefield’s death and the onset of the Minutes controversy. Reviews of 18 publications appeared in 1776 in the wake of Wesley’s controversial A Calm Address to our American Colonies (discussed in Chapter 2). A few other observations deserve note. First, although there was some overlap in the Monthly’s and the Critical’s coverage of the literature about Methodism, the two review journals typically selected different works for review. Of the 155 anti-Methodist publications reviewed by the Monthly and the Critical between 1749 and 1789, only 54 of these publications were reviewed by both journals; of the 127 pro-Methodist pieces, 33 were reviewed by both journals. Second, the Monthly devoted slightly more space in its pages to this literature than the Critical. The Monthly reviewed 82 pro-Methodist works and 109 anti-Methodist works between 1756 (the year the Critical went into circulation) and 1789, whereas the Critical reviewed 66 pro-Methodist publications and 89 anti-Methodist publications. The journals’ coverage of the Minutes controversy, however, was a bit more uneven. The Monthly reviewed 25 publications in connection to the controversy, whereas the Critical reviewed only 11. In addition, not all publications were viewed equally in the eyes of reviewers (assuming the length of a review can be used to measure a work’s significance). Although reviews of some publications extended for several pages or into later issues of the journals, most reviews encompassed no more than a sentence or two, evidenced by the review of the Crooked Disciple’s Remarks that begins this introduction. Both journals followed a similar format, offering lengthy and substantive reviews (referred to as ‘Main Articles’) of a handful of works at the beginning of each issue, followed by a ‘Monthly Catalogue of Books’, a section that included relatively shorter notices of the publications printed from month to month. Most of the reviews

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of the works associated with Methodism fell into this latter category, but a few, including reviews of George Lavington’s The Enthusiasm of the Methodists and Papists Compared (1749), Warburton’s The Doctrine of Grace, and Richard Graves’s The Spiritual Quixote (1773), received lengthier treatment in Main Articles in one or both journals. Whenever possible I have identified individual reviewers as well as their religious backgrounds to account for reviewer bias. Although many reviews written for the Monthly have been linked to specific reviewers, the majority in the Critical, unfortunately, remain unidentified.74 But even in the case of the Monthly, the record is far from complete: less than half of the authors of the reviews in my study are known (see Appendix A). As a result, I necessarily treat the authorship of the reviews corporately when I am unable to treat them individually. That said, the degree to which we can generalize about the religious and political leanings of either review journal and its editorship is a topic I explore at various points throughout my study, most notably in Chapters 1 and 3. As I observed earlier in this introduction, the Critical tended to take up more conservative positions on political and religious issues than the Monthly, but such generalizing still needs to be approached cautiously. The evidence clearly indicates that dozens of reviewers contributed to the discourse about Methodism in both journals. The Monthly and the Critical designated specific reviewers for particular subject areas, including religion, which means that multiple contributors produced the reviews of the proand anti-Methodist literature. As I have pointed out, this literature spanned multiple genres, from theological polemic to prose fiction, so a reviewer who primarily reviewed devotional and polemical pieces would not have necessarily reviewed an anti-Methodist poem or play. In addition, reviewer turnover for both journals was high, with some contributors writing reviews for mere months while others wrote for years. Thus, when accounting for hundreds of reviews written over several decades, we are inevitably dealing with dozens of reviewers. Benjamin Christie Nangle’s index of contributors and articles for the first series of the Monthly documents reviewer turnover and indicates that multiple contributors produced reviews of publications associated with the revival. The Monthly’s publisher, Ralph Griffiths, wrote the review of Lavington’s The Enthusiasm of the Methodists and Papists Compared; William Rose, who helped found and wrote for the Monthly from 1749 to 1787, reviewed Warburton’s The Doctrine of Grace; and William Woodfall, who worked for the Monthly for less than a year, reviewed Graves’s The Spiritual Quixote.75 Though individual opinion about the revival may well have wavered from reviewer to reviewer, the consistency of the reviewers’ sentiment and tone toward Methodism essentially suggests that both review journals took a house stand on the Methodist question. In addition, focusing on specific reviewers presents other problems besides accurately identifying those reviewers. Such an approach, Donoghue explains, means we ‘can easily lose sight of the institutional character of the

20 Introduction Monthly and the Critical, of their capacity to take on identities independent of those contributors’. As Donoghue further states, This capacity, and much of the influence wielded by the Reviews, derives from their policy of anonymity, from the fact that their judgments did not issue from individuals, but rather came directly and impersonally from the journals themselves. The effect of the practice of anonymous reviews cannot be underestimated and is a prominent complaint in many attacks on the journals. Recovery of the authors of the reviews is important, but can easily mislead us about the dynamics of the authorreviewer relationships.76 The review journals’ cultural cache derived in large part from their institutional character and authority rather than public knowledge of who wrote for the Monthly or the Critical. But no matter the length of the reviews or who wrote them, the Monthly’s and the Critical’s treatment of the publications associated with the Methodist revival merged Methodism’s rich textual culture with the rise of popular literary criticism. As the review journals invited readers into a critical conversation about books, the journals contributed to and expanded the public discourse about Methodism by including pro- and anti-Methodist books and pamphlets in the corpus of their critical reviews. The inclusion of representative samples of both types, coupled with the reviewers’ hostile opinions toward the revival, meant that readers of the review journals experienced Methodism as a decidedly controversial and contested matter and the genre of the review essay as a medium that served religious, sociopolitical, and literary ends. Chapter 1 explores the ways in which the reviews of revival-related publications simultaneously confirm and challenge Habermas’s account of the modern public sphere. On one hand, these reviews illustrate how literary criticism as it developed in the Monthly and the Critical contributed to a public devoted to critical, rational discourse as a means of addressing matters of civic concern. At the same time, the reviews of pro- and antiMethodist publications invite us to interrogate features of the public sphere as described by Habermas, including the notion of reason-based argument as the means by which publics negotiate and resolve issues of public import. The reviewers championed a form of reviewing based, hypothetically, on unbiased, objective, and substantiated claims regarding literary and rhetorical merit, yet the reviewers’ critics ensured that the notion of critical, rational discourse was itself subject to scrutiny and debate, ultimately highlighting the gap between high-minded ideals and historical realities. In addition, the debate about Methodism, which encompassed religious as well as social and political matters, indicates that religion and religious discourse and debate figured more prominently into the formation of the modern public sphere than Habermas allows.

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Chapters 2 and 3 examine the reviews of devotional and religious works published in connection with the revival, including theological polemic and exposition, sermons, and Methodist apologia. While Chapter 2 focuses on works that targeted Methodism generally as well as those publications composed by a range of Methodist authors, Chapter 3 focuses primarily on Wesley’s and Whitefield’s writings and their public exchanges with their critics. Many of the anti-Methodist works examined in these chapters came from the Anglican establishment and focus on doctrinal issues and contested notions of religiosity. For the reviewers, these works raised theological questions that effectively informed their critical judgements: What doctrines or interpretations of scripture proved the most authoritative? Or what forms of devotion and religious observance best served the interests of individuals and society? Some questions centred specifically on literary and rhetorical matters: What style of writing was most properly suited to theological and devotional exposition? Or what discursive strategies proved the most persuasive when addressing religious topics? The very nature of these questions meant that reviewers were grappling with the doctrinal and religious issues of the day (albeit in abbreviated and superficial ways) while attempting to define what might be termed rhetorical acumen and propriety—the traits and dispositions that enable authors to effectively make and then appropriately adapt an argument in order to influence an audience’s beliefs and behaviours. Chapter 4 looks at reviews of the more satiric treatments of Methodism in imaginative literary types—poems, plays, and prose fiction, among other more experimental forms—as well as the Methodists’ own forays into the belles lettres. Comparatively speaking, anti-Methodist satire dealt much less specifically with theological issues than those works discussed in Chapters 2 and 3 did, usually by making sweeping generalizations about Methodist belief and practice to achieve satiric, ironic, or comic effect. The reviews of these texts, then, focused on an entirely different set of questions than those that guided the reviews of religious and devotional works. For example, reviewers dealt more directly with questions of genre and literary convention when reviewing anti-Methodist poems, plays, and fictional narratives: Had an author appropriately adapted his subject matter to the conventions and expectations of his chosen form? Reviewers also concerned themselves with literary precedent and how a work compared to other examples of the same generic type. Biting satiric attacks raised a host of questions related to literary decorum and social propriety: Should satirists avoid sacred subjects? At what point might a writer have gone too far in ridiculing Methodism? When confronted with works that promoted ideas with which the reviewers essentially agreed but that violated standards for criticism, reviewers found themselves pulled between competing agendas: they wanted to be faithful to their criteria for making literary judgements, but they also wanted to undermine the revival. Chapter 5 examines the ways the review journals responded to and participated in two of the more publicized events in the history of early

22 Introduction Methodism: the Oxford expulsion in 1768 and the controversy between the Wesleyans and the Calvinist Methodists in the early 1770s. The former generated a good deal of press as the Methodists and their opponents debated whether it was appropriate for the university to expel the six men for their religious beliefs and practices. The controversy between the Wesleyans and the Calvinists erupted within Methodism but quickly broke containment as the vying parties made their arguments in the public press. Both the Monthly and the Critical essentially participated in both controversies via their reviews. Since both journals published monthly, they effectively assumed the role of newspaper as well as review journal by reporting on the debates as they materialized in print and providing critical judgements about the contributions to the debates. Their reporting, however, proved neither neutral nor objective as they editorialized on the issues themselves while ostensibly assessing the literary and rhetorical merit of the publications connected to the events. Chapter 6 considers the legacy of the Monthly and the Critical, first, by examining the ways in which several copycat journals reviewed and responded to Methodism and Methodist-related publications, and second, by looking at the Methodists’ own ventures into review criticism through the Gospel Magazine, which regularly published formal reviews in addition to lengthy extracts of devotional works the editors believed would spiritually edify their readers. These efforts served distinctly rhetorical ends by employing a style of reviewing that made no pretence toward neutrality, thereby resolving the tension between reviewer bias and impartiality, which plagued the mainstream literary periodicals. Besides covering the entire first series of the Monthly Review, the scope of this study (1749–89) includes several seminal moments in the history of early Methodism and the print culture surrounding it. Among these moments are the pamphlet war spurred by The Minor; anti-Methodist attacks by two leading Anglican authorities, Bishops Lavington and Warburton, that drew responses from Wesley and Whitefield, among others; the Oxford expulsion and Minutes controversy; Wesley’s forays into politics via his Calm Address to our American Colonies in the 1770s; and the early decades of the Gospel Magazine. Thus, the years 1749 to 1789 cover not only the formative years of popular review criticism but crucial years in the print culture that gave shape to early Methodism. Following Wesley’s death in 1791, the dynamics of Methodism shifted as the leadership broke with the Church of England and Methodism became its own denomination. In addition, the Calvinist arm of the movement became relatively inconsequential. Although anti-Methodist attacks still appeared in the press, they dissipated over the ensuing decades as Methodism came to be viewed as a more mainstream Christian denomination.77 George Eliot described this transition in Adam Bede, a novel written in 1859 but set in the eighteenth century: ‘I cannot pretend that Seth and Dinah were anything else than Methodists—not indeed of that modern type which reads quarterly

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reviews and attends in chapels with pillared porticoes; but of a very old fashioned kind. They believed in present miracles, in instantaneous conversions, in revelations by dreams and visions.’78 As Eliot’s commentary suggests, Methodism signified in radically different ways to nineteenth-century observers and participants than it had to those in the previous century. As I endeavour to demonstrate in the pages that follow, the ways in which Methodism ultimately signified in the eighteenth century were reflected in and shaped by the Monthly and the Critical Reviews.

Notes 1 The Critical Review, vol. 12 (London, 1762), 76. Subsequent references to the Critical will only include the volume, page number(s), and publication date. 2 See J. Paul Hunter, Before Novels: the Cultural Contexts of Eighteenth-Century English Fiction (New York, 1990), 86. Michael F. Suarez, S.J. notes that thirtyfour percent of the titles published at the beginning of the eighteenth century fell into the category of ‘religion, philosophy, and ethics’. By the end of the century, religious titles represented sixteen percent of the marketplace, though Suarez cautions that these estimates might be low since ‘survival rates for certain kinds of religious publications are remarkably low’. Michael F. Suarez, S.J., ‘Towards a bibliometric analysis of the surviving record, 1701–1800’, in Michael F. Suarez, S.J. and Michael L. Turner (eds), The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain, vol. 5 (Cambridge, 2009), 47–8. 3 See, for example, T. B. Shepherd, Methodism and the Literature of the Eighteenth Century (New York, 1966); Albert M. Lyles, Methodism Mocked: The Satiric Reaction to Methodism in the Eighteenth Century (London, 1960); Misty G. Anderson, Imagining Methodism in Eighteenth-Century Britain: Enthusiasm, Belief & the Borders of the Self (Baltimore, 2012); Brett C. McInelly, Textual Warfare and the Making of Methodism (Oxford, 2014); Emma Salgård Cunha, John Wesley, Practical Divinity, and the Defence of Literature (London, 2017); Isabel Rivers, Vanity Fair and the Celestial City: Dissenting, Methodist, and Evangelical Literary Culture in England, 1720–1800 (Oxford, 2018); Donald Henry Kirkham, Outside Looking In: Early Methodism as Viewed by its Critics (Nashville, TN, 2019); and Simon Lewis, AntiMethodism and Theological Controversy in Eighteenth-Century England: The Struggle for True Religion (Oxford, 2021). 4 See, for example, Harry Stout, The Divine Dramatist: George Whitefield and the Rise of Modern Evangelicalism (Grand Rapids, MI, 1991) and Frank Lambert, ‘Pedlar in Divinity’: George Whitefield and the Transatlantic Revivals (Princeton, NJ, 1994). 5 Lambert, ‘Pedlar in Divinity’, 171–2. 6 George Whitefield, A Continuation of the Reverend Mr. Whitefield’s Journal, from a Few Days after his Return to Georgia to his Arrival at Falmouth (London, 1741). For Whitefield’s statements regarding ‘unconverted’ ministers, see 39, 49, 52, and 54. 7 Kirkham, Outside Looking In, 279. 8 Lyles, Methodism Mocked, 119. 9 The Monthly Review, vol. 27 (London, 1763), 454. Subsequent references to the Monthly will only include the volume, page number(s), and publication date. William Romaine was an Anglican divine with evangelical and Methodist ties, whereas Cornelius Cayley was a lay preacher who was strongly influenced by Whitefield.

24 Introduction 10 Monthly, 32:442 (1764). 11 Critical, 16:237 (1763). 12 Isabel Rivers, ‘Religious publishing’, in Michael F. Suarez, S.J. and Michael L. Turner (eds), The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain, vol. 5 (Cambridge, 2009), 580. 13 George Whitefield, The Works of the Reverend George Whitefield, M.A., vol. 3 (London, 1771), 262. 14 See, for example, Clive D. Field, ‘Anti-Methodist Publications of the Eighteenth Century: A Revised Bibliography’, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 73/2 (1991): 159–208. Field added 33 titles to these numbers in a supplemental bibliography published in 2014. Clive D. Field, ‘Anti-Methodist Publications of the Eighteenth Century: A Supplemental Bibliography’, Wesley and Methodist Studies 6 (2014): 154–86. 15 John Sekora, Luxury: The Concept in Western Thought, Eden to Smollett (Baltimore, MD, 1977), 66, 75. 16 George Whitefield, Some Remarks Upon a Late Charge Against Enthusiasm (n.p., 1744), 19. 17 See, for example, Bibliotheca Literaria (1722–24) and A Literary Journal (1744–49). I do discuss several of the copycat review journals that came in the wake of the Monthly and the Critical in Chapter 5. 18 Monthly, 1: title page (1749). 19 Monthly, 1:81 (1749). 20 Antonia Forster, ‘Book reviewing’, in Michael F. Suarez, S.J. and Michael L. Turner (eds), The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain, vol. 5 (Cambridge, 2009), 633. 21 James G. Basker, Tobias Smollett: Critic and Journalist (Newark, DL, 1988), 21, 31. 22 Smollett refers to Ralph Griffiths, founder and publisher of the Monthly, who was accused of enlisting a team of hack writers to commend the books of Griffiths’ associates and criticize those of his competitors, a charge that was not entirely unfounded, even if overstated, in the early years of the journal when Griffiths used the Monthly to puff and sell his own books. See Nicholas Mason, Literary Advertising and the Shaping of British Romanticism (Baltimore, 2013), 40–1. 23 Quoted in Basker, Tobias Smollett, 31–2. 24 Antonia Forster, Index to Book Reviews in England, 1749–1774 (Carbondale, IL, 1990), 3. 25 Walter James Graham, English Literary Periodicals (New York, 1930), 209. 26 See, for example, Memoirs of Literature (1710–14), Historia Litteraria (1730–35), and A Literary Journal (1744–49). 27 Forster, Index to Book Reviews, 3; and Basker, Tobias Smollett, 36. 28 James Basker, ‘Criticism and the rise of periodical literature’, in H. B. Nisbet and Claude Rawson (eds), The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism (Cambridge, 1997), 327. 29 Frank Donoghue, ‘Colonizing Readers: Review Criticism and the Formation of a Reading Public’, in Ann Bermingham and John Brewer (eds), The Consumption of Culture 1600–1800: Image, Object, Text (London, 1995), 58. 30 Basker, ‘Criticism’, 328. 31 Appendix: Containing Remarks on the Partial and Defective Account Given in the Critical Review for January Last (n.p., n.d.), 1. 32 Fanny Burney, Evelina, or the History of a Young Lady’s Entrance into the World (New York, 1965), dedication. 33 Basker, ‘Criticism’, 329.

Introduction

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34 A Catalogue of the Valuable Libraries of the Following Gentlemene …. (London, 1763), 161, 158. See also A Catalogue of Several Libraries and Parcels of Books Lately Purchased (London, 1770), 80; and A Catalogue of a Curious and Valuable Collection of Books Consisting of Several Libraries (London, 1767), 43. 35 Critical, 3:384 (1757) and 8:271 (1759). 36 Donoghue, ‘Colonizing Readers’, 63 and 70–1. 37 The Methodist Episcopal Church was founded in America in 1784, initially under Wesley’s control. Methodism did not become an independent denomination in Great Britain until after Wesley’s death in 1791. 38 Richard P. Heitzenrater, Wesley and the People Called Methodist (Nashville, TN, 1995), 180–1. 39 Heitzenrater, Wesley and the People Called Methodists, 264. 40 The Champion, vol. 1 (London, 1741), 23. 41 The Town and Country Magazine, vol. 5 (London, 1773), 209. 42 Basker, ‘Book reviewing’, 648. 43 Basker notes that seventy to eighty percent of most reviews consisted of summaries and extracts. See Basker, Tobias Smollett, 66. 44 Frances Brooke, The Old Maid (London, 1764), 187–8. 45 The review from which Brooke quotes is of a work entitled An Exposition of the Church Catechism by T. Jones, who the reviewer speculated might have had ties to the Methodists. See Critical, 1:175–80. 46 John Free, Dr. Free’s Edition of the Rev. John Wesley’s Second Letter (London, 1759), 66–7. 47 Monthly, 21:356–7 (1759). Free likely refers to Elliot’s dismissal (‘Persecution’) from his chaplaincy at St. George’s Hospital ‘on the charge of Methodism’ in 1759. See The European Magazine and London Review, vol. 15 (London, 1789), 79. 48 Basker, Tobias Smollett, 68–9. 49 Critical, 11:413–4 (1761). 50 Critical, 21:339 (1766). 51 Critical, 22:66 (1766). 52 Monthly, 68:235–6 (1783). 53 Critical, 5:247 (1758). 54 Critical, 10:312 (1760). 55 Monthly, 76:455 (1787). 56 Forster, Index to Book Reviews, 6. This was particularly true after the Critical went into circulation since competition between the two review journals encouraged more opinionated reviews after 1756. 57 Monthly, 6:153–4 (1752). 58 Monthly, 7:396 (1753). 59 The author in question is John Stuart, who, at the time the reviewer was writing, was the late prebend of Chechester. 60 Monthly, 9:233 (1754). 61 Graham, English Literary Periodicals, 213. The Critical’s more conservative orientation is particularly evident in its reviews of Wesley’s writings on American liberty and slavery at the time of the American Revolution, especially when compared to the Monthly’s handling of these same publications, which I discuss in Chapter 2. 62 Basker, Tobias Smollett, 58. 63 Tobias Smollett, The History of England, vol. 5 (Oxford, 1827), 280. 64 Though it does not appear that Smollett wrote many, if any, of the reviews of the pro- or anti-Methodist works published in the Critical, he certainly would have compiled, read, and edited them in preparation for publication. See Basker, Tobias Smollett, 220–78.

26 Introduction 65 Brooke, The Old Maid, 188. 66 Critical, 10:243 (1760). The pamphlet in question is A Friendly and Compassionate Address to all Serious and Well-disposed Methodists by Alexander Jephson, who was rector at Craike, Durham. 67 Critical, 13:358 (1762). 68 Critical, 22:264 (1766). 69 Although much might be gleaned from a study of the entire landscape of periodical publishing during the eighteenth century, including the early revival magazines of the 1740s or high church and other criticism of Methodism in periodicals like the Weekly Miscellany, such a study would require more than a single monograph. 70 Rivers, ‘Religious publishing’, 591. 71 Basker, Tobias Smollett, 60. 72 As I explain in Appendix A, I allow for the possibility that a few reviews, whether of pro- or anti-Methodist works, escaped my search. I have also included reviews of publications that might not be primarily oriented around Methodism but were associated with the revival by the reviewers, sometimes inaccurately, as well as reviews of works in which references to Methodism were relatively tangential yet represented features of these texts the reviewers chose to foreground in their reviews. 73 See Field, ‘Anti-Methodist Publications of the Eighteenth Century: A Revised Bibliography’, 190–239, and Field, ‘Anti-Methodist Publications of the Eighteenth Century: A Supplemental Bibliography’, 154–86. 74 See Benjamin Christie Nangle, The Monthly Review, First Series, 1749 –1789: Indexes of Contributors and Articles (Oxford, 1934). James Basker has identified several of the reviews authored by Tobias Smollett in the Critical, though none of these reviews are of revival-related publications. See Basker, Tobias Smollett. 75 Nangle, The Monthly Review, 1–47. 76 Frank Donoghue, The Fame Machine: Book Reviewing and Eighteenth-Century Literary Careers (Stanford, CA, 1996), 18–19. 77 The declining number of publications associated with the revival is evident in the 1780s (the last decade of my study), especially when compared to the previous two decades. The 1760s witnessed reviews of nearly 100 pro- and antiMethodist works, whereas the 1770s saw well over 100 reviews, including reviews of those pamphlets associated with the Minutes controversy. Less than thirty publications were reviewed in the 1780s, a decade that, like the 1790s, did not witness a single publishing event like those that I have described from the 60s and 70s (see Appendix A). 78 George Eliot, Adam Bede, Valentine Cunningham (ed), (Oxford, 1996), 38.

References Anderson, Misty G., Imagining Methodism in Eighteenth-Century Britain: Enthusiasm, Belief & the Borders of the Self (Baltimore, 2012). Appendix: Containing Remarks on the Partial and Defective Account Given in the Critical Review for January Last (n.p., n.d.). Basker, James G., ‘Criticism and the rise of periodical literature’, in H. B. Nisbet and Claude Rawson (eds), The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism (Cambridge, 1997), 316–332. Basker, James G., Tobias Smollett: Critic and Journalist (Newark, DL, 1988). Brooke, Frances, The Old Maid (London, 1764).

Introduction

27

Burney, Fanny, Evelina, or the History of a Young Lady’s Entrance into the World (New York, 1965). A Catalogue of a Curious and Valuable Collection of Books Consisting of Several Libraries (London, 1767). A Catalogue of Several Libraries and Parcels of Books Lately Purchased (London, 1770). A Catalogue of the Valuable Libraries of the Following Gentlemen … . (London, 1763). The Champion, vol. 1 (London, 1741). The Critical Review (London). Cunha, Emma Salgård, John Wesley, Practical Divinity, and the Defence of Literature (London, 2017). Donoghue, Frank, ‘Colonizing Readers: Review Criticism and the Formation of a Reading Public’, in Ann Bermingham and John Brewer (eds), The Consumption of Culture 1600–1800: Image, Object, Text (London, 1995), 34–74. Donoghue, Frank, The Fame Machine: Book Reviewing and Eighteenth-Century Literary Careers (Stanford, CA, 1996). Eliot, George, Adam Bede, ed. Valentine Cunningham (Oxford, 1996). Field, Clive D., ‘Anti-Methodist Publications of the Eighteenth Century: A Revised Bibliography’, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 73/2 (1991): 159–208. Field, Clive D., ‘Anti-Methodist Publications of the Eighteenth Century: A Supplemental Bibliography’, Wesley and Methodist Studies 6 (2014): 154–186. Free, John, Dr. Free’s Edition of the Rev. John Wesley’s Second Letter (London, 1759). Forster, Antonia, Index to Book Reviews in England, 1749–1774 (Carbondale, IL, 1990). Forster, Antonia, ‘Book reviewing’, in Michael F. Suarez S.J. and Michael L. Turner (eds), The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain, vol. 5 (Cambridge, 2009), 631–648. Graham, Walter James, English Literary Periodicals (New York, 1930). Heitzenrater, Richard P., Wesley and the People Called Methodist (Nashville, TN, 1995). Hunter, J. Paul, Before Novels: The Cultural Contexts of Eighteenth-Century English Fiction (New York, 1990). Kirkham, Donald Henry, Outside Looking In: Early Methodism as Viewed by Its Critics (Nashville, TN, 2019). Lambert, Frank, ‘Pedlar in Divinity’: George Whitefield and the Transatlantic Revivals (Princeton, NJ, 1994). Lewis, Simon, Anti-Methodism and Theological Controversy in Eighteenth-Century England: The Struggle for True Religion (Oxford, 2021). Lyles, Albert M., Methodism Mocked: The Satiric Reaction to Methodism in the Eighteenth Century (London, 1960). Mason, Nicholas, Literary Advertising and the Shaping of British Romanticism (Baltimore, 2013). McInelly, Brett C., Textual Warfare and the Making of Methodism (Oxford, 2014). The Monthly Review (London). Nangle, Benjamin Christie, The Monthly Review, First Series, 1749 –1789: Indexes of Contributors and Articles (Oxford, 1934).

28 Introduction Rivers, Isabel, ‘Religious publishing’, in Michael F. Suarez S.J. and Michael L. Turner (eds), The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain, vol. 5 (Cambridge, 2009), 579–600. Rivers, Isabel, Vanity Fair and the Celestial City: Dissenting, Methodist, and Evangelical Literary Culture in England, 1720–1800 (Oxford, 2018). Sekora, John, Luxury: The Concept in Western Thought, Eden to Smollett (Baltimore, MD, 1977). Shepherd, T. B., Methodism and the Literature of the Eighteenth Century (New York, 1966). Smollett, Tobias, The History of England, vol. 5 (Oxford, 1827). Stout, Harry, The Divine Dramatist: George Whitefield and the Rise of Modern Evangelicalism (Grand Rapids, MI, 1991). Suarez S.J., Michael F., ‘Towards a bibliometric analysis of the surviving record, 1701–1800’, in Michael F. Suarez S.J. and Michael L. Turner (eds), The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain, vol. 5 (Cambridge, 2009), 39–65. The Town and Country Magazine, vol. 5 (London, 1773). Whitefield, George, A Continuation of the Reverend Mr. Whitefield’s Journal, from a Few Days after his Return to Georgia to his Arrival at Falmouth (London, 1741). Whitefield, George, Some Remarks Upon a Late Charge Against Enthusiasm (n.p., 1744). Whitefield, George, The Works of the Reverend George Whitefield, M.A., vol. 3 (London, 1771).

1

Popular Review Criticism, Methodism, and the Public Sphere

In describing the ‘social conditions’ that allowed for the modern public sphere—a space in which ‘rational-critical debate about public issues conducted by private persons willing to let arguments and not status determine decisions’1—Jürgen Habermas observed the importance of art and literary criticism to this process: ‘The public sphere in the political realm evolved from the public sphere in the world of letters.’ Habermas specifically notes how, in the coffeehouse culture of eighteenth-century England, popular opinion displaced patrons as arbiters of taste, and literary criticism expanded to appeal to and account for the opinions and proclivities of a reading public. Initially focused on art and literature, these conversations eventually expanded to encompass economics and politics. As Habermas explains, ‘In the institution of art criticism, including literary, theater, and music criticism, the lay judgment of a public that had come of age, or at least thought it had, became organized.’ Periodicals devoted to literary criticism, which originated in the eighteenth century, thus played an instrumental role in the formation of Habermas’s public sphere as publications like the Monthly and the Critical made it possible to imagine a space wherein issues of public concern, whether literary or sociopolitical, could be debated through relatively broad-based participation in rational discourse.2 Although scholars continue to reassess Habermas’s account, arguing that the public sphere as it evolved during the period was more restrained, partisan, and exclusionary than Habermas has suggested,3 most agree that eighteenth-century social life brought individuals into a discursive community or communities that encouraged public debate about a range of topics, including books and the ideas those books expressed. The rise of popular review criticism attests to this cultural development. At the same time the reviewers claimed an authority to make pronouncements regarding literary merit, an authority that rested in large part on the reviewers’ capacity to substantiate those judgments in terms acceptable to a mass, and opinionated, audience, that audience exercised its right to accept or reject the reviewers’ judgments and recommendations. As Habermas explains, DOI: 10.4324/9781003392323-2

30 Popular Review Criticism The art critics could see themselves as spokesmen for the public … because they felt themselves at one with all who were willing to let themselves be convinced by arguments. At the same time they could turn against the public itself when, as experts combatting ‘dogma’ and ‘fashion’, they appealed to the ill-informed person’s native capacity for judgment. This dynamic, Habermas goes on to argue, revealed ‘the actual status of the critic’ who retained something of the amateur; his expertise only held good until countermanded; lay judgment was organized in it without becoming, by way of specialization, anything else than the judgment of one private person among all others who ultimately were not to be obligated by any judgment except their own.4 The reviewers’ ‘status’, then, helps explain why the reviewers’ recommendations were, at times, discarded or challenged by at least some of their readers. The crucial point, however, is not whether subscribers to either review journal heeded the recommendations of the reviewers, but the invitation the Monthly and the Critical extended individuals to come together as a public, even if only in an imagined sense, to think and talk about books and the ideas those books promulgated, including ideas about Methodism. Moreover, the Monthly and the Critical ensured that texts outside the purview or sophistication of some readers (e.g., academic and theological tracts primarily addressed to a more educated or specialized audience) were made accessible, albeit in a highly filtered form, to a less-specialized swath of readers. By initiating and then systemizing a critical conversation about books in their pages, the Monthly and the Critical institutionalized a form of public discourse, evident in their statements about Methodism and the literature associated with the revival, that contributed to the formation of a participatory public that debated and gave shape to various ideas and issues, including religion. Because of the Monthly’s and the Critical’s comprehensive scopes, which included both scholarly as well as Grub Street productions, the conversation about books initiated in their pages both reinforced and blurred the distinctions between high and low culture, elite and popular, and scholarly and unscholarly. They reinforced such distinctions in their judgments, which were predicated upon the reviewers’ criteria for ‘good’ writing, thus relegating some publications to the reviewers’ favour and recommendation while dismissing, and condemning, others of supposedly inferior rank. But the reviewers also blurred those distinctions by applying their criteria to the full gamut of print media, no matter the perceived status of a given literary type or the reputation or rank of the author. Theoretically, all publications—not just the ‘works of the learned’—were subject to the purview of the critics. The books and pamphlets associated with the Methodist revival, which included

Popular Review Criticism 31 scholarly treatises by respected religious figures as well as scurrilous, and at times poorly written, attacks by anonymous writers, highlight how popular review criticism democratized literary culture via its inclusivity and by insisting upon and applying standards of literary merit to the wide range of publications available to readers. As such, review criticism became a populist and elitist undertaking as the reviewers rendered their judgments about a work’s quality and merit in the republic of letters. The corpus of reviews of revival-related publications both authenticates and challenges Habermas’s account of the modern public sphere while indicating ways in which that account might be modified or amended to account for religion, and particularly popular religion in the form of Methodism, as well as kinds of discourse that elide Habermas’s model. Not unlike Habermas, the reviewers insisted upon reason-based argument as the key to public debate, first, in the criteria they applied to polemical arguments; and second, in the ways they asserted and substantiated their literary judgments. The editorial, and seemingly inclusive, ‘we’ by which the Monthly and the Critical addressed their readers likewise projected a sense of inclusivity among subscribers as well as authority. As Antonia Forster suggests, ‘The generally used grand editorial “we” of the review journals contribut[ed] to a sense of institutional authority in which the reading public is assumed to be on the same side [as the reviewers].’5 In short, the review journals were self-conscious about creating a public or community of readers. The actual makeup of the journals’ readership (discussed later in this chapter), however, indicates that the reading public the reviewers imagined may not have been as inclusive as the editorial ‘we’ implies. The reviewers’ advocacy of critical, rational argument as the basis to public discourse similarly reveals limitations in Habermas’s account, particularly when applied to religious topics. Habermas generally avoids religion, in part, because he associates it with the private more than the public realm, focusing instead on economic considerations. To be sure, religion, particularly some Protestant traditions, including Methodism, relied on intense personal experience and forms of emotional expression to substantiate faith, even at an historical moment when theologians and religious thinkers were promoting reason and rationality in religious matters. Consequently, Methodist religiosity, particularly in its public perception, proved antithetical to reason-based debate, a point that is particularly evident in the reviews of Methodist authors whose rhetorical proofs, at times, defied rational explanation in the minds of the reviewers. By insisting on reason-based forms of argument, the reviewers, like the antiMethodists generally, discredited Methodist authors who relied on other ways of apprehending religious truth or making sense of religious experience in their polemical and devotional tracts. But the anti-Methodists and the reviewers, along with Methodist writers who set out to validate Methodist religiosity via the press, ensured that even intensely private

32 Popular Review Criticism experience was subjected to public debate, even when the participants in the debate could not agree on the terms of their disagreements. The review journals figured prominently in the formation of a public sphere, as Habermas argues, but their handling of revival-related publications demonstrates that religion played a significant role in that process and shows that the concept of critical, rational debate as the hallmark of public discourse was itself subjected to rigorous debate during the period and was ultimately defined in counterpoint with other discursive modes.

Religion and the Public Sphere As I have argued elsewhere, Methodism in the eighteenth century, including how it was perceived by its critics and practiced by its adherents, was largely mediated by texts and rhetorical exchange.6 The proliferation of print media and the relative freedom of the press in the eighteenth century; the extent to which British society generally and Methodism specifically promoted reading; and a cultural sensibility predisposed to open debate on matters of public interest, perhaps most clearly evident in the coffeehouse culture and the debating societies that became popular during the century,7 guaranteed that Methodist religiosity, including the private nature of spiritual conversion, became matters of civic concern on an unprecedented scale. These conditions also ensured that Methodism would be constituted, both in its public character and private reception, through the conversations about it that circulated not just in churches, coffeehouses, and sitting rooms, but in the books that became the focus of the Monthly and the Critical Reviews. In sum, Methodism became the subject of vigorous and wide-ranging debate. Although these discussions hardly achieved consensus (i.e., agreement among competing parties regarding the meaning and merit of Methodism), they helped define the movement for Methodists and nonMethodists alike. The degree to which Methodism took shape in the crucible of public disputation, a phenomenon that is foregrounded in the pages of the Monthly and the Critical, indicates that Habermas’s model of the modern public sphere might require further retooling to account for religious debate and discussion. Habermas, who postulates a mostly secular model, largely ignores the religious controversies, whether doctrinal, sectarian, or theological, that permeated much of the Early Modern period, which is somewhat surprising given how so many of these debates overlapped with and were informed by sociopolitical matters and the alliances between church and state that existed in Great Britain and throughout continental Europe. Methodism not only disrupted the ecclesiastical order, critics contended, but it represented a threat to state authority and stability. David Zaret similarly argues that ‘Habermas’s account is flawed by errors of omission’ that ‘associates the rise of the public sphere too narrowly with economic forces and issues’. Zaret goes on to explain,

Popular Review Criticism 33 Habermas’s account glosses over the relevance of religion for the emergence of a public sphere in politics at a time when religious discourse was a, if not the, predominant means by which individuals defined and debated issues in this sphere. Although Habermas rightly notes that the Reformation largely privatized religious experience, Zaret claims that Protestantism ‘cultivated nearly the same critical, rational habits of thought that Habermas locates in the public spheres of letters and politics’. Even as ‘faith and reason’ became relatively private matters, ‘they were defined, defended, and debated in arguments that appealed explicitly to public opinion’.8 This was certainly true of Methodism as it was criticized and defended in the public press. At least some of Habermas’s scepticism about religion and its absence from the liberal model of the public sphere he describes can be attributed to accounts of the Enlightenment that similarly see the progress of reason and rationality as antithetical to religious principles and ideals. Yet the Enlightenment hardly signalled the death knell of religion; rather, religion participated in the Enlightenment project at the same time it was changed by it. David Sorkin uses the term ‘religious Enlightenment’ to highlight the influential role religious thinkers played in promoting Enlightenment ideas, and he insists that theologians like William Warburton, Jacob Vernet, and Moses Mendelssohn be considered alongside more secular-minded thinkers. A number of these thinkers advocated for reasonableness in religious matters; they promoted natural religion over dogma; they championed religious toleration to varying degrees; and they made their arguments in the public sphere where those ideas could be scrutinized and debated.9 Such values accord with even the most secular assessments of the Enlightenment and were invoked to critique religious orthodoxy, the religious establishment, and certain forms of belief more than religion broadly conceived. ‘Most activists,’ Ole Peter Grell and Roy Porter explain, ‘wished to see religion not abolished but reformed, with “bigotry” and “superstition” yielding to a God of reason and Nature, compatible with science, morality and civic duties.’10 The intellectualizing of religion is perhaps most evident in the development of religion as a subject of academic inquiry. According to Peter Harrison, the concepts of religion and religions as we understand them today emerged during the eighteenth century: The great revolutions in science and religion which took place in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries … paved the way for the development of a secular study of religions, and equally importantly, of a concept of ‘religion’ which could link together and relate the apparently disparate religious beliefs and practices found in the empirical ‘religions.’ The secular study of religion, or comparative religion, evolved in different European countries, primarily because of confessional conflicts but also

34 Popular Review Criticism because of increasing contact with non-Christian peoples. England led the way in the objectification of religion largely because of the relative freedoms English men and women enjoyed in the wake of the civil conflicts of the seventeenth century. It was also in England where ‘historical criticism of the Bible got under way in earnest’, which asserted a natural as opposed to sacred history of Christian religions.11 A number of these early biblical scholars, including Thomas Woolston and Matthew Tindal, attempted to rationalize Christianity by discrediting the more miraculous passages in the Bible and promoting Christian ethics over dogma and Church authority, though none of these arguments went unanswered by more orthodox thinkers. Indeed, ‘general criticism of a Church overrun by the votaries of reason was voiced … throughout the eighteenth century’.12 In sum, these developments demonstrate the extent to which religious topics were open to critique and debate in a variety of public settings. More importantly, as Zaret argues, ‘the creation of a public sphere in religious life’ ultimately ‘legitimated the reasonableness of public opinion as a forum and arbiter for criticism and debate’, though he reminds us that the religious public sphere, particularly in religious traditions that questioned the limits of human reason, ‘did not achieve the same level of rationality or universality as the liberal model of the public sphere’.13 At the same time religious thinkers, from Latitudinarians to Deists, were insisting that religion was and should be wholly compatible with reason, others, including George Whitefield and John Wesley, insisted on other ways of knowing. Such tensions can be glimpsed in the two Methodists’ leaders exchanges with one of their earliest and more formidable clerical critics, Joseph Trapp. In The Nature, Folly, Sin, and Danger of Being Righteous Over-Much (1739), Trapp set out to undermine Methodist belief. In charging the Methodists with enthusiasm, Trapp insisted that the Methodists cannot provide ‘Evidence’ or ‘Proof’ for their claims of a spiritual witness, the baseline qualification for the New Birth. ‘What Proof have they of such Motions or Impulses?’ Trapp asked.14 Whitefield countered by asking, ‘What Proof do they give? Says the Writer [Trapp]: What Sign would they have?’ Whitefield went on to argue, This Writer … tells us, it is against Common-Sense to talk of the Feeling of the Spirit of God: Common-Sense … was never allow’d to be a Judge yet; it is above its Comprehension, neither are, nor can the Ways of God be known by Common-Sense.15 In short, Whitefield insisted that reason (‘Common-Sense’) is an inadequate conduit for accessing and understanding God and spiritual phenomena, and he elevated heartfelt experience over the intellect at a time when many, like Trapp, subscribed to a rational scheme in religion. Wesley took Whitefield’s remark to its inevitable conclusion: ‘Whatever is spoke of the Religion of

Popular Review Criticism 35 the Heart, and of the inward Workings of the Spirit of God, must appear Enthusiasm to those who have not felt them.’16 In Lockean fashion, Wesley insisted on experience as foundational to how and what human beings know; he also did not believe in innate ideas, even in spiritual matters. But unlike Locke, Wesley thought of spiritual experience in terms similar to physical experience. Knowledge of the spiritual world was acquired through what Wesley referred to as the ‘Spiritual Senses’,17 a view not without precedent in the eighteenth century.18 Wesley, however, did not discount reason entirely. He believed that reason could assist individuals in making sense of scripture and analysing feelings; nonetheless, reason ‘cannot produce faith, because it cannot provide evidence of the invisible world’. For Wesley, ‘feeling is our basic source of knowledge’.19 As one Methodist disciple explained of a sermon she heard Wesley preach, ‘He shewed what reason could do in religion, and what it could not do; how far it could carry Socrates, Adrian the emperor, etc., and how far their hope fell short of the Christian’s hope, for reason is unable to produce the faith, the hope, and the love of a Christian.’20 Critics like Trapp concluded that Methodists were enthusiasts because they could not identify with the type of religious experience Methodism promoted. ‘My friends tell me’, William Seward wrote to a correspondent, [that] I affect to talk in a mystical way … . The same complaints they have against Mr. Wesley. The reason for that, I suppose, is because they are inexperienced Christians … [and] the spirituality of Christianity … [looks like] mysticism to the natural man, for he discerneth not the things of the spirit of God.21 As much as Habermas dissociates private religious experience from the liberal public sphere, exchanges like the one between Trapp and the two Methodist leaders, exchanges that took place in the public arena, indicates that the normative criteria of free and rational debate encompassed topics and experiences that, by definition, defied reasonable explanation for the likes of Trapp and like-minded critics. In responding to Trapp, Whitefield and Wesley conceded that they could not provide the kind of ‘proof’ Trapp insisted upon, but they did so by levelling arguments that were, at least ostensibly, founded on logical patterns of reasoning. Whitefield and Wesley published their responses to Trapp presumably thinking that at least some of their readers could have been persuaded by their arguments. Although Trapp’s treatise and the responses by Whitefield and Wesley predate the Monthly Review by almost a decade, the review journals both publicized and participated in the debate about Methodist religiosity that played out in subsequent publications. The Monthly and the Critical, then, illustrate not only the crucial role that literary criticism played in the formation of a public predisposed to critical conversations about matters of public import,

36 Popular Review Criticism but the central role religion, even in the form of a marginalized religious movement, played in that process.

Methodism in the Public Sphere Popular review criticism as it materialized in the Monthly and the Critical thus brings to light two of the more contested ideas associated with Habermas’s conception of the public sphere, namely, the extent to which the notion of ‘rational, critical debate … was ever reality as much as ideal’ and ‘the exclusionary character of the early public sphere’.22 Rational argument was in fact a fragile concept23 when put into practice and a concept that became a topic of debate in its own right. The Monthly and the Critical helped facilitate this conversation by making the quality and characteristics of public discourse a focal point of their critical enterprise and concepts that were themselves subjected to analysis and critique in the pages of both journals. That is, the reviewers advocated for and attempted to practice a form of public discourse, one founded on reasoned-based arguments, and they did so while simultaneously criticizing, and ultimately dismissing, arguments that failed to meet their expectations, or that relied on types of evidence and experience Whitefield and Wesley utilized in their exchanges with Trapp. This tendency is particularly pronounced in their reviews of Methodist authors whose arguments were often characterized by the reviewers as confused and irrational, the descriptors usually associated with Methodist religiosity. A review of Joseph Milner’s Essays on Several Religious Subjects (1789) by Jabez Hirons in the Monthly represents a case in point. Hirons, a dissenting clergyman who contributed to the Monthly between 1768 and 1789,24 opened with a summative statement regarding Methodist authors: If we have ever passed over the tracts of the Methodists with the general censure of their containing the cant of a sect, it is because the greater number of the authors of this class, instead of defending their peculiar tenets, or cooly [sic] reasoning on those parts which they wish to support, borrow arguments from internal illumination, and dress them in all the extravagance which the warmest imagination can dictate. Milner’s collection, however, proved to be a striking contrast to the writings of most Methodists: ‘In the Essays before us he is more calm and rational; he explains the tenets of Methodism and proceeds to examine some other religious subjects.’25 Although Milner proved that at least some Methodists could achieve the Monthly’s standard for sound arguments, Hirons rejected a type of evidence—‘internal illumination’—that ultimately proved compelling and persuasive in Methodist circles. Claims that Methodists were emotionally unstable and lacked understanding regularly informed the reviews of their published works and were

Popular Review Criticism 37 markedly pronounced in the cases of the few Methodist women who contributed to the discourse about Methodism via the printing press. Though women played an instrumental role in the Methodist revival, so much so that David Hempton has referred to Methodism as a ‘women’s movement’,26 relatively few of these women contributed to the corpus of published writings by Methodists and even fewer of their works found their way into the pages of either the Monthly or the Critical.27 A review of the anonymously published Deism Genuine Antimethodism (1752) in the Monthly not only capitalized on stereotypes of Methodists as religious zealots but also relied on stereotypes that portrayed women as overemotional and prone to irrational thinking: The author in reality proves nothing at all, except her own inability for judging or writing with propriety upon the subject she has undertaken. Her whole performance is filled only with general exclamation against Antimethodists, for treating the present Revivers of Religion (as she stiles [sic] her sect) with scorn, and ridicule, and anger; while, at the same time, she herself shews such a spirit of bitterness … as is not very consistent with the humility and candour of genuine Christianity. The reviewer then made the anonymous author’s gender a matter of import: Controversialists in general are seldom overburden’d with moderation; perhaps in a female controversialist we ought never to look for this rare quality; the natural vivacity of the sex is apt, in all disputes, to hurry them into a warmth that seldom fails to lead them to extravagancy, and often into absurdities: as this writer, for instance, sneers at her opponents, for publishing anonymous pieces against the Methodists; forgetting that she herself, in this very pamphlet, has also thought fit to conceal the name of the author.28 The very quality the anti-Methodists claimed made women susceptible to Methodism—an inability to moderate their emotions—similarly made them unfit for rational argument, according to this reviewer. These women’s associations with Methodism only made it even less likely that their public performances would be taken seriously, since most Methodist men received comparable treatment in the review journals. The Monthly’s review of The Methodists Vindicated from the Aspersions Cast upon Them by the Rev. Mr. Haddon Smith (1771), also by Hirons, further illustrates this point. Hirons opened with this conjecture: ‘It is currently supposed the Methodists are an ignorant and illiterate set of people, who are incapable of offering any arguments worthy of attention, in support of their religious principles or practice.’ Hirons, however, went on to praise the author for his defence of Methodism, but only after adding the caveat that the author ‘is not, himself a Methodist’:

38 Popular Review Criticism The present Writer’s manner of repelling the attack made upon the Methodistical party by Mr. Smith, is far from contemptible, and we much question if [Smith] will be able to stand his ground against the efforts of an antagonist, who is well furnished with weapons, offensive and defensive, and who knows how to employ them, either in his own cause, or in that of others.29 The implication, it seems, is not so much that good arguments were not to be had in defence of Methodism—a point Hirons seemingly conceded in his review of Milner’s collection of essays (cited previously); rather, Hirons insinuated that the Methodists were generally incapable of making these arguments on their own and were thus dependent on rhetorical surrogates to make their defences for them. Review after review of Methodist apologia in both review journals highlights the Methodists’ lack of both expertise and tact in rhetorical matters. The reviewers, for example, just as readily applied the word ‘injudicious’ to describe Methodist controversialists as they did ‘judicious’ to describe skilled anti-Methodist writers. Ralph Griffiths claimed in his review of The Principles and Preaching of the Methodists Considered (1753) by Robert Cruttenden, a piece that ‘vindicate[s] the preaching of Mr. Whitefield and his followers’, that Cruttenden writes with some spirit; but hurts his own cause by his injudicious as well as uncharitable manner of treating all professors of christianity [sic], who do not fall in with his sect; and also by his gross mistakes and inconsistencies.30 A Letter Occasioned by the Lord Bishop of Gloucester’s Doctrine of Grace was dismissed by another reviewer as ‘too trifling to deserve a serious confutation’.31 A review by Andrew Kippis of Free Thoughts on the Projected Application to Parliament for the Abolition of Ecclesiastical Subscriptions (1772), a pamphlet written by the Calvinist Methodist Augustus Toplady, made clear that overzealousness in religion hinders not only right thinking but also any sense of social propriety: Mr. Toplady’s zeal for Calvinism is so excessive, that it renders him totally forgetful of candour, and even of decency, in his treatment of the petitioners for the removal of subscription. He thinks proper to substitute abuse for reasoning; and as to what arguments he makes use of, they are such as have been refuted again and again.32 Reviewers for both journals wondered whether individuals susceptible to the lure of Methodism could be reasoned with at all. In a review of William Law’s Of Justification by Faith and Works (1761), William Rose, a Scot dissenter who helped found the Monthly with Griffiths, stated that the piece

Popular Review Criticism 39 ‘is written in a clear and rational, in a cool and dispassionate manner. The Author, in the character of a Churchman, shews, how absurd and groundless his adversary’s notions are concerning saving faith’ via a mock dialogue with a Methodist. Rose further explained that the Methodist … as is generally the case in dialogues of this kind, makes but a poor figure in the controversy: however, were he a much abler antagonist than he really is, he would not be a match for the Churchman, who has excellent weapons, and uses them with great dexterity.33 Methodists, Rose implied, lacked the rhetorical skill and understanding to engage in rational argument. A reviewer in the Critical similarly suggested the futility of trying to reason with the Methodists. Referring to Four Charges to the Clergy of the Archdeaconry of Essex (1763) by Thomas Rutherforth, archdeacon of Essex, the reviewer stated, Upon the whole—This pamphlet contains a great deal of solid reasoning, and sound learning; discovers a watchful care in the Archdeacon, to correct and extirpate the errors that are daily gaining ground in the minds of those mistaken and deluded people the Methodists. His arguments were made ‘so judiciously … that they cannot fail of being of use, if the Methodists have either understanding enough to be convinced by his arguments, or honesty enough to own their conviction’ (emphasis added).34 The ‘if’ in the concluding statement casts a pale of uncertainty over the reviewer’s proposition, especially given the prevailing notions of Methodists as irrational, overzealous, and in the case of this last statement, dishonest. Reviews like this one concluded that tactful arguments represented the most effective means of counteracting religious enthusiasm while simultaneously insisting that those already affected with the distemper likely could not be cured—or convinced. In defining and then applying their standards for rhetorical effectiveness, whether in praising a particular work or in condemning it, the reviewers directed as much, if not more, attention to the Methodists themselves and their supposed inability to read and reason critically—an assumption that effectively made the Methodist unfit for participation in the public sphere. In effect, the reviewers constructed a caricature of the Methodists as readers and thinkers, a caricature founded on familiar stereotypes, and then deployed that caricature as a way of supporting their claims regarding the rhetorical efficacy of the works the reviewers submitted to critical review. This point represents one of the more persistent and potent contributions made by the Monthly and the Critical in the campaign to undermine the Methodist movement—and a contribution that, not coincidentally, aligned with their literary aspirations and aims.

40 Popular Review Criticism In addition, by insisting on a form of argument that generally accords with Habermas’s ideal, the reviewers simultaneously, and purposefully, excluded forms of argument that relied on less rational kinds of proof. To be sure, Methodist religiosity often resulted in ecstatic forms of expression and depended on emotional experience, points regularly questioned and satirized by critics of the revival. Such critics, however, were much less attuned to the ways in which Methodism also promoted self-discipline and a reasoned response to religious experience. Curiously, some scholarly assessments of Methodism over the last several decades have viewed religiously motivated behaviour from a viewpoint not unlike the reviewers and the anti-Methodists. Perhaps the most well-known example of such scholarly scepticism is E. P. Thompson’s account of Methodism in The Making of the English Working Class (1980), wherein early Methodists are portrayed as socially and sexually repressed individuals who found relief in the emotional outbursts occasioned by Methodist worship,35 a conclusion challenged by Phyllis Mack. The problem, Mack explains, is that modern scholars like Thompson are ‘tone-deaf to religious sensibilities’. Mack explains that, since the publication of Thompson’s seminal work, the Methodist revival is generally seen as either the manipulation of emotionally needy followers by the Methodist leadership or … a mob of hysterical worshippers run amok. In short, Methodists have rarely been viewed as thinkers and actors, as participants in the cultural discourse about the nature of feeling and sensibility that preoccupied so many of their contemporaries. On the contrary, they were—and are—more commonly viewed as specimens of undiluted or repressed emotion, as part of the problem that more reflective philosophers, novelists, and theologians were seeking to address. We could add the Monthly’s and Critical’s reviewers to Mack’s list of ‘more reflective’ individuals. Mack goes onto show how ordinary Methodists sought to make sense of their feelings and were not merely carried away by enthusiastic fits.36 ‘Secular historians,’ she insists, ‘need an angle of vision that allows them … to accept these spiritual concerns as sincere and legitimate.’37 Part of the difficulty secular scholars face is that Methodism in the eighteenth century embodied a host of seemingly irreconcilable contradictions, the most notable of which relates to the charge of enthusiasm. As Mack points out, ‘John Wesley condemned enthusiasm while leading the most successful movement of religious enthusiasm of the century.’38 Besides his belief that God’s influence is felt, not solely inferred through reason, Wesley also allowed that people experienced that influence in radically different ways. Regarding his own conversion, Wesley explained that his ‘Heart [was] strangely warm’d’,39 but he accepted and was fascinated by more dramatic conversion accounts at the same time he demanded evidence supporting spiritual claims by his followers. He acknowledged that

Popular Review Criticism 41 individuals could mistake a purely emotional response for a spiritual prompting. Mack explains, ‘Wesley tried to walk a fine line between the scientific scepticism of a citizen of the Enlightenment and a fascination with forms of spiritual expression of which he himself was apparently incapable.’40 He was equally critical of scepticism as he was enthusiasm, as the title of Henry Rack’s biography of Wesley, Reasonable Enthusiast (2002), attests. Wesley’s ‘“enthusiasm”’, Rack explains, ‘was clothed in the garments of “reason”’.41 Thus, we could say that Wesley brought together a heightened emotionalism and an emphasis on self-control and reasonable behaviour, a point Hempton has persuasively argued: ‘Wesley, and this is equally true of the movement he founded, generally tempered enthusiasm with discipline, and rugged individualism with communal accountability.’42 One of Wesley’s preachers effectively captured this dichotomy in an apt metaphor: Beware … of the warmth of an overheated imagination. It’s a contagious distemper … . But be sober, be vigilant—if in our spiritual voyage we carry more sail than ballast, we shall be in danger of being overset and thereby suffering considerable loss. The passions may seem as a sail, but unless reason steer the helm, we shall not proceed in safety.43 Such accounts suggest that we need a way of reading spiritual and religious experience, as well as faith-based discourse, that does not merely dismiss or trivialize personal belief, particularly when accounting for the rise of the public sphere in the eighteenth century. Habermas dismisses religion and religious arguments from his account of the public sphere, in part, because he views them much the way the anti-Methodists did. But for the Methodists, the heartfelt experience that confirmed them in their faith derived from a series of propositions, first, that human beings are in a fallen state and, second, that salvation comes solely through faith in God’s grace. Methodists did not stumble mindlessly into the feelings of joy associated with justification or the sense of anguish that might accompany spiritual doubt. Their responses were generally cued by intense soul searching and, in many cases, reasoned reflection on and analysis of the doctrines espoused in sermons, hymns, and other Methodist publications. Moreover, Methodist spirituality, no matter how intensely private it may have been, became a matter of public concern as critics of the revival questioned the authenticity and consequences, whether private or public, of the Methodists’ beliefs and behaviours and as the Methodists offered their rebuttals via the press.

The Monthly and the Critical in the Public Sphere At the same time the reviewers were critiquing the Methodists’ ways of arguing, their own efforts to substantiate their critical judgments as well as

42 Popular Review Criticism the critical enterprise itself came under fire from critics who raised doubts about the reviewers’ tactics and methods. As will be documented in the chapters that follow, questions relating to impartiality and objectivity would tail both the Monthly and the Critical and their successors throughout the eighteenth century. Were the reviewers guided by sound ethical and critical principles that ensured that their literary judgments were founded on logical and substantiated arguments? Readers of both journals routinely raised this question and challenged the motives and means of the reviewers’ undertaking. The practice of invoking the editorial ‘we’ implemented by both the Monthly and the Critical, and discussed at the outset of this chapter, not only invited readers into the club of reviewers, thereby creating the perception of a discourse community or public, but it purposefully preserved the anonymity of the Monthly’s and the Critical’s contributors, which theoretically meant that the reviewers could offer their critical judgments and opinions freely, without fear of reprisal.44 At the very least, such a rationale justified the practice of anonymous reviewing as Thomas Pearne, a reviewer for the Monthly, explained in a letter to Griffiths: I never wish to be known as the author of any Article, because such discovery is always attended with inconvenience to the writer, as it precludes him form delivering his sentiments with freedom, & speaking with impartiality what he deems to be the truth, & as it is almost impossible to avoid incurring more or less the ill will, secret or open of those whose works are criticised [sic].45 Accordingly, fair and unbiassed reviewing depended on anonymity. Authors who felt they had been abused by the reviewers, however, took a different position, insisting that anonymity shielded the reviewers from responsibility and accountability, thereby inviting prejudicial reviews. Both parties were not entirely wrong in their conclusions. Nonetheless, either position made sure that the concepts of fair and impartial, so central to the project of review criticism, came to the fore, illustrating just how fraught the notion of critical, rational discourse became when put into actual practice. The reviewers themselves were aware of the challenges associated with delivering on their promises, and their efforts to achieve those promises were scrutinized by their critics and opened the reviewers to charges of various kinds of bias and self-interest. The first 40 years of literary reviewing in Great Britain indicates that the ideal the reviewers defined for themselves was an elusive, if not impossible, goal to achieve. As much as the reviewers framed their endeavour as a public service, their readers called out the for-profit motive that undergirded their publications. Two of the more common, and partially substantiated, charges raised in opposition to the Monthly and the Critical were that they utilized their reviews to promote their own publications or that their critical opinions

Popular Review Criticism 43 could be bought by the highest bidder. One author facetiously described a reviewer for the Critical as a Wholesale trading Critic, who deals in all the small Ware of Criticism, such as, Conundrums, Quirks, Quibbles, Jeers, Sneers, Half-sneers, Bobs, Dry-bobs, Hints in Italic Characters, long Dashes of pen, oblique Squints, Trumpery, Waggery, Ribaldry, Witticisms, and all other Critical Mechanism of all Sorts, and kinds whatever. The reviewer’s objective, the author further explained, was to mislead and deceive the Judgment of his Readers, by Misrepresentations, and false Glosses, and to disparage, and depreciate every New Book, that has not some Recommendation to his Partiality, or some Connection of Interest with him, or his Confederates.46 Nicholas Mason has documented several cases in which Griffiths as founder and publisher of the Monthly did in fact use the journal’s reviews to puff his own publications,47 though such instances represented the exception and not the rule and were, in some cases, hyperbolized by authors reacting to negative reviews of their own works. Antonia Forster has demonstrated that claims that the reviewers’ opinions could be purchased by the highest bidder were mostly unfounded, though she documents ‘other kinds of corruption in reviewing’, most notably instances in which the reviewers produced positive reviews as favours to authors and booksellers with whom the reviewers maintained friendly relationships. Examining the correspondence between the reviewers and these other entities, Forster concludes, ‘In public the reviewers were proclaiming high-minded principles of criticism and adherence to eternal verities while behind the scenes there were many kinds of negotiations to assure favorable reviews’, though she goes on to insist that ‘the corruption was more the corruption of friendship than the money-making schemes envisioned by the disgruntled’.48 But no matter the type of corruption or how infrequent, such practices compromised the integrity of the reviewers’ critical judgments and discourse. Such titles as A Charge of Publishing a Palpable Falsity, Exhibited Against, and Fully Proved upon, the Authors of the Monthly Review (1755) and A Scrutiny; or, the Criticks [sic] Criticized, Being an Examination of the Censorial Merits of the Authors of the Critical Review (1759) further demonstrate that the reviewers’ opinions and authority did not go unchallenged.49 In defining, or defaming, the Critical Review, the index to An History of the Parliament of Great Britain (1764) derisively referenced the Scottish heritage of several of its contributors, including Tobias Smollett: ‘a Scotch production, remarkable for its partiality, falsity, and abuse’.50 Samuel Foote satirized the critical enterprise in The Lyar (1764),

44 Popular Review Criticism in which a character explains the method he employed during his time as a reviewer for the Monthly: ‘I dealt out fame and damnation at pleasure. In obedience to the caprice and commands of my master, I have condemn’d books I never read, and applauded the fidelity of a translation, without understanding one syllable of the original.’51 The Repository, or General Review was launched in 1756 with the aim of critiquing the ‘the great multitude of periodical pieces that now contend with each other, in exhibiting a variety of literary matter for public instruction and amusement’, including the Monthly and the Critical.52 An author who questioned the consistency of the reviewers for both journals insisted on the very standard the Monthly and the Critical professed but fell short of in practice: ‘It is not whether [the reviewers] approve or disapprove the subject; but to inform their readers fairly and impartially with the subject and substance of the performance.’53 The author of a piece entitled The Battle of the Reviews (n.d.) perceptively diagnosed why such an aim proved difficult to achieve: A piece makes its appearance; the Monthly Review says positively that it is white; the Critical, that it is black, and vice versa. How shall we reconcile the contradiction? If Criticism is grounded on unerring Rules … how comes it, in the Sentiments of two or more Persons concerning one and the same Thing, to be so widely different? It is then manifest, that something besides the Desire of bringing Matters to an impartial scrutiny, has biased the Intellects of the Reviewing Critics.54 In other words, prejudice of one kind or another unavoidably crept in. While both the Monthly and the Critical set out, in part, to define and objectively apply a set of critical standards for judging literary and rhetorical merit, those standards wavered or were inconsistently applied from journal to journal and from review to review, which I illustrate in the chapters that follow. Although any number of prejudices—whether literary, philosophical, political, or religious—might account for what seems an obvious conclusion, this study demonstrates how a set of ideas and attitudes about a controversial religious movement significantly influenced the reviewers’ treatment of the publications printed in connection with the Methodist revival. The larger point I wish to make here is that the reviews of revival-related publications provide a means of interrogating various features of the public sphere as it evolved during the period. According the Habermas, ‘a public sphere adequate to a democratic polity [ideally] depends upon both quality of discourse and quantity of participation’.55 The Monthly and the Critical attempted, at least theoretically, to raise the level of discourse about books among the reading public at the same time their methods were questioned by their critics; and their treatment of publications by and about the Methodists illustrates some of the challenges associated with rational, critical debate as a means of resolving certain issues, particularly those dealing with the type of

Popular Review Criticism 45 religious experience Methodism promoted. Regarding the level of participation in public discourse, the review journals demonstrably increased access to and participation in literary and print culture, evidenced in part by their popularity and the numbers of copies printed from month to month (see Introduction). Even if readers of these journals ignored the reviewers’ recommendations, they paid for and regularly consumed the opinions of the reviewers. But who exactly were these readers and how representative were they of eighteenth-century society? The rise of popular review criticism highlights the gap between aspirational ideals and historical realities, whether we are considering Habermas’s liberal model or the objectives of reviewers who defined an ideal that was not always achieved in practice.

The Monthly’s and the Critical’s Biases and their Readers Although the notion of impartial reviews is probed throughout this study, a few additional notes regarding the reviewers’ biases and methods deserve observation here as well as consideration of the makeup of the Monthly’s and the Critical’s readership. As noted in the Introduction, literary historians have generalized that the Monthly was more liberal in its sociopolitical commitments while the Critical leaned more conservative. Edward Bloom, for example, has stated that ‘the Monthly Review showed favouritism, giving preferential space and treatment to works critical of Church and State’,56 an opinion that was shared by Samuel Johnson. As James Boswell reported in his biography, Johnson insisted ‘that the authours [sic] of the Monthly Review were enemies to the Church’.57 Boswell later clarified Johnson’s meaning: ‘The Monthly Reviewers (said he) are not Deists; but they are Christians with as little christianity [sic] as may be; and are for pulling down all establishments. The Critical Reviewers are for supporting the constitution, both in church and state.’58 But as I demonstrate in the chapters that follow, Johnson’s comments overstate the matter. Griffiths was in fact a dissenter, and pro-Whig sensibilities pepper his journal, most notably in the Monthly’s endorsement of publications supporting the American colonies at the time of the Revolution (discussed in Chapter 3). The Critical’s support for the government at this same time likewise rings clear. However, we should be wary of blanket statements about the politics or ideology that undergirded either journal. As Forster points out, ‘The political differences between the Monthly and Critical Reviews have been exaggerated and oversimplified.’ Although many of Griffith’s reviewers, not surprisingly, aligned with dissenting groups, several of his reviewers were Anglican clergymen.59 In addition, Griffiths was no sectarian, nor was he wholly antagonistic towards the established church, which is evident in the ways he defended Anglican authorities from the Methodists. As I discuss in Chapter 3, Griffiths proved an able advocate of the religious establishment in his review of the second part of George Lavington’s The Enthusiasm of the Methodists and Papist Compared (1752). Perhaps Methodism represented

46 Popular Review Criticism the greater evil in Griffiths’ eyes. Nonetheless, the Monthly’s handling of the exchanges between high-ranking church figures, such as Lavington and William Warburton, and Methodist apologists, most notably Whitefield and Wesley, strikes a similar tone as the Critical’s reviews of the same publications, as Griffiths and his reviewers offered comparable support for the church. A glance at several of the reviewers who contributed reviews of revivalrelated publications for the Monthly illustrates that the journal’s contributors came from diverse backgrounds. Many of them held dissenting views, including William Rose, Jabez Hirons, Andrew Kippis, and Abraham Rees, who became one of the most prominent dissenting clergymen in London. John Langhorne, by contrast, was an Anglican clergyman, and William Woodfall, who reviewed mostly dramatic and political works, was an academic with unclear religious connections or convictions. Other reviewers wavered in and eventually changed their religious affiliations during their time writing for the Monthly. Abraham Dawson and Samuel Badcock began as dissenting clergymen but eventually conformed to the established church, Dawson in 1754 and Badcock in 1787. Both men ended their associations with the Monthly shortly thereafter, perhaps because of their pivot towards Anglicanism. Benjamin Dawson followed his brother’s example, conforming to the established church in 1759, but he continued to write for the Monthly until 1767. Despite his conversion to Anglicanism, Benjamin later joined a literary coterie at the dissenting academy at Warrington that included several contributors to the Monthly,60 thus suggesting that one’s religious affiliation did not necessarily disqualify a reviewer from his association with Griffiths’ magazine. As noted in the introduction, only a handful of the reviews in the Critical have been linked to specific reviewers, nor have I been able to identify any of the writers who wrote the reviews of books by and about the Methodists. But we do know several of the contributors to the Critical, even if we do not know which reviews they wrote. As with the Monthly, these reviewers do not necessarily break along denominational, political, or ideological lines, despite the Tory and High Church sympathies that permeate the Critical. Smollett’s religious leanings were ambiguous at best; he advocated for natural or rational religion in his writings without getting into denominational arguments, which helps to explain his hostility towards Methodism in his History of England (1766) and Humphry Clinker (1771).61 Thomas Franklin, one of the Critical’s early reviewers, was an Anglican clergyman who also wrote for the stage, while others, including John Armstrong, Samuel Derrick, and Patrick Murdoch, were, like Smollett, more academically than religiously minded. Samuel Johnson and David Hume also contributed to the Critical, and their views, particularly on religion, varied dramatically. In countering Hume’s efforts to discount Christian miracles, Johnson explained to Boswell,

Popular Review Criticism 47 Hume, and other sceptical innovators, are vain men, and will gratify themselves at any expence [sic]. Truth will not afford sufficient food to their vanity; so they have betaken themselves to errour. Truth … is a cow which will yield such people no more milk, and so they are gone to milk the bull.62 The reviews of revival-related publications reveal some of the religious and sociopolitical commitments that permeate the Monthly and the Critical and the ways in which those commitments intersected with the review journals’ literary aspirations, in part, because Methodism represented more than a religious movement. Methodism was perceived as a revolutionary force that potentially transformed society, for good or for ill, depending on one’s perspective. For the Methodists, that transformation began with the spiritual rebirth of the individual who helped to revive the church and the community through evangelical activity, which might include attending to the poor, lay ministry, or participation in organized charitable enterprises. For the anti-Methodists, such activities disrupted the status quo, both within the church and in civil society. Wesley’s forays into politics, whether addressing slavery or the American question, further blurred the distinction between Methodism as a purely religious movement and Methodism as an entity intent on intervening in the affairs of state. In critiquing pro- and anti-Methodist tracts, the reviewers thus found themselves grappling with a host of issues and ideas, from doctrinal and theological matters to broader social topics. Although the Monthly and the Critical shared many of the same opinions regarding the Methodist threat, their reviews of the books and pamphlets associated with the revival allow us to push beyond broad generalizations about the review journals’ literary, religious, and sociopolitical commitments to formulate finer distinctions of those commitments and how they helped shape the literary review essay as it developed in the second half of the eighteenth century. Moreover, these reviews allow us to examine how review literature contributed to the formation of a public devoted to critical discourse about the productions of the press and, by extension, the issues about which that public concerned itself with. Finally, perhaps no feature of the modern public sphere as described by Habermas has been more scrutinized than its participatory nature, or lack thereof, in the eighteenth century. Who exactly participated in public debate and who was excluded? And more to the point of this study, who made up the reading public and the readerships of the Monthly Review and the Critical Review? On the one hand, compelling empirical data indicates that we can in fact speak of a reading public in the eighteenth century. As J. Paul Hunter demonstrates, ‘literacy rates in the English-speaking world grew rapidly between 1600 and 1800 so that by the latter date a vast majority of adult males could read and write, whereas two centuries earlier only a select minority could do so’. As many as 70% of men living in

48 Popular Review Criticism England were literate by the end of the eighteenth century. Literacy rates among women likewise rose, evidenced in part by the proliferation of materials specifically targeting a female readership, though those rates were, overall, lower than men. Hunter suggests that female literacy was approximately two thirds of literacy rates among their male counterparts.63 Nonetheless, all of these ‘new’ readers spurred the publishing industry. The sale of periodicals, for example, doubled during the second half of the century, the same timeframe when popular review criticism was establishing itself as a mainstay of literary culture in Britain.64 Almost all the contributors to the Monthly and the Critical were men, but what of their subscribers and readers? Unfortunately, piecing together who among the reading public read the review journals represents a difficult proposition. As cited in the Introduction, the Monthly and the Critical were among the most popular periodicals printed during the eighteenth century. They ‘were read in coffeehouses, reading societies, and homes everywhere’ and ‘affected virtually everyone in the English-reading public’.65 My contention that the review journals played a significant role in shaping ideas and attitudes about Methodism partly depends on the viability of such claims, even if such claims are not easily substantiated with more than anecdotal evidence.66 At the very least, there was the perception during the period that the Monthly and the Critical wielded the kind of influence literary historians have attributed to them. The reviewers themselves operated from the premise that they could, and did, influence the book-buying decisions and reading habits of their subscribers, even if they were sometimes frustrated that readers continued to consume literary types they routinely criticized. As Forster states, the reviewers ‘regard[ed] themselves as having both the power and the duty to form public taste’, and booksellers who utilized the reviews to promote their publications and authors who purposefully addressed the reviewers, either in refuting a bad review or begging the reviewers’ favour, provide ‘evidence of a general belief that the public did listen to reviewers’.67 Examining subscription and other records of several provincial booksellers, Jan Fergus and Ruth Portner have nonetheless concluded that individual subscribers to the Monthly and the Critical generally made their book purchases without consulting the review journals. Book orders made on behalf of book clubs suggest ‘greater reliance on the Reviews’, though even book clubs typically purchased books before reviews of those books were available to them.68 But as I have stressed previously, the extent to which readers’ book-buying decisions were influenced by the review journals is less important than the ways in which the review journals systematized a conversation about books. Even if individuals failed to consult the review journals or ignored reviewer recommendations when purchasing books, many of these individuals still read the Monthly and the Critical, either for ‘sheer entertainment’ or because the journals helped provincial readers ‘keep abreast of intellectual life in the metropolis’.69

Popular Review Criticism 49 Fergus and Portner’s study also reveals some of the particulars of the Monthly’s and the Critical’s readership. At least among provincial readers, the overwhelming majority of subscribers to the Monthly and the Critical were men from the professional classes and the gentry—and more than half of these subscribers came from the clergy. The book clubs that subscribed to the review journals likewise indicate that many of the provincial readers of the Monthly and the Critical were clergymen. These clubs included the Academical Society for Members of the Daventry Dissenting Academy and the New Society of Clergymen.70 Of course, it is entirely plausible that the wives of clergymen and other men who subscribed to the Monthly or the Critical also consulted the reviews. In other words, the subscribers to the review journals only represent part of the journals’ actual readership. The reviewers most certainly considered women among their readers, evidenced by the reviews of literary types associated with a female readership, such as novels and feminine conduct books, reviews in which the reviewers directly addressed the ‘fair sex’. The Monthly, for example, reviewed an anonymously published tract entitled A Letter to a Young Lady Newly Married (1749), which provided ‘criticism on the manners, levities, and fashionable follies of the fair sex in [France]’.71 In reviewing Discourses on Tea, Sugar, Milk, Made-Wines, Spirits, Punch, Tobacco, & c. with Plain and Useful Rules for Country People (1750) by Thomas Short, the Monthly affixed the following footnote to an excerpt containing specialized vocabulary, attesting to the reviewers’ efforts to reach a female readership: ‘The very frequent use the Doctor makes of these hard terms of art, will, we are afraid, render his writings of little service to the ladies: In our extracts we avoid them as much as possible.’72 The Monthly’s reviewers, at the very least, believed women read their reviews even if they addressed them in patronizing terms. The Critical, too, addressed female readers via the types of works they chose for review as well as in the language they addressed their readers. Describing a long poem entitled Female Conduct: Being an Essay on the Art of Pleasing, to be Practiced by the Fair Sex Before and After Marriage (1759) by Thomas Marriot, a reviewer explained: This poem … is intended for the use and amusement of the female sex only; and the author hopes the salutary precepts and precautions it contains, may prove an antidote to the poison of Ovid, and all modern productions of the like pernicious nature.73 In another review, the Critical included this observation regarding the intellectual pursuits of English women: It is with great pleasure that we find the fair sex every day improving in their intellectual endowments: the English ladies have long been celebrated for their personal charms; they have long been the most

50 Popular Review Criticism beautiful, and are now become the most sensible, and the most conversible [sic] women in the universe. The weak and unthinking part of their sex still indeed confine their reading to plays, novels, and romances; but there are not wanting thousands of a superior understanding, who are capable of enjoying the most rational pleasures, have an excellent taste for every branch of polite literature, and even write correctly and elegantly. Despite the sexist and xenophobic undertones, this review makes clear that the reviewers saw women as part of the reading public they imagined and addressed via their reviews, even if records indicate that the majority of the Monthly and the Critical’s subscribers were men.

Conclusion The concept of a reading public in the eighteenth century as well as the Monthly’s and the Critical’s readership are not neatly pinned down. The reviewers’ themselves likely envisioned a larger and more inclusive public than actually existed, at least when looking at subscription records or comparing literacy rates with later historical periods. Nonetheless, the mere existence, and success, of the Monthly and the Critical indicates that we can speak with some confidence about ‘the reading public’ in the eighteenth century, one that far exceeded, in numbers and inclusiveness, any prior moment in Britain’s history, all the while accounting for the potential limitations and liabilities of such a concept. Besides defining what the modern literary review essay would become and popularizing literary criticism, the Monthly’s and the Critical’s format and wide circulation greatly increased readers’ engagement with the print media of the day, the critical standards by which that media was evaluated, and the ideas that media ultimately promulgated. Although copycat journals emerged, none wielded the influence of the Monthly and the Critical or remained in circulation nearly as long. In addition, if we are to credit popular review criticism with helping to create the modern public sphere, the reviews of revival-related publications indicate that religious topics and issues, as well as how those issues were debated and discussed, figured prominently in that process, which will be more fully illustrated in the chapters that follow.

Notes 1 Craig Calhoun, ‘Introduction: Habermas and the Public Sphere’, in Craig Calhoun (ed), Habermas and the Public Sphere (Cambridge, MA, 1992), 1. 2 Jürgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society, Thomas Burger (trans), (Cambridge, MA, 1999), 30–4, 41. 3 See, for example, Craig Calhoun (ed), Habermas and the Public Sphere (Cambridge, 1999); Gerard Hauser, Vernacular Voices: The Rhetoric of Publics

Popular Review Criticism 51

4 5 6 7

8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

19 20

and Public Spheres (Columbia, 1999); James Van Horn Melton, The Rise of the Public in Enlightenment Europe (Cambridge, 2001); Brian Cowan, ‘Mr. Spectator and the Coffeehouse Public Sphere’, Eighteenth-Century Studies 37/3 (2004), 345–66; and Peter Lake and Steve Pincus, ‘Rethinking the Public Sphere in Early Modern England’, Journal of British Studies 45 (2006), 270–92. Habermas, Structural Transformation, 41. Antonia Forster, ‘Review Journals and the Reading Public’, in Isabel Rivers (ed), Books and Their Readers in Eighteenth-Century England: New Essays (London, 2003), 182. Brett C. McInelly, Textual Warfare and the Making of Methodism (Oxford, 2014). The extent to which coffeehouses flourished in late seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Britain and became centres of socializing, news, and debate has been well documented. See Markman Ellis, The Coffee House: A Cultural History (London, 2004); Markman Ellis, ‘Coffee-House Libraries in Mid-Eighteenth-Century London’, The Library: The Transactions of the Bibliographical Society 10/1 (2009), 3–40; and Brian William Cowan, The Social Life of Coffee: The Emergence of the British Coffeehouse (New Haven, 2005). While Methodists tended to avoid coffeehouses, they were aware that information as well as coffee flowed in these places of conversation and reading, including information about the revival. See William Seward to ‘Dear Cousin Robinson’, n.d., JRUL, DDSe 22. For a discussion of eighteenth-century debating societies, see Donna T. Andrew, London Debating Societies, 1776–1799, vol. 30 (London, 1994). David Zaret, ‘Religion, Science, and Printing in the Public Spheres in Seventeenth-Century England’, in Craig Calhoun (ed), Habermas and the Public Sphere (Cambridge, MA, 1992), 213, 221. David Sorkin, The Religious Enlightenment: Protestants, Jews, and Catholics from London to Vienna (Princeton, NJ, 2008), 11–7. Ole Peter Grell and Roy Porter, ‘Toleration in Enlightenment Europe’, in Ole Peter Grell and Roy Porter (eds), Toleration in Enlightenment Europe (Cambridge, 2000), 2. Peter Harrison, ‘Religion’ and the Religions in the English Enlightenment (Cambridge, 1990), 2–3. Brian W. Young, Religion and Enlightenment in Eighteenth-Century England: Theological Debate from Locke to Burke (Oxford, 1998), 1. Zaret, ‘Religion’, 223. Joseph Trapp, The Nature, Folly, Sin, and Danger of Being Righteous OverMuch (London, 1739), 41. George Whitefield, The Folly and Danger of Being Not Righteous Enough (London, 1739), 9–10. John Wesley, An Extract of the Reverend Mr. John Wesley’s Journal, from November 1, 1739, to September 3, 1741 (2nd edn, Bristol, 1749), 10. John Wesley, An Earnest Appeal to Men of Reason and Religion (2nd edn, Bristol, 1743), 24. Frances Hutcheson argued in 1725, for example, that we recognize what is beautiful and good through our ‘Internal Senses’. Frances Hutcheson, An Inquiry into the Original of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue, Wolfgang Leidhold (ed), (Indianapolis, 2004), 23. Isabel Rivers, Reason, Grace and Sentiment: A Study of the Language of Religion and Ethics in England, 1660–1780, vol. 1 (Cambridge, 1991), 233, 239. Frances Pawson, ‘The Experience of Frances Pawson’, in Paul Wesley Chilcote (ed), Her Own Story: Autobiographical Portraits of Early Methodist Women (Nashville, TN, 2001), 94.

52 Popular Review Criticism 21 William Seward to Charles Casper Graves, n.d., John Rylands University Library, DDSe8. 22 Calhoun, ‘Introduction’, 3. 23 To be fair, Habermas describes an ideal as much, if not more so, than a historical reality. As Calhoun notes, Habermas’s The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere ‘is an inquiry at once into normative ideals and actual history’. Calhoun, ‘Introduction’, 1. 24 Benjamin Christie Nangle, The Monthly Review, First Series, 1749–1789: Indexes of Contributors and Articles (Oxford, 1934), 21. 25 Critical, 68:404–5 (1789). 26 David Hempton, Methodism: Empire of the Spirit (New Haven, CT, 2006), 145. 27 Mary Fletcher represents a notable exception to this claim. Nonetheless, though Fletcher’s published writings proved influential among the Methodists, none of her publications were featured in either the Monthly or the Critical. 28 Monthly, 6:152 (1752). 29 Monthly, 44:502 (1771). 30 Monthly, 8:139 (1754). 31 Critical, 16:195 (1763). 32 Monthly, 45:499 (1772). 33 Monthly, 24:144 (1761). 34 Critical, 15:444 (1763). 35 E. P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class (New York, 1966), 350–400. 36 Wesley provides a dramatic example of the soul-searching that typified the experiences of many Methodists. Despite his public image of a man assured of his faith, Wesley was often anxious regarding his standing with God, an emotional state he explored in his journal and private letters. See Richard P. Heitzenrater, Wesley and the People Called Methodists (Nashville, 1995), 224–5. 37 Phyllis Mack, Heart Religion in the British Enlightenment: Gender and Emotion in Early Methodism (Cambridge, 2008), 15, 11, 3–5, 7. 38 Mack, Heart Religion, 26. 39 John Wesley, An Extract of the Rev. John Wesley’s Journal, from February 1, 1737–8 (London, 1740), 34. 40 Mack, Heart Religion, 37. 41 Henry Rack, Reasonable Enthusiast: John Wesley and the Rise of Methodism (3rd edn, London, 2002), 10. 42 Hempton, Empire of the Spirit, 34. 43 William Butler to Joseph Benson, January 7, 1771, John Rylands University Library, PLP 17/15/5(a). 44 Edward A. Bloom, ‘“Labors of the Learned”: Neoclassical Book Reviewing Aims and Techniques’, Studies in Philology 54/4 (1957), 552. See also Antonia Forster, ‘Shakespeare in the Reviews’, in Fiona Richie and Peter Sabor (eds), Shakespeare in the Eighteenth Century (Cambridge, 2012), 66. 45 Quoted in Forster, ‘Avarice or Interest’, 175. 46 The Twentieth Epistle of Horace to His Book (London, 1759), iii–5, 14. 47 Nicholas Mason, Literary Advertising and the Shaping of British Romanticism (Baltimore, 2013), 37–49. See also Antonia Forster, ‘Avarice or Interest: The Secrets of Eighteenth-Century Reviewing’, Yale University Library Gazette (April 2007), 167–76. 48 Forster, ‘Avarice or Interest: The Secrets of Eighteenth-Century Reviewing’, 169, 175. 49 John Brine, A Charge of Publishing a Palpable Falsity, Exhibited Against, and Fully Proved upon, the Authors of the Monthly Review (London, 1755);

Popular Review Criticism 53

50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61

62 63 64 65

66

67 68

69 70 71 72 73

A Scrutiny; or, the Criticks Criticized, Being an Examination of the Censorial Merits of the Authors of the Critical Review (London, 1759). An History of the Parliament of Great Britain (London, 1764), 335. Samuel Foote, The Lyar (London, 1764), 5. The Repository, or General Review (London, 1756). Man-Midwifery Analysed: And the Tendency of that Practice Detected and Exposed (London, 1764). The Battle of the Reviews (London, n.d.), 46–7. Calhoun, ‘Introduction’, 2. See Bloom, ‘“Labours‘Labours of the Learned”’, 550. James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson, vol. 1 (Dublin, 1792), 458. James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson, vol. 2 (Dublin, 1792), 365–6. Forster, ‘Review Journals’, 179. Nangle, The Monthly Review, First Series, 1749–1789, 1–47. See, for example, Tobias Smollett, The History of England, vol. 5 (Oxford, 1827), 280. For a discussion of Smollett’s treatment of Methodism in Humphry Clinker, see Brett C. McInelly, ‘Redeeming Religion: Wesleyan and Calvinistic Methodism in Humphry Clinker’, Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester 85/2 and 3 (2003), 285–96. Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson, 1:371. J. Paul Hunter, Before Novels: The Cultural Contexts of Eighteenth-Century Fiction (New York, 1990), 65–66, 72. Habermas, Structural Transformation, 51. James Basker, ‘Criticism and the rise of periodical literature’, in H. B. Nisbet and Claude Rawson (eds), The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism (Cambridge, 1997), 327; and Frank Donoghue, ‘Colonizing Readers: Review Criticism and the Formation of a Reading Public’, in Ann Bermingham and John Brewer (eds), The Consumption of Culture 1600–1800: Image, Object, Text (London, 1995), 58. Donoghue notes that ‘the act of consulting the Monthly and Critical Reviews is a commonplace of mid- and later-eighteenth-century literary biography, memoirs, and letters’. Frank Donoghue, The Fame Machine: Book Reviewing and Eighteenth-Century Literary Careers (Stanford, CA, 1996), 16. Forster, ‘Review Journals and the Reading Public’, 186–7. Jan Fergus and Ruth Portner, ‘Provincial Subscribers to the Monthly and Critical Reviews, and Their Book Purchasing’, in O. M. Brack, Jr. (ed), Writers, Books, and Trade: An Eighteenth-Century English Miscellany for William B. Todd (New York, 1994), 157–8. Fergus and Portner, ‘Provincial Subscribers’, 164. Fergus and Portner, ‘Provincial Subscribers’, 159. Monthly 1:393 (1749). Monthly 2:306 (1750). Critical 7:26–7 (1759).

References Andrew, Donna T., London Debating Societies, 1776–1799, vol. 30 (London, 1994). Basker, James, ‘Criticism and the Rise of Periodical Literature’, in H. B. Nisbet and Claude Rawson (eds), The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism (Cambridge, 1997), 316–332. The Battle of the Reviews (London, n.d.).

54 Popular Review Criticism Bloom, Edward A., ‘“Labors of the Learned”: Neoclassical Book Reviewing Aims and Techniques’, Studies in Philology 54/4 (1957), 537–563. Boswell, James, The Life of Samuel Johnson, vols. 1 and 2 (Dublin, 1792). Brine, John, A Charge of Publishing a Palpable Falsity, Exhibited Against, and Fully Proved upon, the Authors of the Monthly Review (London, 1755). Butler, William to Joseph Benson, January 7, 1771, John Rylands University Library, PLP 17/15/5(a). Calhoun, Craig (ed.), Habermas and the Public Sphere (Cambridge, 1999). Calhoun, Craig, ‘Introduction: Habermas and the Public Sphere’, in Craig Calhoun (ed), Habermas and the Public Sphere (Cambridge, MA, 1992), 1–48. Christie, Benjamin Nangle, The Monthly Review, First Series, 1749 –1789: Indexes of Contributors and Articles (Oxford, 1934). Cowan, Brian, ‘Mr. Spectator and the Coffeehouse Public Sphere’, EighteenthCentury Studies 37/3 (2004), 345–366. Cowan, Brian William, The Social Life of Coffee: The Emergence of the British Coffeehouse (New Haven, 2005). The Critical Review (London). Deism Genuine Antimethodism (London, 1752). Donoghue, Frank, ‘Colonizing Readers: Review Criticism and the Formation of a Reading Public’, in Ann Bermingham and John Brewer (eds), The Consumption of Culture 1600–1800: Image, Object, Text (London, 1995), 54–74. Donoghue, Frank, The Fame Machine: Book Reviewing and Eighteenth-Century Literary Careers (Stanford, CA, 1996). Ellis, Markman, The Coffee House: A Cultural History (London, 2004). Ellis, Markman, ‘Coffee-House Libraries in Mid-Eighteenth-Century London’, The Library: The Transactions of the Bibliographical Society 10/1 (2009), 3–40. Fergus, Jan and Ruth Portner, ‘Provincial Subscribers to the Monthly and Critical Reviews, and Their Book Purchasing’, in O. M. Brack, Jr. (ed), Writers, Books, and Trade: An Eighteenth-Century English Miscellany for William B. Todd (New York, 1994), 157–176. Foote, Samuel, The Lyar (London, 1764). Forster, Antonia, ‘Avarice or Interest: The Secrets of Eighteenth-Century Reviewing’, Yale University Library Gazette (April 2007), 167–176. Forster, Antonia, ‘Review Journals and the Reading Public’, in Isabel Rivers (ed), Books and Their Readers in Eighteenth-Century England: New Essays (London, 2003), 171–190. Forster, Antonia, ‘Shakespeare in the Reviews’, in Fiona Richie and Peter Sabor (eds), Shakespeare in the Eighteenth Century (Cambridge, 2012), 60–77. Grell, Ole Peter and Roy Porter, ‘Toleration in Enlightenment Europe’, in Ole Peter Grell and Roy Porter (eds), Toleration in Enlightenment Europe (Cambridge, 2000), 1–22. Habermas, Jürgen, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society, Thomas Burger (trans), (Cambridge, MA, 1999). Harrison, Peter, ‘Religion’ and the Religions in the English Enlightenment (Cambridge, 1990). Hauser, Gerard, Vernacular Voices: The Rhetoric of Publics and Public Spheres (Columbia, 1999).

Popular Review Criticism 55 Heitzenrater, Richard P., Wesley and the People Called Methodists (Nashville, 1995). Hempton, David, Methodism: Empire of the Spirit (New Haven, CT, 2006). An History of the Parliament of Great Britain (London, 1764). Hunter, J. Paul, Before Novels: The Cultural Contexts of Eighteenth-Century Fiction (New York, 1990). Hutcheson, Francis, An Inquiry into the Original of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue, Wolfgang Leidhold (ed) (Indianapolis, 2004). Lake, Peter and Steve Pincus, ‘Rethinking the Public Sphere in Early Modern England’, Journal of British Studies 45 (2006), 270–292. Mack, Phyllis, Heart Religion in the British Enlightenment: Gender and Emotion in Early Methodism (Cambridge, 2008). Man-Midwifery Analysed: And the Tendency of that Practice Detected and Exposed (London, 1764). Mason, Nicholas, Literary Advertising and the Shaping of British Romanticism (Baltimore, 2013). McInelly, Brett C., ‘Redeeming Religion: Wesleyan and Calvinistic Methodism in Humphry Clinker’, Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester 85/2 and 3 (2003), 285–296. McInelly, Brett C., Textual Warfare and the Making of Methodism (Oxford, 2014). Melton, James Van Horn, The Rise of the Public in Enlightenment Europe (Cambridge, 2001). The Monthly Review (London). Pawson, Francis, ‘The Experience of Frances Pawson’, in Paul Wesley Chilcote (ed), Her Own Story: Autobiographical Portraits of Early Methodist Women (Nashville, TN, 2001), 85–101. Rack, Henry, Reasonable Enthusiast: John Wesley and the Rise of Methodism (3rd edn, London, 2002). The Repository, or General Review (London, 1756). Rivers, Isabel, Reason, Grace and Sentiment: A Study of the Language of Religion and Ethics in England, 1660–1780, vol. 1 (Cambridge, 1991). A Scrutiny; or, the Criticks Criticized, being an Examination of the Censorial Merits of the Authors of the Critical Review (London, 1759). Seward, William to Charles Casper Graves, n.d., John Rylands University Library, DDSe8. Seward, William to ‘Dear Cousin Robinson’, n.d., John Rylands University Library, DDSe 22. Smollett, Tobias, The History of England, vol. 5 (Oxford, 1827). Sorkin, David, The Religious Enlightenment: Protestants, Jews, and Catholics from London to Vienna (Princeton, NJ, 2008). Thompson, E. P., The Making of the English Working Class (New York, 1966). Trapp, Joseph, The Nature, Folly, Sin, and Danger of Being Righteous Over-Much (London, 1739). The Twentieth Epistle of Horace to his Book (London, 1759). Wesley, John, An Earnest Appeal to Men of Reason and Religion (2nd edn, Bristol, 1743). Wesley, John, An Extract of the Rev. John Wesley’s Journal, from February 1, 1737–8 (London, 1740).

56 Popular Review Criticism Wesley, John, An Extract of the Reverend Mr. John Wesley’s Journal, from November 1, 1739, to September 3, 1741 (2nd edn, Bristol, 1749). Whitefield, George, The Folly and Danger of being not Righteous Enough (London, 1739). Young, Brian W., Religion and Enlightenment in Eighteenth-Century England: Theological Debate from Locke to Burke (Oxford, 1998). Zaret, David, ‘Religion, Science, and Printing in the Public Spheres in SeventeenthCentury England’, in Craig Calhoun (ed), Habermas and the Public Sphere (Cambridge, MA, 1992), 212–235.

2

Reviewing Methodism in Devotional and Polemical Literature

On December 9, 1732, a letter appeared in Fog’s Weekly Journal, a London newspaper, attacking members of what came to be known as the Oxford Holy Club. According to the anonymous author, these men, whom he identified as ‘Methodists’, possessed a melancholy disposition, and they despised ‘social Entertainments’ and ‘the Love of earthly Objects’: ‘At Dinner, they sigh for the Time they are obliged to spend in Eating; every Morning to rise at Four o’ Clock is supposed a Duty, and to employ two Hours a Day in singing of Psalms and Hymns is judged as an indispensable Duty requisite to the Being of a Christian.’ These ‘Methodists’ are, the author claimed, hypocritical and sanctimonious, enthusiastic and mad, men ‘whose natural Reason hath suffered great Revolutions’.1 This letter represents the first known anti-Methodist publication; other attacks soon followed as Methodism evolved into a full-blown religious movement on both sides of the Atlantic. Like the letter in Fog’s Weekly Journal, this literature charged the Methodists with enthusiasm, hypocrisy, self-righteousness, and heterodoxy, and it came from every quarter of society, including the established clergy, who represented some of the movement’s most outspoken critics. Upon his arrival in London in 1738, John Okely, a Methodist disciple, explained, ‘They are here in town breathing out their utmost hatred and malice against … the enthusiastic Methodists, both from the pulpit and [in] conversation.’2 Another Methodist writer similarly explained that ‘slander may as well be thrown out in a sermon as in a farce, and will issue with as good a grace from a pulpit as from a theatre’.3 Although the Methodists were attacked by a handful of non-Anglican divines, the upper and lower clergy within the Church of England proved by far the most prolific of Methodism’s ecclesiastical critics, and they published an array of treatises condemning Methodist belief and practice. These attacks were not coordinated or organized by a central authority; rather, they were produced by clergymen who acted independently despite registering many of the same concerns. These critics sparred with Methodists over points of doctrine, church polity, and ecclesiastical order and reacted to the incursion of Methodist preachers and societies into Anglican DOI: 10.4324/9781003392323-3

58 Reviewing Methodism parishes. The clergy perceived Methodism as a threat to the spiritual lives of Anglican congregants.4 As these arguments materialized in print, they came within the purview of the Monthly and the Critical Reviews, both of which usually sided with the established clergy by reinforcing many of the most common charges brought against the Methodists in the polemical literature. The Critical proved the staunchest defender of the Anglican Church, though the Monthly expressed many of the same opinions despite being founded by a Nonconformist publisher who employed a number of reviewers with dissenting sympathies.5 Nonetheless, some of the hostility directed at the Methodists was tempered by the reviewers’ critical standards and by their evaluation of a text’s potential impact on readers, whether psychological, emotional, intellectual, behavioural, or spiritual. Curbing Methodism, the reviewers insisted, required well-constructed arguments capable of influencing impressionable readers. The emphasis the reviewers placed on literary and rhetorical efficacy added a unique dimension and agenda to the campaign to undermine Methodism, which was a movement immersed in the production and consumption of print media. Like the reviewers, John Wesley and George Whitefield were in the business6 of promoting what they deemed ‘good’ books among their followers. Granted, their criteria and purposes varied from those of the review journals, but like the reviewers, Wesley and Whitefield were expressly concerned with the ways in which religious texts might influence belief and behaviour, whether for good or ill. Thus, the reviewers and the Methodists indirectly vied with each other over the books and pamphlets available to readers in the marketplace and the ways in which those books and pamphlets were both valued and interpreted. The reviews of devotional and polemical works confirm conclusions recently drawn by Simon Lewis in Anti-Methodism and Theological Controversy in Eighteenth-Century England: The Struggle for True Religion (2021). Lewis demonstrates that ‘Methodism—rather than appearing as an aberration or dramatic innovation—can be placed in the broader perspective of the “long Reformation”; as part of the Church of England’s continuing struggle to define itself theologically’. Focusing primarily on academic and theological responses to Methodism, Lewis insists that the doctrinal debates that swirled around the revival prove the vitality of the eighteenth-century church and show how Methodism played a crucial role in the church’s efforts to define its doctrinal commitments. Moreover, ‘by blurring the distinctions between theological and socio-political objections to Methodism, [Lewis] bridges the divides between social and intellectual studies of eighteenth-century religion’.7 But whereas Lewis comes at these issues via the polemical literature (i.e., the exchanges between Whitefield and Wesley and their clerical critics), which typically targeted theologically minded and academic readers, this study looks at how those exchanges were reviewed, and debated, in the review journals and transmitted to a wider

Reviewing Methodism 59 readership via the review essay, thus illustrating how theological controversy in the eighteenth century permeated popular as well as ecclesiastical and more specialized circles. The reviewers’ engagement with theology, however, necessarily avoided the complexity and nuance evident in the polemical literature that serves as the intellectual fodder for Lewis’s analysis.

Anti-Methodist Sentiment and the Review Journals Reviewers for both the Monthly and the Critical routinely wove their own misgivings about the revival into their critical commentary. Most of their grievances had tailed the revival from its beginnings in the late 1730s and included the perceived consequences of excessive religious zeal, which represents the most common charge raised in opposition to Methodism throughout the eighteenth century. Of one anti-Methodist tract by John Green entitled The Principles and Practices of the Methodists Considered in Some Letters to the Leaders of that Sect (1760), a reviewer for the Monthly explained that it was written to steer its readers from ‘the danger of enthusiastic contagion’,8 as if Methodism were a sickness needing to be contained or purged from civil society. A reviewer for the Critical went a step further by suggesting that Methodism paved the way to the madhouse by piggybacking on the conclusions of William Smith in A Dissertation upon the Nerves (1768), a pseudoscientific treatise that brought Methodist religiosity into the purview of the book’s diagnoses and treatments of mental illnesses.9 In highlighting ‘the chapter on hypochondriacal melancholy’, in which ‘the author very freely delivers his sentiments on the sincerity of methodistical votaries’, the reviewer concluded by reasserting Smith’s hypothesis—that Methodist spirituality was more an imagined than a real experience.10 The reviewer helped propagate this point of view through his summary and implicit endorsement of Smith’s ostensibly scientific findings. Another review in the Critical exemplifies a tendency found in both review journals: to introduce Methodism, and the excessive zeal associated with it, as a lens through which to consider the usefulness of the religious and theological principles espoused in works addressing Christian piety. Judging a pamphlet by Samuel Squire that described proper religious devotion, the reviewer juxtaposed Squire’s remarks, which the reviewer claimed expressed the ‘true spirit of Christianity’, with the enthusiasm associated with the Methodists: ‘Here are no indecent sallies of enthusiasm, or gloomy fanaticism, such as characterize certain new upstart reformers, who, under the mask of a more rigorous methodism [sic], preach a God of all terrors.’ The reviewer insisted that Squire produced a ‘decent, pious, and earnest’ work by avoiding the fanatical strains associated with the Methodists.11 Presumably, readers of the review journals were familiar enough with such associations that a reference to Methodism oriented them to particular ideas about religion and religiosity that proved synonymous with the Methodist revival and offered a stark counterpoint to right

60 Reviewing Methodism religious practice. A review of Thomas Mole’s A Discourse on Repentance (1777) similarly deployed Methodist enthusiasm as a reference point for assessing Mole’s performance: ‘This is a rational discourse, free from those enthusiastic notions, which have been propagated by Calvinists and Methodists on this subject.’12 A review of a sermon by Nathanial Forster likewise juxtaposed Forster’s achievement with the enthusiastic notions of the Methodists: ‘A rational and useful discourse, in which the author, in opposition to the Methodists and other enthusiasts, very clearly shews, that the Holy Spirit may be properly said to assist all Christians.’13 The reviewers likewise criticized Methodist doctrine in ways similar to those of the anti-Methodist works they featured in their reviews. One reviewer described Methodists as those ‘who adopt the tenets of the church [sic] of England, but certainly pursue them to an improper extent’ in his assessment of Members of the Establishment not Liable to Penalties Inflected upon Seditious, Disloyal Sectaries (1786).14 In a review of A Letter from a Clergyman to One of his Parishioners, who was Inclined to Turn Methodist (1768) by Richard Hardy, the reviewer agreed with the ‘judicious and sensible’ writer who ‘strictly examines and compares the several methodistical doctrines with those scriptures from whence they pretend to have drawn them; and shews how egregiously the Methodists have misunderstood and misrepresented them’.15 Of Alexander Jephson’s A Friendly and Compassionate Address to all Serious and Well-Disposed Methodists (1760), a reviewer observed, ‘The absurdity of those doctrines which distinguish the Methodists from other sober Christians … are in this pamphlet fairly and clearly refuted’ by ‘shewing the folly and danger of interpreting in a literal sense the precepts of the gospel’.16 By effectively endorsing the medium and the message of these publications, the reviewers confirmed the notion that the Methodists misread, or even corrupted, the meaning and import of the Holy Scriptures. The reviewers pursued this same line of argument in discrediting the Methodists’ published works, or works the reviewers (sometimes incorrectly) associated with the Methodists. In summing up A Paraphrase on the General Epistle of St. James (1779) by Cornelius Murdin, an Anglican minister with evangelical leanings, the Critical announced: ‘This ingenious methodist [sic] has been very happy in explaining, or as most people may think, perverting the meaning of St. James.’17 Of a sermon that expounded on the doctrine of grace by another Anglican clergyman, Henry Foster, a reviewer for the Critical likewise accused the Methodists of misrepresenting biblical texts: ‘These positions are some of the favourite notions of the Methodists, founded on passages of scripture improperly applied.’18 As I discuss later in this chapter, claims like these carried particular weight, inasmuch as Wesley and Whitefield indirectly contended with the reviewers as the Methodist leaders sought to manage what and how their followers read and interpreted religious texts. Like many of those who opposed Methodism, the reviewers were particularly leery of the emphasis Methodists placed on salvation by faith.19 A

Reviewing Methodism 61 critical assessment of a pamphlet that attacks Calvinism and Methodism in the same salvo entitled A Review of the Genuine Doctrines of Christianity (1763) by the dissenting clergyman Joseph Towers made clear the reviewer’s opinion that good works were essential to salvation: It is indeed evident, from a general view of all our Saviour’s discourses, parables, and public instruction, that their sole tendency is to inculcate the sincere practice of piety, humility, benevolence, and the most exalted virtue. Calvinism and Methodism both run counter to this, as the former supposes the salvation of mankind to depend upon the arbitrary election of God, and the latter lays it down as a maxim, that men are accepted in proportion to the degree of their faith, and that good works are entirely unnecessary to salvation. These two erroneous doctrines our author refutes.20 Even on the sombre occasion of Whitefield’s death, the Critical lamented that such doctrines, which Whitefield had promoted throughout his ministry, would outlive the great Methodist leader in a funeral sermon by Richard Elliot: ‘It were to be wished, for the honour of reason and revelation, that some of these doctrines might henceforth sleep in peace with their late defender.’21 Reviewers for both journals, then, did not merely repeat or summarize anti-Methodist arguments; they amplified the sentiment by routinely incorporating their own hostile opinions and ideas about the Methodists into their reviews, including reviews of publications not directly connected to the revival. Just as Methodist enthusiasm oriented reviewers and readers to proper notions of religiosity, Methodist teachings served as a counterpoint against which reviewers assessed the doctrines espoused in a wide array of theological tracts. A review of Discourses on the Parables of our Blessed Saviour (1771), which was written by the Baptist minister Charles Bulkley, lauded Bulkley’s achievement in expounding on ‘the religious and moral duties of Christianity’ by deriding the Methodists’ insistence on salvation by faith alone: ‘It is usual with Methodists, and almost all kinds of fanatics, to extol faith, as if it constituted the whole essence of Christianity; and to depreciate morality, as if it were of little importance.’ By contrast, the author ‘has justly observed, that charity is far preferable to right belief’.22 Of a work composed by Thomas Adam, an Anglican divine with evangelical, though not specifically Methodist, leanings, a reviewer observed that the tenets on which the author’s ideas rest ‘are some of the favourite principles of the Methodists, deduced from what we cannot but account a misinterpretation of St. Paul’.23 In introducing Methodism into their critical evaluations of texts that did not explicitly reference Methodist teachings or practices, the reviewers, perhaps deliberately, created additional opportunities to criticize the Methodists. The negative ideas they associated with Methodism, in turn, were incorporated into the reviewers’ critical discourse as a means of

62 Reviewing Methodism validating—by way of comparison—religious teachings with which the reviewers agreed. The reviewers also insisted that Methodist preachers preyed on the uneducated and the simple minded. Summing up the objective of Die and be Damned: or an Antidote Against Every Species of Methodism and Enthusiasm (1759) by Thomas Mortimer, a reviewer for the Critical stated that the author set out ‘to prevent a poison [Methodism] from spreading amongst the unwary, and the most innocent part of mankind, the inferior ranks, whose deficiency of understanding and knowledge, expose them to become a prey to these designing misleaders’. Echoing a prevalent theme espoused in the anti-Methodist literature, this reviewer portrayed Methodist preachers as conniving and hypocritical men who extorted money from their disciples: The purses of their miserably deluded followers had a share in their aim, and the most stupid superstition that ever awed or fooled mankind, untied the strings of them. Threats of eternal damnation, emphatically poured out by arrogant, and mean fellow-creatures, were the whips by which they drove the silly sheep into their pale, there to stand their sheering without mercy or measure. The reviewer included this passage not as summary or extract; rather, the passage conveyed the reviewer’s opinion of the revival and its leaders and helped contextualize his praise for the author’s accomplishment: ‘In pursuance of this humane and virtuous design, the author has very clearly exposed [the Methodists’] absurdities, and that nonsense of theirs, which is, perhaps, but the more successful for being nonsense.’24 A review in a later volume of an anonymously published pamphlet similarly described the Methodists as a pack of ‘fanatics and enthusiasts, who have worked themselves up to a degree of religious phrenzy [sic] only to pick the pockets of half the nation’.25 As these reviews make clear, the contributors to the Monthly and the Critical helped propagate the idea that Methodism primarily appealed to the dregs of society. This point was stressed in a review of a sermon delivered on the occasion of the reverend Sir Harry Trelawny’s ordination in 1777 by Edward Ashburner. In the review, which was sold at Whitefield’s London tabernacle, the reviewer observed the oddity of the Methodists winning a convert who was of Trelawny’s social station: ‘The Methodists … will triumph, no doubt, in having gained over a man of title from the Church; and they have reason, for these white crows are rare birds indeed!’26 In response to an anonymously published report that ‘almost all the inhabitants [of Wales] are either Methodists or Moravians’, the Critical claimed, ‘Ignorance, we may observe, is the parent of fanaticism; and while the common people of Wales spend their lives in a kind of barbarism … they will naturally become the dupes of every enthusiast, who appears amongst them with any extraordinary pretensions.’27

Reviewing Methodism 63 The nature of the reviewers’ grievances with Methodism, coupled with the belief that Methodism primarily appealed to the mob, led to an inevitable conclusion: the Methodists posed a direct threat to the established church, to social stability, and to the mental health of the nation. The Critical took advantage of an opportunity afforded by its review of Epistles Philosophical and Moral (1759) by William Kenrick to make this point. Taking issue with Kenrick’s efforts ‘to explode, as absurd, the supposition that implicit subjection to authority is necessary to the support of society, or the political happiness of mankind’, the Critical insisted ‘that without subjection to authority, no society can exist’. Individuals can think what they please but must use caution when publicly expressing their thoughts, particularly on religious matters: no person has the ‘right precipitately to disturb the public peace, and impeach the religion of his country, by broaching in public the crude notions of his own brain. Freedom indulged in this point, becomes seditious licence [sic], and has actually hatched all those absurd sects of Hutchinsonians, Moravians, and Methodists, which our author ridicules with so much wit and humour’.28 Other reviews similarly drew attention to the corrosive effects of Methodism on the church and civil society. ‘It is a distinguishing feature in the character of their preachers,’ a reviewer for the Monthly claimed, ‘abundantly to declaim and rail against the clergy of the establishment, especially the most catholic and rational of them.’29 Another reviewer informed his readers of the ‘design’ of a collection of sermons by Green, namely, ‘to check the insolent and shameless misrepresentations, which a set of modern revilers have fastened on the body of the clergy’. These socalled ‘revilers’ ‘kindle in their deluded followers a furious zeal against the regular and orthodox preachers of the church’ and ‘unite every Sunday to frighten sober citizens out of their senses, and prepare patients for New Bedlam’.30 Yet another review made explicit the Methodists’ endgame, ‘which is indisputably nothing less than to overthrow the established church, and build up another according to their own plan’ in castigating An Essay on Preaching (1763) by the Nonconformist theologian Robert Sandeman, whom the reviewer identified as ‘one of our modern fanatics’.31 Like the antiMethodists, the reviewers concluded that Methodism undermined one of the pillars of eighteenth-century society—the church—while negatively influencing the citizenry one person at a time, all of which culminated in a chaotic social scene: The Methodists, the Critical exclaimed in a review of Green’s The Principles and Practices of the Methodists farther Considered (1761), ‘have been deluded into the notion, that to gain heaven they must shut their ears to the dictates of reason, wait for the divine impulse, forsake their lawful employments and starving families, to become demagogues, follow the effectual calling, [and] spread the contagion of enthusiasm’.32 All of these charges—whether declaiming against enthusiasm, the belief in salvation by faith, or the scheming nature and destructive influence of Methodist preachers—represented cultural commonplaces by the time the

64 Reviewing Methodism review journals went into circulation. This fact helps to explain why the charges so effectively served as attitudinal points of reference for the reviewers and their readers. Indeed, the reviewers’ ability to communicate their critical judgments rested in some measure on the degree to which reviewers and readers were familiar with the stereotypes associated with Methodist religiosity. Ralph Griffiths relied on such associations in several of his reviews in the Monthly. In questioning whether a book entitled Meditations upon Several Texts of Scripture (1771) by Jean Steuart might detour readers from enthusiastic flights, Griffiths cynically concluded that ‘we might as well look into Whitefield’s journals for a dissuasive against field-preaching, or tabernacle conventicles’.33 Playing off the widespread notion that Methodist preachers relied on powerful emotional appeals in winning converts, Griffiths championed the sentiment expressed by John Langhorne in The Country Justice (1775), a poem that, in part, advocated for the poor, in whom the Methodists likewise took a vested interest. Griffiths claimed that Langhorne ‘spoke more home to the feeling heart and rational mind than all the popular preachers of all the tabernacles and methodist [sic] chapels in town’.34 But even though the Monthly and the Critical failed to contribute anything new to the anti-Methodist discourse, they upped the ante by framing the debate as a contest for the minds and souls of the reading public. In so doing, the journals confronted the Methodists on their own turf, so to speak. As noted previously, Methodism was steeped in the production and consumption of the printed word, and the particular province of popular review criticism meant that the reviewers’ dispute with the Methodists gravitated toward literary and rhetorical effect as much as, if not more than, it did toward generic and formal conventions or rules. This dynamic is particularly evident in the reviewers’ treatment of publications with a doctrinal and devotional focus. That said, the reviewers concern with affective criticism also meant that they avoided theological exposition. Although they concerned themselves with the broad strokes of theology and doctrine, their discussion of these issues centred around practical Christianity, which helps to explain why they so frequently took issue with the doctrine of salvation by faith. Rather than delve into the finer points of theological debate, the reviewers focused on the mode of presentation and argument, and how such modes potentially affected readers.

Critical Standards and Anti-Methodist Critique The emphasis reviewers placed on literary and rhetorical effect ensured that not all things anti-Methodist automatically received a critical stamp of approval, nor were all pro-Methodist tracts summarily dismissed. In the Critical’s review of Methodism and Popery Dissected and Compared (1779), which was described as ‘a strange desultory performance’, the reviewer noted the pressing need for the author’s argument while dismissing

Reviewing Methodism 65 the author’s attempt: ‘The matters he treats are of the highest importance, and require a deliberation and discussion which seem to be ill suited to his abilities.’35 Although the reviewers might applaud the intentions of a writer bent on disparaging the Methodists, the reviewers were quick to criticize a poorly written anti-Methodist tract. A short notice for A Discourse on the True Nature of the Christian Religion … in Opposition to the Doctrines of Arians and Methodists (1770) represents a case in point: ‘A superficial piece, consisting chiefly of quotations from scripture, applied without any degree of critical precision: but the author’s intention is laudable, as it is to promote practical christianity [sic].’36 Jabez Hirons summed up the same publication in similar terms and concluded by stating that the author ‘means so well, that we can heartily wish his great end may be answered’.37 At the same time that reviewers recognized the timeliness and need for publications countering the Methodist threat, they insisted that the arguments made in opposition to the revival be clear, fair, substantive, and reasonable. William Rose, a Scot dissenter who helped found the Monthly with Griffiths, insisted that the author of A Sovereign Remedy for the Cure of Hypocrisy and Blind Zeal (1764) ‘attacks the Methodists with more zeal than ability. Much better tracts have been written against these Enthusiasts; and therefore we cannot recommend the present feeble attempt’.38 Another reviewer described the author of Methodism a Popish Idol (1769) by Booth Braithwaite as a man ‘raving and railing against sectaries, with abundant zeal, little knowledge, and less charity’.39 A sermon preached by Haddon Smith that attacks the Calvinist arm of the movement, Hirons explained, ‘might, perhaps, be more beneficial to the cause [the author] espouses, did it discover less of heat and resentment; because some readers may be led to attribute this to private or personal concern in the subject’.40 Finally, a Letter by Towers addressed to Wesley ‘presents … some ingenious remarks … though it appears to be dictated more by the warmth of party than disinterested attachment to truth’.41 Reviewers for both journals acknowledged, then, that authors could be as overzealous in their arguments as the Methodists were in their religion, and moderation in both appears to have been the watchword. The reviewers likewise demonstrated a sensitivity to personal and party bias, and they maintained that arguments be well supported with reasonable evidence while delivered in an appropriate manner. Reviewers favoured geniality over bitterness and candour over obfuscation. An argument could be direct and even hard-hitting, but it also needed to be delivered with a sense of propriety, for both the author’s opponent and his audience. Of a tract entitled The First of a Series of Letters to the Author of Pietas Oxoniensis (1771), which attacked the Methodist apologist Sir Richard Hill, the Monthly reported, ‘The Writer seriously professes, and earnestly recommends to his antagonist, moderation, Christian meekness, and decent behaviour, in the prosecution of the debate; all of which we greatly approve, but are sorry to observe that he has himself in some degree violated his own good rule.’42

66 Reviewing Methodism The Monthly Review insisted on such standards more often than the Critical did and evinced a more consistent proclivity for calling out antiMethodist writers who made what the reviewers perceived as unsound arguments. Of an anti-Methodist writer who suggested that Methodism represented a judgment from God for the wickedness of the populace, a reviewer for the Monthly insisted that ‘the zeal of this Writer carries him rather too far’.43 Another reviewer showed little patience for the Vicar of Stotfold Samuel Roe, who, in Enthusiasm Detected, Defeated (1769), proposed curbing the spread of Methodism by forcibly removing the tongues of Methodist preachers: ‘Mr. Roe is the greatest Enthusiast against Enthusiasm we ever met with.’ Though Roe exhibited no hint of irony in proposing what seems a hyperbolic solution, the reviewer condemned the proposal with Swiftian dexterity. After claiming that Roe’s proposal represented ‘so mild, so meek, and benevolent, as well as so effectual a method of silencing Schismatics, that to be sure, no good Christian can have any objection to it’, the reviewer ironically worried about the viability of such a project: ‘The nation, alas! is so over-run with Dissenters and Methodists, of one denomination or the other, and their preachers so numerous, that we should despair of procuring hands enough to put the law in execution.’44 The reviewer thus registered his alarm regarding the rapid spread of Methodism while cleverly condemning Roe’s solution to the problem. Curiously, the Critical offered a relatively mixed review of Roe’s treatise while ignoring completely his solution to the Methodist problem. The reviewer focused instead on Roe’s style and offered qualified praise for his doctrinal points: ‘This performance, if it had been written with more accuracy of stile [sic], more regularity of method, more temper, and less vanity, would have merited an attentive perusal, and have entitled the author to literary reputation.’ The reviewer concluded, ‘There is reason in many of his notions; he has justly exploded some absurdities in theology; and given a rational interpretation of several passages of scripture.’45 The suggestion that the piece might have ‘been written with … more temper, and less vanity’ perhaps alludes to the proposal of extracting Methodists’ tongues. But even if so, such nonchalance in critiquing such a brutal proposal seems as outrageous as the solution itself. Both review journals generally agreed, however, that Methodism could only be effectively countered by well-reasoned arguments. As the Monthly insinuated in its review of Roe’s Enthusiasm Detected, Defeated, irrational allegations and schemes were unlikely to achieve the desired effect. The nature of the Methodist problem, at least as defined by the reviewers, necessitated the right kinds of arguments. As a reviewer for the Monthly claimed in a less-than-favourable review of A Conference Between a Mystic, an Hutchinsonian, a Calvinist, a Methodist, a Member of the Church of England, and Others (1761) by William Dodd, ‘It will require some strength of argument to bring over all the various Sectarists [sic] which have so plentifully sprung up in our fertile land of civil and religious liberty.’46

Reviewing Methodism 67 This helps explain why reviewers eagerly endorsed works in which they could praise both an author’s intent and his technique. In such cases, reviewers could offer their endorsement of a publication substantiated by clearly delineated criteria while weaving their own hostile attitudes toward the revival into the author’s message. Green’s sermons targeting Methodism, a reviewer claimed, ‘are plain, sensible, and spirited; they shew a proper contempt of the absurdity apparent in the plan laid down by the enthusiasts, together with a manly warmth and zeal in defense of the holy scriptures’.47 The word manly appears regularly in both journals and is always used in a complimentary sense. According to Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary, the word conveyed many of the same gendered, and sexist, notions it does today: ‘firm; brave; stout; undaunted; undismayed’.48 Of a sermon offered by John Tottie ‘as a preservative against the delusions of the Methodists’, a reviewer for the Critical explained, ‘His sentiments in general are rational and manly, and his style supported with an uncommon degree of elegance and spirit.’49 Other reviews similarly endorsed the medium and the message. Describing A Review of the Genuine Doctrines of Christianity (1763) by Towers, a reviewer stated that ‘the author … fully proves, that the tenets of the Methodists … are contrary to scripture’,50 while yet another reviewer offered a more substantive critique of Jephson’s A Friendly and Compassionate Address to all Serious Well-Disposed Methodists (1760): The absurdity of those doctrines which distinguish the Methodists from other sober Christians and members of the Protestant church, are in this pamphlet fairly and clearly refuted by undeniable texts of scripture, quotations from the fathers and the most eminent shining lights of the Christian religion, as well as by just and obvious inferences drawn by the author himself, who seems to be actuated by nothing else than a healing spirit of moderation and benevolence.51 This author provided the requisite support via ‘undeniable texts of scripture’ and authoritative quotations and did so with an appropriate sense of decorum—namely, with ‘moderation and benevolence’ rather than with personal or party bias or vitriol. In addition, the reviewer made clear that all of these qualities were employed in what he characterized as a worthy aim, refuting ‘the absurdity of those doctrines which distinguish the Methodists from other sober Christians’. The matter in question, then, was not the author’s claim, which the reviewer accepted as seemingly undeniable fact, but whether the author substantiated the claim with proper sorts of evidence and in a suitable style. The foregoing reviews indicate that the Monthly’s and the Critical’s enterprise was, in fact, guided by critical and, to some degree, objective standards, even if that enterprise was at times compromised by the clear anti-Methodist bias evident in both journals. While we might question the

68 Reviewing Methodism reviewers’ critical standards or the application of those standards, my aim is not to quibble with the reviewers’ judgments, here or elsewhere in this study. If judged in the most objective way possible, the texts lauded by the reviewers may well represent cogent and persuasively constructed arguments, thereby meriting the praise heaped on their authors by the reviewers. Rather than assess the works themselves against the review journals’ standards, I am interested in the rhetorical work such reviews performed in their own right as the reviewers attempted to inform and shape public opinion by conveying very specific notions about the revival and its participants via their handling of the books and pamphlets published in connection with the Methodist movement. Even if the reviewers were fair in the application of their criteria, they were hardly impartial, and this bias is particularly true of the Critical, evidenced in part by the disproportionate number of reviews that offer unreserved praise for the anti-Methodist texts included in its pages. These reviews confirm observations by literary historians who have observed in the Critical a more conservative bent in both religious and political matters.52 We may not be able to determine the actual impact of the review journals on public perception of the revival, but the reviewers clearly set out to have such an impact. In other words, they were as determined to shape their readers’ opinions about Methodism as they were focused on refining literary tastes and influencing book-buying decisions.

Reviewing Methodist Authors This tendency is particularly evident in the qualified praise reviewers offered for pro-Methodist authors—or writers the reviewers associated with the Methodists—who promoted Methodism in a more effective manner than the majority of their fellow devotees did. A reviewer for the Monthly concluded a review of The Works of the Reverend Thomas Jones (1763), whose writings were popular ‘among the Hutchinsonians, Methodists, and other enthusiastic sectaries’, by stating, ‘Charity bids us hope, that all our Mob leaders are not Impostors; tho’ there is great reason to conclude, that few of them are distinguished by that simplicity of manners, and integrity of mind, which characterized the Author of these Discourses’.53 A review of this same work in the Critical similarly noted Jones’s popularity among the Methodists by drawing attention to the work’s preface, authored by William Romaine: ‘As these sermons are preceded by a recommendatory preface wrote by Mr. Romaine, it is almost needless to inform the reader, that they are strongly tinctured with Methodism; though the author [Jones] seems to have kept clear of the excesses with which many of that persuasion are chargeable. He may, indeed, be called, not improperly, a moderate Methodist.’54 Jones, both reviews insinuated, proved to be the exception to the rule among evangelicals, an insinuation that commended Jones at the same time that it castigated the majority of the revival’s leaders. He

Reviewing Methodism 69 possessed a ‘simplicity of manners’ and ‘an integrity of mind’ supposedly not typical among Methodists, and the reviewers portrayed him as relatively ‘moderate’ in his views, an idea far removed from the enthusiasm associated with most pro-Methodist writers. The Critical took its shots at the Methodists collectively while praising one of its adherents in a review of an anonymously published tract entitled An Address to the Clergy Concerning their Departure from the Doctrines of the Reformation which the reviewer described as a piece written in ‘vindication of the methodists [sic]’. Though the reviewer insisted that the author’s ‘arguments are trite, and inconclusive’, he went on to praise the author’s manner of writing: ‘The author writes with great zeal, in a stile [sic] superior to what we generally find in the productions of those people.’55 As in the case discussed in the previous paragraph, however, the complement did as much to condemn the author’s fellow devotees and their capacities as writers and controversialists as it did to laud his achievement. Such reviews indicate that the reviewers did not necessarily respond in knee-jerk fashion to every Methodist publication and that their standards for making literary judgments were not entirely subsumed by a socio-religious agenda. At the same time, the review directly contributed to the anti-Methodist discourse by presenting relatively talented Methodist writers as not typical among evangelical authors. Indeed, the review journals unreservedly criticized most Methodist apologists; these writers and their works were usually associated with the enthusiasm that defined the revival, whether in the method and manner of their arguments or in the theological positions they took. Andrew Kippis, a reviewer for the Monthly who critiqued several works associated with Methodism, opened his review of An Address to the Clergy Concerning their Departure from the Doctrines of the Reformation by dismissively stating that ‘the Author of this performance is a flaming methodist [sic]’.56 Responding to a rumour that ‘no more conventicles would be allowed’, a rumour that had been disseminated in ‘an idle paragraph’ in the London Evening Post, an anonymous Methodist writer was portrayed in both the Monthly and the Critical as irrational and reactionary in reviews of An Alarm to Dissenters and Methodists (1769). The Monthly reported, ‘Some wrongheaded zealot has here drawn his illiterate pen to encounter the said paragraph.’57 Alluding to the preposterous nature of the rumour, the Critical described the author’s response as ‘an idle and frivolous contest with a shadow’.58 Such reviews characterized Methodists as manic and intellectually challenged, to be sure, but this last review hints at the possibility that the Methodists’ religious fervour might teeter on the edge of actual madness. At the very least, the reviewers concluded that many of the Methodists’ forays into print proved that Methodism corrupted the mental faculties. Griffiths claimed of a piece intended to vindicate Methodist teachings and practices by Robert Cruttenden that it confirmed the suspicions of Cruttenden’s friends: that his ‘intellect had suffered some detriment by, or since, his conversion to methodism [sic]’.59

70 Reviewing Methodism The negative reviews of publications by Methodist authors fit into a broader critique of the Methodists themselves, a critique that, as illustrated earlier in this chapter, portrayed them as unintelligent, illiterate, and unrefined. As one reviewer pointed out, a Methodist sympathizer actually relied on such stereotypes in defending the Methodists from the charge that they purposefully distorted the meaning of scripture for their own advantage in a tract entitled The Methodists Vindicated from the Aspersions Cast upon them by the Rev. Mr. Haddon Smith (1771). The anonymous author insisted that ‘“those people cannot be said to handle the word of God deceitfully, who misinterpret the scriptures through ignorance and not through design”’. The reviewer, however, was less inclined to let the Methodists off the hook, ‘for though a Methodist, who pretends to explain the scripture before he is qualified to understand it, may not be chargeable with deceit, he is certainly guilty of great impertinence and presumption’.60 The critical assessments of the Methodists’ efforts to defend themselves in the public press touched on their style and manner of writing, in addition to the strength and integrity of their arguments. The style of writing most commonly associated with the Methodists—whether in prose or verse—mirrored the anti-Methodists’ perception of their religious beliefs and practices: muddled, incoherent, and profane. A reviewer for the Critical offered these observations of William Mason’s response to one of the revival’s critics61: ‘This seems to be the low performance of some pert mechanic, in conjunction perhaps with some weak methodist [sic] teachers … . The pamphlet abounds with the jargon of the methodists [sic], and very kindly supplies the doctor with all the proof he could wish, if the world wanted proof, to support the charge he has brought against them.’ The work as a whole consists of ‘a confused heap of texts of scripture disjointed, misinterpreted, and misapplied’.62 From Mason’s style of writing, characterized by idiosyncratic language and incoherently assembled arguments, the reviewer (wrongly) inferred Mason’s social standing, which confirmed the prevailing notion that Methodist devotees came from the lower ranks and lacked formal education. Reviews routinely emphasized the stylistic and linguistic failings of Methodist publications. After observing that Benjamin Wallin, the author of The Experience of Saints Asserted and Proved (1763), appeared to have been ‘strongly tinctured with the heretical notions of the Methodists’, a reviewer for the Critical went on to condemn the author’s facility with language: ‘These sermons are wrote in a very indifferent style; nay, there even occurs in them words not always to be found in dictionaries.’63 A collection of sermons by Samuel Walker, who had ‘turned methodist [sic]’, was similarly singled out for its defunct prose style and enthusiastic notions: ‘The discourses are but poorly written, many of them containing tenets and opinions which border on enthusiasm, and which will give very little pleasure to men of any taste or understanding.’64 Sandeman’s An Essay on Preaching was condemned by one reviewer for bearing the marks of the

Reviewing Methodism 71 Methodists’ manner of writing: ‘This essay seems to be the crude indigested performance of one of our modern fanatics’ and is written in ‘the true damning stile [sic] of the Methodists’.65 The reviewers thus conflated ideas about Methodism and its forms of religious practice with both the content and method of their published writings. Put another way, religious enthusiasm, in the minds of the reviewers, naturally gave way to incoherent forms of expression. As I further expound in chapter 4, the reviewers utilized the term ‘Methodist’ to signify not merely a participant in the revival but an incoherent and unintelligible style of writing.

The Power of Print As much as the revival was defined by such oral practices as preaching, hymn singing, and exhorting in society meetings, publishing played a central role in early Methodism, in both promoting faith among devotees and attracting new converts, something to which the reviewers were keenly attuned. Methodist authors, as well as the reviewers, subscribed to the view that texts influenced belief and behaviour in potentially dramatic ways, and the reviewers regularly based their recommendations on such considerations. Assessing the potential benefits or detriments a text presented readers thus ensured that the reviewers’ role in the campaign to discredit Methodism encompassed more than reiterating hackneyed charges. Indeed, the reviewers set out to disrupt the momentum of the revival by asserting their newly won authority as public arbiters of literary taste to curtail the spread of Methodist enthusiasm and doctrines via the printing press, which represented the most far-reaching and efficient means by which the Methodists could advance their cause. The reviewers routinely registered their concerns regarding the disquieting rate at which evangelical books and pamphlets had inundated the marketplace and how these works might adversely affect readers. Referring to a translation of John Liborious Zimmermann’s The Excellency of the Knowledge of Jesus Christ (1772), an evangelical publication, a reviewer for the Critical lamented, ‘We have long had a sufficient quantity of theological lumber, the productions of dreaming enthusiasts, Calvinists, and Methodists, and we are sorry to find, that any writer has thought it necessary to import additional cargo of the same kind of rubbish.’ The work, the reviewer speculated, ‘seems to be calculated for no other purpose, but to suppress all the efforts of reason, to extinguish every spark of our zeal and activity in duties of religion, and throw the mind into a spiritual stupidity’.66 Of another imported piece, The Life of Francis Xavier (1764) by Dominick Bohours, a reviewer questioned the intended purpose of reproducing a biography of a Catholic divine for an English audience: ‘The editor of this performance is one Mr. James Morgan, a preacher among the methodists [sic]. His design, we suppose, is to furnish the saints of the tabernacle with a pattern of religious Quixotism.’ The reference to Quixotism implies that the

72 Reviewing Methodism editor’s endeavours were as inane as those of Cervantes’s Don Quixote—and perhaps more destructive: ‘The reader will perceive a striking resemblance between this saint-errant [Father Xavier] and some of our modern reformers, who ramble over North-America, in order to turn the hearts and the heads of their followers.’67 For the Monthly, republishing the life of a Catholic saint for the benefit of Methodist preachers and their followers corroborated claims that Methodists were papists in disguise. The Monthly’s reviewer, like the Critical’s, likewise registered concerns about Morgan’s intended purpose: ‘to keep the brains of his flock … from cooling too suddenly’.68 By extending their criticism of the revival literature from the texts’ formal features to the potential impact these texts had on readers, the reviewers indirectly competed with Wesley’s and Whitefield’s efforts to influence their followers via the printed word. Wesley and Whitefield shared the reviewers’ conviction that texts informed religiosity, and they purposefully published and circulated religious works among the Methodist societies with the aim of shaping the Methodists’ spiritual lives. Vicki Tolar Burton argues this point in Spiritual Literacy in John Wesley’s Methodism (2008), in which she examines the ways in which reading, writing, and speaking within Methodism enabled belief among Wesley’s followers. ‘Methodists,’ she argues, ‘were encouraged to read, write, and speak in order to believe.’69 Wesley encouraged literacy among his followers because he believed that correctly interpreting and understanding spiritual impressions depended on an individual’s facility with language. To this end, Wesley instituted a variety of practices—including testimony sharing during society meetings, letter writing, and a regimen of reading religious texts—which combined to hone the rhetorical and linguistic capacities of his followers. As Isabel Rivers explains, ‘The people called Methodists were expected to be readers’, and Wesley not only provided the materials for them to read but proscribed ‘explicit instructions about what, when and how to read’.70 Emma Salgård Cunha builds on the work of Tolar Burton and Rivers by documenting Wesley’s commitment to ‘the aesthetic, moral, persuasive, affective, performative and sacramental properties of religious writing’ in his role as author, editor, and publisher. According to Salgård Cunha, Wesley’s ideas regarding the social utility of the literary arts overlapped with contemporary literary theories while helping to shape core Methodist doctrines and the spiritual impressions of Wesley’s followers: ‘A contextualized reading of Wesley’s authorship, editorship and publishing enables a new assessment of Methodism, which makes clear its imbrication of theological and literary cultures, and affirms the criticality of Christian thinking to the production of eighteenth-century literature.’71 Salgård Cunha thus draws explicit attention to Wesley’s investment in the purposive role literature might play in promoting theology and the life of faith and to his contributions to and involvement in eighteenth-century literary culture. Whitefield too took an active interest in the materials his followers read, partly because reading had served an instrumental role in his own religious

Reviewing Methodism 73 life. As Frank Lambert remarks, ‘One of the ironies revealed in an examination of Whitefield’s conversion narrative is that a man who became best known as a great orator before mass audiences found his salvation through not the preached but the printed word.’ Whitefield even ‘helped generate demand [for print media] by differentiating between “good books” and “bad books”’ when preaching,72 and he likewise directed his followers to what he deemed appropriate and edifying reading materials in his published writings. Following his first American preaching tour in 1741, Whitefield reported his observations of the curriculum at Harvard College in his Journal: ‘Bad Books are become fashionable amongst them. Tillotson and Clarke are read instead of Sheppard, Stoddard, and such like evangelical Writers.’73 ‘As he travelled through the colonies in 1739 and 1740,’ Lambert states, ‘Whitefield warned crowds against being seduced by such popular works as Archbishop Tillotson’s sermons and Richard Allestree’s The Whole Duty of Man, second only to the Bible in colonial book sales.’74 In 1740, Whitefield published A Letter from the Rev. Mr. George Whitefield from Georgia, to a Friend in London, Shewing the Fundamental Error of a Book Entitled The Whole Duty of Man, essentially playing the part of book critic almost a decade before the Monthly went into circulation. Whitefield’s Letter included ‘a publick [sic] Testimony against the Writings of Archbishop Tillotson’, who, along with the author of The Whole Duty of Man, ‘[had] bewitched the people with their Sorceries; [or] their seemingly devout, but at the Bottom Anti-Christian, Compositions’.75 According to Whitefield, words, when tactfully arranged, seduce readers the way magical potions mesmerize their consumers, a dangerous proposition when those words served as packaging for heretical tenets. The flood of Methodist and evangelical publications into the marketplace and their perceived popularity among many in the reading public perhaps suggests that the Methodists had gained the upper hand in the contest for readers. A review by Hirons in the Monthly of David Lamont’s Sermons on the Most Prevalent Vices (1780) gives this impression. After claiming that ‘the subjects of these sermons are important, useful, and seasonable’ and describing them as ‘rational’, Hirons lamented ‘that circumstance will not recommend these discourses to the bulk of the people in this country, who greatly prefer the noise and ranting of our modern Enthusiasts, Methodists, and Mystics’.76 Such a view indirectly conveyed a sense of urgency for the reviewers’ entire project: they wanted to reclaim readers who were susceptible to the lure of Methodism, or, if those readers could not be reclaimed, the reviewers hoped to prevent more discerning readers from falling prey to the corrupting influences of evangelical books while directing them to more instructive works like Lamont’s Sermons. In assessing a publication based on its potential impact on readers, Wesley and Whitefield, like the reviewers for the Monthly and the Critical, were hardly breaking new ground in the field of literary criticism. Although a good deal of attention was paid to the formal rules and conventions of

74 Reviewing Methodism literary expression during the Restoration and early eighteenth century, writers and critics became increasingly interested in artistic and literary effect. In explaining the evolution of literary criticism in the eighteenth century, James Basker observes ‘a transition from genre rules to psychological or “affective” criticism, a shift from the classical emphasis on ideals of form and their codification by critics, to a focus on the power of art to affect its beholders’.77 Salgård Cunha similarly notes that ‘the performative and affective rather than merely imitative and persuasive possibilities of literature were growing in critical currency in the early part of the eighteenth century’, a critical development that, according to Salgård Cunha, intersected with the substance and style of Whitefield’s sermons, which aimed at moving his audiences toward conversion via their emotions. Much of the literary establishment’s attention, then, centred on the ways literature, like an evangelical sermon, might move the affections to facilitate ‘moral instruction’ and ‘personal improvement’—a development most evident in the rise and popularity of the sentimental novel. Although Whitefield’s opponents accused him of encouraging mere enthusiasm, Salgård Cunha demonstrates how the preacher’s rhetorical strategies represented a purposeful means of facilitating spiritual transformation.78 In either case, Whitefield concurred with the literary establishment in recognizing the power of language to move the emotions as well as the intellect with the goal of amending belief and behaviour. By accepting that words influenced readers in potentially powerful ways, the reviewers naturally wanted to regulate reading practices, a desire which, in turn, led to a paradoxical historical development: During an age that experienced an unprecedented proliferation in print, making a variety of materials, from newspapers to books, widely available to a reading public, popular literary criticism emerged, in part, to control, and curtail to some extent, the circulation of texts among readers. As Lee Morrissey argues, ‘It is … [the] idea of simply letting everyone read unimpeded that is rejected by criticism in [the] debate over democratized reading.’79 Such an idea undergirded both the impetus for popular review criticism and the critical tenets the reviewers ultimately espoused. Writing in the Rambler one year after the Monthly went into circulation, Samuel Johnson theorized on the power of prose fiction while advocating for a particular kind of writing, one that ‘exhibit[ed] life in its true state, diversified only by accidents that daily happen in the world, and influenced by passions and qualities which are really to be found in conversing with mankind’. Such writing, Johnson believed, enabled readers to identify with fictitious characters and situations, an experience that, in turn, encouraged them to amend their own personal conduct accordingly: ‘But when an adventurer is leveled with the rest of the world, and acts in such scenes of the universal drama as may be the lot of any other man, young spectators fix their eyes upon him with closer attention, and hope, by observing his behavior and success, to regulate their own practices when they shall be

Reviewing Methodism 75 engaged in the like part’. Fiction, then, served not merely as entertainment but as encouragement for virtuous behaviour: The purpose of these writings is surely not only to show mankind, but to provide that they may be seen hereafter with less hazard; to teach the means of avoiding the snares which are laid by treachery for innocence, without infusing any wish for that superiority with which the betrayer flatters his vanity; to give the power of counteracting fraud without the temptation to practice it; to initiate youth by mock encounters in the art of necessary defense, and to increase prudence without impairing virtue.80 Johnson described an ideal with which the reviewers for the Monthly and the Critical generally agreed as they navigated an inundation of novels into the literary marketplace during the latter half of the eighteenth century. Indeed, the reviewers often deliberately steered their subscribers away from novels they characterized as frivolous and unedifying and towards those they believed encouraged virtuous conduct and ideas, and they based their critical judgments on didactic intent as much as on aesthetics. A short notice for an anonymously published novel entitled The History of Honoria, being the Adventures of a Young Lady (1754) illustrates the reviewers’ disdain for certain types of novels and crudely alludes to the ways in which these works might adversely impact readers in language reminiscent of Whitefield’s claim regarding the bewitching power of the printed word. ‘Books of some sorts have been frequently called drugs,’ the reviewer stated, ‘this author writes very good ipecacuanha; a chapter at a time is a sufficient dose.’81 In comparing books to a South American plant (ipecacuanha) that was used to induce vomiting, the reviewer clearly intimated that books affected readers in constitutional, even visceral ways. Sarah Scott’s novel A Description of Millennium Hall (1768), by contrast, was praised as ‘a work well calculated … to inspire the Reader with proper sentiments of humanity, and the love of virtue’.82 The reviewers did not entirely dismiss aesthetics or entertainment value in assessing novels, but they placed a premium on moral instruction. The Monthly’s review of Fanny Burney’s Evelina (1778), for example, focused exclusively on the book’s formal properties and the delight the novel provided. Evelina, the reviewer claimed, was among the most sprightly, entertaining, and agreeable productions of this kind, which has of late fallen under our notice. A great variety of natural incidents, some of the comic stamp, render the narrative extremely interesting. The characters, which are agreeably diversified, are conceived and drawn with propriety, and supported with spirit. The whole is written with great ease and command of language.83

76 Reviewing Methodism The Critical’s review of this same novel, however, addressed both form and function—or, the book’s capacity to entertain and instruct: ‘This performance deserves no common praise, whether we consider it in a moral or literary light.’ The reviewer went on to imagine how various readers might benefit from reading the novel: The father of a family, observing the knowledge of the world and the lessons of experience which it contains, will recommend it to his daughters; they will weep and (what is not so commonly the effect of novels) will laugh, and grow wiser, as they read; the experienced mother will derive pleasure and happiness from being present at its reading; even the sons of the family will forgo the diversions of the town or the field to pursue the entertainment of Evelina’s acquaintance, who will imperceptibly lead them, as well as their sisters, to improvement and to virtue.84 Despite such praise, the reviewer still registered reservations about how Evelina’s story, which details the heroine’s rise from social obscurity to a woman of standing and culminates in her marriage to a wealthy aristocrat, might convey a false sense of reality to ‘purchasers of novels’ who ‘are seldom in [no] more elevated situations than the middle ranks of life’. The reviewer then asked, ‘When the hero and the heroine of every novel hardly ever fail … to turn out a lady or a lord, what effect has this upon the readers? They are convinced that happiness is not to be found in the chilling climate of low life … . Rank alone contains this unknown good, wealth alone can bestow this coveted joy.’85 Given that the reviewers emphasized literary effect when assessing novels—a genre that, from their point of view, generally aimed at diversion as much as, if not more than, at instruction—we should not be surprised that they paid particular attention to literary and rhetorical effect when assessing polemical, theological, and devotional tracts. Such publications were explicitly composed with the aim of informing the religious ideas and behaviour of their readers. Form in these cases was directly tied to function. In addition, the Critical’s review of Evelina made explicit a dynamic that, on its surface, seems obvious but nonetheless proved crucial to the entire project of the popular review essay as it developed in the Monthly and the Critical: the reviewers assessed the books and pamphlets that came within their purview with readers explicitly in mind. The reviewer imagines fathers, mothers, daughters, and sons reading Evelina and writes with an understanding of how these different readers might experience the text. The reviewers offered similar musings when critiquing the polemical and devotional materials connected to Methodism. That is, they imagined readers reading and made sharp distinctions between Methodist readers and readers they characterized as more sophisticated and discerning. Both journals published reviews of anti-Methodist works the reviewers hoped

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might ‘open the eyes of the blind’, though the reviewers wondered whether such an effect was even possible among a certain class of reader. Commenting on an anonymously published tract intended to discredit Whitefield’s sermons, one reviewer insisted that the author’s ‘remarks might probably have very good effect [on Whitefield’s followers], if they would read them with the same spirit of moderation, and deference to common sense, with which they are penn’d by their judicious author’.87 Given that the reviewers and anti-Methodists alike typically portrayed Whitefield’s followers as unrefined and barely literate, the reviewer’s proposition seems questionable at best. A review in the Monthly of A Present for Your Neighbour by Richard Hill (1774), a Methodist author whose talents as a writer the reviewers often praised, made a similar distinction between Hill’s Methodist and non-Methodist readers: ‘If your poor neighbour be a Methodist, this present will be very acceptable to him; but if he be unacquainted with certain points of doctrine, about which even the learned and wise are not agreed, he may find himself more puzzled than improved by the perusal of this little tract.’88 The reviewer did not imply that Methodists were more adept at making sense of complex doctrines as much as he insisted that they muddled through, or perhaps falsely assumed they understood, teachings that present interpretive impasses for even the ‘learned and wise’.

Conclusion Both the Monthly Review and the Critical Review took full advantage of the platform their publications afforded to repeat and reinforce the most common charges raised in opposition to Methodism, from religious enthusiasm to the ways in which the Methodists threatened the religious and social order. Almost without exception, the reviewers concurred with the opinions expressed by anti-Methodist authors. Nonetheless, the reviewers did not permit these authors to rail without reason or make assertions without backing. On the contrary, the reviewers insisted that authors substantiate their claims in an appropriate manner and promoted such ideals as the most effective means of countering Methodism and, by extension, resolving matters of public and religious dispute. As the arbiters of literary and rhetorical expression, the reviewers thus occupied a unique place in the public debate about Methodism by claiming the authority to render critical judgments, and recommendations, about the books and pamphlets available to readers. The reviewers effectively regulated the antiMethodist discourse by deciding which works and ideas merited public notice while castigating those that did not. To be sure, the reviewers maintained a hostile attitude towards Methodism, no matter how poorly written an anti-Methodist tract proved to be or whether a Methodist author achieved the reviewers’ standards. But the reviewers’ goal—to ‘direct the public taste with regard to literature’89—meant that many readers in the

78 Reviewing Methodism latter half of the eighteenth century experienced Methodism and the publications associated with it through the mediating influence of popular review criticism. We probably cannot ascertain the actual impact the review journals had on readers’ perceptions of the Methodist revival, but they clearly set out to have such an impact.

Notes 1 ‘To the Author of Fog’s Journal’, Fog’s Weekly Journal, no. 214 (December 9, 1732). 2 John Okely to William Seward, November 23, 1738, John Rylands University Library, DDSe 3. 3 John MacGowen, Priestcraft Defended: A Sermon Occasioned by the Expulsion of Six Young Gentlemen from the University of Oxford (2nd edn, London, 1768), 25. 4 See Donald Henry Kirkham, Outside Looking In: Early Methodism as Viewed by Its Critics (Nashville, TN, 2019), 13–31. For attacks by non-Anglican divines, see 33–6. 5 For a list of Ralph Griffiths’ contributors and their religious affiliations, see Benjamin Christie Nangle, The Monthly Review, First Series, 1749–1789: Indexes of Contributors and Articles (Oxford, 1934), 1–47. 6 As I discuss in Chapter 3, both Wesley and Whitefield were accomplished authors, publishers, and distributors, and Wesley was an active editor. 7 Simon Lewis, Anti-Methodism and Theological Controversy in EighteenthCentury England: The Struggle for True Religion (Oxford, 2021), 1 and 3. 8 Monthly, 23:272 (1760). 9 Methodists actually turn up in a number of publications on mental illness that were printed during the eighteenth century. See Brett C. McInelly, ‘Method or Madness: Methodist Devotion and the Anti-Methodist Response’, in Kathryn Duncan (ed), Religion in the Age of Reason: A Transatlantic Study of the Long Eighteenth Century (New York, 2009), 195–210. 10 Critical, 25:416 (1768). 11 Critical, 6:31 (1758). The title of the pamphlet is Indifference for Religion Inexcusable (London, 1758) by Samuel Squire. 12 Critical, 44:155 (1777). 13 Critical, 52:71 (1781). 14 Critical, 62:317 (1786). 15 Monthly, 28:74 (1763). 16 Critical, 10:243 (1760). 17 Critical, 38:235 (1774). Murdin was an Anglican clergyman, though I have not been able to determine his ties to Methodism. 18 Critical, 43:156 (1777). The sermon in question is titled Grace Displayed and Saul Converted (London, 1777) by Henry Foster. This and the previous review demonstrate a proclivity in both journals, to associate any minister, whether dissenter or Anglican, who promoted evangelical doctrines with Methodism. 19 While most Anglican divines would have hardly denied that faith was requisite to salvation, many among the established clergy also advocated works righteousness as a condition of salvation. The Methodists accused the established clergy of straying from Reformation-era doctrines, whereas the clergy believed the Methodists emphasized salvation by faith to detrimental extremes, perhaps leading to antinomianism. As I discuss in the next chapter, even Wesley and Whitefield disagreed to some degree on the relationship between faith and works.

Reviewing Methodism 79 20 Critical, 16:143 (1763). 21 Critical, 30:487 (1770). 22 Critical, 32:348 (1771). For Baptist attacks on Methodism, see Kirkham, Outside Looking In, 34–5. 23 Critical, 33:175 (1772). 24 Critical, 7:277–8 (1759). Mortimer published mostly on economic subjects. 25 Critical, 11:77 (1761). 26 Monthly, 57:335 (1777). At the ordination in question, Trelawny was ordained a Congregational minister. He later converted to Anglicanism and eventually Catholicism. Nonetheless, Trelawny travelled and preached with Rowland Hill and appears to have led a class of young men who he instructed using Wesley’s hymns and sermons. 27 Critical, 24:396 (1767). 28 Critical, 6:448 (1758). Kenrick wrote for the Monthly from 1759 to 1765 and later launched two separate review journals, both of which I discuss in chapter 6. See Nangle, The Monthly Review, 23. 29 Monthly, 43:168 (1771). The title of the work in question is The Church of England Vindicated from the Rigid Notions of Calvinism (London, 1771) by Sir Richard Hill. 30 Critical, 5:412 (1758). 31 Critical, 16:301 (1763). Sandeman and other dissenters were sometimes associated with the Methodists in the reviews. 32 Critical, 11:497–8 (1761). 33 Monthly, 44:313 (1771). 34 Monthly, 52:406 (1775). Langhorne was an Anglican clergyman and a poet who also wrote for the Monthly between 1761 and 1778. See Nangle, The Monthly Review, 25. 35 Critical, 48:479 (1779). 36 Critical, 30:80 (1770). 37 Monthly, 43:79–80 (1771). 38 Monthly, 31:73 (1764). Rose contributed to the Monthly until his death in 1787. See Nangle, The Monthly Review, 37. 39 Monthly, 40:69 (1769). 40 Monthly, 43:328 (1771). The sermon in question is Methodistical Deceit (London, 1771) by Haddon Smith. 41 Critical, 31:243 (1771). 42 Monthly, 43:165 (1771). 43 Monthly, 60:245 (1779). This anonymously published tract is entitled A Discourse Previous to a Day of General Humiliation (London, 1779). 44 Monthly, 40:162 (1769). 45 Critical, 27:293 (1769). 46 Monthly, 25:237 (1762). 47 Critical, 5:413 (1758). 48 Samuel Johnson, A Dictionary of the English Language, vol. 2, (2nd edn, London, 1756), under ‘manly’. 49 Critical, 40:445 (1775). 50 Critical, 16:144 (1763). 51 Critical, 10:243 (1760). 52 See, for example, Walter James Graham, English Literary Periodicals (New York, 1930), 213. 53 Monthly, 28:233 (1763). 54 Critical, 15:368 (1763). 55 Critical, 23:469 (1767).

80 Reviewing Methodism 56 57 58 59 60 61

62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85

Monthly, 37:74 (1767). Monthly, 40:343–4 (1769). Critical, 27:318 (1769). Monthly, 8:139 (1753). The title of the piece is The Principles and Preaching of the Methodists Considered (London, 1753). Critical, 31:321 (1771). The work in question is Remarks and Observations on the Morality and Divinity Contained in Dr. Free’s Certain Articles Proposed to the Court of Assistants of the Worshipful Company of Salters (London, 1758). Mason, who is remembered more for his poetry than this religious writing, had defended the Calvinist Methodists while attacking the Arminian Methodists in Methodism Displayed and Enthusiasm Detected (London, 1756). Critical, 5:446–7 (1758). Critical, 16:238 (1763). Wallin was actually a Baptist minister the reviewer misidentified as a Methodist. Critical, 17:240 (1764). Critical, 16:298–9 (1763). Critical, 34:148 (1772). Critical, 20:78 (1765). Monthly, 32:386 (1765). Vicki Tolar Burton, Spiritual Literacy in John Wesley’s Methodism (Waco, TX, 2008), 298. Isabel Rivers, ‘John Wesley as editor and publisher’, in Randy L. Maddox and Jason Vickers (eds), The Cambridge Companion to John Wesley (Cambridge, 2010), 150–1. Emma Salgård Cunha, John Wesley, Practical Divinity and the Defence of Literature (London, 2018), 1 and 3. Frank Lambert, ‘Pedlar in Divinity’: George Whitefield and the Transatlantic Revivals (Princeton, NJ, 1994), 18 and 117. George Whitefield, A Continuation of the Reverend Mr. Whitefield’s Journal, from a Few Days after his Return to Georgia to his Arrival at Falmouth (London, 1741), 28–9. Lambert, ‘Pedlar in Divinity’, 117. George Whitefield, A Letter from the Rev. Mr. George Whitefield from Georgia, to a Friend in London, Shewing the Fundamental Error of a Book Entitled The Whole Duty of Man (Charles-Town, 1740), 3. Monthly, 63:476 (1780). James Basker, ‘Criticism and the rise of periodical literature’, in H. B. Nisbet and Claude Rawson (eds), The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism (Cambridge, 1997), 322. Emma Salgård Cunha, ‘Whitefield and Literary Affect’, in Geordan Hammond and David Ceri Jones (eds), George Whitefield: Life, Context, and Legacy (Oxford, 2016), 190–206. Lee Morrissey, ‘Re-Reading Reading in Eighteenth-Century Literary Criticism,’ College Literature 31/3 (2004), 174. Samuel Johnson, Rambler No. 4, in Lawrence Lipking (ed), The Norton Anthology of English Literature, vol. 1C (7th edn, New York, 2000), 2712 and 2714. Monthly, 10:480 (1754). Monthly, 27:390 (1763). Monthly, 58:316 (1778). Critical, 46:202–3 (1778). Critical, 46:204 (1778).

Reviewing Methodism 81 86 Monthly, 31:469 (1764). The tracts title is Candid Remarks on some Particular Passages in the Fifth Edition of Mr. Whitefield’s Sermons (London, 1752). 87 Monthly, 6:483 (1752). 88 Monthly, 49:408–9 (1774). 89 Critical, 8:271 (1759).

References Basker, James, ‘Criticism and the rise of periodical literature’, in H. B. Nisbet and Claude Rawson (eds), The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism (Cambridge, 1997), 316–332. Burton, Vicki Tolar, Spiritual Literacy in John Wesley’s Methodism (Waco, TX, 2008). Candid Remarks on some Particular Passages in the Fifth Edition of Mr. Whitefield’s Sermons (London, 1752). The Critical Review (London). Cunha, Emma Salgård, ‘Whitefield and Literary Affect’, in Geordan Hammond and David Ceri Jones (eds), George Whitefield: Life, Context, and Legacy (Oxford, 2016), 190–206. Cunha, Emma Salgård, John Wesley, Practical Divinity and the Defence of Literature (London, 2018). A Discourse Previous to a Day of General Humiliation (London, 1779). Fog’s Weekly Journal, no. 214 (December 9, 1732). Foster, Henry, Grace Displayed and Saul Converted (London, 1777). Graham, Walter James, English Literary Periodicals (New York, 1930). Hill, Richard, The Church of England Vindicated from the Rigid Notions of Calvinism (London, 1771). Johnson, Samuel, A Dictionary of the English Language, vol. 2, (2nd edn, London, 1756). Johnson, Samuel, Rambler No. 4, in Lawrence Lipking (ed), The Norton Anthology of English Literature, vol. 1C (7th edn, New York, 2000), 2712–2715. Kirkham, Donald Henry, Outside Looking In: Early Methodism as Viewed by Its Critics (Nashville, TN, 2019). Lambert, Frank, ‘Pedlar in Divinity’: George Whitefield and the Transatlantic Revivals (Princeton, NJ, 1994). Lee Morrissey, Lee, ‘Re-Reading Reading in Eighteenth-Century Literary Criticism’, College Literature 31/3 (2004), 157–178. Lewis, Simon, Anti-Methodism and Theological Controversy in Eighteenth-Century England: The Struggle for True Religion (Oxford, 2021). MacGowen, John, Priestcraft Defended: A Sermon Occasioned by the Expulsion of Six Young Gentlemen from the University of Oxford (2nd edn, London, 1768). Mason, William, Methodism Displayed and Enthusiasm Detected (London, 1756). Mason, William, Remarks and Observations on the Morality and Divinity Contained in Dr. Free’s Certain Articles Proposed to the Court of Assistants of the Worshipful Company of Salters (London, 1758). McInelly, Brett C., ‘Method or Madness: Methodist Devotion and the Anti-Methodist Response’, in Kathryn Duncan (ed), Religion in the Age of Reason: A Transatlantic Study of the Long Eighteenth Century (New York, 2009), 195–210. The Monthly Review (London).

82 Reviewing Methodism Nangle, Benjamin Christie, The Monthly Review, First Series, 1749–1789: Indexes of Contributors and Articles (Oxford, 1934). Okely, John to William Seward, November 23, 1738, John Rylands University Library, DDSe 3. Rivers, Isabel, ‘John Wesley as editor and publisher’, in Randy L. Maddox and Jason Vickers (eds), The Cambridge Companion to John Wesley (Cambridge, 2010), 144–159. The Principles and Preaching of the Methodists Considered (London, 1753). Smith, Haddon, Methodistical Deceit (London, 1771). Squire, Samuel, Indifference for Religion Inexcusable (London, 1758). Whitefield, George, A Continuation of the Reverend Mr. Whitefield’s Journal, from a Few Days after his Return to Georgia to his Arrival at Falmouth (London, 1741).

3

Reviewing Whitefield and Wesley

When George Whitefield and John Wesley began field preaching in the late 1730s, they attracted crowds, converts, and controversy. The antipathy the two men inspired in their critics occasionally manifested itself in physical violence but more regularly materialized in print, and Whitefield and Wesley became the movement’s chief spokespersons and apologists as they publicly responded to their critics.1 As Whitefield explained in his response to the Bishop of London’s 1739 Pastoral Letter, Whitefield took seriously the charges that the bishop levelled against him: ‘As your Lordship was pleased to make me the chief Subject Matter of your last Pastoral Letter, I think it my Duty to answer it in the best Manner I can.’2 Although Whitefield and Wesley usually ignored the more personal and satiric attacks, they eagerly and purposefully responded to the charges brought against them by the Anglican establishment, which represented some of the Methodists’ most formidable and, in a few cases, most socially prominent critics. As one pro-Methodist writer insisted, perhaps in hyperbolic fashion, ‘Were the Clergy of England possess’d with the same Power with those of Spain, it would be hard to distinguish, which would make the most cruel Inquisitors.’3 Attacks made by high-ranking church officials proved difficult to ignore. Writing in 1744, Whitefield explained, ‘It is a weighty Thing with me … to have Insinuations made, or Queries put concerning me, in respect to my Practice and Doctrine, in such a Public Manner, by Persons that are placed at the Head of the Church.’4 Whitefield and Wesley thus responded to their Anglican critics in an effort to refute criticism and validate their ministries, all the while believing that their enterprise required conviction and courage in the face of opposition. ‘If we will be temple builders,’ Whitefield declared to a correspondent, ‘we must … hold a sword in one hand and a trowel in the other.’5 Attacks by prominent church figures thus proved opportune, or kairotic, moments for Whitefield and Wesley to enter the public fray in defence of Methodism. First, these attacks generally focused on core beliefs and practices, and second, the stature of such figures as George Lavington and William Warburton, both bishops in the Church of England, ensured widespread publicity, evidenced in part by the attention the reviewers for the DOI: 10.4324/9781003392323-4

84 Reviewing Whitefield and Wesley Monthly and the Critical devoted to these men’s publications. Although the Monthly and the Critical ignored a majority of the works published by the two Methodist leaders, particularly those addressed to Methodist devotees, Whitefield’s and Wesley’s responses to Bishops Lavington and Warburton were intended for more public consumption and found their way into the pages of the review journals. The Monthly’s and the Critical’s treatment of the polemical pieces targeting Whitefield and Wesley followed the pattern seen in the reviewers’ treatment of the antagonistic literature targeting Methodism generally. The reviewers usually sided with Whitefield’s and Wesley’s critics while insisting on clear and reasonable arguments void of vitriol and ad hominem attacks. However, the Monthly’s and the Critical’s judgments proved to be qualified and contingent on a host of extraliterary considerations that further reveal just how politicized the entire project of popular review criticism became when grappling with a complex and controversial topic like Methodism. The reviewers might characterize Whitefield and Wesley as enthusiasts incapable of rational argument in one context or as savvy and sophisticated rhetoricians in another. Though the reviewers opposed Methodism generally, they applauded Wesley’s publications championing universal redemption but castigated Whitefield’s Calvinism, and they routinely exercised deference when endorsing the works and opinions of Anglican authorities. Nowhere is the contingent and qualified nature of the review essay more evident than in the way by which the Monthly and the Critical handled Wesley’s political writings at the time of the American Revolution, in which the Monthly’s proWhig leanings and the Critical’s strong Tory sensibilities emerge. In short, the reviewers’ treatment of the works associated with the two Methodist leaders was inconsistent and depended on a host of extraliterary factors, from doctrinal bias to politics.

Whitefield and Wesley as Authors and Publishers Both Whitefield and Wesley were prolific writers and editors, publishing and distributing numerous religious and devotional works among their followers, in addition to their published responses to their critics and other works intended for a broader audience. Both men relied on a wide-ranging network of printers to ensure that their publications reached readers throughout the Atlantic world. Wesley, for example, regularly used printers in London as well as in provincial centres of Methodism like Bristol and Newcastle. Aided by his unofficial publicity agent, William Seward, Whitefield similarly fuelled his celebrity status, both in Britain and in North America, by networking with local printers, such as Benjamin Franklin in Philadelphia, who published and disseminated his works.6 Beginning in 1778, Wesley owned and operated his own printing press, which became a going concern in its own right. At the time of Wesley’s passing in 1791, he ‘was the owner of approximately 351 titles and 254,512 book volumes

Reviewing Whitefield and Wesley 85 worth nearly £4000, as recorded in the inventory taken at the Book Room after his death’.7 Wesley’s book inventory included his own religious writings, but it likewise consisted of republished works by other authors as well as publications Wesley edited and abridged for the benefit of his followers. Hymnals, sermons, and spiritual autobiography, in addition to doctrinal exegesis and apologia, naturally made up a significant portion of the inventory, which also included what might be termed religious romance and spiritual poetry; historical, scientific, and political tracts; and Wesley’s Complete English Dictionary (1753), Concise History of England (1776), Primitive Physic (1747), and A Calm Address to our American Colonies (1775).8 Wesley’s and Whitefield’s involvement in the eighteenth-century book trade cannot be overstated. As Isabel Rivers explains of Wesley, ‘It is clear that with the possible exception of Daniel Defoe (whose attributions are much disputed), Wesley was editor, author, or publisher of more works (the majority of them short religious pamphlets in duodecimo format) than any other single figure in eighteenth-century Britain.’9 Frank Lambert makes similar claims regarding Whitefield’s role in the world of publishing. Besides developing ‘his own network of merchants and clergy who assisted him in selling and distributing his books’ through the course of his extensive travels, Whitefield, like Wesley, became a ‘publisher, bookseller, and distributor’ and, as early as 1741, opened a Book Room at his London tabernacle. ‘Over the course of his ministry,’ Lambert explains, ‘Whitefield published more volumes under his own name or that of the Tabernacle than did any other publisher.’10 Both men made sure that books were readily available to their followers for affordable prices. As Vicki Tolar Burton observes, ‘Even the poorest Methodists could purchase books,’ and Wesley allowed some titles to be distributed for free, an initiative that was aided by his founding of a ‘Society for the Distribution of Religious Tracts among the Poor’ in 1782.11 Such efforts, Rivers contends, proved innovative in the publishing industry: ‘an important development in the eighteenth century was the systematic publishing and distributing of religious literature on a large scale not for monetary profit but to further the saving of souls’.12 As principal players in the marketplace of print, to say nothing of their roles in bringing about one of the most important religious developments in eighteenth-century Britain, Wesley and Whitefield regularly turn up in the pages of the Monthly and the Critical. That said, only a relative handful of either man’s publications found their way into the review journals, indicating that the reviewers inevitably exercised some selectivity and that their goal of reviewing every newly published book proved impractical. As noted previously, a majority of Whitefield’s and Wesley’s published writings targeted fellow Methodists. For example, Wesley’s Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament (1755), which helped to define Methodist doctrine and went through five editions during Wesley’s lifetime, received little attention outside the movement. ‘His Explanatory notes,’ Rivers explains, ‘achieved authoritative status and hence steady sales among Methodists

86 Reviewing Whitefield and Wesley through its adoption in 1763 as the standard for doctrines to be taught in his chapels … but in this period it seems to have been largely ignored outside his own societies.’13 The reviewers, too, disregarded publications principally targeting Whitefield’s and Wesley’s followers. While antiMethodist authors combed the men’s published journals in an effort to condemn the Methodist leaders with their own words, the review journals barely registered the existence of either man’s journals in the literary marketplace. Of one of Wesley’s instalments, the Monthly published this short, and dismissive, notice: ‘Mr. Wesley, we suppose, publishes these his pious itineraries for the edification of his friends and followers; and much good may their entertainment do them!’14 The review journals, then, selected among Whitefield’s and Wesley’s various writings those publications targeting a wider audience—sermons and treatises on topical and popular religious subjects as well as polemical pieces written in response to their critics. Following the death of Whitefield in 1770, Whitefield’s Memoirs and collected works, published by John Gillies in 1772, also received critical attention, probably because of the celebrity-like status Whitefield achieved in his lifetime.15 Combined, the Monthly and the Critical only include reviews of roughly a dozen of Whitefield’s publications between 1749 and 1773 and 20 of Wesley’s printed works between 1749 and 1789. A review of Whitefield’s Memoirs further explains why the reviewers choose not to critique the majority of Whitefield’s books and pamphlets. After observing that Whitefield’s Memoirs were primarily intended for ‘the friends of Methodism’ and included circumstantial detail most readers would find uninteresting, a reviewer for the Critical offered this observation: ‘Mr. Whitefield was not a man of any distinction in the republic of learning; his life therefore admits of no literary anecdotes, such as we find in … many others of inferior note. His sphere of action was not so elevated. His connections were chiefly with the poor and illiterate. His occupation, that of an itinerant preacher.’16 Even though the number of Whitefield caricatures that materialized in the satiric literature suggest that a fictionalized Whitefield proved immensely interesting and entertaining, neither Whitefield the author nor his works appear to have merited serious literary attention. In so claiming, the reviewers dismissed the man and his ministry as quickly as they dismissed his qualifications as a man of letters.

Whitefield and Wesley in the Review Journals When Whitefield and Wesley turned up in either review journal, whether via their own publications or publications addressed to or about them, reviewers naturally associated the two men with the religious enthusiasm that, in the minds of critics, defined Methodism. A review of A Polyglott [sic], or, Hope of Eternal Life, According to the Various Sentiments of the Present Day (1761) described the group of evangelical writers assembled by the author, including Wesley and Whitefield, as ‘a parcel of visionary

Reviewing Whitefield and Wesley 87 17

Enthusiasts’. In a review of Reflections on the Unacceptableness of Deathbed Repentance (1762) by Edward Harwood, the Monthly directly blamed the two Methodist leaders for corrupting the Christian religion: The numerous swarms of Mechanics, whom two great modern Apostles have inspired, and sent forth … have mangled the great truths of Christianity with such blind furry, and discussed the distinguishing doctrines of it in such a manner, as hath really done that glorious cause greater injury than the most artful and insidious arguments of its avowed adversaries.18 Given the perceived threat Methodism posed to civil society and ecclesiastical order, reviewers eagerly endorsed works that opposed Whitefield’s and Wesley’s efforts to champion evangelical teachings. Of A Serious and Friendly Address to the Revd. Mr. John Wesley (1754) by John Packhurst, Abraham Dawson stated in the Monthly, ‘Every attempt to stifle the pernicious and growing evil of enthusiasm, and candidly to expose the bigoted zeal of its propagators, is highly commendable, and worthy a professor of christianity [sic].’19 Reviewers naturally dismissed several of the works authored by Wesley and Whitefield for promoting excessive religious fervour. In a review of Wesley’s sermon The Great Assize (1758), the Critical claimed that a reader ‘look[ing] for much either of entertainment or instruction from this sermon, will be greatly disappointed. There is scarce any thing [sic] in it but the common cant of methodistical enthusiasm, without any order, method, or connection’.20 Of a sermon reportedly preached by Whitefield and ‘taken down in short-hand as it was delivered … without any alternations or additions’, a reviewer for the Critical bluntly reported, ‘It is an incoherent rhapsody, so much in the usual stile [sic] and manner of the preacher to whom it is ascribed, that there can be no doubt about its authenticity.’21 Another review similarly described a farewell sermon Whitefield delivered shortly before he departed for Georgia in 1769 as ‘a rhapsody on John X’.22 As these last two reviews suggest, Whitefield’s reputation as a bombastic preacher naturally informed the reviews of his published sermons and other writings. Of a collection of sermons similarly ‘taken verbatim in short hand, and faithfully transcribed’ and published one year after Whitefield’s death, a reviewer for the Critical questioned whether the printed sermons accurately captured what Whitefield had delivered from the pulpit: ‘But we strongly suspect, that many of the author’s harsh expressions, rants, and vulgarisms have been left out, or smoothed and polished by the transcriber, or the reviser.’ After acknowledging the profound influence Whitefield exercised over his congregations, the reviewer summed up the quality of the sermons: ‘The sermons before us, which drew to the Tabernacle so many thousands in this wise metropolis, consist only of some few serious and sober exhortations, mixed with idle and sometimes ludicrous stories, incoherent

88 Reviewing Whitefield and Wesley effusions, and pitiful balderdash. So that, with respect to this famous preacher, we can only say that he weakened the head, while he reformed the heart.’23 Albeit with a hint of suspicion, reviewers readily acknowledged Whitefield’s gifts as an orator and his capacity to move an audience. But these gifts did not generally translate into positive reviews of Whitefield’s published works, especially when it came to reviews written by those who expected religious discourse to exemplify moderate and clear forms of expression combined with reasonable ideas. Nonetheless, the reviewers for both journals often softened their criticism of the famous preacher by providing qualified praise. In their eyes, Whitefield was, to be sure, a flaming enthusiast, but unlike many of Whitefield’s critics who accused him of duplicitous ends, such as personally profiting from his fundraising activities24 or seducing his female followers, reviewers for both journals acknowledged what they perceived as Whitefield’s sincerity. In the wake of Whitefield’s death, the Monthly claimed in its review of the deceased preacher’s collected works that it ‘always regarded [Whitefield] as an honest enthusiast’. The reviewer offered particular praise for the sermons in the collection, which ‘will at once entertain and edify’ its readers. The sermons included ‘very few of those peculiar flights of fancy, and strong touches of tabernacle oratory, which so richly abound in a late volume of his discourses … . They are, indeed, for the most part, such discourses as might be expected from a sober, sensible, and pious Calvinsitical preacher’.25 A review of Whitefield’s Memoirs that appears in the same volume likewise commended Whitefield for his candid admissions of mistakes he had made early in his ministry: ‘He was, without doubt, an extraordinary man; and we believe, very sincere in his ministry: as a proof of which, we have his own honest acknowledgment that he was frequently misled by that very spirit of enthusiasm to which, however he was so much indebted for the astonishing success of his well-meant undertakings.’26 The qualified praise in these cases appears as genuine and unaffected as the reviewers’ criticism could be scathing and predetermined. While most of Whitefield’s critics were usually unsatisfied with his admissions and apologies,27 the reviewers appear to have been more willing to accept these confessions as indicators of Whitefield’s authenticity and humility. The Critical, like the Monthly, acknowledged the famous preacher’s honesty and commended his motives in its review of Whitefield’s Memoirs: ‘Any attempt … to reform the world is a godlike employment. And we really believe, that Mr. Whitefield’s zeal and activity arose from the most laudable motives, the love of God and man.’28 Perhaps some of this praise can be attributed to the solemnity that naturally accompanied the occasion of Whitefield’s passing and the reviewers’ efforts to avoid trampling on a dead man’s grave. Even so, the commentary on Whitefield’s character appears sincere, especially if we consider that the reviewers included both solemn and satirical elegies among their reviews at the time of Whitefield’s death. The Critical even applauded one of the mock elegies:

Reviewing Whitefield and Wesley 89 ‘We presume, that an enemy of Methodism engaged our author to burlesque the labours of the late pains-taking Mr. Whitefield: and, to do [the author] justice, he has faithfully performed his part.’29 In other words, the reviewers had no qualms with registering praise as well as criticism of Whitefield, thus attesting to the authenticity of their remarks, whether about his character or writing. In addition to lauding the Methodist leader’s motives and earnestness, the reviewers approved of Whitefield’s efforts to combat religious bigotry in Whitefield’s Account of Some Lent, and Other Extraordinary Processions and Ecclesiastical Entertainments, Seen Last Year at Lisbon (1755). The Monthly declared: ‘Our celebrated itinerant preacher expresses a just and manly resentment of the miserable bigotry of the Portuguese, and the priestly delusion with which they are so blindly led into even more ridiculous fopperies than ever disgraced the pagan theology.’30 Curiously, the reviewer commended Whitefield for castigating Catholics with the same charges routinely directed at him—for promoting religious prejudice and for the unrighteous influence religious leaders exercised over their flocks. Even though critics of the revival regularly compared Methodists to Papists, Catholicism still represented a more palpable threat to England’s national security and religious liberty, and anti-Catholic sentiment seemingly helps to explain the reviewer’s praise for Whitefield’s ‘just and manly resentment’ towards England’s Catholic neighbour and the relatively favourable review of Whitefield’s talents as a writer. Although the reviewers were usually deeply suspicious of and concerned about Whitefield’s canny ability to emotionally sway an audience, they simultaneously approved of, and applauded, that talent on at least one occasion. At the outset of the Seven Years’ War, Whitefield published A Short Address to Persons of All Denominations, Occasioned by the Alarm of an Intended Invasion (1756). In its review of this piece, the Monthly praised Whitefield’s efforts to rally his fellow citizens: ‘Mr. Whitefield here makes good use of the influence he has acquired over the common people, by endeavouring to animate them, at this critical juncture, with a lively sense of the duty they owe to their God, their King, and their Country.’ Evidently, the threat of a French invasion represented an appropriate occasion for Whitefield’s rhetorical flourishes, so much so that the reviewer reported with ‘sincere pleasure’ that Whitefield’s pamphlet had gone through three editions.31 The review journals’ assessments of Wesley’s published writings similarly fluctuated between condemnation and praise. Writing for the Monthly, Benjamin Dawson described Wesley’s The Doctrine of Original Sin (1757) as having been written in ‘too warm a strain’ and as being no ‘less false than foul’.32 As with the review of The Great Assize, Dawson portrayed Wesley as an author whose religious fervour corrupted the style and substance of his religious writings. By comparison, William Rose presented Wesley in a wholly different light in a review of Wesley’s A Letter to the Reverend

90 Reviewing Whitefield and Wesley Mr. Law (1756). Though Law served as an informal tutor to Wesley and other Oxford Methodists in the 1730s, Wesley eventually disagreed with Law over the means of salvation.33 Of Wesley’s Letter, Rose stated, ‘Mr. Wesley makes short, but very pertinent and sensible observations’; of Wesley’s suggestion that Law should ‘come back to the plain religion of the Bible’, Rose exclaimed, ‘Excellent advice! and we heartily wish Mr. Law may follow it.’ Rose even praised Wesley’s manner of arguing: ‘Mr. Wesley, tho’ he uses great plainness of speech, treats Mr. Law in a very respectful manner, and speaks of several of his treatises in very high terms, as being almost unequalled standards of the strength and purity of our language, as well as of sound and practical divinity.’34 In this particular case, Wesley proved to be an able controversialist, making sound and ethically responsible arguments, qualities far removed from the reviewers’ usual claims of enthusiasm. Wesley’s polemical texts targeting the Calvinist doctrines of predestination and election35 similarly occasioned a more favourable response from the reviewers. Wesley’s Predestination Calmly Considered (1752), one reviewer insisted, ‘smartly, and … successfully encounters the doctrine of absolute unconditional election and reprobation’.36 The Critical similarly presented Wesley as the antithesis of an author tainted by enthusiasm in a review of an anonymously published tract entitled The Church of England Vindicated from the Charge of Absolute Predestination (1771): ‘This Letter in stile [sic] and manner very much resembles the productions of Mr. John Wesley. It is a shrewd and sensible performance.’37 To what extent the ‘stile [sic] and manner’ of Wesley’s tracts declaiming against predestination are substantively different from his other writings poses a questionable proposition at best. It seems more plausible that subject matter, rather than style, explains how the reviewers could describe Wesley as an unrestrained enthusiast in one review and a thoughtful and discerning polemicist in another. Such a proposition seems even more probable if we account for the strong anti-Calvinist bias that pervaded both the Monthly and the Critical. One Calvinist writer directly called out the Monthly for its prejudicial treatment of publications that promoted Calvinist doctrines: I am not inclined to think the Monthly Reviewers destitute of rational powers; and yet it is pretty evident they are, somehow or other, unable to do justice to Calvinistic writings, or so much as to read them with impartial attention. Let any unprejudiced person look over their Review, and he will see that if any thing [sic] controversial is written in favour of Arminianism … it is generally much applauded; but if anything comes out in favour of … Calvinism, either its weaknesses are exposed, or cold water is thrown upon the subject.38 Review after review supports this writer’s conclusion and indicates that the writer could have just as easily directed the same charge at the Critical, which summed up an anonymously published pamphlet championing the

Reviewing Whitefield and Wesley 91 Calvinist cause entitled A Dialogue between the Rev. Mr. Wesley and a Member of the Church of England (1767) in the following short notice: ‘Since the days of St. Austin many stupid tracts have been written in defence of absolute predestination. This dialogue is one of the number.’39 The Monthly offered a more thoughtful review of this same piece while still denouncing Calvinistic tenets in unequivocal terms. Referring to the author’s theological point of view, James Robertson insisted ‘that this way of proceeding is not consistent with the certain divine attributes of goodness, pity and love: and therefore we may fairly conclude, that these are not the ways of God with his reasonable creatures’.40 A review of another work addressing the same topic entitled The Chief Arguments of the Evangelical Fundamental Doctrine of the Universal Grace of God in Christ (1772) by a German author plainly conveyed the reviewer’s doctrinal position: ‘Our author makes predestination a fundamental doctrine of the Christian religion, which, in our opinion, seems in direct opposition to the doctrine of Jesus Christ.’41 After speculating, wrongly,42 that Wesley authored the anonymously published Arguments Against the Doctrine of General Redemption Considered (1769), another reviewer claimed that Wesley had ‘clearly and fully vindicated the doctrine of a general redemption, and incontestibly [sic] proved, that all those passages which are usually alledged [sic] by Calvinistic writers, in defence of a particular election and reprobation, are totally misinterpreted’.43 This reviewer had good reason to suspect Wesley’s authorship of a tract condemning election and lauding general redemption. Wesley had publicly denounced the doctrines of predestination and election in his 1739 sermon on Free Grace, to which Whitefield as a staunch Calvinist responded the following year. Although the two men remained friends and partners in the work of the revival, they never reconciled their theological differences, and their dispute divided the movement into Wesleyan (or Arminian) and Calvinist camps. What came to be known as the Free Grace controversy dissipated after the initial exchange between Wesley and Whitefield but resurfaced in the early 1770s, not long after Whitefield’s death, when Wesley reasserted an earlier proposition that Methodism ‘lean’d too much toward Calvinism’,44 a declaration that generated a heated, and public, response from the Calvinist Methodists. Though most anti-Methodists failed to discriminate between Wesleyans and Calvinists when attacking Methodism, the review journals were attuned to the theological distinctions within Methodism—in part because they regularly reviewed polemical texts exchanged between the Methodist factions (discussed in Chapter 5). As should be clear at this point, the review journals also took sides in the debate by championing universal redemption over predestination, a stance which, again, helps to explain how Wesley could be denounced as an enthusiast when championing his views on original sin yet hailed as an astute and perceptive theologian when advocating against Calvinism. The more pressing point is that the reviewers took up clearly defined doctrinal positions that

92 Reviewing Whitefield and Wesley shaped their opinions about the two Methodist leaders and their published works as much as, if not more than, their critical standards did. Wesley, like Whitefield, also fared better in the review journals at the time of his death, at which point both the Monthly and the Critical found much to praise in Wesley’s character and influence, if not in his religious principles. Of Lines in Memory of the Rev. Mr. John Wesley (1791), the Monthly reported, ‘We rejoice at seeing the Muses twining garlands for the brow of such a man as Wesley, whose exertions were prompted by the benign spirit of Mercy, and not by the horrid fiend of Destruction; and who is more entitled to the remembrance of the world, than many of those great names which stand eminent on the roll of Fame.’ The review still took issue with Wesley’s teachings while acknowledging the sincerity and impact of his ministry: ‘Supposing his religious system erroneous, it was an error which has been followed with many salutary effects; and his earnestness in preaching it proved his sincerity, while his blameless life enforced his doctrine.’45 The Monthly drew the same conclusions in its review of John Whitehead’s funeral sermon: as we rejoice in every opportunity of celebrating departed virtue, we shall add that if Mr. Wesley’s sentiments were not the truth, he certainly treated them as if they were; for it is impossible that any man could be more earnest and indefatigable in propagating them than he was. His life was truly apostolic; and even those who find themselves unable to receive his tenets, are nevertheless irresistibly prompted to venerate the man.46 The Critical’s praise for Wesley was less lavish but, nonetheless, more effusive than was typically presented in reviews published during his life and ministry. Of a biography published by Wesley’s nephew, a reviewer insisted that future biographies be written by impartial hands in a style emblematic of Wesley’s own writing: ‘Those who are not acquainted with him ought to write his life; and we could wish to see it written with that mild spirit, that elegant simplicity, which constantly distinguished every production of John Wesley, where the cant and enthusiasm of a sect had no place’ (emphasis added). The reviewer emphatically noted, ‘We knew [Wesley] well, and greatly respected him.’47 In its review of Lines in Memory of the Rev. Mr. John Wesley, the Critical insisted the author wrote ‘with spirit and feeling, in regard to a character for which we entertain the highest esteem’.48 Both the Monthly and the Critical, then, still registered their concerns about Methodist teachings and practices at the time of Wesley’s death, though their hostile opinions towards Wesley as a religious zealot whose writings were tainted by enthusiastic strains seem entirely forgotten. Indeed, these reviews sit in stark contrast to those discussed throughout much of this chapter. The more pressing point is that these inconsistencies indicate that the anti-Methodist prejudice apparent in both

Reviewing Whitefield and Wesley 93 review journals was at times mitigated by more pressing concerns and prejudices, whether a national crisis, particular doctrinal allegiances, or the delicate task of remembering the lives and legacies of two influential and memorable men.

Whitefield, Wesley, and the Anglican Establishment The provisional ways by which the review journals critiqued Wesley and Whitefield as authors are further evident in the journals’ assessments of the exchanges between the two Methodist leaders and their Anglican critics, particularly high-ranking church figures. The first volume of the Monthly includes a lengthy review of the second part of Bishop Lavington’s The Enthusiasm of Methodists and Papists Compared (1749), in addition to a review of Whitefield’s published reply to the first part of the same tract.49 Ralph Griffiths, who wrote both reviews, clearly viewed Lavington’s treatise and Whitefield’s response as significant, evidenced by the length of the reviews, which consist mostly of excerpts from both works. Griffiths devoted ten pages to the first part of his review in the August 1749 issue, a review that focused almost exclusively on Whitefield’s reply. He concluded the review the following month in 17 pages concentrated entirely on Lavington’s tract. Combined, this review represents the longest review of any work or works associated with the revival in either review journal. Interestingly, the review of Whitefield’s reply includes virtually no editorial commentary, and most of the extracts consist of Whitefield’s admissions to several mistakes made early in his ministry as well as his retractions of a number of unguarded and regrettable statements included in his published journals and autobiography, statements from which Lavington strategically drew in building his case against Whitefield and the Methodists. Whitefield stated in one such extract, ‘“Sir, my mistakes have been too many, and my blunders too frequent, to make me set up for infallibility … . But many and frequent as my mistakes have been, or may be … as soon as I am made sensible of them, they shall be publickly [sic] acknowledged and retracted.”’50 As noted previously, reviewers offered general praise for such candid and honest admissions, a fact which may help to explain why Griffiths chose to extract these particular passages. Conspicuously lacking in the review, however, are the more substantive of Whitefield’s rebuttals to Lavington’s arguments. Reproducing Whitefield’s admissions and retractions via extracts certainly highlighted a quality in Whitefield which the reviewers regularly praised. But extracting these particular passages did more than just illustrate Whitefield’s humility and candour; Griffiths proved, through Whitefield’s own words, that at least some of Lavington’s charges were substantiated and did so without fully informing readers of how Whitefield pushed back against some of Lavington’s other accusations. Griffiths mentions only a few of Whitefield’s counterclaims, and he includes no commentary on Whitefield’s

94 Reviewing Whitefield and Wesley rhetorical moves or capacities as an apologist. Griffiths essentially allowed Whitefield to speak for himself—a seemingly neutral way of reviewing. But the selected passages ensured that only part of Whitefield’s story was told: the part in which Whitefield acknowledged that he was, in fact, guilty of some of the irregularities of which Lavington had accused him. When Griffiths shifted to Lavington, he still included lengthy excerpts but also wove editorial commentary into the review, usually extolling Lavington’s rhetorical acumen. Lavington, Griffiths explained, ‘goes on answering all of Mr. W’s objections in order, one after another, with an air of triumph, and indeed in so masterly a manner, as seems to bid fair for putting a speedy end to the controversy’.51 Two years later, when Lavington published the third part of The Enthusiasm of Methodists and Papists Compared (which he addressed primarily to Wesley), Griffiths described Lavington as a ‘learned and ingenious author’ who ‘has shewn a vast deal of such reading as was necessary to an ample discussion of the subject’.52 Such praise for Lavington’s intellect and abilities as a polemicist sits in stark contrast to the relatively innocuous treatment of Whitefield’s reply and makes clear who, from Griffiths’ point of view, won the debate. If judged purely by objective measures, Griffiths was perhaps right in declaring Lavington the winner. At least one historian who has assessed the polemical exchanges between the two Methodist leaders and their clerical critics concludes that Whitefield’s and Wesley’s opponents generally produced the more scholarly and convincing arguments. J. C. D. Clark explains that ‘early criticisms came from an impressive array of scholars’, and he describes these scholarly productions in language similar to that of the reviewers: ‘sophisticated’ and ‘remarkably perceptive’. Though Clark concedes that ‘Lavington’s lengthy comparison with “Popery” seems, to present-day readers, laboured and protracted’, he reminds us that ‘in its time, it spoke effectively to still-powerful anti-Catholicism’. Clark likewise characterizes Whitefield’s and Wesley’s rebuttals as evasive and inconclusive. Of Whitefield’s exchange with William Warburton, Clark declares, ‘Whitefield was wholly unable to deal with the formidable theological objections against Methodism.’ Although Wesley possessed greater intellectual capacity than most early Methodists, Clark concludes that Wesley’s ‘acute but sometimes evasive publications probably established his personal integrity more than they persuaded the intelligentsia of the truth of his theology’.53 Clark’s analysis, then, supports the reviewers’ judgments of the polemical literature exchanged between the revival leaders and their critics; however, as I noted in the previous chapter, I am less interested in the validity of the reviewers’ critical opinions than in the contingent nature of their reviews and the rhetorical work the reviews performed in shaping ideas and attitudes about the revival and the two Methodist leaders. How did the apparatus of the review essay—extracts, summary, critical standards, commentary, and reviewer opinion about textual and extraliterary factors—communicate particular notions about the revival and its participants, in addition to

Reviewing Whitefield and Wesley 95 critical judgments about literary and rhetorical merit? Even the choice to exclude a particular tract or pamphlet from critical review might have suggested that the pamphlet was not worth the reviewers’, or their readers’, attention. Wesley published a rebuttal to the first and third instalments of Lavington’s treatise, but neither work was reviewed by the Monthly. The Monthly and the Critical, however, gave relatively equal time to the Methodist leaders when reviewing their public exchanges with Warburton, whose Doctrine of Grace (1763) challenged Methodist teachings and specifically targeted Wesley. Writing for the Monthly, William Kenrick described Warburton as ‘ingenious and learned’, and ironically observed that ‘there is little dispensation of Grace in his treatment of poor John Wesley, whom he mauls without mercy. How this celebrated Saint may edify under his correction, we know not; for our part, we can scarce conceive that he ever suffered more severely from the buffetings of Satan himself, than from those of his Lordship’.54 In a review that spans nearly 16 pages, a reviewer for the Critical described Warburton’s tract as ‘replete with taste, genius, and learning’. The reviewer characterized ‘the principle [sic] end and design of the bishop’s excellent performance’ as ‘exposing, and fairly confuting, on their own principles, our modern sect of Fanatics, called Methodists, the most absurd and pernicious set of men that perhaps ever rose up amongst us’. Bishop Warburton’s standing in the church carried particular weight with this reviewer. The Methodists, he explained, ‘have … been occasionally attacked in print, by a few nameless and obscure writers, and preached against by some well-meaning curates and lecturers; but no author of character and reputation has publically [sic] arraigned them since bishop [sic.] Lavington’. He went on to praise Warburton for ‘stepping forth in defence of Christianity, tearing off the mask from these holy hypocrites, and establishing the doctrine of grace on its true beliefs’. Warburton’s ecclesiastical stature and skill as a religious controversialist, coupled with the perceived nature of the Methodist threat, thus help to account for the attention the Critical chose to give his work, which the reviewer ‘recommend[s] … to every sober and thinking Christian, as the best and most effectual antidote against the spreading poison of Methodism’. ‘No man who seriously peruses it,’ the reviewer concluded, ‘whose mind is open to reason and conviction, will ever become a disciple of Whitfield [sic] or Wesley, or fall a prey to the arts and delusions of imposture and fanaticism.’55 Reviewers found additional opportunities to praise the bishop and his tract in their critiques of those pamphlets published in response to the bishop’s arguments. These pamphlets, of course, included those written by Whitefield and Wesley but also comprised pamphlets by other writers. John Payne, for example, published A Letter Occasioned by the Lord Bishop of Gloucester’s Doctrine of Grace (1763) to refute Warburton’s claim that William Law had ‘been the parent of Methodism’ through his influence on Wesley. At the outset of a nine-page review that includes generous extracts

96 Reviewing Whitefield and Wesley from Payne’s treatise, the Critical reiterated its admiration for Warburton and his published performance: The truly learned and ingenious Bishop Warburton, whose works cannot be too often read or too much admired, having in his last excellent tract on the Doctrine of Grace, treated the enthusiasts and visionaries of every denomination with that severity which they so well deserve, we are not surprised to find them rising up from every quarter, with all the rage of bitter resentment, and endeavouring to retaliate the injury. Not surprisingly, Payne’s efforts to refute Warburton paled in comparison to Warburton’s abilities: ‘Some severe strictures on several parts of the Bishop’s book are occasionally introduced by Mr. Payne, which his lordship, we imagine, will hardly ever trouble himself to answer, as they are … too trifling to deserve a serious confutation.’ From the reviewer’s point of view, the proof was in the pudding: ‘Our readers will perceive, by the quotations we have made from this performance, that Mr. Payne … is by no means possessed of sufficient abilities to enter the lists against the redoubted W----n.’ Indeed, the bishop’s arguments would ‘require more depth of knowledge, greater parts and capacity, as well as a much abler pen than our author’s, properly to examine into or confute’.56 The dye, it seems, was cast when the reviewers rendered their initial judgments of Warburton’s achievement, and these first opinions tainted, or at least figured into, the reviewers’ assessments of rebuttals like Payne’s. According to the reviewers, Warburton established a standard difficult to match, much less surpass. The partisan, and deferential, remarks that typify both journals’ assessments of Warburton’s treatise, along with their regard for his character and genius, provide a clear indicator of how the reviewers responded to Wesley’s and Whitefield’s public responses to the bishop’s arguments. Kenrick offered this relatively subtle and backhanded critique of Wesley’s A Letter to the Right Reverend the Lord Bishop of Gloucester (1763): Mr. Wesley has answered the Bishop’s book with all that art, address, and specious appearance of primitive integrity, decency, and dove-like innocence, which must be naturally expected by such as are acquainted with the character of a man who is so much master of his own, as well as other men’s, passions. His tract is, indeed, a notable one; he stands his ground manfully, repels the learned Bishop’s attacks with such—we had almost said—Jesuistical evasions, and shelters himself snugly under the authority of the Scriptures, and of the Church of England, (which he well knows how to twist and turn to his purpose) that we doubt not this performance will fully answer the great end of preventing his dignified Antagonist from enticing the sheep out of his fold.57

Reviewing Whitefield and Wesley 97 Kenrick insinuated what previously cited reviews made explicit, that Methodists could not be reasoned with, thus making them susceptible to Wesley’s rhetorical sleight of hand, which represents the more pressing point: Wesley was, according to Kenrick, false, insincere, and intellectually and emotionally manipulative. Wesley’s response lacked the learning and rhetorical integrity found in Warburton’s treatise. A review printed in the Critical of An Answer to the Rev. Mr. John Wesley’s Letter to William Warburton, Lord Bishop of Gloucester (1763) by ‘Samuel Chandler’,58 in fact, focused more on Wesley’s supposed ineptitude than on Chandler’s merits as a controversialist: ‘Mr. Wesley had indeed said so little to the purpose, that the bishop, we imagine, did not think it worthy of a reply, and a less able writer than Mr. Chandler might have easily confuted him.’ Chandler, the reviewer continued, ‘proves the falsity of Mr. W’s assertions, the invalidity of his arguments, and the absurdity and inconsistency of his whole conduct’ in such a convincing manner that ‘Mr. Wesley will find it difficult with all his art to gainsay or confute’.59 The Critical dismissed Wesley’s Letter to Warburton in similarly emphatic fashion. ‘The fanatics of the last age,’ the reviewer wrote, ‘though equally absurd in their doctrines, had men amongst them who were possessed of some parts, learning, and capacity; but the leaders of the methodists [sic] are a set of the most stupid and illiterate creatures that ever pretended to mislead a multitude.’ After explaining how Wesley had been ‘most severely drubbed by bishop Warburton in his excellent treatise on the Doctrine of Grace’, the reviewer described Wesley’s rebuttal: ‘this vehement roarer at the Foundery [sic] has answered wit with dullness, and reason and argument with shuffling and evasion.’ The reviewer went on to explain how ‘this work is so poor and contemptible’ that he chose to omit any extracts because they ‘would afford our readers but little entertainment’.60 As previously demonstrated, the reviewers routinely included extracts as a way of censuring writers and their works with their own words. In this case, however, excluding extracts to spare readers from dullness or other kinds of ineptitude essentially achieved the same effect: the reviewer effectively denounced Wesley’s tract by stating that it was unworthy of reproduction. Whitefield’s Observations on Some Fatal Mistakes in a Book Entitled The Doctrine of Grace (1763) met with equally harsh criticism. While the Monthly simply stated that Whitefield responded ‘in revenge’ in answering ‘his dignified antagonist’,61 the Critical portrayed Whitefield as a petulant child: ‘But as this gentleman writes merely ad populum, metaphor and allegory, he thought might supply the place of argument; if a mischievous boy has not strength enough to fight with a man, he can throw dust in his eyes, and then run away’. The reviewer dismissed Whitefield’s counterclaims as ‘weak and flimsy’ but then included this backhanded compliment: ‘we cannot help observing, that [his arguments] are greatly superior in point of stile [sic] to what he generally delivers from the pulpit.’ The review then concluded, ‘Some people may perhaps infer from the different forms which

98 Reviewing Whitefield and Wesley he assumes as preacher and writer, that when he is talking nonsense at the Tabernacle, it is not from want of capacity to do otherwise; and that, in short, he is … more [knave] than fool.’62 Whitefield’s ability to affect differing linguistic styles—one as a crafty though not terribly skilled polemicist and the other as an enthusiastic preacher—ultimately indicated that both rhetorical modes resulted in insincere performances calculated to devious ends, a conclusion that contradicted the reviewers’ usual praise of Whitefield’s honest intentions. Whitefield, it seems, was sincere in his beliefs and ministry but not in public debate. As noted earlier in this chapter, most of the praise for Whitefield’s honesty and candour came in the wake of his death, so timing may well help to explain the contradictory nature of the Monthly’s and the Critical’s treatment of Whitefield’s character. Where the reviewers may have resisted the impulse to attack a man in death, they had little problem eviscerating him in life. Even so, the reviewers’ treatment of Whitefield’s character in regard to his exchange with Warburton when compared with more sympathetic portrayals in later reviews was, I argue, informed as much by the particular rhetorical situation as by regard for social decorum. Warburton represented religious authority, the establishment, and the status quo, whereas Whitefield stood at the head of a fringe religious movement seemingly set on disrupting ecclesiastical order, and both journals exercised deference as they registered their support for the Anglican Church and its leaders. The reviewers’ efforts to back the religious establishment63 are further illustrated in the ways by which the review journals handled polemical pieces targeting Whitefield and Wesley that were written by lower-ranking clerics. Indeed, the Monthly and the Critical similarly endorsed the efforts of lower-ranking church authorities who set out to defend the church from the Methodist threat, though these reviews depended less on the reputation and stature of a particular author than on rhetorical acuity. For example, both journals applauded John Free, the vicar of East Coker, Somerset, for his efforts to bring Wesley and Whitefield into disrepute. ‘Dr. Free now attacks his adversary with humour, as well as argument,’ the Monthly reported.64 A reviewer for the Critical similarly wrote that Dr Free ‘opens the cry against the false apostles, Wesley and Whitfield [sic], and pursues them with indefatigable perseverance’ a year later in a review of Dr. Free’s Edition of the Rev. Mr. John Wesley’s Second Letter (1759). The reviewer further stated, ‘This true son of the hierarchy attacks these pseudo-prophets with all the artillery of argument, wit, and humour.’65 In acknowledging Dr Free’s talents as a controversialist, the reviewer simultaneously and seamlessly included his own anti-Methodist sentiments in the review by denouncing Wesley and Whitefield as false prophets. Like Lavington, a number of Wesley’s and Whitefield’s critics pulled from the Methodist leaders’ own words in building cases against them, a powerful and convincing rhetorical strategy from the point of view of the reviewers. A review of Original Letters between the Reverend Mr. John Wesley and

Reviewing Whitefield and Wesley 99 Mr. Richard Thompson Respecting the Doctrine of Assurance as Held by the Former (1760) drew attention to this tactic while indirectly alluding to Wesley’s intellectual shortcomings. The review began by stating that Thompson had joined the Methodists in his youth but ‘soon found it necessary to withdraw himself’ after he had given more thoughtful consideration to Wesley’s teachings: Being of a serious and speculative mind, [Thompson] applied, with great assiduity to reading; and made no small progress in literature,— especially in that branch which respects divinity. As the doctrine of assurance hath ever been a main pillar of the methodistical building, Mr. Thompson readily embraced it: however, calm reflection soon opened his mind, and he pursued his thoughts, upon the subject … with the clearest and most accurate attention. The published letters exchanged between Thompson and his spiritual mentor validated Thompson’s reflections and demonstrated, through ‘Mr. Wesley’s own concessions’, the fallibility of Wesley’s doctrinal position.66 Moreover, the reviewer’s description of what amounts to a reconversion narrative contrasts sharply with the ways Methodist conversion was typically represented, namely, as an ecstatic and intensely emotional experience. The reviewer made clear that Thompson’s turning away from Methodism was precipitated by careful study and deliberation, resulting in a cerebral experience.67 Both the Monthly and the Critical similarly concluded that Whitefield had met his intellectual match in their reviews of The Principles and Practices of the Methodists farther Considered in a Letter to the Reverend Mr. George Whitefield (1762) by John Green. The reviewer for the Monthly explained that the ‘learned and ingenious’ author ‘now turns to the chief leader of the Sect, Mr. Whitefield; whom he attacks in so spirited, yet candid a manner, as must convince all unprejudiced Readers, of the great superiority of Reason and Learning over the utmost efforts of Bigotry and Enthusiasm’. The reviewer concluded by suggesting that Green had produced a near-flawless argument, ‘with great strength of reasoning, as well as strict propriety of sentiment’. Whitefield, he confidently speculated, ‘had, perhaps, never before [had], so acute, as well as learned, an antagonist to deal with’.68 The Critical, by comparison, offered a much shorter review but effectively drew the same conclusion: the pamphlet represented ‘a shrewd, manly, and rational expostulation with the Methodist teachers on their absurd pretensions’.69 Whitefield may well have been ‘an honest enthusiast’ in the eyes of the reviewers, but he was an enthusiast nonetheless and was hardly capable of repelling a reasonable and forcefully made argument. Despite their clear anti-Methodist bias, the reviewers still expected Wesley’s and Whitefield’s antagonists to substantiate their arguments and freely criticized authors who relied on unsubstantiated claims and fallacious

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reasoning. The Impostor Detected: or the Counterfeit Saint Turn’d Inside Out (1750), by John Kirkby failed in Griffiths’ eyes to deliver on the promise stated in its subtitle: Containing a Full Discovery of the Horrid Blasphemies, and Impieties Taught by Those Diabolical Seducers Called Methodists: By the outcries and promises in the foregoing title-page, one might expect great discoveries to follow, relating to the Methodists: But, alas! nothing of that nature occurs in this pamphlet. The Imposter is supposed to be the famous Wesley; whom Mr. Kirkby rails at very much, calls him impudent blasphemer, &c., &c., &c. most liberally: But produces no facts against him; nothing that answers to the promise of a full discovery of what one would naturally imagine was meant by horrid blasphemies and impieties.70 As previously cited reviews suggest, the reviewers for both journals surely accepted the premise on which Kirkby’s argument rested, namely, that Wesley and Whitefield were religious impostors of sorts. The Critical, after all, referred to both men as ‘false apostles’ and ‘pseudo-prophets’ in its review of Dr Free’s pamphlet. At the same time, Griffiths baulked at what he suggested was a hyperbolic and unsubstantiated accusation, and in so doing hearkened back to the Monthly’s promise made to readers in its first issue: that books, like servants, require a strong recommendation to protect consumers from ‘the abuse of title-pages’ that deliberately mislead readers.71 In this particular case, the public-service dimension of the Monthly’s project trumped Griffith’s impulse to criticize the Methodists and their leaders. Another reviewer for the Monthly similarly showed little patience for John Harman’s efforts to discredit Whitefield and Methodism via astrological readings in Remarks upon the Life, Character and Behaviour of the Rev. George Whitefield (1764).72 Harman attempted to explain the success of Whitefield’s ministry through the confluence of celestial bodies: ‘demonstrating by astronomical calculation, that his ascension, meridian, and declination, were necessarily actuated by planetary influence’.73 Noting that Harman described himself as an ‘Astronomer’, the reviewer explained that ‘some of his Readers may, perhaps, take him for a Conjurer: but, for our parts, we only look upon him, as a comical, out-of-the-way sort of a Genius, who has contrived to plague the Methodists, and their great Leader, in the style of an Almanac-maker, and with all the antiquated jargon of Astrology’.74 Though some readers may have been inclined to accept astrological readings as evidence, this reviewer rejected Harman’s argument and the pseudoscientific means by which Harman drew his conclusions. The reviewers generally welcomed any attempt to bring the Methodist revival and its leaders into disrepute, but they seem to have been unwilling to endorse a work that relied on fantastical forms of evidence.

Reviewing Whitefield and Wesley 101 A reviewer for the Critical similarly poked fun at Harman’s inane methods and less-than-logical conclusions: Mr. Harman the astronomer abuses Mr. Whitefield the methodist [sic], and demonstrates, by astronomical calculation, that his ascension, meridian, and declination, were necessarily actuated by planetary influence. He informs us, that in the nativity of Whitefield there was an opposition of Jupiter and Mars, and Mercury and the Moon, in a square to each other, just as it was at the birth of Nero; that the same aspects must produce the same effects; that Mr. Whitefield, therefore, is as bad as Nero … this, with a great deal more of nonsense of judicial astrology, Mr. Harman brings by way of argument against his adversary Mr. Whitefield. This reviewer, however, did not miss an opportunity to ridicule Whitefield’s own intellectual shortcomings via his critique of Harman: ‘Thus one fool lolls his tongue at another, / And shakes his empty noodle at his brother’.75 Whereas the review in the Monthly focused exclusively on the nonsensical nature of Harman’s conclusions, the Critical characterized Whitefield in virtually the same terms and did so in a satiric mode that was more sophisticated and effective than Harman’s astrological readings.

Wesley’s Political Writings in the Review Journals Unlike Whitefield’s published writings, which focused almost exclusively on religious matters, Wesley’s works spanned a range of topics, from religion to politics to medicine. Despite going through more than 20 editions in his lifetime, Wesley’s Primitive Physic: or, an Easy and Natural Way of Curing Most Diseases (1747) failed to catch the reviewers’ attention, though both the Monthly and the Critical registered their opinions of Wesley’s medical expertise in reviews of William Hawes’s An Examination of Wesley’s Primitive Physic (1776). The Monthly characterized Wesley’s undertaking as ‘replete with ignorance, error, and absurdity’, while the Critical lamented the consequences of Wesley’s venturing outside his ministerial sphere: ‘Had Mr. Wesley prudently restricted himself within the limits of his profession, by elucidating the principles of primitive religion, he might have edified his readers much more, without … endangering their temporal welfare.’76 Both review journals similarly dismissed Wesley’s efforts in A Concise History of England (1777)—most of which was extracted from other writers, including Oliver Goldsmith and Tobias Smollett—to produce a ‘Christian history, of what is called … a Christian country’. The two journals concurred that Wesley failed to add anything original to his sources.77 Wesley’s political writings at the time of the American Revolution, however, attracted more attention and generated more controversy, by far, than did his ventures into medicine and history—and perhaps as much as

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his religious writings did. As Albert Lyles observes, ‘Although sporadic satiric outbursts flared up against Wesley throughout his life, the greatest flurry seems to have been caused by a political rather than a religious action, which won him many supporters as well as many enemies.’78 The reviewers’ responses to Wesley’s A Calm Address to Our American Colonies and the publications it spawned substantiate Lyles’s claim. In addition, the reviews of these publications clearly demarcate the politics that undergirded the Monthly’s and the Critical’s respective enterprises, since the former staunchly opposed Wesley while the latter sided with him. First published in 1775, Wesley’s Calm Address defended the government’s position respecting the American colonies and largely consisted of extracted material from Samuel Johnson’s Taxation No Tyranny, published in the same year. Like many of Wesley’s critics,79 the Whig-leaning Monthly accused Wesley of merely rehashing—and even plagiarizing—old arguments while it denounced his politics. In the Monthly’s review of A Calm Address, William Enfield explained that he had hoped that Wesley would provide ‘some new observations … or some healing measure to propose, worthy of the wisdom of age, and the sanctity of the clerical character’ but was ‘disappointed in [his] expectations’. In its review of one of the many responses to Wesley’s Address, the Monthly indicated that ‘Mr. Wesley’s pamphlet hath produced a good effect’ by instigating ‘a plain and intelligible’ debate on the American question, though review after review made clear which side of the debate offered the more ‘plain and intelligible’ arguments.80 An author who characterized Wesley as “‘a sower of strife’” argued ‘shrewdly’ while another author who defended Wesley’s position resorted to mere personal attacks.81 The Monthly hailed the contributions of Caleb Evans, who represented one of the more prolific of Wesley’s opponents. Of Evans’s British Constitutional Liberty (1776), a reviewer stated, ‘This discourse, in favour of our civil and religious liberties, seems to have been particularly seasonable, at a time when Mr. Wesley’s Toryism is making so rapid a progress through the country.’82 The Monthly’s reviewers lauded Evans’s rebuttals to John Fletcher, Wesley’s associate and fellow Methodist who attempted to vindicate Wesley’s position in multiple publications. ‘Mr. Evans,’ a reviewer insisted, ‘is a lively and sensible advocate for the freedom of the Colonies, a spirited controversialist, and a zealous assertor of those liberal and noble principles to which we were indebted for the glorious Revolution.’ The reviewer went on to explain that Evans clearly proved that Fletcher’s arguments were ‘inconsistent, absurd, and totally inconclusive’.83 Of a later publication by Evans, a reviewer explained that he ‘re-enters [the debate] … with his usual vivacity, and deals about his blows with his accustomed vigor [sic] and alacrity’, all the while insisting that Evans had ‘properly maintained’ his position.84 Although the reviewers for the Monthly readily acknowledged Fletcher’s talents in theological debate (discussed in chapter 5), they harshly criticized

Reviewing Whitefield and Wesley 103 his contributions to the conversation surrounding the American colonies. Referring to the controversy between Wesleyans and Calvinist Methodists in the early 1770s, a reviewer claimed, ‘We have freely and impartially done justice to [Fletcher’s] abilities. In politics, however, we have nothing to say in his favour.’85 Fletcher’s American Patriotism (1777) received similar scrutiny: ‘Mr. F.’s present performance … is, like his former piece on this subject, wordy, specious, and artful.’ The reviewer concluded, ‘Mr. F. is, by all report, a good man; but he will never, we suspect, obtain a good report merely for his politics’.86 Such conclusions appear to have been based more on Fletcher’s politics than on the merits of his argument or rhetorical capacities, especially if we account for the Critical’s radically different handling of the same publications. The Critical offered a lengthy, and favourable, review of Wesley’s Address: ‘The Address now before us is particularly well calculated for this purpose, on account of the conciseness and force of the arguments it contains.’ In extolling Wesley’s performance, the reviewer even glossed over Wesley’s debt to Johnson: ‘If Mr. Wesley’s Address should not be thought entitled to the praise of novelty …, we must at least acknowledge, that he has not only refuted the pretensions of the colonists with great candour, plainness, and energy, but has also expostulated with that deluded people in a strain of argument equally rational and persuasive.’87 The Critical likewise celebrated Wesley’s achievement in its reviews of works authored by his political opponents. Of one such tract, a reviewer noted, ‘As may generally be observed in polemical writings, the Warmth of the Reply is pretty strongly contrasted with the Calmness of the Address.’ Of another piece published against Wesley, the reviewer claimed that many of the author’s charges were not supported with ‘fair and decisive reasoning’.88 The Critical even defended Wesley from the charge of plagiarism in its review of Augustus Toplady’s An Old Fox Tarr’d and Feather’d (1775): ‘If Mr. Wesley should reply to this accusation, his defence will probably be, that he had approved the sentiments of the former learned gentleman [Johnson], and could not express them more properly.’89 And even when the Critical conceded that Wesley had ‘not unjustly drew upon him the censure of unreserved and evident plagiarism’, the Tory-leaning journal concluded that Wesley’s Observations on Liberty (1776) delivered its points ‘in a plain, rational, and forcible manner’.90 Not surprisingly, Fletcher appeared in a more approving light in the Critical while Evans fell in for severe criticism. Fletcher’s arguments in Patriotism Farther Confronted with Reason, Scripture, and the Constitution (1777) were ‘founded on justice, and enforced in a strain of reasoning, no less decisive than well adapted to the principles and declarations of his antagonists’.91 By contrast, the Critical denounced Evans’s Political Sophistry Detected (1777): ‘We meet with nothing more in this reply, than a dull uninteresting recapitulation of the principal arguments which have been so often advanced in the controversy’.92

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Given that the Monthly and the Critical generally applied the same sorts of critical tenets, their wildly disparate accounts of Wesley’s Calm Address and the political tracts published in its wake can really only be accounted for by the particular political and ideological allegiances of the respective journals. Again, literary historians have generally noted the Monthly’s Whig orientation compared with the Critical’s proclivity for endorsing more conservative ideals. But the review journals’ assessments of the publications associated with Wesley’s Address make manifest the ideological thinking that informed their reviews and ensured that the literary review essay served sociopolitical as well as literary ends. In addition, these reviews indicate just how idealistic, and elusive, the notion of critical, rational debate can become when grappling with issues about which individuals possess strong political, ideological, or other allegiances.

Conclusion Writing in October of 1756, Wesley recorded the following entry in his Journal: ‘I wrote a second letter93 to the authors of the Monthly Review; ingenious men, but no friends to the godhead of Christ. Yet upon farther consideration, I judged it best, to drop the controversy. It is enough that I have delivered my own soul: If they scorn, they alone shall bear it.’94 Wesley presumably refers to a ‘controversy’ reported in or generated by the Monthly, though the root cause of the dispute is unclear. The only mention the Monthly’s editors made of the said controversy came in their review of John Whitehead’s funeral sermon in 1791, in which the editors referenced Wesley’s Journal entry: ‘This testimony we bear with sincere pleasure [of the merits of Wesley’s ministry]; notwithstanding the severe censure which Mr. Wesley thought fit to pass on us, in one of his journals, on account of sentimental difference with him, in respect to some religious speculations.’95 The reviews published in the months leading up to Wesley’s Journal entry likewise do not provide clues as to which controversy Wesley mentions, inasmuch as these reviews were neither inflammatory nor unduly negative. The journal had favourably reviewed Wesley’s Letter to the Reverend Mr. Law in March, discussed previously in this chapter; it reviewed A Letter to the Rev. Mr. John Wesley (1756) in April, dismissing the author as full of ‘spiritual pride and presumption’; and it had slammed the author of an antiMethodist piece entitled The Great Secret Disclosed (1756) for having no more talent than the writers of ‘quack-advertisements’.96 Nonetheless, Wesley’s entry is telling of the Monthly’s influence, not just in promoting books but in contributing to and shaping public opinion about Methodism, so much so that Wesley felt compelled to write to the editors directly. As noted earlier in this chapter, Wesley, like Whitefield, ignored a majority of his critics, particularly those not connected to the church. But Wesley’s awareness of and concern for the influence the reviewers might have had on public perception of the revival was well

Reviewing Whitefield and Wesley 105 founded. Although the reviewers offered favourable critiques of several of Wesley’s and Whitefield’s publications while harshly criticizing those antiMethodists who did not measure up to their critical standards, the reviewers’ coverage of the controversies about which Wesley and Whitefield cared most—their clashes with the Anglican establishment—skewed in the anti-Methodists’ favour. Perhaps Lavington and Warburton proved by most objective measures to be the more able theologians and polemicists. But the reviews of their tracts and of Wesley’s and Whitefield’s published responses offered up more than critical judgments regarding rhetorical acumen and propriety. The reviewers, in effect, served as pundits for the church and its leaders in the church’s efforts to counter Methodism and did so from an extremely influential social and cultural position. They defined the standards by which the debate was judged and also decided how the various arguments in the debate were reported to the reading public. The reviewers accomplished all of this while reaching far more readers than the various publications in the debate, whether pro- or antiMethodist, could have reached on their own.

Notes 1 Whitefield and Wesley did not coordinate their responses to their critics, and while the reviewers obviously associated the two men with the movement they helped found, they likewise treated Whitefield’s and Wesley’s publications independently and on their own terms. 2 George Whitefield, The Bishop of London’s Pastoral Letter Answer’d by the Reverend Mr. George Whitefield (London, 1739), 23. 3 The True Character of the Rev. Mr. Whitefield: in a Letter from a Deist in London (London, 1739), 12. 4 George Whitefield, An Answer to the First Part of an Anonymous Pamphlet, Entitled, Observations upon the Conduct and Behaviour of a Certain Sect usually Distinguished by the Name Methodists (Boston, 1744), 5. 5 George Whitefield to the Rev. Mr. G--- (17 March 1749), in The Works of the Reverend George Whitefield, M.A., vol. 2 (London, 1771–72), 2:247. 6 See Peter Charles Hoffer, When Benjamin Franklin Met the Reverend Whitefield: Enlightenment, Revival, and the Power of the Printed Word (Baltimore, MD, 2011); see also Isabel Rivers, Vanity Fair and the Celestial City: Dissenting, Methodist, and Evangelical Literary Culture in England, 1720–1800 (Oxford, 2018), 14–18. 7 Vicki Tolar Burton, Spiritual Literacy in John Wesley’s Methodism (Waco, TX, 2008), 235. 8 See Burton, Spiritual Literacy, 315–18. 9 Isabel Rivers, ‘John Wesley as editor and publisher’, in Randy L. Maddox and Jason Vickers (eds), The Cambridge Companion to John Wesley (Cambridge, 2010), 145. 10 Frank Lambert, ‘Pedlar in Divinity’: George Whitefield and the Transatlantic Revivals (Princeton, NJ, 1994), 122 and 88–91. 11 Burton, Spiritual Literacy, 234 and 252. 12 Isabel Rivers, ‘Religious publishing’, in Michael F. Suarez, S.J. and Michael L. Turner (eds), The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain, vol. 5 (Cambridge, 2009), 583.

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13 Rivers, ‘Religious Publishing’, 590. 14 Monthly, 46:467 (1772). The instalment was An Extract of Mr. John Wesley’s Journal from May 27, 1765 to May 18, 1768 (London, 1771). 15 See Isabel Rivers, ‘Whitefield’s Reception in England, 1770–1839’, in Geordan Hammond and David Ceri Jones (eds), George Whitefield: Life, Context, and Legacy (Oxford, 2016), 262–77. 16 Critical, 34:350 (1772). 17 Monthly, 25:460 (1754). Although the author of this piece systematically set out to distinguish the sentiments of several evangelicals who, in addition to Whitefield and Wesley, included James Hervey, John Glas, Robert Sandeman, and James Relly, among others, the reviewer showed virtually no regard for the theological nuances among these men by branding them all a ‘parcel of visionary enthusiasts’. Such generalizing represents a trend in both review journals, a trend that was mirrored in the anti-Methodist polemics. See The Polyglott, or Hope of Eternal Life According to the Various Sentiments of the Present Day (London, 1761). 18 Monthly, 27:453 (1763). 19 Monthly, 9:152 (1754). Dawson reviewed for the Monthly for about a year, mostly on religious topics. At the time, he was a presbyterian minister but converted to Anglicanism in 1754, which may explain why he stopped reviewing for the Monthly. See Benjamin Christie Nangle, The Monthly Review, First Series, 1749–1789: Indexes of Contributors and Articles (Oxford, 1934), 12–13. 20 Critical, 5:445 (1758). 21 Critical, 30:400 (1770). The sermon’s title is The Putting on the New Man a Certain Mark of the Real Christian (London, 1770). 22 Critical, 28:320 (1769). 23 Critical, 33:221 and 224 (1772). The collection in question is Eighteen Sermons Preached by the Late Rev. George Whitefield (London, 1771). 24 Whitefield published An Account of Money Received and Disbursed for the Orphan-House in Georgia in 1741 to counter accusations that he personally profited from his fundraising activities. See George Whitefield, An Account of Money Received and Disbursed for the Orphan-House in Georgia (London, 1741). 25 Monthly, 47:80 and 79 (1772). 26 Monthly, 47:249 (1772). 27 See, for example, Charles Chauncy, A Letter to the Reverend George Whitefield, Vindicating Certain Passages He Has Excerpted against, in a Late Book Entitled, Seasonable Thoughts on the State of Religion in New England (Boston, 1745), 39. 28 Critical, 34:350 (1772). 29 Critical, 31:475 (1771). 30 Monthly, 12:479 (1755). 31 Monthly, 14:257 (1756). 32 Monthly, 17:445 (1757). Dawson, like his brother Abraham, trained for the Presbyterian ministry but conformed to the established church in 1759. Unlike his brother, however, he continued to write for the Monthly until 1767. See Nangle, The Monthly Review, 13. 33 See Gerda J. Joling-van der Sar, ‘The Controversy between William Law and John Wesley’, English Studies 87/4 (2006), 442–65. 34 Monthly, 14:256 (1756). 35 As I note at various places in this study, the reviewers’ discussion of doctrinal and theological matters typically did not delve deeply into finer points and distinctions, nor is it within the purview of my project to explore such issues beyond the commentary provided in the review journals. Wesley, to be sure,

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36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49

50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58

59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66

detested the idea of unconditional election, a point of view shared by the reviewers, and although he emphasized free will, he did believe that God possessed foreknowledge of who would accept His grace and who would reject it. Wesley shared the Calvinist view of the total depravity of humankind, but he disagreed with them over the doctrine of final perseverance (i.e., the notion that the elect cannot fall from grace). Monthly, 6:312 (1752). Critical, 31:401 (1771). Agnostos, The Reality and Efficacy of Divine Grace (London, 1788), 30. Critical, 24:236 (1767). Monthly, 37:317 (1767). Critical, 33:502. The tract was actually written by the Methodist Walter Sellon. See Walter Sellon, Arguments against the Doctrine of General Redemption Considered (London, 1769). Critical, 28:309 (1769). Bennett’s Minutes, 1744–8, June 25, 1744, John Rylands University Library, MA 1977/429. Monthly, 5:342 (1791). Monthly, 5:356–7 (1791). Critical, 2:119–20 (1791). Critical, 2:475 (1791). For a discussion of the Lavington controversy, see Frank Baker, ‘Bishop Lavington and the Methodists’, in Proceedings of the Wesley Historical Society 34/2 (1964), 37–42, and Colin Haydon, ‘Bishop George Lavington of Exeter (1684–1762) and The Enthusiasm of the Methodists and Papists Compar’d’, in Southern History Society 37 (2015), 60–85. Monthly, 1:289 (1749). Monthly, 1:322 (1749). Monthly, 5:296 (1749). J. C. D. Clark, ‘The Eighteenth-Century Context’ in W. J. Abraham and J. E. Kirby (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Methodist Studies (Oxford, 2009), 14–19. Monthly, 27:369–70 (1763). Critical, 14:370, 379, and 385 (1763). Critical, 16:201, 194, 195, and 203 (1763). Monthly, 28:235 (1763). In its review of this piece, the Monthly raised the plausible suspicion that the author was posing as the dissenting minister Samuel Chandler. See Monthly, 28:315. Although the Critical attributed the tract to Chandler, the title page of the work identifies the author as ‘Samuel Charndler’. See Samuel Charndler, An Answer to the Rev. Mr. John Wesley’s Letter to William, Lord Bishop of Gloucester (London, 1763). Critical, 16:298 (1763). Critical, 16:293–4 (1763). Monthly, 28:395 (1763). Critical, 16:100 and 102 (1763). For Griffiths and other reviewers with dissenting sympathies, their efforts had more to do with backing reason and rationality as well as social and ecclesiastical stability than with supporting the Anglican establishment. Monthly, 19:596 (1763). Critical, 8:419 (1763). Monthly, 23:172 (1760).

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67 Methodist conversion, to be sure, was often an intensely emotional experience, but it was also an experience that was accompanied by intense soul searching and serious and thoughtful reflection. See, for example, Phyllis Mack, Heart Religion in the British Enlightenment: Gender and Emotion in Early Methodism (Cambridge, 2008); D. Bruce Hindmarsh, The Evangelical Conversion Narrative: Spiritual Autobiography in Early Modern England (Oxford, 2005); and Paul Wesley Chilcote (ed), Her Own Story: Autobiographical Portraits of Early Methodist Women (Nashville, TN, 2001). 68 Monthly, 25:121 and 124 (1762). 69 Critical, 11:497 (1761). 70 Monthly, 4:33 (1750). 71 Monthly, 1:81 (1749). 72 Harman was a watchmaker and astrologer, not a clergyman. 73 John Harman, Remarks Upon the Life, Character and Behaviour of the Rev. George Whitefield (London, 1764), title page. 74 Monthly, 30:77 (1964). 75 Critical, 17:306–7 (1764). 76 Monthly, 54:419 (1776) and Critical, 41:506 (1776). 77 Monthly, 56:71 (1777) and Critical, 44:308 (1777). The review for the Monthly was written by Jabez Hirons. 78 Albert M. Lyles, Methodism Mocked: The Satiric Reaction to Methodism in the Eighteenth Century (London, 1960), 112. 79 For reactions to Wesley’s loyalism, see Donald H. Kirkham, ‘John Wesley’s “Calm Address”: the Response of the Critics’, Methodist History 14 (1975), 13–23. 80 Monthly, 53:514 (1776). 81 Monthly, 53:438 and 54:325 (1776). 82 Monthly, 53:528 (1776). 83 Monthly, 54:326 (1776). 84 Monthly, 55:156 (1777). 85 Monthly, 54:325 (1776). 86 Monthly, 55:155 (1777). 87 Critical, 40:305 and 309 (1775). 88 Critical, 40:310 and 311 (1775). 89 Critical, 40:402 (1775). 90 Critical, 42:233 (1776). 91 Critical, 42:237 (1776). 92 Critical, 42:237 (1776). 93 I have only identified one letter written by Wesley and published by either journal, a short letter published by the Monthly in 1774 wherein Wesley offered corroborating evidence for the inhumane treatment of African slaves in response to a critique of Wesley’s Thoughts upon Slavery (1774), in which the author had claimed that Wesley exaggerated these facts. See Monthly, 51:487–8 (1774). 94 John Wesley, An Extract of the Rev. Mr. John Wesley’s Journal, from February 16, 1755 to June 16, 1758 (Bristol, 1768), 77. 95 Monthly, 5:357 (1791). 96 Monthly, 14:366 and 589 (1756). William Rose wrote the review of the latter piece.

References Agnostos, The Reality and Efficacy of Divine Grace (London, 1788). Baker, Frank, ‘Bishop Lavington and the Methodists’, Proceedings of the Wesley Historical Society 34/2 (1964), 37–42.

Reviewing Whitefield and Wesley 109 Bennett’s Minutes, 1744–8, June 25, 1744, John Rylands University Library, MA 1977/429. Burton, Vicki Tolar, Spiritual Literacy in John Wesley’s Methodism (Waco, TX, 2008). Charndler, Samuel, An Answer to the Rev. Mr. John Wesley’s Letter to William, Lord Bishop of Gloucester (London, 1763). Chauncy, Charles, A Letter to the Reverend George Whitefield, Vindicating Certain Passages He Has Excerpted against, in a Late Book Entitled, Seasonable Thoughts on the State of Religion in New England (Boston, 1745). Chilcote, Paul Wesley (ed), Her Own Story: Autobiographical Portraits of Early Methodist Women (Nashville, TN, 2001). Clark, J. C. D., ‘The Eighteenth-Century Context’ in W. J. Abraham and J. E. Kirby (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Methodist Studies (Oxford, 2009), 3–29. The Critical Review (London). Harman, John, Remarks upon the Life, Character and Behaviour of the Rev. George Whitefield (London, 1764). Haydon, Colin, ‘Bishop George Lavington of Exeter (1684–1762) and The Enthusiasm of the Methodists and Papists Compar’d’, Southern History Society 37 (2015), 60–85. Hindmarsh, D. Bruce, The Evangelical Conversion Narrative: Spiritual Autobiography in Early Modern England (Oxford, 2005). Hoffer, Peter Charles, When Benjamin Franklin Met the Reverend Whitefield: Enlightenment, Revival, and the Power of the Printed Word (Baltimore, MD, 2011). Joling-van der Sar, Gerda J., ‘The Controversy between William Law and John Wesley’, English Studies 87/4 (2006), 442–465. Kirkham, Donald H., ‘John Wesley’s “Calm Address”: the Response of the Critics’, Methodist History 14 (1975), 13–23. Lambert, Frank, ‘Pedlar in Divinity’: George Whitefield and the Transatlantic Revivals (Princeton, NJ, 1994). Lyles, Albert M., Methodism Mocked: The Satiric Reaction to Methodism in the Eighteenth Century (London, 1960). Mack, Phyllis, Heart Religion in the British Enlightenment: Gender and Emotion in Early Methodism (Cambridge, 2008). The Monthly Review (London). Nangle, Benjamin Christie, The Monthly Review, First Series, 1749–1789: Indexes of Contributors and Articles (Oxford, 1934). The Polyglott, or Hope of Eternal Life According to the Various Sentiments of the Present Day (London, 1761). Rivers, Isabel, ‘Religious publishing’, in F. Michael, S.J. Suarez and Michael L. Turner (eds), The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain, vol. 5 (Cambridge, 2009), 579–600. Rivers, Isabel, ‘John Wesley as editor and publisher’, in Randy L. Maddox and Jason Vickers (eds), The Cambridge Companion to John Wesley (Cambridge, 2010), 144–159. Rivers, Isabel, ‘Whitefield’s Reception in England, 1770–1839’, in Geordan Hammond and David Ceri Jones (eds), George Whitefield: Life, Context, and Legacy (Oxford, 2016), 261–277. Rivers, Isabel, Vanity Fair and the Celestial City: Dissenting, Methodist, and Evangelical Literary Culture in England, 1720–1800 (Oxford, 2018).

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Sellon, Walter, Arguments against the Doctrine of General Redemption Considered (London, 1769). The True Character of the Rev. Mr. Whitefield: in a Letter from a Deist in London (London, 1739). Wesley, John, An Extract of the Rev. Mr. John Wesley’s Journal, from February 16, 1755 to June 16, 1758 (Bristol, 1768). Wesley, John, An Extract of Mr. John Wesley’s Journal from May 27, 1765 to May 18, 1768 (London, 1771). Whitefield, George, The Bishop of London’s Pastoral Letter Answer’d by the Reverend Mr. George Whitefield (London, 1739). Whitefield, George, An Account of Money Received and Disbursed for the OrphanHouse in Georgia (London, 1741). Whitefield, George, An Answer to the First Part of an Anonymous Pamphlet, Entitled, Observations upon the Conduct and Behaviour of a Certain Sect usually Distinguished by the Name Methodists (Boston, 1744). Whitefield, George, The Putting on the New Man a Certain Mark of the Real Christian (London, 1770). Whitefield, George, Eighteen Sermons Preached by the Late Rev. George Whitefield (London, 1771). Whitefield, George to the Rev. Mr. G--- (17 March 1749), in The Works of the Reverend George Whitefield, M.A., vol. 2 (London, 1771–72), 246–247.

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Writing in 1764, a contributor to the Critical began his review of a piece entitled A Trip to the Moon by describing other examples of the same generic type, beginning with examples from antiquity and ending with more recent illustrations: ‘Lucian, Swift, and the author of those admirable pieces of humour which go under the title of Don Quevedo’s Visions have surpassed all others in that species of writing which unites pleasantry and satire with the creative powers of imagination.’ Like Lucian’s A True Story (second century AD),1 Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels (1726), and Francisco de Quevedo’s Dreams and Discourses (1627), A Trip to the Moon parodies the genre of travel writing by utilizing a fantastical voyage and an encounter with a peculiar culture as vehicles for the satiric treatment of contemporary customs, manners, and institutions, including Methodism. According to the reviewer, however, the author failed to match the accomplishments of his literary predecessors: The author of the work before us [is] … so far … from making an approach to the excellency of the above-mentioned satyrists, that his Trip to the Moon is greatly inferior to Cyrano de Bergerac’s Voyage to the Moon … . We meet with nothing half as extraordinary and exotic in our author’s account … as in some descriptions of China, Japan, and other tracts upon this our sublunary sphere. Although the reviewer offered qualified praise for much of the work’s satire, he insisted that the author’s ‘severe reflections upon the Methodists … seem to be out of place in a work of this nature’.2 This review illustrates some of the principal concerns that preoccupied reviewers of the Monthly and the Critical when critiquing satiric attacks on Methodism in more imaginative generic forms: poetry, drama, and prose fiction, among other experimental types. The review established a standard of measure by juxtaposing A Trip to the Moon with its literary forerunners and maintained that subject matter should be appropriately adapted to literary form, while indirectly raising concerns about satiric technique and decorum. As evidenced by the strong anti-Methodist bias that pervaded the DOI: 10.4324/9781003392323-5

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Critical, the author’s ‘severe reflections upon the Methodists’ were certainly not ‘out of place’ generally; rather, they proved ‘out of place’ in a work of this particular kind. As persistent as the reviewers were in their efforts to ridicule Methodism, they insisted that authors adhere to certain literary standards and rules of satiric critique. The tension between the impulse to criticize the revival and the desire to regulate literary tastes, then, is acutely evident in the reviewers’ treatment of those works, whether pro- or anti-Methodist, associated with the revival that fall into the category of belle lettres. While anti-Methodist writers tapped poetry, drama, and prose fiction in their efforts to ridicule the revival and its participants, the Methodists themselves experimented with various forms of literary expression, most notably sacred verse, to promote and articulate belief. The reviewers of such works still concerned themselves with literary effect, but their interests broadened to account for aesthetic merit and achievement. Whereas reviews of polemical and devotional tracts focused on what the reviewers deemed correct religious belief and practice in addition to rhetorical acumen and propriety (i.e., sound arguments appropriately adapted to one’s subject and audience), reviewers of more traditional literary types concentrated less on a work’s theological orientation or argumentative strategies and more on formal conventions as well as the proper means and ends of satire. While satirizing Methodism in eighteenth-century Britain was hardly a controversial move, except from the point of view of the Methodists themselves, the manner in which a writer mocked the Methodists became a matter of debate in the pages of the Monthly and the Critical.

Critical Standards and Anti-Methodist Critique The reviewers’ criteria for weighing literary achievement were not as clearly delineated as their standards for good arguments were, nor did the two journals always agree in their aesthetic sensibilities or apply their critical standards consistently. James Basker observes that the reviews authored by Tobias Smollett represent ‘a quarry from which could be mined material to support critical views ranging from strict neoclassical conservatism to lively “preromantic” sympathies’.3 Since a single contributor thus wavered in his critical commitments, we should not be surprised that a single volume authored by multiple contributors would lack critical consensus or that two different and competing journals might not always agree in their assessments of a particular work. Nonetheless, the various approaches taken by the reviewers were not nearly as disparate as such statements suggest. Despite ‘clear political and religious differences between the two journals’, Antonia Forster notes that ‘their methods and general literary principles do not differ greatly’.4 The more pressing point is that those methods and principles, even when inconsistently applied, adjudicated the anti-Methodist critique as it materialized in both journals.

Anti-Methodism and Belletristic Critique 113 Take, for example, the Monthly’s and the Critical’s assessments of Richard Graves’s The Spiritual Quixote, which represents the most sustained anti-Methodist work written during the eighteenth century, covering nearly one thousand pages and four volumes when originally published in 1773. Writing in the Monthly, William Woodfall offered qualified praise for Graves’s novel: There is something singular in this production, and it deserves to be distinguished from the common trash of modern novels. The subject, however, is mean, and unworthy the talents of this Writer. The adventures of a frantic enthusiast [a Methodist preacher] cannot be supposed to afford the materials of an entertaining romance. The Author is therefore obliged to have recourse to an artifice, and to make his episodes atone for the poverty of his general fable.5 Woodfall, to be sure, disparaged the Methodists as ‘frantic enthusiast[s]’, but the disparagement was quelled by the claim that the subject matter was ill-suited to the conventions of romance. Curiously, Woodfall focused almost exclusively on a relatively minor episode in the novel, ‘the history of Mr. and Mrs. Rivers’, which he designated ‘by far the best part of this novel’ and included a lengthy excerpt describing the Rivers’ courtship, followed by this pronouncement: ‘We have seldom read so natural and pleasing an account of the commencement of an amour.’6 Though the novel deals at length with nearly every commonplace associated with Methodism, from the ill consequences of religious enthusiasm on individuals to the social corruptions Methodism purportedly promoted, Woodfall mentioned these views only to suggest that they did not conform to the expectations associated with a particular type of romance, one that recounts the stages of courtship and includes a series of emotional and other trials that eventually lead to marriage. Woodfall thus missed an opportunity that The Spiritual Quixote afforded—to lambast Methodism—as a result of his fidelity to his expectations of romance. By contrast, the review of this same novel in the Critical, perhaps indicative of the journal’s more pronounced anti-Methodist position, took full advantage of the opportunity presented in The Spiritual Quixote by amplifying the anti-Methodist critique while making a case for the novel’s literary merit. The reviewer achieved this last objective by, not surprisingly, situating his review in the context of the Quixote tradition, a type of romance inaugurated by Cervantes. After documenting this tradition from Cervantes to Charlotte Lennox,7 the reviewer concluded that, by quixotic standards, Graves’s novel measured up: ‘The demolition of the devil and all his works is a very proper object for the heroism of the methodistical Quixote. By the mere force of imagination, [Graves’s hero] conjures up the powers of darkness in an enlightened age.’ The review, which spans twelve pages, featured a detailed summary of Geoffry Wildgoose’s adventures as

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an itinerant preacher, including a lengthy excerpt describing his enthusiastic turn to Methodism and another passage that ‘exhibits a ludicrous… and just description of a methodist [sic] meeting’.8 While Woodfall’s efforts to define proper standards for a particular form of romance steered the review away from anti-Methodist critique, the Critical’s turn to Cervantes and the Quixote tradition opened the door to anti-Methodist rhetoric and ensured that the negative ideas associated with Methodism that were expressed in the novel resonated throughout the review. While the reviewers hardly disguised their antipathy for the revival and its participants, the reviews of Graves’s novel indicate that disparaging the Methodists remained a secondary concern, subordinated to the primary objective of refining literary tastes. Reviewers, then, were primarily interested in the means rather than the ends and in judging whether an author had executed his attack on Methodism in a manner that fits their definition of good literature. The review journals’ focus meant that anti-Methodist sentiment would be sifted through, and in some cases muted by, their fidelity to the critical enterprise. The journals’ adherence to genre-centred criticism— i.e., assessing a work based on generic convention and precedent—as well as rules for satiric critique, particularly of religious subjects, meant that not all things anti-Methodist automatically passed muster. As with their assessments of polemical and devotional tracts, reconciling the journals’ primary objective of establishing criteria for judging literary merit with their blatantly anti-Methodist agendas proved a relatively simple and straightforward proposition when anti-Methodist sentiment was expressed by a talented and judicious writer. Satirizing a religious subject, even a controversial movement like Methodism, required tact and a sense of literary and social decorum, according to the reviewers. Commenting on Evan Lloyd’s long satiric poem The Methodist (1766), John Langhorne insisted that, despite claims to the contrary, ‘religious follies’ represented an appropriate target, though ‘the application [of ridicule in such cases] requires the most skilful management’, which the reviewer claimed Lloyd achieved.9 The Critical likewise offered praise for Lloyd’s satiric method, stating that ‘the author out-methodizes even methodism [sic] itself’.10 Sacred subjects, then, were not off limits; such subjects just needed to be handled in delicate and fitting fashion. That said, contributors to both journals still managed to weave antiMethodist commentary into their negative reviews. In a review of Nathanial Lancaster’s Methodism Triumphant (1767), Langhorne criticized Lancaster’s application of the mock-heroic form to his subject matter and at the same time declaimed against the Methodists: The verse is Miltonic, and the style is the sublime, in which the Author has shewn his want of judgment; for that kind of style and measure will not adapt itself to any thing [sic] that lies between the extremes of the Great and Little. The battles of archangels, and the contests of mice and

Anti-Methodism and Belletristic Critique 115 frogs, will equally bear to be described by it; but the absurd doctrines and extravagancies of fanaticism would be more effectually ridiculed in the farcical strain of Butler.11 The Critical likewise unfavourably compared Lancaster to Samuel Butler, who in the reviewers’ eyes provided a model for religious satire, while still endorsing Lancaster’s characterization of the Methodists: ‘If this writer possessed the wit and the judgment of Butler, he might have produced a poem on Methodism, equal to Hudibras. The field is white and extensive. The journals of some of our saints-errant are full of curious speeches and ridiculous adventures, and would have furnished the poet with a variety of choice materials.’12 In other words, Lancaster failed to tap his subject matter for its full potential, and he failed in the execution of the mockheroic form and in imitating the style of a more capable author. Given that so much of the anti-Methodist literature was produced by ‘Grub Street’ hacks, we should not be surprised that the reviewers discounted many of these productions, sometimes in scathing terms. Writing in the Monthly, Abraham Rees described The Ruin of Methodism (1777) as ‘a meer [sic] rhapsody… intended, by the extravagance of it, to ridicule Methodism’ that ‘defies all our powers of criticism’.13 Of a poem attacking Wesley entitled The Pastor (1778) by John Hough, the Monthly claimed that Hough represented ‘the most harmless [of Wesley’s opponents]. A titmouse attacking a Raven’.14 The Critical, too, showed little patience for ‘bad’ writing. One of its reviewers criticized an anti-Methodist farce: ‘[its] style is the most ridiculous perversion of natural arrangement of any we remember to have seen.’15 Another reviewer concluded its critique of Naked Thoughts on some of the Peculiarities of the Field-preaching Clergy (1776) this way: ‘To have made his pamphlet entertaining, the author should have treated the subject with some degree of wit and humour. But there is not the least appearance of either in this production.’16 The Monthly and the Critical likewise agreed in their assessments of a series of anti-Methodist poems written by William Combe between 1777 and 1779. A poet of some ability, Combe represented one of the more prolific of the Methodists’ antagonists, publishing in a two-year span no less than seven poems castigating Methodism. Although it is not entirely clear what spurred this flurry of output against the Methodists,17 the review journals unequivocally criticized Combe for the ruthlessness of his attacks. The Monthly summed up The Saints (1777) as ‘bitter’ and ‘virulent’, and his second instalment, entitled Perfection (1778), proved even more rancorous: ‘We never saw any thing [sic] more severe!’18 Combe’s The Temple of Imposture (1778) garnered the only positive remark, albeit in a qualified sense, of any of these poems: ‘There is a great deal of good poetry in this wicked performance; for wicked it will be deemed by more than Tabernacle and Foundery [sic] readers.’19 By the time the Monthly got to Fanatical Conversion (1779), a reviewer pleaded, ‘Spare us, good Bard, and turn at

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length, thy invective weapons on other objects.’20 The Critical reviewed only three of Combe’s poems but essentially drew the same conclusion: ‘This writer seems determined to extirpate the Methodists. He attacks them on all sides, and in all shapes. He has exposed and reprobated their lovefeasts with all the severity he has been able to exert. Perhaps he would write with more efficacy, if he were less violent.’21 Curiously, neither Combe nor his bookseller appears to have been troubled by the negative reviews, and, in fact, they capitalized on these statements to market Combe’s anti-Methodist verse. At the conclusion of The Love-Feast, J. Bew, Combe’s publisher, included advertisements for The Saints and Perfection with quotations from the Critical’s reviews of these poems.22 Categorizing the poems as ‘severe’ apparently served as a selling point, at least with readers predisposed against Methodism. Combe himself drew attention to the Monthly’s review of Perfection in Fanatical Conversion as a way of mocking Wesley—and perhaps the reviewers too. Lamenting the scourging he had received in the public press at Combe’s hands, a Wesley caricature explains, ‘But whither wou’d the Muse transport the Bard? How durst she bear on sacred Things so hard? How long shall bold Buffoon’ry’s impious Pen Thus satirize the best of Saints and Men; In tort’ring Rhyme and Copper-Plate profane Attempt on spotless Lambs to fix a Stain; With Innuendos sinless Leaders brand, And mock Perfection with a playful Hand?’ Combe inserted a note at the end of the fifth line referring his readers to the Monthly’s review of Perfection with the review’s summation of that poem: ‘Scorpions, Anecdotes, excruciating Rhymes, and torturing Copper-Plate Cuts! We never saw any thing [sic] more severe!’23 Combe thus celebrated and took aesthetic and monetary advantage of the negative reviews of his poems. Nonetheless, the reviews of Combe’s verse indicate that the reviewers believed satirists could go too far, and the reviewers regularly called out authors for potentially profaning the sacred via their attacks on Methodism. Both the Monthly and the Critical criticized the author of A Journal of the Travels of Nathaniel Snip (1761), a parody of the journals of Wesley and Whitefield, for making a mockery of God and the Holy Scriptures. Although the reviewer for the Monthly readily admitted that the journals of the two Methodist leaders provided ample ammunition for ‘burlesque’, he insisted that ‘this pamphleteer is, himself … equally reprehensible; for he has made such frequent and irreverent mention of the name of the Lord, as cannot but give offence to every decently pious ear: notwithstanding he puts the prophanation [sic] into the mouth of a wretched fanatic’. The reviewer concluded by stating that such irreverent use of the name of God is ill adapted to

Anti-Methodism and Belletristic Critique 117 burlesque: ‘If the sacred name of God ought never to be lightly used, on any pretence whatever, how much less so in a piece of buffoonery?’24 The Critical offered a similar assessment: ‘The agreeable humour and poignant wit of this little Journal are greatly diminished in the opinion of all who hold in veneration the Sacred Writings, by the indecent and ridiculous application of scripture texts and the sacred phraseology.’25 The reviewers for both journals repeatedly stressed that religious subjects should be dealt with in a tactful manner. Although the reviewers readily accepted the premise that Methodists were Papists in disguise, Samuel Badcock sharply reproved the author of Methodism and Popery Dissected and Compared (1779). Writing in the Monthly, Badcock reported, ‘There is some wit and some good language in this performance; but its profaneness and impudence are much more abundant than either.’ Badcock singled out the author’s ‘making merry with St. Paul’ which ‘shewed his impotence and his malice. To such writers we will only say—“Go–go along, poor devils! the world is wide enough:”—don’t taint the sacrifices of the altar’.26 Both the Monthly and the Critical agreed in their assessments of Ranae Comicae Evangelizantes, or the Comic Frogs Turned Methodists (1786) by John Oswald, a work that mocks religion generally by attacking Methodism. The Monthly concluded, ‘Under the pretence of attacking fanaticism and bigotry, every thing [sic] sacred, awful, even the very day of judgment, is exposed to ridicule!’27 The Critical offered an even more harsh rebuke: Whatever censure may be due to the conduct of particular sectaries, the sacred page of Scripture ought always to be preserved religiously inviolate from ridicule. Profane licentiousness is a symptom of folly, not wit. We must, therefore, inform this author, that if his capacity leads him to imitate Voltaire only in indecent sarcasms against the doctrines of Christianity, he may become, what he deserves, an object of universal contempt.28 In sum, the reviewers insisted that satirists avoid committing sins more heinous than the ones the satirists set out to condemn. The reviewers were particularly critical of writers who expressed their disdain for Methodism in nearly pornographic terms. The Methodists themselves invited charges that they sexualized spiritual experience via some of their forms of religious expression and such practices as love-feasts, which took place after dark and in close quarters, and the satirists were quick to notso-subtly suggest the licentious extremes to which the Methodists might go in satiating their religious and sexual appetites.29 Though the reviewers accepted the possibility that the revivalists were not as prudish as they appeared, the reviewers were unwilling to let the satirists go to vulgar extremes in mocking the Methodists. Badcock, for example, criticized an author who ‘had thrown out some very indecent and profane hints respecting the

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love-feasts of the Methodists’ in a satiric poem entitled The Religion of the Times, or a New Mirror for the Dignified Clergy (1780).30 This attitude proved especially relevant in the Monthly’s and the Critical’s reviews of Christopher Anstey’s The New Bath Guide (1766), which recounts in a series of poetic epistles a family of quality’s visit to Bath and satirizes the quirks of fashionable society. One of these epistles includes a description of the conversion of one of the family members, a romantic young woman named Prudence, to Methodism. Both journals agreed that the letters, most of which were composed in rhyming couplets, included wit and humour, and both journals offered almost wholly positive reviews, with the same exception: the epistle describing Prudence’s spiritual conversion. Prudence explains how, in a dream, she is visited in her bed by an apparition that resembles a young Methodist preacher whom she has encountered at Bath, and Antsey not-so-indirectly suggests that the experience, which is accompanied by panting and convulsions, involved an erotic element. The Monthly claimed that ‘there is an indecency in this letter for which the humour of it can by no means answer’.31 The Critical similarly concluded that the scene ‘suggests some ideas which, in point of delicacy, we cannot applaud’, adding this caveat: ‘yet we are inclined to excuse the facetious author, when we consider, that some of the mysteries of enthusiasm are reported, upon good authority’.32 Both reviews include lengthy excerpts from the poetic epistles, but Prudence’s conversion is excluded and criticized for its indecent content. Even though the Critical slipped in its customary jab at the Methodists by suggesting that Prudence’s experience might not be exaggerated, the reviewers’ critical standards steered the reviews for both journals to more meritorious features of the work and compelled the journals to criticize Anstey’s treatment of Methodism as unbecoming and not worthy of the reader’s attention. The reviewers’ response to The New Bath Guide might suggest that the reviewers leaned toward sexual prudishness. However, their criticisms had less to do with the explicit nature of Prudence’s account than with the ways Anstey sexualized religious experience and with the seemingly gratuitous nature of this section of the Guide. After all, the Monthly offered a wholly positive review of John Cleland’s Fanny Hill (1749), which recounts in, even by today’s standards, sexually explicit detail the adventures of a woman of pleasure.33 After stating that there is not ‘any thing [sic] in [Fanny Hill] more offensive to decency, or delicacy of sentiment and expression, than our novels and books of entertainment in general have’, the reviewer explained: ‘The author … does not seem to have expressed any thing [sic] with a view to countenance the practice of any immoralities, but merely to exhibit truth and nature to the world, and to lay open those mysteries of iniquity that, in our opinion, need only to be exposed to view, in order to their being abhorred and shunned by those who might otherwise unwarily fall into them.’ Even as the reviewer acknowledged that efforts were underway to ‘suppress’ the novel for its supposed indecency, he

Anti-Methodism and Belletristic Critique 119 insisted, ‘Vice has indeed fair quarter allowed it; and after painting whatever charms it may pretend to boast, with the fairest impartiality, the supposed female writer concludes with a lively declaration in favour of sobriety, temperance, and virtue.’34 The issue, then, was not the sexually explicit content; rather, the review focused on the ends to which Cleland recounted those details, with an aim of promoting sexual purity and virtue. Even though both review journals accepted the basic premise on which Anstey’s critique rested—that Methodist religiosity might merge the spiritual and sexual in unseemly ways—the reviewers stuck to their critical guns. Although Anstey was certainly not the first anti-Methodist writer to charge the Methodists with sexual impropriety, he appears to have made two crucial mistakes from the reviewers’ point of view: first, he failed to justify the sexually charged content by making the didactic intent explicitly clear, and second, he sexualized Methodist spirituality in gratuitous ways that potentially profaned the sacred. This last point is one on which the reviewers tended to be quite consistent, and they readily condemned literary productions that merged the secular and the sacred in irreverent and scandalous ways. The extent to which sexually charged material mitigated the reviewers’ proclivities for deriding the Methodists is also evident in the reviewers’ treatment of A Plain and Easy Road to the Land of Bliss (1762), an imitation of Swift’s Tale of a Tub that satirizes the doctrine of justification by faith and, like The New Bath Guide, eroticizes Methodist conversion. According to the author of A Plain and Easy Road, the concept of the New Birth, a pillar of Methodist religious experience, implied a kind of sexual penetration: Making towards one of the doors, I espied an object screaming, as for a wager—her eyes were turn’d into her head, and I was told that they were engaged with her inward man … I thought the D—l was in her, or that she got the dry gripes;—but was told by a woman (who looked like a whore) that she was got with child by what the teacher had said to her, and would, e’er long bring forth … . The patient laid, for some time, in one of the most indecent postures I ever saw; but no one was suffer’d to touch her, for fear of spoiling the operation.35 Passages like this prompted the Monthly to refer to A Plain and Easy Road as ‘a dull and indecent Satire on the Methodists’ that was ‘not only contemptible for its stupidity: it [was] also a filthy, obscene thing,—for which the dirty Author ought to be washed in the horse-pond’.36 A reviewer for the Critical found more to praise in A Plain and Easy Road’s treatment of Methodism but similarly found fault with the coarseness of the author’s manner: ‘The progress of this sect our author combats with all the force of strong irony, poignant wit, and genuine humour, sometimes however bordering upon indelicacy.’ Although the reviewer for the Critical ultimately recommended the piece, he qualified the recommendation by

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‘assuring [readers] that were the irony sustained with more regard to propriety … we should not scruple to equal it to any publication of the same nature since the days of Swift and Arbuthnot’.37 The Critical thus raised, even if in a more subdued way, the same fundamental concerns regarding the moral utility and literary appropriateness of A Plain and Easy Road.

The Theatre, Foote’s The Minor, and Ridiculing the Sacred Questions about the proper means and ends of satire preoccupied writers and critics throughout the long eighteenth century, and many of the more prominent literary figures from the Restoration onward contributed to the debate surrounding satiric decorum. Of the ends of satire, John Dryden claimed, ‘The poet is bound … to give his reader some one precept of moral virtue; and to caution him against some one particular vice or folly’; of the means, Dryden said, ‘It is that sharp, well-manner’d way of laughing a Folly out of Countenance.’38 Joseph Addison insisted that satire should be ‘directed against vice, with an air of contempt for the fault, but no ill will to the criminal’,39 while Alexander Pope declared that satire ‘heals with Morals what it hurts with Wit’.40 Whether these writers always put their theories into practice when executing their own satiric attacks can certainly be debated, but the underlying principle that satire should expose vice and promote virtue in a ‘sharp’ but ‘well-manner’d’ and witty way was one to which the Monthly and the Critical generally subscribed. Anticipating that his satiric treatment of the Methodists in The Minor (1760) might challenge some of these sensibilities, Samuel Foote contributed to the discourse regarding satiric technique and decorum in the play’s prologue, in which three characters, including Foote himself, discuss the proper object of comedy. After asserting that affectation is ‘the true comic object’, Foote proposes bringing ‘one of those itinerant field orators [a Methodist preacher]’ onto the stage, to which one of his companions responds, ‘Have a care. Dangerous ground. Ludere Cum Sacris, you know’ (do not toy with the sacred). Foote goes on to dismiss the warning by claiming that Methodist preachers were essentially public performers and competitors in the marketplace and therefore open to public censure.41 The concern Foote anticipates and responds to in his prologue appears to have been well founded, inasmuch as his play spawned one of the most publicized and heated pamphlet wars ‘in the history of theatre’42 as commentators, including those for the Monthly and the Critical, debated the propriety of Foote’s treatment of Methodism in the public press. Much of the debate surrounding The Minor, as well as its dramatic sequels, focused on Mrs. Cole (played by Foote himself) and her association with Dr Squintum, a Whitefield caricature. A Methodist convert and follower of Squintum, Mrs. Cole conveniently reconciles her profession as a procuress to her newfound faith in Methodism by deriding works of righteousness. Foote and his fellow playwrights, who offered even more

Anti-Methodism and Belletristic Critique 121 hyperbolic and scathing critiques of the belief in salvation by faith in several sequels to The Minor, thus dramatized the lengths to which the Methodists might go in justifying immoral behaviour, or at the very least, took the belief in salvation by faith to absurd, and potentially offensive, extremes for comic effect. The reviewers, on the other hand, raised the possibility that the anti-Methodist playwrights had perhaps gone to equally absurd extremes in satirizing Methodist belief and practice. The Spiritual Minor, anonymously published in 1760, represents a case in point. The plot of this particular sequel revolves around Mrs. Cole’s and Squintum’s efforts to ‘convert’ Miss Ogle to Methodism and a life of whoredom by insisting that one is saved by what they believe, not by what they do. Mrs. Cole cautions that Christians should not ‘rely too much upon their own good works’ because ‘it argues a want of faith’. When Miss Ogle insists that ‘a woman … be allowed to value herself upon her vartue [sic]’, Mrs. Cole counters, ‘A woman that values herself upon her vartue [sic] can’t have a true faith.’ The play insists that Methodism is a sure path to antinomianism. Rakish, Mrs. Cole’s client and would-be seducer of Miss Ogle, effectively draws this conclusion by stating that Methodism accords with his libertine lifestyle: ‘I’m something of a Methodist myself: I have not the least apprehension of being damn’d, though I indulge myself in the full gratification of all my passions.’43 Even though the reviewers routinely disclosed their own reservations about the Methodists’ insistence on salvation by faith, the Monthly and the Critical hardly gave The Spiritual Minor a free pass. The Monthly described The Spiritual Minor as ‘a low and stupid imitation of Mr. Foote’s Minor’,44 hinting at the possibility that the writer took his critique of Methodism too far. The Critical acknowledged this possibility more directly by expressing uncertainty regarding the play’s accuracy in portraying Methodist beliefs while still allowing that the Methodists had been fairly criticized: We are not authorized from any knowledge we have of the Methodist principles, to say, that this dramatical satire against them is not overcharged. The question depends upon the single fact, whether that set believes that good works are entirely unnecessary to salvation, and that, ‘the greater sins we commit, the greater glory do we give; the mediation being rendered meritorious in proportion to the offences.’ If such are the sentiments and the creed of Methodism, it ought to be exterminated from civil society; and stronger precautions taken against it than against the vending of arsenic, and other poisons.45 Curiously, the review, which I have quoted in its entirety, does not address the consequences, literary or otherwise, of the author misrepresenting Methodist teachings in the author’s efforts to achieve comic or satiric effect. At best, the review only implies that the Methodists might have been ‘overcharged’. Although The Spiritual Minor presented an opportunity to

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establish a benchmark for judging hyperbolic forms of literary expression— the sort of critical move that would have aligned the review with the professed aims of the journal—the reviewer ultimately waffled between literary critique and its anti-Methodist agenda. In reviewing The Minor, both journals similarly focused on questions of satiric decorum and whether Foote’s caricature of Whitefield in the figure of Squintum answered the ends of comedy. The Monthly concluded that Foote violated social and literary boundaries in associating the famous preacher with a common prostitute: the satire at the great Leader of the Methodists, seems to be extremely out of character. It is no less unjust to Mr. W-----, than absurd, to suppose a man of his penetration, either conniving at, or being the dupe of, an old Bawd’s hypocrisy … . We despise and abhor all enthusiastic flights, and high pretensions to extraordinary sanctity, as much as Mr [sic] Foote can do; but without entering into the enquiry whether or not these are proper objects of play-house ridicule, it is most certain, that no man, or body of men, ought to be charged with more than they are guilty of.46 Israel Pottinger’s sequel to The Minor, entitled The Methodist (1762), was criticized in a similar vein for its satiric handling of Whitefield, which, according to the Monthly, ‘is carried to such a height, as, in our judgment reflects the utmost disgrace upon Literature’.47 Of course, these reviews hardly vindicated Methodism, but they did condemn certain strains of the anti-Methodist critique, and they did so via an allegiance to prescribed standards for making literary judgments. The Minor naturally fared much better in the Critical. After conceding that ‘absurdities’ are seldom found in a ‘polite age’, the reviewer credited Foote for producing a play that ‘deserves to be ranked among some of the best of our comedic productions. We are here served up with no dull stage cant; with no stale and hackneyed repartee; the wit is original, and the satire poignant’. In other words, the play’s satire on Whitefield answered the ends of comedy, as this reviewer defined it, by exposing folly—in this case, religious hypocrisy on the part of Whitefield and his followers—in a fresh and humorous way. The reviewer’s one criticism centred on Foote’s borrowing from Molière and Farquhar, which was quickly excused, since ‘among comic writers nothing is so frequent as plagiarism’.48 The lengths to which Foote goes in deriding the Methodists appear to have been less of an issue for this reviewer than originality was, and by that standard Whitefield and Methodism provided, at least from the reviewer’s point of view, a singular set of follies and frailties that were suitable for comedic and satiric representation. While Methodism had been ridiculed in poetry and prose since the 1730s, Foote’s play was, in fact, the first staged production to tap Methodism for extensive comedic effect.

Anti-Methodism and Belletristic Critique 123 As the reviews of The Minor and its sequels suggest, the Monthly and the Critical actively participated in the pamphlet war that raged in the public press following The Minor’s debut. In addition to offering their opinions of The Minor and its spinoffs, the journals weighed in on several of the pamphlets exchanged between Foote and his critics. The Monthly, perhaps not surprisingly, responded sympathetically to Martin Madan’s defence of Whitefield in Christian and Critical Remarks on a Droll, or Interlude, Called The Minor (1760): ‘We think [the author] has reason to be angry with Mr. Foote, for having so ludicrously attacked the great Leader of the Methodists. He has raised some very just objections.’49 The Monthly likewise criticized Foote’s reply: ‘it is a crude piece, thrown out in a hurry, with little regard to method or correctness: but, what more could be expected from such a volatile Genius?’50 The Critical, on the other hand, championed Foote over Madan. Of Madan’s Remarks, a reviewer offered up a relatively innocuous short notice: ‘Here a pretended disciple of the great prophet of the tabernacle encounters the archness and comic satire of the humorous author of the Minor, with arguments deduced from scripture and the fathers.’51 Madan’s Letter to David Garrick (1760), which Madan published in an attempt to dissuade Garrick from performing The Minor at Drury Lane, was similarly glossed over, though in much harsher terms: ‘We conceive our author to be one of the most unentertaining and stupid. Surely the way to promote piety is not to render it thus unamiable!’52 Finally, a reviewer of Madan’s second address to Foote simply attacked Madan’s character: ‘One would imagine that this waggish comedian had hired a set of dunces for whetstones to his wit.’53 By comparison, Foote’s Letter to Madan garnered a more critical and nuanced review that ultimately lauded what the reviewer characterized as Foote’s well-reasoned defence of the play: ‘Mr. Foote … descends from his chair of Comus into the common road of serious argument, and enters upon a sober refutation of the reverend critick’s [sic] remarks. He very gravely proves that the Minor is not a farce, but a comedy.’ The reviewer then summarized Foote’s claims: ‘He enumerates the bad effects of that fanaticism which prevails among the Methodists, treats Whitefield as an imposter, defends the character of Mrs. Cole as introduced in the Minor … . On the whole, if the readers of this piece are disappointed in their expectation of wit and humour, they must own, at least, that [Foote’s Letter] is replete with sound reason and good sense.’54 When this review is compared with the Monthly’s description of Foote’s Letter—‘a crude piece, thrown out in a hurry, with little regard to method or correctness’—a reader might never guess the two reviewers were commenting on the same pamphlet. Indeed, the Critical’s reviewers appear to have been unwilling, or at least reluctant, to spare the Methodists from any kind of criticism in the aftermath of The Minor—even when, according to the reviewers, that criticism was poorly executed. Of a work published in support of Foote, a reviewer wrote, ‘Here a great deal of abuse is thrown out against the Methodists; how justly

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sounded, we will not pretend to determine. Though we are unwilling to countenance scurrility and dullness, it is with pleasure we observe several late attempts to bring this sect of enthusiasts into contempt.’ The reviewer thus justified the author’s intended effect while hinting at the possibility that the accusations levelled at the revivalists might be unmerited and delivered in a reprehensible and uninteresting way, a tack likewise taken in the very next review of a similarly intended piece: ‘the only difference [between the two being] in the execution … that this is jocularly dull, and the other solemnly stupid’.55 In declaiming against dullness, such reviews may well have detoured readers from reading these works. Nonetheless, the direct and concise statements delivered against the Methodists and embedded in the critical commentary promoted, by proxy, the intended effect of these anti-Methodist works—to disparage Methodism—even as the reviewers questioned the efficacy of the authors’ modes of achieving satiric effect.

Judging Methodist Literature The Methodists entered the literary scene not only as dramatic caricatures and the subjects about whom poets and novelists wrote, but as authors who produced an extensive body of sacred verse. Indeed, the revivalists were prolific writers of hymnals and religious poetry, some of which caught the attention of the reviewers, who drew the same basic conclusion: the Methodists were bad poets. The criteria by which the reviewers drew their conclusions were naturally influenced by the anti-Methodist bias that undergirded both review journals, but the reviewers grounded their critical statements in prevailing notions of linguistic propriety—words suitably adapted to a writer’s subject matter and delivered in a plain and clear style. On this point, the reviewers could indirectly lean on critical statements by such literary giants as John Dryden, whose An Essay of Dramatic Poesy (1668) helped define neoclassical aesthetics and articulated a view of poetic expression that underlies the reviewers’ claims about Methodist poetry: ‘wit is best conveyed to us in the most easy language; and is most to be admired when a great thought comes dressed in words so commonly received that it is understood by the meanest apprehensions, as the best meat is the most easily digested.’56 The Methodist manner of writing in verse and prose was so routinely criticized in both the Monthly and the Critical that the word ‘Methodist’ came to not only signify an enthusiastic participant in the revival but described what the reviewers perceived as an incoherent and hyperemotional style of writing, a point of view that derived, in part, from stereotypes of Methodist religiosity. These stereotypes were usually characterized by excessive zeal and emotional outbursts, but the association of the term ‘Methodist’ with a particular style of writing likewise derived from an assessment of the various works authored by the revivalists themselves. Just as the Methodists’ religious treatises and polemical writings were

Anti-Methodism and Belletristic Critique 125 characterized as incoherent and rapturous, their sacred verse elicited the same sorts of epithets. The preponderance of cases in which reviewers defined the writings by Methodists in such terms meant that the reviewers could deploy the term ‘Methodist’ or ‘Methodism’ in a variety of contexts to describe an impolite way of writing that corrupted rather than clarified meaning. A reviewer in 1771 thus characterized a performance by John Newton by simply stating that ‘he writes much in the strain of those Divines who are in so much request with the Methodists, &c. and to readers of that stamp’,57 presumably because the journal’s subscribers would have recognized the style of writing to which the reviewer referred. In 1781, a reviewer for the Critical similarly described a collection of letters, also by Newton, as ‘written in the canting strain; and will probably be read with avidity by the groaning brethren of the tabernacle’.58 In short, the terms ‘Methodist’ and ‘Methodism’ became a part of the reviewers’ critical discourse and denoted a particular kind of writing that was more emotional than sensible, more effusive than expressive. Although John and Charles Wesley published dozens of hymnals for their followers during their lives, the reviewers overlooked the majority of these collections. One exception—a collection by Charles that was reviewed by Ralph Griffiths in the Monthly—exemplifies the ways reviewers linked the enthusiasm associated with the revival to an indecorous mode of literary expression. As demonstrated in previous chapters, the reviewers routinely criticized Methodists for manipulating language and scripture to their advantage in their polemical and theological publications; Griffiths drew similar conclusions about Charles’s sacred verse. The hymns, Griffiths claimed, ‘will make the reader stare, at least, if not admire, at the dexterity with which a Methodist… can typify, turn, and twist the plainest passages of holy writ, to adapt them to their mystical system’. Noting the indelicate ways in which Charles’s hymns yoked earthly images with spiritual ideas, Griffiths went on to accuse Charles of ‘Bathos’, ending with this rebuke: ‘may we not ask these rhyming enthusiasts how they dare to take such liberties, and use such indecent freedom, with the holy word of God!’59 The index to the volume in which this review appears includes an entry for ‘Methodists’ accompanied by this pointed definition: ‘burlesquers of the scriptures, by their absurd hymns’, a succinct summation of Griffiths’ opinion of Charles’s— and by extension, the Methodists’—capacities as poets. Charles proved to be the most prolific poet of the revival, but laymen and women likewise tried their hands at composing and publishing their own sacred verse. One of these women published a collection entitled Miscellaneous Devotions in Prose and Verse (1757) with the intention of donating the proceeds to a poverty-stricken neighbour. Though a reviewer for the Monthly commended the author’s motives, he insisted that the collection, described as ‘a specimen … of Methodist poetry’, was written in an ‘enthusiastic strain’: ‘We hope this charitable Gentlewoman will not think of conveying her benevolence, on any future occasion, through the same

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channel: for though her views may be perfectly good in the main; yet, it is certain that such subjects as she has here chosen to exercise her literary talents upon, can receive no real advantage from her manner of treating them.’60 Although the review lacks the specificity found in the review of Charles’s hymns, characterizing the author’s verse as ‘enthusiastic’ effectively implied what was made explicit in the critical discussion of Charles’s collection: the verse proved unrestrained in its mode of expression and sentiment. The Monthly made similar observations in a review of An Evening Walk, a Poem (1757), which dramatizes the account of Christ appearing to his disciples on the road to Emmaus following his resurrection (Luke 24). The reviewer concluded that the author must be ‘some devout Methodist’ based on the poem’s style, a style he compared to a kind of poetry condemned by the literary establishment since the Restoration and to a historical moment that retained associations with the destructive consequences of religious and political fanaticism—namely, the time of Oliver Cromwell and the English Civil Wars. ‘Some devout Methodist …,’ the reviewer stated, ‘has here put the journey to Emmaus, and the conversation that happened between the supposed stranger, and Cleopas, into a kind of verse, resembling the manner of Quarles and Withers, who whined and rhimed [sic] so edifyingly in the days of Old Noll.’61 Both Francis Quarles and George Wither were soldiers and poets during the Civil Wars and wrote religious verse: Quarles sided with the royalists and was best known for his emblem poems; Wither joined the Puritan cause and also assembled a collection of religiously focused emblem poems, in addition to composing a number of hymns. The comparison of the poet of An Evening Walk to these two poets, then, was not intended as a compliment. Despite representing opposite sides of the political spectrum, Quarles and Wither participated in the Civil Wars as a result of their zealous commitment to their respective causes, and they both wrote a kind of verse the literary establishment, beginning with their own contemporaries, routinely described as hyperbolic and formally contrived. Sir John Suckling claimed in A Session of the Poets (1646) that Quarles ‘makes God speak so big in ‘s poetry’,62 whereas Alexander Pope specifically targeted Quarles and his emblem poems in The Dunciad (1728–43). Referring to poets who ‘on Out-side merit but presume / Or serve (like other Fools) to fill a room’, Pope pointed to Quarles’s verse ‘where the pictures for the page attone [sic], / And Quarles is sav’d by beauties not his own’.63 A more modern critic described Wither’s poems as ‘endless[ly] diffuse and didactic’ and questioned whether ‘they can be called poems [at all]’.64 The reference to Quarles and Wither effectively suggested that An Evening Walk was as stylistically flawed and contrived as an emblem poem, which Pope presented as superficial, unsophisticated, and void of sensible and substantive thought. Like Charles Wesley’s hymns, the verse commonly associated with Methodist poets in the review journals (the reviewer ‘imagines’ An Evening Walk was written by ‘some devout Methodist’65) thus assumed the same

Anti-Methodism and Belletristic Critique 127 characteristics that commonly described their religious lives: incoherent, incongruous, and potentially destructive to both the individual and society. The allusion to the age of Cromwell made clear that just as fanatical thinking might culminate in political unrest and civil war, such sensibilities likewise produced poorly written poetry. A poem entitled Enthusiasm (1758) by Edmond Fox, which makes a distinction between what Fox characterizes as true and false enthusiasm, received this short notice: ‘This seems to be something in behalf of the Methodists; but it is such absurd and miserable stuff, there is no understanding it.’66 Another pro-Methodist piece entitled The Troublers of Israel (1768) was criticized by Langhorne in similar terms: ‘The Troublers of Israel is a kind of methodistical opera most profanely foolish, and most enthusiastically incoherent. How much does poor Religion suffer from the ridiculous zeal of these blind fanatics!’67 The Critical drew a similar conclusion: ‘This publication contains several pieces in favour of the Methodists; and, without doubt, is the production of one of that fraternity. It is full of piety; but such balderdash as not one person in five can have patience to read.’68 A review of an anonymously published poem entitled The Pastor and dedicated to Whitefield appeared in the same volume of the Critical with a handful of lines extracted from the poem: ‘The writer who composes such rhymes as these, has not the least pretensions to the name of a poet; and insults the taste of the public, when he sends them into the world.’69 The reviewers reacted in a similar vein to the various poems and elegies published at the time of Whitefield’s death in 1770. A reviewer for the Critical spurned a funeral ode in a single succinct statement: ‘Price one penny, but not worth a single farthing’; and the very next notice of another elegy reads, ‘George Whitefield again!—Indeed we are almost ready to wish … that all his poets had accompanied him to the other world … . This poem is wretched stuff.’70 Despite the seriousness of the event that inspired such poems, the reviewers seized the opportunity to make fun of Methodist poets and satirize Methodist religiosity. ‘We sometimes meet with humour in places where we could least expect to find it: in pious sermons, and pathetic lamentations for the loss of a departed preacher,’ Langhorne wrote of Charles Wesley’s An Elegy on the Late Reverend Mr. George Whitefield (1771).71 A reviewer for the Critical emphatically stated that Charles Wesley’s elegy was ‘too contemptible for criticism, though it deserves the lash for its prophaneness [sic]’.72 Of a monody written by a Whitefield disciple, another reviewer claimed that the ‘performance [was] as far removed from real poetry, as methodism [sic] from true devotion’ and described the verse as ‘unconnected nonsense’ with ‘a few instances of fanatic elegance and sublimity’.73 The reviews of Methodist verse remained remarkably consistent throughout the first forty years the review journals were in circulation. As late as 1789, both the Monthly and the Critical agreed that Hannah Wallis’s The Female’s Meditations proved, yet again, that the Methodists

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were as defunct in their poetic sensibilities as they were in their spiritual understanding.74 The Critical described Wallis’s collection as ‘the wretched effusions of one who seems to have mistaken the enthusiasm of a Methodist for the inspiration of poetry’ while the Monthly insisted that ‘it does not seem in the power of any human being to render tolerable the verses of this poor Methodist’.75 The consistency of such statements across both review journals effectively established a critical baseline by which reviewers assessed a range of literary productions, whether written in verse or prose. First published between 1765 and 1770 in multiple volumes, Henry Brooke’s sentimental novel The Fool of Quality was described by the Monthly as a ‘religious romance’ that eventually became popular among the Methodists. Indeed, Wesley published an abridged version of the novel in 1781 that he distributed among his followers,76 an occurrence that was anticipated by the Monthly’s reviewer who reported reading the novel with a ‘mixture of delight and disgust’. The reviewer explained, ‘What can we say more of a performance which is at once enriched by genius, enlivened by fancy, bewildered with enthusiasm, and over-run with the visionary jargon of fanaticism?’ The reviewer then begged Brooke to issue an abridged version ‘cleared from the sanctimonious rubbish by which its beauties are so much obscured’ and then concluded that, ‘while it remains in its present motley state, we apprehend it will be a favourite with only Behmenites, Hernhutters, Methodists, Hutchinsonians, and some of the Roman Catholics’.77 As the review of Brooke’s novel suggests, any work deemed overly pious, hyperemotional, or unrestrained was associated with the Methodists. Of a poem entitled The Sadducee (1778) by Joseph Priestly and characterized as ill-tempered, a reviewer concluded that Priestley was ‘probably a methodist [sic], but certainly no poet’;78 another review described a work entitled A Description of the Storm That Happened in West Kent (1763) by John Hedges—which provided religious reflections along with an account of a natural disaster—as ‘a piece of unintelligible rhapsody, penned, as it should seem by the style, by some wild enthusiastic methodist [sic]’.79 Similarly, a ‘catch-penny piece’ containing ‘arrant nonsense… [and] consisting of nothing but trite and common-place declamation’ was ultimately dismissed for being ‘as long and tedious as a methodist [sic] sermon, and almost as dull’.80 On the other hand, a reviewer described Thomas Jones as ‘a moderate Methodist’ in a review of Jones’s collected works, inasmuch as Jones ‘kept clear of the excesses with which many of that persuasion are chargeable’ and for the relatively judicious way by which he expressed his religious opinions.81 Such associations appear throughout the corpus of reviews in both journals. The Sick Man’s Companion (1767), which provides instructions for and examples of various kinds of prayers, was praised for its simplicity and plainness of expression. The reviewer drew his conclusion by juxtaposing the author’s directives with the Lord’s prayer as recounted in the

Anti-Methodism and Belletristic Critique 129 New Testament (Matthew 6:9–13) and then comparing the Lord’s prayer to the enthusiastic prayers of the Methodists: ‘In this excellent prayer there is nothing mean, intricate, or obscure; there are none of those mystical expressions, those enthusiastic rants, those rapturous flights of unhallowed love and spiritual concupiscence; with which some of our modern books of devotion abound.’ Such books are produced, the reviewer stated, by ‘the fanatical brain[s] of Methodists and Moravians’.82 The Monthly and the Critical even incorporated anti-Methodist rhetoric into reviews of primarily secular publications. A foreign author whose History of Ancient Greece had been recently translated into English was singled out for including ‘fantastical’ expressions: ‘Had he been an Englishman, the judicious part of his readers would have not hesitated one moment in pronouncing him to have been a kind of methodist [sic].’83

Conclusion Although the Monthly and the Critical typically rehashed anti-Methodist arguments that had tailed the revival since the late 1730s, their valuation of the Methodists as authors represents a unique contribution to the campaign to discredit Methodism; or, at the very least, the cultural position from which they levelled their charges added heft to their claim that Methodism compromised an individual’s rational faculties and facility with language. As self-decreed—and publicly recognized—arbiters of literary taste, the reviewers possessed a kind of social capital that substantiated their critical statements and opinions. Booksellers who cited the Monthly’s and the Critical’s reviews in their advertisements of newly published books, authors who, even if reluctantly, acknowledged the journals’ impact on the bookbuying public, and the popularity of both journals all attest to the reviewers’ influence or perceived influence. The reviewers did not merely disparage forms of religious belief and practice in their reviews; they set out to regulate how those beliefs and practices were expressed by the Methodists themselves and critiqued by their critics. All forms of expression, from the spiritual to the satiric, thus fell within the purview of the Monthly and the Critical. Although the reviews of the Methodists’ forays into poetry easily reconciled the reviewers’ literary standards with a clear anti-Methodist agenda, the inconsistent quality of the anti-Methodist literature ensured that a fissure opened up in the review literature between a straightforward, negative attitude toward Methodism and the reviewers’ efforts to codify critical standards. The reviewers were thus compelled to navigate between what were sometimes competing objectives. The reviewers’ choices about how to frame their critical judgments inevitably skewed the tenor and focus of a review in one direction or another—toward opinionated statements about the revival or toward critical commentary primarily concerned with aesthetics—or somewhere in between. Nowhere is the pull between the impulse to ridicule Methodism and the efforts to establish literary standards

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more evident than in those reviews in which reviewers felt compelled to cry foul when an author had, in their judgment, transgressed literary or social boundaries. Although neither journal vindicated the Methodists, the reviewers’ insistence that satire be fair as well as severe meant that certain elements of the anti-Methodist critique were challenged in the pages of the Monthly and the Critical. As I have documented here and in previous chapters, when a highly politicized agenda to discredit Methodism converged with the desire to codify and remain true to a set of literary principles, inevitable conflicts and compromises played out in both review journals. This contest between reviewer opinion and standards of critical judgment ultimately defined the literary review essay as it developed in the eighteenth century at the same time the critical enterprise attempted to regulate and shape the anti-Methodist discourse.

Notes 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

14 15 16 17

18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25

Lucien’s A True Story is widely regarded as the first work of science fiction. Critical, 17:429 and 430. James G. Basker, Tobias Smollett: Critic and Journalist (Newark, DL, 1988), 94. Antonia Forster, Index to Book Reviews in England, 1749–1774 (Carbondale, IL, 1990), 7. Monthly, 48:384 (1773). Monthly, 48:384 and 387 (1773). See Charlotte Lennox, The Female Quixote (Oxford, 2008). Critical, 35:275–6 and 281 (1773). Monthly, 35:319–20 (1766). Critical, 22:77 (1766). Monthly, 37:395 (1767). Critical, 25:66 (1767). Monthly, 55:327 (1777). Rees ‘was generally regarded as the most eminent dissenting clergyman in London’ during the latter part of his life. See Benjamin Christie Nangle, The Moody, First Series, 1749 –1789: Indexes of Contributors and Articles (Oxford, 1934), 36. Monthly, 58:76 (1778). Critical, 39:166 (1775). See Methodism, a Farce (London, 1774). Critical, 42:232 (1776). A recent literary encyclopedia provides a fairly comprehensive overview of Combe’s writing career but does not so much as mention any of his antiMethodist poems. See Christopher J. Scalia, ‘Combe, William’, in Gary Day and Jack Lynch (eds), The Encyclopedia of British Literature, 1660–1798, vol. 1 (Oxford, 2015), 294–6. Monthly, 58:73 and 305 (1778). Monthly, 59:157 (1778). Monthly, 60:478 (1779). Critical, 45:472–3 (1778). William Combe, The Love-Feast (London, 1778). William Combe, Fanatical Conversion, or Methodism Displayed (London, 1779), 49. Monthly, 24:162 (1761). Critical, 11:79 (1761).

Anti-Methodism and Belletristic Critique 131 26 Monthly, 63:394 (1780). Badcock was a dissenting minister who, in 1787, conformed to Anglicanism, at which point we quit writing for the Monthly. See Nangle, The Monthly Review, 2. 27 Monthly, 77:172 (1787). 28 Critical, 63:160 (1787). 29 See Brett C. McInelly, Textual Warfare and the Making of Methodism (Oxford, 2014), 146–79. 30 Monthly, 62:322 (1780). 31 Monthly, 34:472 (1766). 32 Critical, 21:373 (1766). 33 Nicholas Mason, who documents the ways in which the early review journals utilized the review essay as an advertising mechanism, either for their own published books or for hire, characterizes this particular review as the most ‘comically disingenuous review’ published by Ralph Griffiths, founder of the Monthly. Griffiths in fact used the review to ‘puff’ his own republication of a ‘somewhat sanitized edition’ of Cleland’s novel. Mason refers specifically to Griffiths’ ‘feigned… ignorance concerning the book’s authorship and surprise over the public outcry surrounding its alleged lewdness’, not Griffiths’ critical defense of the novel’s potentially objectionable content. See Nicholas Mason, Literary Advertising and the Shaping of British Romanticism (Baltimore, MD, 2013), 43–4. 34 Monthly, 2:432 (1749). 35 A Plain and Easy Road to the Land of Bliss (London, 1762), 177–8. 36 Monthly, 26:236 (1762). 37 Critical, 13:358–9 (1762). 38 John Dryden, ‘A Discourse Concerning the Original and Progress of Satire’, in Joseph Warton and John Warton (eds), The Poetical Works of John Dryden (London, 1851), 384. 39 Joseph Addison, The Spectator, no. 422 (London, 1836), 486. 40 Alexander Pope, ‘The First Epistle of the Second Book of Horace Imitated’, in Aubrey Williams (ed), Poetry and Prose of Alexander Pope (Boston, 1969), 249. 41 Samuel Foote, The Minor (Dublin, 1760), 8–9. 42 Jane Moody, ‘Stolen Identities: Character, Mimicry and the Invention of Samuel Foote’, in Mary Luckhurst and Jane Moody (eds), Theatre and Celebrity in Britain, 1660–2000 (New York, 2005), 80. 43 Spiritual Minor (London, 1760), 10 and 30. 44 Monthly, 29:236 (1763). 45 Critical, 16:74–5 (1763). 46 Monthly, 23:83 (1760). 47 Monthly, 25:392 (1762). 48 Critical, 10:69 and 70 (1760). 49 Monthly, 23:167 (1760). 50 Monthly, 23:328 (1760). 51 Critical, 10:238 (1760). 52 Critical, 10:402 (1760). 53 Critical, 10:408 (1760). 54 Critical, 10:321–2 (1760). 55 Critical, 10:322 (1760). 56 John Dryden, An Essay of Dramatic Poesy, in Lawrence Lipking (ed), The Norton Anthology of English Literature, vol. 1C (7th edn, New York, 2000), 2117. 57 Monthly, 43:75 (1771). The work in question was A Review of Ecclesiastical History (London, 1770). Although Newton was not formally aligned with the Methodists, the reviewers frequently associated his writings with the revival. See Appendix A.

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58 Critical, 52:368 (1781). The collection’s title is Cardiphonia: or, the Utterance of the Heart (London, 1781). 59 Monthly, 38:52–3 and 54–5 (1768). 60 Monthly, 17:381–2 (1757). 61 Monthly, 16:363 (1757). 62 Sir John Suckling, ‘A Sessions of the Poets’, in Frederick A. Stokes (ed), The Poems of Sir John Suckling (New York, 1886), 173. 63 Alexander Pope, The Dunciad, in Aubrey Williams (ed), Poetry and Prose of Alexander Pope (Boston, 1969), 313. 64 Herbert J. C. Grierson, Cross-Currents in Seventeenth Century English Literature: The World, the Flesh, and the Spirit, Their Actions and Reactions (New York, 1958), 148. 65 Monthly, 16:363 (1757). 66 Monthly, 19:588 (1758). 67 Monthly, 38:70 (1768). 68 Critical, 25:235 (1768). 69 Critical, 25:312 (1768). 70 Critical, 31:76 (1771). 71 Monthly, 44:174 (1771). 72 Critical, 31:75–6 (1771). 73 Critical, 31:74–5 (1771). 74 The reviewers appear to have associated Hannah Wallis with Methodism based on her mode of expression and subject matter rather than direct evidence since she does not identify herself as a Methodist. Wallis likewise anticipated the negative reviews. Referring to her verse, she exclaimed on her title page, ‘You Critics, (Reviewers,) find Fault if you please, / I hope to be patient, if you mean to tease.’ Hannah Wallis, The Female’s Meditations (London, 1787). 75 Critical, 69:116 (1790) and Monthly, 80:279 (1789). 76 See Henry Brooke, The History of Henry Earl of Moreland, vol. 2 (London, 1781). 77 Monthly, 42:330 (1770). 78 Critical, 47:75 (1780). 79 Critical, 17:63 (1764). 80 Critical, 55:414–15 (1783). The piece in question was entitled The Blazing Star, or Vestina, the Gigantic, Rosy, Goddess of Health (London, 1783). 81 Critical, 15:368 (1763). 82 Critical, 23:192–3 (1767). 83 Critical, 27:191 (1769).

References Addison, Joseph, The Spectator, no. 422 (London, 1836). Basker, James G., Tobias Smollett: Critic and Journalist (Newark, DL, 1988). The Blazing Star, or Vestina, the Gigantic, Rosy, Goddess of Health (London, 1783). Brooke, Henry, The History of Henry Earl of Moreland, vol. 2 (London, 1781). Combe, William, Fanatical Conversion, or Methodism Displayed (London, 1779). Combe, William, The Love-Feast (London, 1778). The Critical Review (London). Dryden, John, ‘A Discourse Concerning the Original and Progress of Satire’, in Joseph Warton and John Warton (eds), The Poetical Works of John Dryden (London, 1851), 352–388.

Anti-Methodism and Belletristic Critique 133 Dryden, John, An Essay of Dramatic Poesy, in Lawrence Lipking (ed), The Norton Anthology of English Literature, vol. 1C (7th edn, New York, 2000), 2114–2118. Foote, Samuel, The Minor (Dublin, 1760). Forster, Antonia, Index to Book Reviews in England, 1749–1774 (Carbondale, IL, 1990). Grierson, Herbert J. C., Cross-Currents in Seventeenth Century English Literature: The World, the Flesh, and the Spirit, Their Actions and Reactions (New York, 1958). Lennox, Charlotte, The Female Quixote (Oxford, 2008). Mason, Nicholas, Literary Advertising and the Shaping of British Romanticism (Baltimore, MD, 2013). McInelly, Brett C., Textual Warfare and the Making of Methodism (Oxford, 2014). Methodism, a Farce (London, 1774). The Monthly Review (London). Moody, Jane, ‘Stolen Identities: Character, Mimicry and the Invention of Samuel Foote’, in Mary Luckhurst and Jane Moody (eds), Theatre and Celebrity in Britain, 1660–2000 (New York, 2005), 65–89. Nangle, Benjamin Christie, The Monthly Review, First Series, 1749 –1789: Indexes of Contributors and Articles (Oxford, 1934). Newton, John, Cardiphonia: Or, the Utterance of the Heart (London, 1781). Newton, John, A Review of Ecclesiastical History (London, 1770). A Plain and Easy Road to the Land of Bliss (London, 1762). Pope, Alexander, ‘The Dunciad’, in Aubrey Williams (ed), Poetry and Prose of Alexander Pope (Boston, 1969), 295–378. Pope, Alexander, ‘The First Epistle of the Second Book of Horace Imitated’, in Aubrey Williams (ed), Poetry and Prose of Alexander Pope (Boston, 1969), 241–254. Scalia, Christopher J., ‘Combe, William’, in Gary Day and Jack Lynch (eds), The Encyclopedia of British Literature, 1660–1798, vol. 1 (Oxford, 2015), 294–296. Spiritual Minor (London, 1760). Suckling, Sir John, ‘A Sessions of the Poets’, in Frederick A. Stokes (ed), The Poems of Sir John Suckling (New York, 1886), 172–180. Wallis, Hannah, The Female’s Meditations (London, 1787).

5

Reviewing the Oxford Expulsion and the Minutes Controversy

Four years after six students of St. Edmund Hall, Oxford, were dismissed from the university for their ties to Methodism, which occurred in March of 1768, James Boswell asked Samuel Johnson his opinion of ‘the recent expulsion of six students … who … would not desist from praying and exhorting’. Johnson replied, Sir, that expulsion was extremely just and proper. What have they to do at an University who are not willing to be taught, but will presume to teach? Where is religion to be learnt but at an University? Sir, they were examined, and found to be mighty ignorant fellows. Boswell responded by stating that the young men were ‘good beings’, to which Johnson retorted, ‘Sir, I believe they might be good beings; but they were not fit to be in the University of Oxford. A cow is a very good animal in the field; but we turn her out of a garden.’1 Johnson’s relatively conservative position on an event that generated a good deal of public interest is less surprising than the conversation Boswell reports took place almost exactly four years after the event itself— demonstrating how the Oxford expulsion captured and then held the public’s attention. As Catharine K. Firman explains, The trial and eventual expulsion of the students … caused wider interest than, perhaps, the University officials could have anticipated. The controversy was taken up in the public press, and a spate of pamphlets appeared which attempted to defend either the methodists [sic] or the University through theological and judicial debates, or through satire. Although the charges brought against the students included their low births and lack of academic training, the principal objection was various ‘ecclesiastical irregularities—praying extempore, preaching in fields, expounding the scriptures, officiating in a chapel unordained, preaching in a barn, [and] holding the doctrine of Election’.2 This last point explains why the most DOI: 10.4324/9781003392323-6

Reviewing the Oxford Expulsion 135 spirited defences of the six students came from leaders of the Calvinist arm of the Methodist movement, including George Whitefield, Augustus Toplady, and Sir Richard Hill. Pamphlets either defending or condemning the six students began to appear in April of 1768, and reviews of those pamphlets made their way into the Critical Review as early as May and the Monthly Review by June. The debate surrounding the expulsion carried into 1769 as the vying parties exchanged statements and counterstatements, with the Monthly and the Critical commenting on 10 of the 20-plus pamphlets published in relation to the proceedings. The review journals, then, essentially reported on the debate in real time as the debate unfolded, or as close to real time as eighteenthcentury printing technology allowed, and in this respect, performed the part of newspaper as much as that of review journal by providing coverage of the various sides of the debate while commenting on the issues themselves in editorial fashion. The Monthly and the Critical thus did more than offer critical opinions of the literary and rhetorical merit of the various pamphlets; they engaged in the debate itself. This chapter examines this particular dynamic of the review journals, first, via a study of the Monthly’s and the Critical’s coverage of the dispute surrounding the Oxford expulsion, and second, by investigating the publications and reviews associated with what came to be known as the Minutes controversy, an internal debate within Methodism that took place in the early 1770s as Wesley and the Arminian Methodists contended with the Calvinists over the doctrines of predestination and election, a debate that likewise played out the public press. In retrospect, the Minutes controversy was anticipated by and connected to the Oxford expulsion as Wesley and the Arminian Methodists silently sided with the university, which they believed was exorcizing Calvinism, not Methodism, from their midst. While Methodism, broadly speaking, generated plenty of controversy throughout the eighteenth century, events like the Oxford expulsion and the Minutes controversy brought concentrated attention to the revival and a sharpened focus on a set of issues unique to the events themselves. The Oxford expulsion raised questions about Methodism’s place in the larger society: Had the movement evolved enough to be recognized as a legitimate religious and cultural institution, or did it still represent for most observers a fringe, and potentially dangerous, religious group? The Minutes controversy ultimately illuminated a doctrinal divide within Methodism that had been present in the movement since the early 1740s that, from the point of view of the reviewers, raised questions regarding the doctrinal integrity of the Methodist movement. The coverage of both events in the review journals contributed to the public discourse about Methodism while elucidating the influential role the review journals played, or attempted to play, in shaping public perception of the revival and its participants.

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Reviewing the Oxford Expulsion Methodism’s founding at Oxford in the 1730s via the ‘Holy Club’ generated its share of controversy, and Methodism’s presence at the university remained a tenuous one, even before the Oxford expulsion. Thomas Haweis was dismissed from his curacy in Oxford in 1762 for preaching evangelical doctrines, and Anglican authorities had likewise barred Methodists from their pulpits.3 Anti-Methodist sentiment resurfaced at the end of the 1760s as the Countess of Huntingdon, patroness to Whitefield and the most socially prominent supporter of the Calvinist Methodists, sought to ‘increase the evangelical witness at Oxford’ with the hope of securing ordination for ministers with strong evangelical, and Calvinistic, leanings.4 At the time of the expulsion, the Countess was accused of having encouraged the six men to abandon their trades to pursue their studies while she was providing financial support for their time at the university, accusations she readily denied.5 Nonetheless, the expulsion expedited her plans to establish an institution for the training of evangelical ministers, an objective that culminated in the founding of Trevecca College later in the same year. Several of the six expelled men were among the first of Trevecca’s students. Although ‘the pamphlet war that ensued created something of a national sensation’,6 Wesley and his followers remained conspicuously silent about the proceedings. As Boyd Stanley Schlenther observes, ‘Viewing the event not as the expulsion of Methodists, but of Calvinists, Wesley was pleased that the Oxford authorities had cleared the Church of England of official belief in predestination.’ Of more importance to the future direction of the movement, ‘the expulsion of the six students reopened the ever present theological fault-line within Methodism, which two years later would lead to a convulsion of seismic proportions’ by way of the Minutes controversy.7 Hill and Toplady stirred up matters by not only mounting vigorous defences of the students but asserting Calvinistic readings of the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England. Whitefield was the first Methodist to publicly denounce the university for the actions taken against the six students in A Letter to the Rev. Dr. Durell, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford (1768), and his was the first pamphlet related to the proceedings reviewed by the Monthly and the Critical. The Monthly offered a fairly brief and mostly neutral account of Whitefield’s defence: Mr. Whitefield sharply reproves the masters in Israel for their late conduct in expelling six methodistical students of Edmond-Hall [sic]; and very naturally takes occasion to vindicate the principles and practices of that sect of which he is one of the chief founders.8 The Critical published a more substantive review, including several extracts. Its review, however, did not begin by outlining Whitefield’s argument or even

Reviewing the Oxford Expulsion 137 articulating the journal’s view of Whitefield’s defence; rather, the reviewer began by stating unequivocally the Critical’s position on the expulsion: We do not suppose that there is a man of sense, or a well-wisher to the university, in this kingdom, who does not commend the vice-chancellor, and the assessors at Edmund Hall, for dismissing these young fanatics from a seat of learning where they had no literary pretensions to reside, for transactions that were absolutely contrary to the statutes, subversive of academical order, and likely to have a pernicious effect on the heads of some of their weak contemporary students.9 The firmness and clarity of this legalistic declaration meant that any following commentary about Whitefield’s argument would be filtered through the Critical’s attitude towards the expulsion as much as the critical apparatus by which the reviewers assessed literary and rhetorical merit. According to the Critical, the university had handled the case in a reasonable and proper manner, thus making any defence mounted by Whitefield appear nonsensical and disorderly. Besides characterizing the six students as unworthy of a defence, the reviewer presented Whitefield’s argument as hyperbolic and melodramatic, indirectly suggesting that Whitefield fallaciously appealed to his readers’ emotions: This renowned patron of field-preachers and itinerant reformers, exclaims against this proceeding, as if it was a most iniquitous persecution, an instance of our national depravity, an insult to virtue and religion, and a presumptuous opposition to the influence and operations of the Holy ghost. The review continued, ‘But if anyone had attempted to place the story of these illiterate reformers in a ludicrous view, he could not have done it more effectually than in the solemn, tragical strain of this letter.’10 The opening salvo plainly indicated the direction the review ultimately took, and the explanations that followed characterized Whitefield’s defence as being as foolish as the men Whitefield attempted to defend. From here, the review mingled criticism of Whitefield’s rhetorical strategies and style of writing with commentary that deliberately betrayed the reviewer’s attitude towards the expelled students and their actions: It was observed, that some of these delinquents had been bred up to the lowest occupations. To obviate this reflection [Whitefield] reminds us of Christ and his apostles; of Amos, who was a herdsman; and of David, who was taken from the sheepfolds. But unless these Oxonians were authorized legislators of heaven, or actually inspired, these comparisons are impertinent.

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To a passage in which Whitefield claimed that the students had been expelled for merely fulfilling their duties as Christians, the reviewer countered, If they could have been content to pursue their studies, and say their prayers in the common way, without attempting to infect the neighbouring old women, and people of slender intellects, with their reveries, they might have continued at Edmund Hall without the least molestation. The reviewer concluded with a final extract, followed by another attack on Whitefield’s overly dramatic style: This is an exquisite description of mock heroism, unparalleled by any thing [sic] in tragedy or romance; and he that reads it without having a ludicrous idea of the field-phaenomena, and the gospel-meteors, must have very little risibility in his disposition.11 The reviewer thus deployed his critical tenets to formulate a judgment about the literary quality of Whitefield’s performance, and the judgment simultaneously reinforced the reviewer’s opinion of the event itself. In condemning both Whitefield’s manner of arguing and the position Whitefield took in the students’ defence, the reviewer effectively validated the university’s actions in expelling the students. The journals relegated most of the tracts published in connection to the expulsion to short notices of no more than a few sentences. But these brief notices still conveyed distinct opinions about the expulsion as well as critical judgments of the various contributions to the debate. For example, the Critical relied on Whitefield’s public reputation as an enthusiastic preacher—and perhaps relied on reviews like the one discussed in the previous paragraph—to summarily dismiss a pamphlet it inaccurately attributed to Whitefield entitled The Oxford Expulsion Condemned (1769): ‘This writer … if we are not deceived by a similarity of stile [sic] and manner, is the great luminary of the Tabernacle.—To attempt to give this Letter any farther character would be superfluous.’12 Though readers might have drawn their own conclusions about what to infer from such a statement, both journals’ handling of Whitefield’s published works, combined with stereotypes of Whitefield’s preaching style, indicate that the reviewer intended for readers to deduce that this particular publication consisted of an irrational defence of the six students. Curiously, and despite their seemingly unwavering support of the university’s actions, both journals offered relatively favourable summations of several of the pieces published in support of the students. Such praise, however, was usually muted by the brevity of the reviews. The Monthly summed up a piece addressed to Thomas Nowell, the man charged with publicly representing the university’s position, this way: ‘[The author] is, in truth, a special cudgel-player; and has dealt the Doctor some smart blows.’13

Reviewing the Oxford Expulsion 139 Of The Oxford Expulsion Condemned, a reviewer offered this single, succinct sentence: ‘A zealous, but not ill-written, defence of the Methodists.’14 In its review of another piece attacking Nowell entitled Strictures on an Answer to the Pietas Oxoniensis (1768), the Critical rendered its favourable judgment in similarly concise and subdued fashion: ‘There is some degree of smartness and spirit in this performance.’15 All three of these reviews seemingly allow for a possibility the Critical indirectly denied in its review of Whitefield’s defence of the six students: namely, that good arguments were to be had in the students’ defence. Nevertheless, the reviewers failed to indicate what those arguments might have been, nor did they mention the specific qualities they allude to in their restrained complimentary statements. Such omissions are particularly conspicuous in the reviews of John Macgowan’s Priestcraft Defended (1768), a satiric defence of the students, which went through no less than 13 editions during the eighteenth century. In abbreviated notices, the reviewers for both journals readily acknowledged Macgowan’s satiric talents.16 The Monthly described Macgowan as a ‘cunning shaver’ and a ‘droll wag’ who ‘trims the university gentlemen very smartly’.17 The Critical characterized the pamphlet as ‘a piece of humour in the ironical style, intended to ridicule the vice-chancellor and the heads of houses. Readers who have a taste for the wit of Ned Ward or Tom Brown, may find entertainment in this production’.18 (Edward Ward and Thomas Brown were writers of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries who were known for their scurrilous and facetious satires.) Neither review included extracts to illustrate Macgowan’s satiric technique or effect, and the brevity of the reviews, perhaps strategically, ensured that readers were not introduced to the particulars of Macgowan’s arguments. The praise for Macgowan’s abilities suggests that his pamphlet may have merited more attention than the reviewers chose to give it, an omission that becomes even more conspicuous when viewed in relation to the piece discussed in the very next review in both journals, A Vindication of the Proceedings against the Six Members of E- Hall, Oxford (1768). Both journals described this pamphlet as merely ‘sufficient’ in its defence of the university’s actions, yet they included lengthier commentary than they provided for Priestcraft Defended. The Monthly’s review of this particular pamphlet blurred the line between summary and editorial; that is, it is not entirely clear whether the reviewer offered an abstract of the author’s arguments or merely utilized the platform the critique afforded to make the reviewer’s own argument justifying the expulsion. The review began with qualified praise for the author’s achievement: ‘Although the Writer of the Vindication has not entered very deeply into his subject, yet we think, so far as his arguments go, they amount to a sufficient defence of the proceedings to which they relate.’ The review then moved on to defend the university’s actions with no particular mention of the pamphlet or its arguments, thereby providing the depth of argument the reviewer found lacking in the pamphlet:

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Reviewing the Oxford Expulsion It was not to be expected that the methodists [sic] … would let an affair of this sort, so mortifying to that aspiring sect, pass over in silence. But will they attempt to disprove the right of societies to enact laws for the regulation of their own members, and to enforce obedience to those laws? certainly not; because nothing can be more notorious than that without such ordinances and a due regard to discipline, no society can possibly subsist. That the six young men who were expelled [from] the university, actually did violate the statutes of that university, (which they had sworn to observe) we have no reason to doubt; since it appeared that they had done so, on full evidence, to the satisfaction of the vice-chancellor, and other gentlemen before whom they were tried.

The description of the author’s defence as merely ‘sufficient’ suggests that the reviewer may have felt compelled to substantiate and expound upon that defence. At the very least, the exposition set the stage for the reviewer to validate the author’s opinion on one specific point: It is therefore rightly observed by this Vindicator, that ‘all reasonings of the innocence of the things themselves, which are alleged against the six members, have nothing to do with the subject, and only serve to heat the minds of a party.’19 The reviewer built a case against the Methodists, perhaps as well as or even better than the author himself did, by foregrounding his own opinion on the matter more so than he foregrounded the opinion of the author or the author’s rhetorical skill. The review of this piece in the Critical followed a similar pattern and offered an endorsement of the Vindication as much as it offered a critical assessment of the work itself. After stating that the author makes a ‘sufficient’ defence of the vice chancellor’s decision, the reviewer used the same language as the Monthly in granting its seal of approval: The author very rightly observes, that all reasonings of the innocence of the things in themselves, which are alledged [sic] against the members lately expelled from Edmund Hall, have nothing to do with the subject, and only serve to heat the minds of a party … that if the charges alledged [sic] against them are true, and the punishment assigned to such breaches of the statutes be expulsion, they were justly expelled. In sanctioning the author’s case, the Critical included several extracts to illustrate the nature and trajectory of the vindication, coupled with ratifying declarations: ‘The author shows very clearly, that, by the statutes, [the six men] had indisputably incurred the penalty of expulsion.’ The review concluded with the reviewer making one amendment to the author’s argument:

Reviewing the Oxford Expulsion 141 We shall only add, that though we wish to see piety and virtue meet with proper encouragement in a place of liberal education; yet … we sincerely hope, that the seat of learning will never be converted into a nursery of fanaticism.20 (Emphasis added) As seen in previous chapters, both journals eagerly associated Methodism with religious enthusiasm, and in a case like this wherein an anti-Methodist publication omitted the charge, the reviewer readily supplied it. By contrast, advocates for the students who proved particularly skilled in the rhetorical arts presented a particular challenge for reviewers intent on defending the university but obligated to give credit where credit was due. Sir Richard Hill represented one such writer. As a reviewer for the Monthly explained in its review of Goliath Slain: Being a Reply to the Rev. Dr. Nowell’s Answer to Pietas Oxoniensis (1769): ‘the matter contained in the book … is well digested, and the Author, upon the whole, acquits himself as an able advocate for the cause which he has undertaken to defend.’21 A man of social prominence and learning, Hill supported Whitefield and the Calvinist Methodists and actively contributed to the campaign to vindicate Methodism generally and the six students specifically through the press. Hill possessed some literary talent, evidenced by the various genres in which he wrote, from polemical treatises to more imaginative types, including epistolary narratives and dialogues between fictitious characters. In 1769, he published A Letter from Farmer Trusty, to his Landlord Sir William Worthy … to Which Is Annexed an Evening Conversation between Four Very Good Old Ladies over a Game of Quadrille, an ironic work of fiction intended, according to a reviewer for the Critical, ‘to shew the blessed effects of Methodism on the inhabitants of a country village’. Though the reviewer ultimately did not ‘commend the humour or candour’ of this particular piece,22 Hill’s A Lash at Enthusiasm (1775), which subtly and satirically advocates Calvinist doctrines while condemning Arminian teachings via a conversation between two pious women, fared much better in the Monthly, despite the journal’s decidedly anti-Calvinist bias: ‘The piece … is ably written, in defence of what is sometimes called the tabernacle scheme; and it is probably one of Mr. Hill’s productions: there is in it his shrewdness of argument, and his dash of pleasantry.’23 Hill’s ‘shrewdness of argument’, however, proved a more concerning skill in the case of the Oxford expulsion. Although the Critical chose not to review Hill’s Pietas Oxoniensis: or, a Full and Impartial Account of the Expulsion of Six Students from St. Edmund-Hall, Oxford (1768), the Monthly was greatly alarmed by Hill’s talents. ‘This is,’ a reviewer for the Monthly commented, ‘a well digested and specious defence of the students.’ The reviewer went on: We look upon it to be a pamphlet of such dangerous tendency, that it ought to be fully answered and refuted … . We have not lately met with so able a vindication of orthodoxy and modern fanaticism; and we

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Reviewing the Oxford Expulsion cannot but apprehend that if its contents are not properly exposed and refuted, such a performance may impose on and mislead many an unwary reader.

Although the case against the six students was, from the point of view of the Monthly, clear cut, Pietas Oxoniensis represented a canny enough argument that, even if baseless, might sway some readers to Hill’s point of view. The review stands as an odd mix of praise for Hill’s rhetorical acumen and anxiety about ‘the progress of Methodism’, which the reviewer claimed is now become so considerable, that it seems to be high time for rational religion and common sense to keep a good watch, and defend themselves against its encroachments, lest we be again overwhelmed by an inundation of pious barbarism, worse than that of those spiritual Goths and Vandals—the Monks.24 The apprehensions related to the momentum of the movement largely coloured the entire review and directly impacted the reviewer’s critical assessment of Hill’s pamphlet, which the reviewer viewed as being less about the issues surrounding the expulsion or Hill’s style or technique of arguing than about an overarching anxiety about Methodism and the prospect of its achieving institutional status via its presence at Oxford. The Monthly’s assessment of Strictures on an Answer to Pietas Oxoniensis was viewed through a similar lens. A reviewer described the piece as a ‘scurrilous … attack’ on Thomas Nowell that derived from bitterness and resentment on the part of the Methodist author. Speaking of the expulsion, the reviewer stated, It was indeed a mortifying stroke. Just at the time when these aspiring sectaries flattered themselves with having got firm footing in the first university of Britain, to have their wings so unfortunately clipped,—to be, so unluckily, detected, exposed, and driven out, in the view of the whole world,—Oh! It was a disappointment scarcely to be born!25 The suggestion that the expulsion represented ‘a mortifying stroke’ to the progress of the revival, particularly the Calvinist arm of the movement, was probably not overstated, evidenced by the public responses by Whitefield, Hill, and others. Their responses were fuelled by a sense of injustice, to be sure, but the expulsion, if legitimized in the court of public opinion, meant that Methodism would continue to be perceived as a fringe religious movement void of institutional presence in British society. But as much as these considerations fuelled the Methodist response to the Oxford proceedings, these same considerations help to account for the review journals’ vested interest in the Oxford expulsion and the preferential ways in which they viewed the works published in support of the university’s actions.

Reviewing the Oxford Expulsion 143 While the Monthly called on able controversialists to rebut Hill’s Pietas Oxoniensis, the Critical took it upon itself to do just that in its review of Hill’s Goliath Slain. Like the reviewer for the Monthly, the Critical’s reviewer recognized that Hill served as an able advocate: The six young men, whose case is the subject of this publication, are much obliged to the author. He has maintained their cause with indefatigable zeal; and we must confess, has made the utmost advantage of every circumstance in their favour. After quoting a passage in which Hill demonstrates how Thomas Nowell had contradicted himself by referencing religious figures and authorities who advocated for the same doctrines the six men had been accused of promulgating, the Critical admitted, ‘This is a capital argument which the author has advanced in behalf of the students, and the great bulwark of Methodism.’ From there, however, the reviewer redefined the issue: But admitting (though not granting) … that some of the doctrines of the Methodists are the very doctrines which were maintained by these eminent men, does it follow, that every itinerant preacher, every pious dreamer, every hawker and pedlar of divinity, is to be justified in his irregular and extravagant proceedings? The review effectively shifted the matter from a doctrinal issue, the grounds on which Hill had argued the point, to one of ecclesiastical and social order: It is [the Methodist preachers’] ambition to strike out of the common road, and aspire to the glory of being ‘gospel meteors.’ What disturbance has been excited by their means is well known: and therefore the Vicechancellor and his assessors deserve commendation for having effectually suppressed this spiritual Quixotism, at its first appearance, in the university of Oxford.26 The reference to Quixotism, of course, implies that the six men’s activities were as misguided and senseless as were the actions of Cervantes’s hero. The reference to Quixotism also effectively countered Hill by reframing the matter as one that impacted the public peace as much as, if not more than, it impacted the doctrinal purity of the church. As evidenced in previous chapters, the Monthly consistently criticized anti-Methodist works that failed to achieve the journal’s critical standards more than the Critical criticized such works—and this tendency was also true of those publications associated with the Oxford expulsion. In a review of Remarks upon the Reverend Mr. Whitefield’s Letter to the Vicechancellor of Oxford (1768), a reviewer for the Monthly questioned the motives and manner of the author’s argument:

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Reviewing the Oxford Expulsion In this pamphlet some of the principles of methodism [sic] seem to be properly exploded; but the Writer discovers a degree of indignation and rancour, which appear rather to proceed from the spirit of party, than a real concern for the cause of truth and virtue.27

More tolerant of arguments that pushed the boundaries of sociability, the Critical simply described the Remarks as ‘a very judicious and spirited answer to Mr. Whitefield’s letter’.28 Nevertheless, both journals usually took up clearly defined positions regarding the expulsion of the six Methodist students, and the reviews published in connection to the Oxford expulsion appear more intent on shaping public opinion about the proceedings themselves than on shaping literary tastes and defining standards for controversial writing.

Reviewing the Minutes Controversy The Oxford expulsion anticipated the most significant internal dispute in eighteenth-century Methodism—the dispute between the Wesleyans and Calvinists in the early 1770s. The controversy, however, was one that had surfaced at the outset of the revival. In April of 1739, Wesley preached his sermon on Free Grace, which he published shortly thereafter.29 In the sermon, Wesley denounced the Calvinist leanings of George Whitefield and other Methodists—and specifically denounced the doctrines of election and reprobation—by contending for the universality of God’s grace.30 Whitefield responded via the press in 1740 while on a preaching tour in the American colonies, and his reply found its way back across the Atlantic in 1741.31 As a result, Methodism splintered into Calvinist and Wesleyan (or Arminian) camps. While Wesley and Whitefield remained friends and partners in the revival, they never reconciled their theological differences, both men accepting that they, as Wesley recorded in his Journal, ‘preach’d two different Gospels’.32 The Free Grace controversy was not the only internal dispute that affected eighteenth-century Methodism. At the same time Wesley was wrangling with Whitefield over free grace, Wesley was vying with the Moravians over the doctrine of ‘stillness’, a controversy that divided the Fetter Lane Society in London and clarified Wesley’s ideas regarding the means of grace, convincing him that the road to sanctification required individual effort and might include degrees of faith as opposed to an instantaneous and full assurance. Fellow evangelicals also routinely took Wesley to task for preaching Christian perfection, with matters coming to a head in the 1760s when some of Wesley’s disciples took his ideas to extremes even Wesley could not accept.33 And Wesley regularly tangled with Anglicans and fellow Methodists over church order, most notably when he ordained preachers for the ministry in America in 1784, an event that caused a rift between him and Charles, whose allegiance to the church was firmer than his brother’s.34

Reviewing the Oxford Expulsion 145 But the Wesley-Whitefield debate was arguably the most significant internal controversy for early Methodism. The dispute not only split the revival but garnered a good deal of public attention. As T. Mitchell wrote to William Seward just days after Wesley delivered his sermon, ‘It has made a strange noise that [Wesley] hath preached against predestination.’35 Whitefield similarly took note of the public controversy instigated by Wesley’s sermon: ‘I find your Sermon hath had expected Success, it hath set the Nation a Disputing; you’ll have enough to do, to answer Pamphlets.’36 In the same way they used the press to defend themselves from antiMethodist attacks, Wesley and Whitefield depended on the printed word to mount their campaigns against the other. ‘The warring parties,’ Richard Heitzenrater explains, ‘… set their course in public.’37 This circumstance was especially true during the 1770s when tensions between Wesleyans and Calvinists flared again in the wake of Whitefield’s death. At this point, the divide between the two factions was, relatively speaking, clearly established; each group had its own connections and preachers, and each group actively utilized the press in more systematic ways to promote their group’s teachings and discredit their opponents, a phenomenon perhaps most clearly evident in the revival magazines that cropped up in the 1760s and 70s. For all these reasons, the Minutes controversy, as it came to be known, was ‘easily the most explosive of the Calvinist/Arminian disagreements’.38 Although Wesley began his campaign against Calvinism in 1739, hostilities peaked shortly thereafter and eventually declined or were at least, relatively speaking, contained for some time.39 Both Wesley and Whitefield seem to have agreed that they would be best served, as Whitefield explained in a letter to Wesley in 1742, if they ‘only preach the simple gospel, and not interfere with each other’s plan’.40 In fairness to Whitefield, he was probably more sincere than Wesley in his desire to downplay doctrinal differences. When Wesley convened the Methodist Conference in 1744, Calvinism was a focal point of the discussion. The Minutes record that the leadership felt that the Methodists had ‘lean’d too much towards Calvinism’.41 Whitefield worried about the consequences of such discussions, writing from the American colonies, ‘I approve of your general Conference, but despair of much success, till the interest of every particular party is made to give way to the general interest of the Redeemer in the world.’42 The Free Grace controversy dissipated somewhat in the decades that followed, but by the 1760s, the issue reared its head again, and at the 1770 Conference, Wesley reasserted his position that Methodism ‘lean’d too much towards Calvinism’. Although Wesley always maintained an antiCalvinist stance, Heitzenrater explains that ‘the shape, tone, and context of this particular Minute guaranteed an angry reaction from the Calvinists’.43 When this reaction came, Wesley stood his ground: ‘I have done therefore with humbling myself to these men,’ Wesley wrote in 1772. ‘I have humbled myself to them for these thirty years: But will do it no more.’44 Wesley responded to his Calvinist critics the same year, followed by a flurry of

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tracts by Wesley’s surrogates, most notably John Fletcher, all of whom contended for universal redemption. A steady stream of pro-Calvinist and pro-Wesleyan tracts appear in the years leading up to, and after, 1770, including A Dialogue between the Rev. Mr. John Wesley and a Member of the Church of England Concerning Predestination (1767); The Jesuit Detected; or, the Church of Rome Discover’d in the Disguise of a Protestant (1768)45; Augustus Toplady’s The Church of England Vindicated from the Charge of Arminianism (1769) and The Doctrine of Absolute Predestination Stated and Asserted (1769)46; and John Allen’s The Enthusiast’s Notion of Election to Eternal Life Disproved (1769).47 The 1770 Minutes only fanned the flames. Fletcher, who became Wesley’s primary spokesperson against Calvinism, published A Vindication of the Rev. Mr. John Wesley’s Last Minutes in early 1771.48 This work became the first of Fletcher’s Checks to Antinomianism, which were delivered in a series of letters to Walter Shirley, with the final instalment appearing in 1774. The Calvinists responded in a rush of publications of their own,49 often utilizing The Gospel Magazine, launched in 1766 by Calvinist evangelicals, to attack their Wesleyan counterparts, and Wesley began The Arminian Magazine in 1777, in part, to respond to his Calvinist critics. Despite the publicity generated by both parties, most anti-Methodists failed to discriminate between Wesleyans and Calvinists in their published attacks.50 The Monthly and the Critical, however, were more cognizant of the doctrinal infighting within the Methodist movement, having read and reviewed several of the polemical tracts exchanged between the two groups. Between 1770 and 1777, the journals reviewed 25 pamphlets related to the Minutes controversy. The Critical took slightly less interest in the debate, reviewing eleven of those pamphlets, while the Monthly reviewed all 25. Neither journal offered extensive treatment of any of these publications, confining their reviews to short notices consisting of a few sentences to a handful of paragraphs. Nonetheless, the journals provided enough coverage to keep their readers apprised of the dispute between the Methodist factions. More importantly, the reviewers attempted to mediate readers’ perception of the feuding among the revivalists by denouncing the style and substance of the majority of publications associated with the Minutes controversy and concluding that the dispute itself exposed Methodism as a medley of contradictory theological tenets and thus delegitimizing the entire movement. Several of the writers who contributed to the Minutes controversy paid close attention to the reviewers’ opinions and conceded, even if only indirectly, that the reviewers shaped public perception of the debate. Fletcher, whose contributions to the Minutes controversy were mostly praised by reviewers for their genial tone and rhetorical sophistication, essentially validated the Monthly’s critical authority by citing its review of a work by Toplady to substantiate Fletcher’s anti-Calvinist position in A

Reviewing the Oxford Expulsion 147 Reply to the Principle Arguments by which the Calvinists and the Fatalists Support the Doctrine of Absolute Necessity (1777). Fletcher explained, ‘Lest Mr. Toplady’s admirers should think, that prejudice makes me place his mistakes in too strong a light, I shall close these arguments by the judgment of the Monthly Reviewers’ who insisted that Toplady’s conclusions were ‘needless and futile’.51 The weight Fletcher afforded the reviewers’ opinions also explains why he took pains to answer the Monthly’s criticism of his Vindication of the Rev. Mr. Wesley’s Calm Address to our American Colonies (1776): Permit me … to conclude by a remark upon the character, which the Monthly Reviewers give me in their last Review. They call me ‘a mere Sacheverel: A preacher of those slavish and justly exploded jacobitical doctrines, for which the memory of Sacheverel and his abetters will ever be held in equal contempt and abhorrence by every true friend of the liberties of mankind?’ I should be truly sorry if I deserved so severe a censure. Fletcher went on to cite passages from the work in question that, to his mind, vindicated him from the Monthly’s accusation,52 indicating that at least some of the Monthly’s charges demanded a response in Fletcher’s mind, and that response, in turn, confirmed the journal’s cultural cache among consumers of print media. Toplady also invoked a review by the Monthly when condemning his Arminian opponents who, he claimed, deliberately misconstrued the Calvinist overtones evident in the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England to fit their own Arminian scheme rather than argue for a reformation of those articles: Instead of shifting, and mincing, and trimming, in this despicable manner; would it not be more to the credit of such clergymen as are Arminians, to make a push for an alteration, and boldly cry out, with the Monthly Reviewers, ‘Our established doctrines are not such as might be wished, and ought to be re-modelled?’ Let them act like men of courage and principle; and, instead of doubling and winding, and putting our articles on the rack … say of them … (as Archbishop Tillotson did of the Athanasian Creed), ‘I heartily wish we were well rid of it.’53 In citing the reviewers for support for his argument, even an author like Toplady, who was more often criticized than praised by reviewers, counted himself among the journals’ readers and implicitly acknowledged the reviewers’ authority and influence in the marketplace of books and ideas. Moreover, Toplady deliberately drew attention to the reviewers’ antiCalvinist bias in citing this particular passage from the Monthly, a bias that

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naturally filtered into the reviewers’ assessments of the works published in connection to the Minutes controversy. The Critical described Hill’s Five Letters to the Rev. Mr. F----r, Relative to his Vindication of the Minutes of the Rev. Mr. John Wesley (1772) as ‘a defence of some absurdities of Calvinism’.54 A reviewer offered a more subtle jab at Calvinism in another of Hill’s pamphlets entitled The Finishing Stroke, Containing Some Strictures on the Rev. Mr. Fletcher’s Logica Genevensis (1773), in which Hill demonstrated ‘that Mr. Fletcher himself, in a sermon, which he preached in the year 1764, has very zealously maintained those Calvinistic doctrines, which he has lately exploded’. The reviewer concluded, ‘Surely Mr. Hill should allow Mess. Wesley and Fletcher to alter their opinions, and grow wiser as they grow older!’55 The anti-Calvinist bias evident in both journals, however, does not mean that the reviewers sided with the Wesleyans. On the contrary, the reviewers themselves accepted the charge Hill and other Calvinists levelled at Wesley and his followers: that the Wesleyans were doctrinally inconsistent in their principles and actually promoted some Calvinist teachings at the same time that they condemned others.56 As one reviewer said of Fletcher’s Vindication, ‘This writer and Mr. Wesley still maintain several Calvinistical notions, though they disclaim some of the most insensible.’57 In addition, a theological divide in a religious movement that was defined by a single moniker (i.e., Methodism) naturally opened both parties up to accusations of doctrinal inconsistency. Put another way, the people who called themselves Methodists could not agree with each other, and in charging each other with doctrinal flip-flopping, those who actively participated in the controversy may have indirectly invited claims that Methodism consisted of a hodgepodge of various and competing theological notions. The reviewers’ ways of reporting on the Minutes controversy merely amplified this conclusion. After citing a passage from John Wesley’s Some Remarks on Mr. Hill’s Review of all the Doctrines Taught by Mr. John Wesley (1772), wherein Wesley pointed to Hill’s own doctrinal waffling, a reviewer offered this conclusion: ‘It is very true, that few of our modern Saints seem to be aware what manner of spirit they are of.’58 Of Fletcher’s Vindication, the Monthly stated, We never saw any of Mr. Wesley’s minutes; but we learn, from this publication, that there has been a great stir about them, among the Methodists. The advocates for salvation by faith are quite at dagger’s drawing with those who contend for good-works: one might imagine that people would be glad to be saved either way.59 Besides implying that the dispute in question was practically irrelevant since the end (salvation) proved more pressing than the means (faith vs. works), the review presented the Methodists as members of a contentious religious group unable to agree on its core doctrinal points. To be fair, both

Reviewing the Oxford Expulsion 149 Wesleyans and Calvinists believed that salvation came through faith, though the Wesleyans put more emphasis on the role works played in that process. Nonetheless, the review implied that, in quibbling over finer theological points, the Methodists were perhaps looking beyond the mark. While the reviewers often gave significant attention to theological debates, evidenced by their coverage of Wesley’s and Whitefield’s exchanges with Bishops Lavington and Warburton (discussed in Chapter 3), the brevity of the reviews associated with the Minutes controversy meant that the coverage of the core issues and arguments undergirding the debate remained superficial. The reviewers likewise dismissed the debate among the competing Methodist factions as either too trivial for serious consideration or potentially detrimental to Christianity. The Critical referred to A Conversation between Richard Hill, Esq., the Rev. Mr. Madan, and Father Walsh (1771) as a ‘frivolous publication’ with no worthier aim than to ‘expose some inconsistencies’ in the teachings of John Wesley.60 In a review of Hill’s Logica Wesleiensis (1773), which includes a ‘heroic poem’ mocking Wesley, the Critical lamented that Hill’s talents—‘there are strokes of smartness and humour in this tract’—were wasted on the same trivial subject matter as that of the previously mentioned piece: ‘a detail of Mr. Wesley’s inconsistencies is a trite, uninteresting subject’.61 The Monthly concurred with the Critical’s assessment of this work: ‘[Hill’s] weapons are wit and argument, which he handles so dexterously, that we cannot help wishing to see them more usefully employed.’62 The Monthly rendered the same opinion of Hill’s A Review of all the Doctrines Taught by the Rev. Mr. John Wesley (1772): ‘As for the contrasted opinions of Wesley against Wesley, we refer the curious Reader to the [work] itself; in which he will meet with more diversion than edification.’63 In another review, the Monthly referred to the debate between the Methodist parties as a ‘bootless controversy’ the reviewer hoped would be ‘dying away’.64 Collectively, these reviews suggest that a theological debate that registered on a seismic scale within Methodism proved, from the point of view of the reviewers, inconsequential and inane, opinions that served to characterize the merit and meaningfulness of the works themselves, the capacities of their authors, and the ways in which Methodism signified in the culture at large. The critical tenet underlying such statements—that controversial writers, particularly talented ones, should devote their faculties to substantive controversies—served to delegitimize Methodism as a religious movement of consequence. At best, the controversy proved tiresome and unnecessarily drawn out, and at worst, it indirectly exposed Christianity to ridicule and contempt. As publications associated with the controversy continued to appear in print, the reviewers themselves wearied of the debate. ‘We shall certainly, have more last words from Shropshire,’ a reviewer for the Monthly noted of Hill’s The Finishing Stroke. He continued, ‘Here is a fresh attack on the Vicar of Madeley [Fletcher]; and Mr. H. does not, now, seem at all inclined

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to let Mr. F. remain master of the field for want of an opponent.’65 Writing in the same issue about a pamphlet entitled More Work for John Wesley, or a Vindication of the Decrees of Providence of God (1773) by Toplady, a reviewer stated, ‘These polemical skirmishes never fail to remind us of [Henry] Fielding’s definition of religion, in one of his fugitive papers’—that it represents ‘a Subject of disputation’. The reviewer went on, We wish, however, for our own sakes … that these hostile gentlemen could be prevailed on to put up. What the mischief! are they to continue tilting about their—doxies, as long as the Greeks and Trojans were at it, about the beautiful daughter of Leda?66 When Fletcher published his Fifth Check to Antinomianism (1774), the Monthly simply asked, ‘Will these spiritual gladiators never be weary of cutting and slashing each other, for the diversion of the public?’67 But the reviewers registered bigger concerns than that of tedium. Of Thomas Oliver’s reply to a letter by Toplady in 1771, Jabez Hirons reported in the Monthly, But is it not shameful that, instead of being busied in some honest and useful occupation, any persons should employ their pens in a manner, which, among some kind of readers, may tend to expose religion it self [sic] to ridicule or neglect!68 The heated nature of the dispute between the two Methodist factions raised concerns in a review of Fletcher’s A Second Check to Antinomianism (1772): Mr. Wesley is certainly much obliged to Mr. F----r for his sober, decent, and seasonable defence, against the sharp attacks of Messrs. Shirley, Hill, etc. The Wesleyans, however, seem to be hard pushed; and Calvin gains ground. Meantime, the enemies of Christianity triumph, and exclaim—Tantaene animis caelestibus irae [the heavenly minds have such great anger].69 Both of these conclusions—that the Methodists wasted time on doctrinal hair splitting and that their exchanges were marked by vitriol—indicate that the disagreement among the Methodists put qualities that reflected poorly on Christianity on full and public display. Rather than a revival of religion, the reviewers maintained that Methodism actually cut away at the bedrock of Christianity. Nonetheless, the reviewers by no means meant to imply that religion or Christianity were inherently uncontroversial topics. On the contrary, the Monthly included a section in every issue entitled ‘Religious and Controversial’ to describe a particular category of writing. But they likewise made clear that such controversies should be about substantive matters and

Reviewing the Oxford Expulsion 151 should be conducted in an appropriate manner consistent with the principles of rhetorical decorum and Christian piety. A review of Wesley’s An Answer to Mr. Rowland Hill’s Tract, Entitled Imposture Detected (1777) in the Critical juxtaposed the two men’s argumentative strategies: Mr. Hill’s tract … is an acrimonious invective, utterly unbecoming the character of a saint. [Wesley’s publication] is a concise reply, breathing a spirit of meekness; proving, that many of Mr. Hill’s assertions are not true, and that his whole pamphlet is ’written in an unchristian and ungentlemanlike manner’.70 Several of the combatants in the Minutes controversy, the reviewers insisted, made arguments in decidedly unchristian and hypocritical ways. Hirons chided Olivers for using the very language Olivers criticized in Toplady’s A Letter to the Rev. Mr. John Wesley (1770): Mr. Olivers disclaims the use of that rough language with which, it must be acknowledged, Mr. Toplady’s Letter too much abounds …. Yet this Writer is not always upon his guard; so that upon the whole, these champions seem to be well matched.71 Not surprisingly, Hirons had concurred with Olivers’ assessment of Toplady’s Letter in his review of that piece. After summarizing Toplady’s allegations, which included accusing Wesley of ‘having all the sophistry of a Jesuit, the dictatorial authority of a pope, and with being a restless Arminian’, Hirons concluded: ‘Mr. Toplady is angry; he is no doubt a very well meaning man, and seems to have some reason to complain; but we cannot perceive in this performance much of the meekness of Christianity.’72 Of another publication in which Toplady attacked Wesley entitled A Scheme of Christian and Philosophical Necessity Asserted in Opposition to Mr. John Wesley’s Tract on that Subject (1776), the Critical concluded that Toplady ‘treats his opponent with that contemptuous freedom, which the serious reader will be apt to call petulance’.73 In most cases, the competing parties, then, come off as devoid of civility as well as the humility and modesty expected of individuals who professed themselves devout Christians and ministers in Christ. Even as the Monthly wearied of the debate between the Wesleyans and the Calvinists, the journal continued with this line of criticism by condemning the Wesleyans for unfairly attacking Hill when he had peaceably withdrawn from the controversy. After Hill published Three Letters Written by Richard Hill in 1775, the Monthly stated, ‘What! more finishing strokes!—But, the occasion, we see, is fair; Mr. Hill seems to have found sufficient cause for the present publication.’ After explaining that Hill had ‘quit entirely this field of controversy; and … in a Christian-like manner, at a friendly interview, shaken hands with Mr. Wesley, and laid by his pen’,

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the Monthly reported that the Wesleyans had falsely claimed that Hill had retracted his previous arguments. The review continued, As this falsehood gained ground, and even staggered some of [Hill’s] own particular friends, Mr. Hill found himself ’under the disagreeable necessity of appearing once more in public … not to carry on the dispute—but only to lay before the religious world his real motives for discontinuing it’.74 The reviewers thus praised Hill’s magnanimity in debate while condemning the Wesleyans for what the reviewers characterized as unprincipled tactics. As previously noted, the reviewers recognized the literary talents of some of the participants in the Minutes controversy, most notably Hill and Fletcher. But even in drawing attention to these men’s talents, the reviewers took their swipes at Methodism. The Monthly stated, for example, that both Hill and Fletcher possessed ‘more learning and ability than one might expect to meet with among the generality of Methodist preachers’,75 thus bringing to mind commonplace notions of Methodists as uneducated and ignorant—as was the case in the Oxford expulsion. In addition, the reviewers reminded their readers that these able authors employed their skills in a fundamentally dangerous endeavour—promoting religious enthusiasm. Of a piece authored by Rowland Hill entitled Friendly Remarks Occasioned by the Spirit and Doctrines Contained in the Rev. Mr. Fletcher’s Vindication (1772), a reviewer explained, ‘He writes like a man of ability, in his way, and pushes his antagonist very hard, on the mystical subjects in debate, among these jarring disseminators of enthusiasm.’76 The reviewer thus dismissed the focal points of the debate among the Methodists as enigmatic and then suggested that the championing of Methodism in any doctrinal form merely facilitated the spread of enthusiastic notions and practices—an outcome made all the more alarming when enabled by men of learning and ability. The reviewers similarly acknowledged Fletcher’s capacities as a controversialist, particularly when Fletcher took up an anti-Calvinist position. Of Fletcher’s Second Check to Antinomianism, the Critical maintained that Fletcher had put the Antinomian’s ‘impiety and presumption in a striking light’.77 Some of the reviewers’ admiration derived from the fact that Fletcher—atypically for a Methodist—displayed qualities endorsed by the reviewers in his polemical writings. ‘Mr. Fletcher,’ a reviewer for the Monthly noted of Fletcher’s Third Check (1772), ‘seems, in general, to conduct his part of the dispute with more temper, candour, and decency, than we usually find in controversial writers.’ The reviewer even defended Fletcher from antagonists who had accused him of mean-spiritedness: ‘His opponents … frequently charge him with manifesting a sarcastic spirit, and a certain tartness of expression; a charge which he may justly resort on some of them, particularly the author of Pietas Oxoniensis.’78 The reviewer

Reviewing the Oxford Expulsion 153 thus did not deny Fletcher’s use of aggressive language; he endorsed it by suggesting that Fletcher’s rhetorical situation called for such language. In a review of An Appeal to Matter of Fact and Common-Sense (1773), the Monthly praised Fletcher’s sincerity and skills as a writer even while it registered reservations about his religious opinions: Although we cannot subscribe to all Mr. Fletcher’s religious tenets, we think there are abundance of good things in his writings; and we have no doubt that he is warmly animated by a sincere and pious regard for the salvation of souls that are committed to his charge, as well as for the spiritual welfare of mankind in general.79 Although the reviewers praised Fletcher’s abilities, such praise hardly softened the blows directed at Methodism, since the reviewers effectively presented Fletcher as a kind of anomaly—a man who was smart and sincere but still deluded by Methodist teachings. The reviewers praised the literary talents of writers on either side of the Wesleyan-Calvinist divide and were willing to chastise an author, no matter his theological orientation, for unfairly or unethically attacking an opponent. These proclivities communicated a commitment to key critical principles, even if those principles failed to check the anti-Methodist bias apparent in the majority of these reviews. But the pervasiveness of that bias meant that certain ideas about Methodism and its adherents were codified at the same time that the journals established their criteria for judging literary and rhetorical merit. As the reviewers insisted that ‘good’ arguments address significant issues in substantive and proper ways, the reviewers contributed to the anti-Methodist discourse by portraying Methodist authors in a mostly negative light, showing that the authors were either tilting at windmills or engaging with each other in decidedly unchristian ways, both of which reflected poorly on the Christian religion.

Conclusion Despite the clear biases evident in the Monthly’s and the Critical’s handling of the publications connected to the Oxford expulsion and the Minutes controversy, the reviewers still insisted (ironically) that they served as disinterested observers. When one of the Monthly’s readers took issue with the claim that A Vindication of the Proceedings against the Six Members of E- Hall, Oxford ‘contains a sufficient justification of the conduct of the University, in regard to [the expulsion]’, the Monthly retorted, We have only to observe, that though we are far from thinking our judicious correspondent unanswerable, yet it is not our business to enter into any controversy on the subject, neither have we any inclination to defend the conduct of the University.

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If the statements offered in support of the university, which pepper the journal’s reviews of the tracts published in connection with the expulsion, do not immediately compromise the Monthly’s claim to neutrality, then the statement that followed surely does: The learned gentlemen who compose that respectable body, are able, no doubt to vindicate, effectually their own proceedings … and to shew the expediency and necessity of their taking every legal method to prevent their University from being infected with the fanatical tenets and enthusiastic extravagancies of Methodism: an event which would certainly reflect upon it the highest disgrace, and finally, perhaps, be attended with its utter ruin.80 The reviewers clearly positioned themselves squarely in the university’s corner in this statement and in its reviews by repeatedly endorsing the actions taken against the six students and registering their own concerns regarding Methodism’s effect on Oxford and the larger society if the movement was left unchecked. In short, curtailing the Methodist threat represented a pressing enough religious and social concern to trump critical objectivity. This propensity is evident in the corpus of reviews associated with the revival, broadly speaking, but the tendency proved even more pronounced in the journals’ coverage of the Oxford expulsion and the Minutes controversy. As seen in previous chapters, the Monthly and the Critical routinely combined anti-Methodist sentiment with the language of literary critique. But their vested interest in the outcome of a pressing and topical issue of public concern with potentially far-reaching implications for Methodism and its place in mainstream society meant that their reviews of the pamphlets addressing the Oxford expulsion assumed an even more complex dynamic as they editorialized on the event itself and the ecclesiastical, social, and legal issues surrounding it. The reviewers reported on the debate, to be sure, but they likewise participated in the debate by endorsing and augmenting the opinions of authors with whom they agreed or by responding to and refuting authors with whom they disagreed. The coverage of the Minutes controversy naturally increased the publicity surrounding a dispute within Methodism that was mostly ignored by those outside the movement but did so in a way that promulgated definite, and mostly negative, ideas about the revival and its participants. Indeed, the review journals highlighted the tensions within Methodism as a way to discredit the participants in the debate and the movement as a whole. By drawing attention to the doctrinal divide in early Methodism via their reviews, the reviewers defined Methodism as a contentious and incoherent assemblage of beliefs and practices, not as a movement made up of at least two distinct subgroups with well-defined doctrinal and institutional identities that included both shared and competing beliefs. The fracture between

Reviewing the Oxford Expulsion 155 the Wesleyans and the Calvinists perhaps made such a charge inevitable, but the review journals’ project ensured that the charge materialized in their pages as the reviewers processed and responded to the pamphlets on either side of the divide.

Notes 1 James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson, Christopher Hibbert (ed), (London, 1979), 160. 2 Katherine K. Firman, ‘A Footnote on Methodism in Oxford’, Church History 29/2 (1960), 161 and 163. 3 Faith Cook, Selina Countess of Huntingdon: Her Pivotal Role in the Eighteenth Century Evangelical Awakening (Edinburgh, 2001), 243. 4 Boyd Stanley Schlenther, Queen of the Methodists: The Countess of Huntingdon and the Eighteenth-Century Crisis of Faith and Society (Durham, UK, 1997), 75–6. 5 Cook, Selina, 245. 6 Cook, Selina, 245. 7 Schlenther, Queen of the Methodists, 76. 8 Monthly, 38:511 (1768). 9 Critical, 25:396–7 (1768). 10 Critical, 25:397 (1768). 11 Critical, 25:397–8 (1768). 12 Critical, 27:158 (1769). 13 Monthly, 40:513 (1769). See A Letter to the Rev. Dr. Nowell (London, 1769). 14 Monthly, 40:164 (1769). 15 Critical, 26:469 (1768). 16 The Monthly described Macgowan as ‘one of Mr. Wesley’s most potent antagonists’ in its review of The Foundery Budget Opened, or the Arcanum of Wesleyanism Disclosed (1780). Monthly, 63:157 (1780). 17 Monthly, 38:511 (1768). 18 Critical, 25:398 (1768). 19 Monthly, 38:511–2 (1768). 20 Critical, 25:499–500 (1768). 21 Monthly, 40:70 (1769). 22 Critical, 27:238–9 (1769). 23 Monthly, 52:280 (1775). 24 Monthly, 38:512 (1768). 25 Monthly, 39:482–3 (1768). 26 Critical, 27:77–8 (1769). 27 Monthly, 39:315 (1768). 28 Critical, 26:77 (1769). 29 John Wesley, Free Grace (Bristol, 1739). 30 As I have noted previously, the reviewers dealt generally with doctrinal issues without getting into finer points and details. Like the reviewers, Wesley detested the idea of unconditional election. But while he emphasized free will, he did believe that God possessed foreknowledge of who would accept His grace and who would reject it. Wesley also shared the Calvinist view of the total depravity of humankind, but he disagreed with them over the doctrine of final perseverance (i.e., the notion that the elect cannot fall from grace). 31 George Whitefield, Free Grace Indeed! A Letter to the Reverend Mr. John Wesley (London, 1741).

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32 John Wesley, An Extract of the Rev. Mr. John Wesley’s Journal, from November 1, 1739 to September 3, 1741 (2nd edn, Bristol, 1749), 77. 33 See Henry D. Rack, Reasonable Enthusiast: John Wesley and the Rise of Methodism (3rd edn, London, 2002), 333–42. 34 Frank Baker has documented Wesley’s relationship to the Church of England and the events that inevitably led to separation. See Frank Baker, John Wesley and the Church of England (London, 1970). 35 T. Mitchell to William Seward, May 5, 1739, John Rylands University Library, DDSe 45. 36 George Whitefield, The Reverend Mr. George Whitefield’s Letter to the Rev. Mr. John Wesley (Boston, 1740), 8. 37 Richard P. Heitzenrater, Wesley and the People Called Methodists (Nashville, 1995), 121. 38 Allan Coppedge, John Wesley in Theological Debate (Wilmore, 1987), 16. 39 A few anti-Methodist works published in the early days of the revival draw attention to the Wesley-Whitefield divide. As one anonymous writer explained in 1745, ‘The Methodists, branch’d out into two different Churches of new Formation, who set out quite a new upon a Reformation of the Church of England.’ An Essay Concerning Evident Proofs Against the Methodists (London, 1745), 6–7. 40 George Whitefield to John Wesley, December 5, 1742, in A Collection of Letters on Religious Subjects (London, 1797), 31. 41 Bennett’s Minutes, 1744–8, June 25, 1744, John Rylands University Library, MA 1977/429. 42 George Whitefield to John Wesley, December 23, 1746, in A Collection of Letters, 44. 43 Heitzenrater, Wesley and the People Called Methodists, 241. 44 John Wesley, Some Remarks on Mr. Hill’s Review of all the Doctrines Taught by R. John Wesley (Bristol, 1772), 4. 45 A Dialogue between the Rev. Mr. John Wesley and a Member of the Church of England Concerning Predestination (London, 1767), The Jesuit Detected; or, the Church of Rome Discover’d in the Disguise of a Protestant (London, 1768). 46 Augustus Toplady, The Church of England Vindicated from the Charge of Arminianism (London, 1769), and The Doctrine of Absolute Predestination Stated and Asserted (London, 1769). 47 John Allen, The Enthusiast’s Notion of Election to Eternal Life Disproved (Oxford, 1769). 48 John Fletcher, A Vindication of the Rev. Mr. John Wesley’s Last Minutes (Bristol, 1771). 49 Not every Methodist was eager to engage in the Calvinist controversy. As John Berridge wrote to Rowland Hill in 1773, ‘Avoid all controversy in preaching, talking, or writing …. Mr. Fletcher has sent me word that my pamphlet contains the lore of antinomianism and that he is going to publish another Check in answer to it. So he may, but he will not draw a reply from me.’ John Berridge to Rowland Hill, September 1773, John Rylands University Library, PLP 8/43/5. 50 Tobias Smollett’s Humphry Clinker (1771) and Richard Graves’s The Spiritual Quixote (1773), both published after 1770, represent notable exceptions. Both Smollett and Graves demonstrate an awareness of the theological divide in Methodism in these novels, an awareness not typical among anti-Methodist writers. See Brett C. McInelly, Textual Warfare and the Making of Methodism (Oxford, 2014), 192–202.

Reviewing the Oxford Expulsion 157 51 John Fletcher, A Reply to the Principal Arguments by Which the Calvinists and the Fatalists Support the Doctrine of Absolute Necessity (London, 1777), 31–2. 52 John Fletcher, American Patriotism Farther Confronted with Reason, Scripture, and the Constitution (London, 1776), 129. 53 Augustus Toplady, The Church of England Vindicated from the Charge of Arminianism (2nd edn, London, 1779), 25–6. 54 Critical, 33:176 (1772). 55 Critical, 35:158 (1773). 56 See f30. 57 Critical, 33:176 (1772). 58 Monthly, 47:398 (1772). 59 Monthly, 46:468 (1772). 60 Critical, 32:474 (1771). 61 Critical, 35:158 (1773). 62 Monthly, 48:240 (1773). 63 Monthly, 47:160 (1772). 64 Monthly, 47:160 (1772). 65 Monthly, 48:240 (1773). 66 Monthly, 48:241 (1773). 67 Monthly, 51:78 (1774). 68 Monthly, 44:421 (1771). See Thomas Oliver, A Letter to the Rev. Mr. Toplady, Occasioned by His Late Letter to the Rev. Mr. John Wesley (London, 1771). 69 Monthly, 46:468 (1772). 70 Critical, 44:79–80 (1777). 71 Monthly, 44:421 (1771). 72 Monthly, 42:483 (1770). 73 Critical, 41:156 (1776). 74 Monthly, 52:93–4 (1775). 75 Monthly, 46:468 (1772). 76 Monthly, 47:160 (1772). 77 Critical, 33:404 (1772). 78 Monthly, 47:160 (1772). 79 Monthly, 48:241 (1773). 80 Monthly, 39:247–8 (1768).

References Allen, John, The Enthusiast’s Notion of Election to Eternal Life Disproved (Oxford, 1769). Baker, Frank, John Wesley and the Church of England (London, 1970). Bennett’s Minutes, 1744–8, June 25, 1744, John Rylands University Library, MA 1977/429. Berridge, John, to Rowland Hill, September 1773, John Rylands University Library, PLP 8/43/5. Boswell, James, The Life of Samuel Johnson, Christopher Hibbert (ed), (London, 1979). Cook, Faith, Selina Countess of Huntingdon: Her Pivotal Role in the 18th Century Evangelical Awakening (Edinburgh, 2001). Coppedge, Allan, John Wesley in Theological Debate (Wilmore, 1987). The Critical Review (London). A Dialogue between the Rev. Mr. John Wesley and a Member of the Church of England Concerning Predestination (London, 1767).

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An Essay Concerning Evident Proofs against the Methodists (London, 1745). Firman, Katherine K., ‘A Footnote on Methodism in Oxford’, Church History 29/2 (1960), 161–6. Fletcher, John, American Patriotism Farther Confronted with Reason, Scripture, and the Constitution (London, 1776). Fletcher, John, A Reply to the Principal Arguments by Which the Calvinists and the Fatalists Support the Doctrine of Absolute Necessity (London, 1777). Fletcher, John, A Vindication of the Rev. Mr. John Wesley’s Last Minutes (Bristol, 1771). Heitzenrater, Richard P., Wesley and the People Called Methodists (Nashville, 1995). The Jesuit Detected; or, the Church of Rome Discover’d in the Disguise of a Protestant (London, 1768). A Letter to the Rev. Dr. Nowell (London, 1769). McInelly, Brett C., Textual Warfare and the Making of Methodism (Oxford, 2014). Mitchell, T. to William Seward, May 5, 1739, John Rylands University Library, DDSe 45. The Monthly Review (London). Oliver, Thomas, A Letter to the Rev. Mr. Toplady, Occasioned by His Late Letter to the Rev. Mr. John Wesley (London, 1771). Rack, Henry D., Reasonable Enthusiast: John Wesley and the Rise of Methodism (3rd edn, London, 2002). Schlenther, Boyd Stanley, Queen of the Methodists: The Countess of Huntingdon and the Eighteenth-Century Crisis of Faith and Society (Durham, UK, 1997). Toplady, Augustus, The Church of England Vindicated from the Charge of Arminianism (London, 1769). Toplady, Augustus, The Church of England Vindicated from the Charge of Arminianism (2nd edn, London, 1779). Toplady, Augustus, The Doctrine of Absolute Predestination Stated and Asserted (London, 1769). Wesley, John, An Extract of the Rev. Mr. John Wesley’s Journal, from November 1, 1739 to September 3, 1741 (2nd edn, Bristol, 1749). Wesley, John, Free Grace (Bristol, 1739). Wesley, John, Some Remarks on Mr. Hill’s Review of all the Doctrines Taught by R. John Wesley (Bristol, 1772). Whitefield, George, Free Grace Indeed! A Letter to the Reverend Mr. John Wesley (London, 1741). Whitefield, George, The Reverend Mr. George Whitefield’s Letter to the Rev. Mr. John Wesley (Boston, 1740). Whitefield, George to John Wesley, December 5, 1742, in A Collection of Letters on Religious Subjects (London, 1797), 31. Whitefield, George to John Wesley, December 23, 1746, in A Collection of Letters on Religious Subjects (London, 1797), 43–4.

6

The Legacy of the Monthly and the Critical Reviews

The success of the Monthly and the Critical ensured that other periodicals dedicated to literary reviewing proliferated during the second half of the eighteenth century. These periodicals included The Political Register and Impartial Review of Books (1767); the Critical Memoirs of the Times, Containing a Summary View of the Popular Pursuits, Political Debates, and Literary Productions of the Present Age (1769); The London Review of English and Foreign Literature (1775); and The English Review, or an Abstract of English and Foreign Literature (1783). A number of periodicals devoted to more general topics and in circulation prior to the advent of the Monthly and the Critical likewise began incorporating reviews into their publications after 1749. Launched in 1731, The Gentleman’s Magazine had included a ‘Register of Books’ or list of ‘New Published Books’ in each issue, but beginning in January of 1752, the editors advertised a section entitled ‘Books and pamphlets published this month; with remarks’ (emphasis added).1 The revivalists themselves recognized the popularity, and influence, of review criticism. When Calvinist evangelicals began the Gospel Magazine in 1766, the editors announced their intention ‘to give a short account of new-published religious Books that aim to promote sound and vital religion, and occasional observations on such Books as tend to undermine the fundamental truths of the gospel’.2 Most of these new review journals juxtaposed their ventures, either directly or indirectly, with the Monthly and the Critical and concluded that the reviewers for the Monthly and the Critical failed to deliver on their promise of fair and unbiased reviews. The new review journals, therefore, set out to achieve what the Monthly and the Critical espoused in theory but fell short of in practice. Collectively, the new journals’ handling of the books and pamphlets by and about the Methodists evinces modest strides in achieving the kind of critical neutrality that ostensibly defined review criticism, even as the new reviewers reproduced many of the same antagonistic attitudes that had tailed the Methodist revival since the 1730s and 40s. As with the Monthly and the Critical, these attitudes both mediated and were mediated by the objectives of the literary review essay and further illustrate what appears to have been an inevitable pull between literary and extraliterary DOI: 10.4324/9781003392323-7

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concerns, particularly when dealing with the publications associated with a controversial religious movement. Curiously, the revivalists themselves effectively resolved such tensions as the editors of the Gospel Magazine acknowledged their biases and agenda from the outset and deliberately adapted the review essay to partisan ends. The editors’ objective, as they defined it, was never to provide a neutral critique of newly published religious books; rather, they aimed at promoting those books that aligned with their doctrinal commitments while they dismissed, and even contended with, those that did not.

Critiquing the Monthly and the Critical At the moment that popular review criticism was becoming an entrenched part of book culture in Great Britain, and in the same venues that sought to capitalize on the Monthly’s and the Critical’s success, the practice of reviewing itself came under critical scrutiny. Many of the new review journals began by criticizing the Monthly and the Critical, and much of their criticism centred on principles the Monthly and the Critical professed: critical objectivity, fairness, and impartiality. William Kenrick, who wrote for the Monthly from 1759 to 1765, launched two different review journals, the Critical Memoirs of the Times in 1769 and the London Review in 1775, to offer readers an alternative to the Monthly and the Critical. In an advertisement in the first issue of the Critical Memoirs, Kenrick included among his predecessors’ ‘defects’ a ‘notorious partiality’ and insisted that a distinguishing mark of his journal would be its ‘independency and impartiality’. In describing the ‘plan’ of the Critical Memoirs, Kenrick claimed each issue would include an ‘Epitome of modern literature’: ‘In the review of new productions, he proposes that a fair analysis shall be given of the most important [books and pamphlets], and such characteristic remarks on the Rest as impartiality shall dictate.’3 Kenrick specifically singled out the Monthly and the Critical for ‘their short, quibbling, unsatisfactory accounts of some performances, and their tedious, unconnected extracts from others’. The indiscriminate and inconsistent nature of the Monthly’s and the Critical’s coverage, however, represented a relatively minor concern: But their capital defect seems to arise from that self-importance, whether real or imaginary, with which they affect to treat the publick [sic]; whom they seem to think more solicitous about their opinion of a book, than about what the author has advanced on his subject. From this motive they give into a practice of censure and cavil, totally deviating from the purpose of their institution. For it will hardly be pretended that a literary journalist should, instead of analyzing the work before him, obtrude on us his own notions of the matter and manner of it.

The Monthly and the Critical Reviews 161 Kenrick concluded by insisting that ‘it shall be our study, in conformity to our plan, to give the publick [sic] rather the sentiments of other authors than impertinently to trouble them with our own’.4 Kenrick began the London Review with the same goal in mind: ‘The Reviewers propose to give a fair account and faithful abstract of all new productions in the English language; whose matter may be worthy of attention … accompanied with candid remarks and critical illustrations.’5 According to Kenrick, the reviewers for the Monthly and the Critical overstepped their bounds as ‘literary journalist[s]’ by engaging with authors and the issues those authors addressed instead of simply providing an overview of newly published books with a critical assessment of a work’s merit—the purported province of review criticism. For Kenrick, then, impartiality did not preclude rendering an opinion of an author’s aesthetic or rhetorical achievement. On the contrary, the critical enterprise demanded it. For Kenrick, literary critics erred when they presented their readers with their own opinions on the various issues and ideas an author advocated rather than presenting an overview and evaluation of an author’s accomplishment. As the preceding chapters demonstrate, Kenrick’s criticism of the Monthly and the Critical appears well deserved. The Monthly’s and the Critical’s readers in many cases learned as much, and sometimes more, about the reviewers’ opinions of the revival and the issues surrounding it as what they learned about a publication’s content or quality. Other review journals made similar declarations, explicitly or implicitly contrasting their enterprises with those of the Monthly and the Critical. Noting ‘the wide diffusion of Science and Literature among all the classes of society, [which] gives birth to an endless multiplicity of performances’, the English Review expressed ‘surprize [sic], that two publications only of the critical kind should have been able to establish themselves in England. That another should start for the public approbation cannot justly be a subject of wonder, in the present enlarged condition of our literature’. The editors then explained the method their reviewers would employ: Unconscious of any improper bias upon their minds, they feel themselves animated to exercise that candour and impartiality, which are so often professed, and so seldom practiced. Free and independent of any influence, they will endeavour to deliver their opinions with the respect which they owe to the public, and with that exact fidelity, and those scrupulous attentions to justice which ought invariably to distinguish their labours. They have no partialities and prejudices to gratify; are not impelled by any motives of faction; and the happiest recompense for which they wish is the praise of their fellow citizens.6 The ‘two publications’ to which the editor alludes were surely the Monthly and the Critical, and the comments that follow suggest that neither adhered to the standard of critical neutrality the editors went on to describe.

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Such statements set out to distinguish these publications in the marketplace of literary periodicals and preemptively responded to what seems to have been a pressing concern, namely, that the practice of literary reviewing had been sullied by reviewer bias and self-interest. The editors of the new review journals presupposed that the reading public had wearied of this practice and that readers demanded, or at least wanted, an unbiased account of new publications. No wonder, then, that rival periodicals were self-consciously preoccupied with avoiding even the appearance of prejudice. In advertising ‘An Impartial Review of New Books, Pamphlets, etc.’, the editors of the Political Register worried that the scope of their journal might suggest that politics would inform their critical judgments: And lest any one [sic] should be inclined to suspect, either from the title of our work, from some particular Essays that may occasionally be inserted in it, or from any other circumstance, that we are biased in favour of one party more than of another, we beg leave to declare, in this public manner, that we will preserve thro’ the whole the most strict Impartiality; allotting to every work, which shall come under our consideration, that due degree of praise or blame, which, on a careful examination, it shall appear to merit. The performance itself shall be freely criticized: The person of the author shall be deemed sacred and inviolable. A work that is offered to the public, is surely the object of public criticism: But all personal attacks upon writers, we shall ever studiously avoid, as equally unjust and illiberal.7 The editors of the Gentleman’s Magazine likewise appear to have felt the need to stress, albeit in more subtle fashion, their critical objectivity. Beginning in June of 1781, they revised the heading to the book review section of their magazine from ‘List of Books—with Remarks’ to ‘Impartial and Critical Review of New Publications’ (emphasis added).8 Nonetheless, the degree to which any of these literary periodicals achieved the kind of impartiality they aspired to represents a questionable proposition, and even if they did, such an achievement appears to have had little bearing on their success. Not one of the new literary periodicals supplanted the Monthly or the Critical in popularity or influence, and most of them had relatively short print runs of no more than a handful of years.9 The lifespans of these publications probably speak more to the precarious and volatile nature of the publishing industry during the eighteenth century than to their success or failure at achieving the kind of critical neutrality they professed. Although the reasons most of these periodicals failed are outside the scope of this study, the various ways in which these journals treated the publications associated with the Methodist revival provide a point of comparison with the Monthly’s and the Critical’s enterprises while offering yet another illustration of the ways Methodism participated in and was informed by eighteenth-century print culture. In addition, the new

The Monthly and the Critical Reviews 163 review journals provide another access point for assessing how observers responded to the literature by and about the Methodists during the eighteenth century.

Reviewing Methodism in the New Review Journals Despite the number of journals dedicated to literary reviewing that emerged in the years after the Monthly and the Critical, these publications collectively reviewed relatively few books and pamphlets connected to the Methodist revival. Those periodicals in which reviewing represented one of a variety of featured sections reviewed far fewer books and pamphlets than the journals that were devoted exclusively to reviewing did, most of which, besides having short print runs, went into circulation late in the century when Methodism was less of a going concern, at least when measured by publications. Only the Gentleman’s Magazine was in circulation in the early 1760s when Samuel Foote’s The Minor and William Warburton’s Doctrine of Grace (1763) spurred a flurry of anti- and pro-Methodist publications, and the Gentleman’s Magazine and the Political Register were the only two review journals, besides the Monthly and the Critical, circulating at the time of the Oxford expulsion in 1768. Though the Gentleman’s Magazine included articles and several letters to the editor that addressed the expulsion,10 the magazine failed to review a single pamphlet connected to the proceedings. The Political Register offered a single and innocuous review of a pamphlet entitled Remarks upon the Rev. Mr. Whitfield’s [sic] Letter to the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford (1768): ‘A Spirited and judicious answer! which deserves the character of the Roman satyrist [Horace].’11 The dispute between the Wesleyans and Calvinists in the early 1770s likewise did not register in any meaningful way in any of the new review journals. Wesley’s political writings at the time of the American Revolution received more attention, though the new review journals treated these materials in markedly different ways than their predecessors did. Whereas the Monthly and the Critical took up clearly defined positions regarding the American question, either endorsing or rejecting Wesley’s politics, the new review journals critiqued Wesley’s Calm Address to our American Colonies (1775) from a politically neutral position. The London Review criticized Wesley’s source material, not his position on the matter, while applauding his delivery: ‘Nor that Mr. Wesley has here advanced any thing [sic] new on this interesting subject; having only collected the trite and hackneyed arguments of [Samuel] Johnson and other ministerial writers; which he has delivered in a plain stile [sic] and a concise, dogmatical way, adapted to the capacities of the lower orders of the community.’12 The London Review’s account of Caleb Evans’s A Reply to the Rev. Mr. Fletcher’s Vindication of Mr. Wesley’s Calm Address (1776) similarly remained politically aloof: ‘If Mr. Evans has not by much the best of the argument, he is by much the best argufier. Indeed so much is to be said on both sides in this controversy, that

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it is no wonder if an able controversialist, take which side he will, always appear [sic] to have reason on his side.’13 These reviews, which focus exclusively on the mode of argument rather than the authors’ politics, represent a clear departure from the Monthly’s and the Critical’s handling of these same publications and manifest the most obvious instances in which the new reviewers maintained the critical distance they championed in their founding documents. Without getting into the political weeds themselves, the London Review focused its criticism on the manner in which these authors engaged their political foes. A review of Thomas Oliver’s defence of Wesley’s Calm Address offered this summative statement: ‘It must be allowed [that it] is not a retort courteous; but abounds with a petulance and personality, impertinent to the dispute.’14 John Fletcher’s Vindication of the Rev. Mr. Wesley’s Calm Address to our American Colonies (1776) was similarly criticized: ‘We could recommend to this tory-rory priest a little more christian [sic] moderation, as well in his future controversies in religion as in politics.’15 As ministers of the gospel, Oliver and Fletcher were expected to practice the principles they preached, especially when they ventured into political debate. The sharpest criticism Wesley’s writings on the American question met with centred on his amateurism in political matters, not his political leanings.16 Lamenting the proliferation of ‘quacks’ in various public spheres, the London Review noted of Wesley’s foray into politics, ‘The misfortune is, our chymical [sic] quacks interfere with our philosophical quacks, and our clerical quacks with our political ones. Thus the Rev. Mr. John is well known to have been, for many years, one of the first quacks in the kingdom in his own way. What, in the name of goodness, induced him to turn quack in any other?’17 Another review in the same journal echoed a similar sentiment while alluding to Wesley’s dabbling in the medical arts via his Primitive Physic (1747): ‘Mr. Wesley being almost as much out of his element in turning politician, as he was when he commenced physician, it is no wonder that he lays himself open to refutation by adepts of both professions.’18 Although referring to Wesley as a ‘quack’ certainly qualified as personal pique, these reviews still steered clear of political arguments—either advocating for or against the American cause. Moreover, the reviewers certainly could have gone further in connecting Wesley’s political aspirations with his religious activities to discredit him, his political views, and his ministry, directions satirists often took by suggesting that Wesley was as much a quack in religion as in politics.19 While hinting at this possibility, the reviewers failed to tap the connection for its full satiric effect. Even periodicals with pronounced anti-Methodist agendas offered favourable reviews of Wesley’s Some Observations on Liberty (1776), which Wesley wrote in response to a tract authored by Richard Price.20 The Gentleman’s Magazine claimed, ‘Dr. Price is the writer whom Mr. Wesley combats, with much zeal, great good temper, and no small judgment, insisting that the Americans claim, not liberty, but independency.’21

The Monthly and the Critical Reviews 165 The treatment of Wesley’s political writings in the various review journals indicates that Wesley was, relatively speaking, fairly treated by the Monthly’s and the Critical’s rivals.22 Others of Wesley’s publications received similar treatment. Although the Gentleman’s Magazine mostly ignored Wesley’s devotional and theological works (with one exception), they reviewed several of his more secularly oriented tracts. The review of the only sermon critiqued in the magazine consists of a summary and extract and concluded by stating that Wesley presented ‘a rational and scriptural exhortation to repentance and amendment’.23 Of Wesley’s Thoughts upon Slavery (1775), a reviewer determined, ‘Mr. Wesley is highly laudable in thus endeavouring to extend liberty with which Christ hath made us all free, to so large and miserable a part of the rational creation.’24 Wesley’s social activism was similarly approved of in a review of An Estimate of the Manners of the Present Times (1783), a treatise on the destructive consequences of luxury, published at the Foundry and therefore attributed to Wesley: ‘The whole is well intended, and we fear too true.’25 Wesley’s Primitive Physic, by contrast, represents one of the most oft, and at times harshly, criticized of Wesley’s publications in the review literature. Although none of the review journals reviewed Primitive Physic directly, several, like the Monthly and the Critical, offered their opinions of Wesley’s forays into homemade remedies via their reviews of William Hawes’s An Examination of the Rev. Mr. John Wesley’s Primitive Physic (1780). The Gentleman’s Magazine rendered a relatively moderate opinion: ‘With a good intention and much credulity, Mr. Wesley, it must be owned, has prescribed many remedies that are trifling, and some that are pernicious.’26 The London Review offered a less tempered response: It is to be lamented that the infamous publication … did not fall sooner into [Hawes’s] hands; as it is morally impossible … that it must not have been eventually the cause of many murders! We can hardly speak of it, indeed, with common patience; as, whatever excuse may be made for the quackery of ignorant old women, we cannot help thinking that a man of Mr. Wesley’s education, knowledge of the world, and pretensions to religion, conscious as he must be of his ignorance of medicine, and his influence over others, if possible more ignorant than himself, deserves, for this piece of physical empiricism, neither more nor less than to be hanged.27 Although the London Review referenced Wesley’s ‘pretensions to religion’, the reviewer did not turn his critique toward Wesley’s religious beliefs and ministry—a tack taken by some anti-Methodist writers who ridiculed Methodism via Wesley’s medical aspirations. As Albert Lyles observes, ‘The satirists were quick to see a connection between the violent emotional behaviour of the Methodists and the fact that their leader dispensed medical

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advice.’28 The reviewers, by contrast, confined their critiques to the efficacy of Wesley’s cures. Such restraint does not mean, however, that the new review journals did not take their shots at Methodism in their reviews. As noted repeatedly throughout this study, impartiality did not preclude bashing the Methodists, even for critics who contended for fair and unbiased reviews. Certain attitudes and ideas associated with Methodism proved so commonplace that the reviewers, and their readers, accepted them as neither biased nor prejudicial, and many of the review journals, like the Monthly and the Critical, ridiculed the Methodists in both subtle and unsubtle ways, thereby contributing to the campaign to discredit Methodism. The Political Register negatively compared a play entitled False Delicacy (1768) by Hugh Kelly to Methodist preaching: ‘We are now entertained, or rather disgusted, with such dull, lifeless, and stupid compositions, as more resemble the ravings of a methodist [sic] preacher, than the genuine effusions of a truly inspired Poet.’29 In 1777, the London Review summed up a sermon on The Best Method of Putting an End to the American War as ‘the pious effusion of some rhapsodical methodist’ [sic],30 while the Gentlemen’s Magazine described William Ludlam, who was suspected of Methodist leanings, as unexpectedly reasonable and incisive in its review of Two Essays on Justification and the Influence of the Holy Spirit (1788): ‘So far from discovering a partiality towards the Methodists … he pleads for the use of our understanding in religious inquiries; and reasons like a firm friend to Christianity and virtue, a man of genuine piety and good sense, a candid and rational Divine.’31 The underlying implication, of course, is that Methodist divines generally lacked such capacities, a point of view that similarly informed the review of A Sermon Preached on the Death of Mrs. Eliz. Ford (1781) printed in an earlier issue: ‘The joys and sorrows of the unordained unlettered Methodists are below the notice of any but their bewildered followers.’32 A reviewer of an apologetic piece by ‘a Methodist handicraftsman turned Methodist preacher’ entitled A Defence of Mr. Michael Moorhouse (1789) likewise hinted at the uneducated nature of Methodist preachers while complaining that ‘the good man is more intent on saving souls than on maintaining his family’,33 thereby confirming the presupposition that the Methodists forsook filial and other duties in pursuing their religious calls. Hostile opinions about the Methodist revival also filtered into the literary periodicals through reader reviews of recently published books. Whereas the Monthly and the Critical facilitated a conversation about books by regularly publishing subscribers’ responses to reviews, the Gentleman’s Magazine often included letters in which its subscribers shared their opinions about books they had read. Although it is possible that at least some of these letters were written by phantom readers, such letters still represented a kind of reviewing that effectively advertised and propagated opinions about books. One of the magazine’s readers transcribed the entire content of a ‘curious hand-bill, distributed, some little time since, in the city of Litchfield’ and

The Monthly and the Critical Reviews 167 ‘written in ridicule of the Methodists’. Along with the transcription, the letter writer provided critical commentary by, first, approving the author’s satiric technique: ‘To place a folly in a ridiculous point of view has frequently a better affect than to attempt a serious refutation.’ The handbill, entitled The Secret Disclosed (1788), mockingly parodies a Methodist sermon, of which the letter writer concluded, ‘Strange as this style may appear, it is a very successful imitation of language every day to be heard at Methodist meetings … . In endeavouring to adapt their language to the capacities of the vulgar, the preachers of this sect make use of the grossest metaphors, which, coolly considered, cannot be looked upon but as gross impieties.’34 The readerreviewer thus offered a critical opinion of the piece while corroborating the tract’s claim, all the while advancing an anti-Methodist message by recirculating the handbill via the Gentleman’s Magazine, thereby extending the handbill’s coverage and audience. Anti-Methodist sentiment proved particularly pronounced in the Town and Country Magazine, a periodical launched in 1769 that was best known for publishing, and sensationalizing, tales of scandal among the upper class.35 Like the Gentleman’s Magazine, the Town and Country included an ‘Account of new Books and Pamphlets’ as one of many features the magazine regularly offered. Not only were its book reviews laced with antiMethodist commentary, but the editors routinely, and ruthlessly, attacked the Methodists in its articles, so much so that a reader complained that one of the magazine’s contributors was ‘violent without Reason, and abusive without Satire’ in attacking the Methodists.36 Pro-Methodist publications, not surprisingly, fared poorly in the pages of the Town and Country, and the magazine’s reviewers rendered their judgments in short notices characterized by mocking and ironic language reminiscent of the Monthly and the Critical. Of a sermon by George Whitefield entitled The Putting on the New Man a Certain Mark of the Real Christian (1771), a reviewer ironically determined, ‘This may, or may not, be the production of Mr. Whitefield, as it contains many fanatic effusions, for the comprehension of which we have not had a proper call.’37 The Town and Country drew similar conclusions of Methodist poetry. ‘It is difficult to say whether necessity or enthusiasm have dictated these lines,’ a reviewer insisted of A Monody on the Death of the Rev. Mr. George Whitefield (1770).38 Of a second poetic tribute to the fallen Methodist leader, the reviewer stated, ‘Another methodistical effusion upon the same occasion, penned with the true spirit of enthusiasm.’39 By the time the reviewers got to Charles Wesley’s Elegy on the late Rev. George Whitefield (1770) they simply, and derisively, stated, ‘Methodistical poetry, and truly characteristic.’40 Because the Town and Country relegated all of its reviews to short notices of no more than a handful of sentences, its critical judgments relied on pithy and summative statements rather than on exposition and illustrations of those judgments. Although the Monthly and the Critical similarly relied on these types of statements in many of their short notices, they

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also devoted considerable energy to defining and codifying critical standards, whereas the Town and Country employed a style of reviewing that was more perfunctory than analytic. The reviews of Richard Graves’s The Spiritual Quixote represent a case in point. Both the Monthly and the Critical offered relatively lengthy reviews of this novel, reviews that demarcated the conventions and aims of romance and the degree to which Graves adhered to standards established by his literary predecessors, including Cervantes (see chapter 4). The Town and Country, by comparison, focused exclusively on the ‘design’, or purpose, of the novel and on Graves’s success in achieving his aim of mocking the Methodists: The plan of this performance is to satirize and ridicule the fanatical notions, the rambling disposition, and the visionary pursuits of the present methodistical reformers. Every one [sic] who has not caught this enthusiastic infection, must approve of the design of the work, which is to laugh fanaticism out of doors, and restore the deluded followers of these hypocritic preachers to common sense and reason.41 Whereas the anti-Methodist sentiment evident throughout the Monthly and the Critical was at times muted by the critical enterprise, such sentiment in the Town and Country was regularly, and seamlessly, merged into the reviewers’ truncated opinions of the pro- and anti-Methodist literature, a luxury afforded by a style of reviewing that was more intent on endorsing or reproving an author’s aims than on interrogating his method.

Codifying Critical Standards and Anti-Methodist Critique Nonetheless, the majority of the new review journals, particularly those that published only book reviews, proved more circumspect in their critical opinions. The editors and reviewers concurred on several critical points (many of them shared by the Monthly and the Critical) that served, at least in theory, to regulate the means by which anti-Methodist authors registered their grievances with the Methodists and perhaps curtailed at least some of the anti-Methodist sentiment that might otherwise have filtered into the reviews. The manner in which authors treated sacred subjects represents a point on which nearly all the review journals agreed. Like the reviewers for the Monthly and the Critical, their imitators criticized authors who ridiculed religion generally, even if inadvertently, via attacks on Methodism. The London Review censured the author of A Gentleman’s Tour through Monmouthshire and Wales (1775) for the manner in which he took ‘opportunity of testifying his dislike to the Methodists’: ‘We cannot approve … that sportive turn, which disposes him ludere cum sacris’ [to toy with the sacred].42 The English Review was justifiably critical of Ranae Comicae Evangelizantes, or the Comic Frogs Turned Methodists (1786), a work that deliberately ridicules religion through its treatment of Methodism:

The Monthly and the Critical Reviews 169 We are sorry that a writer, who displays no inconsiderable talents, should have so egregiously misemployed them, as he has certainly done, in the production now before us. A more flagrant and outrageous attack upon every thing [sic] which a Christian holds most sacred, we have nowhere met with. Though friends to the liberty of the press, yet we think that liberty should have some bounds; and that a publication, replete with such indecent sarcasms as the following against the established religion of the country, might have been suppressed without the smallest injury to society. The review concluded by stating that the ‘author exceeds the licentiousness even of Voltaire’.43 The Gentleman’s Magazine criticized Isaac Bickerstaffe’s The Hypocrite (1769) for making religious devotion, rather than the specious precepts that lead devotees astray, its focus of satiric critique: To represent devotion as hypocrisy, is perhaps rather likely to countenance irreligion than refrain enthusiasm; but to show the sincere devotee counterworking the great purposes of life, in consequence of erroneous principles, would certainly be doing service to practical truth and rational religion. The character which in this play is the dupe of Cantwell [a Methodist preacher], becomes so not by any particular religious tenets, but by a zealous and laudable concern about religion in general; he is exposed to mischief, not in consequence of false principles of action in himself, but of that hypocrisy in another which might be practiced equally by the Papist and Fanatic, the Faquire and the Bramin [sic].44 The reviewer thus insisted that satire should be appropriately channelled, particularly when dealing with religious subjects, even in cases in which the reviewer implicitly agreed with the author’s anti-Methodist views. Bickerstaffe, according to the reviewer, would have been more successful had he satirized the particular beliefs and teachings that led to misguided zeal rather than mock sincere piety, no matter how mistaken. Methodist authors were, in a few instances, held to the same critical standard. The Critical Memoirs of the Times insisted that the humour evident in Sir Richard Hill’s A Letter from Farmer Trusty to his Landlord Sir William Worthy (1769), a piece that champions the positive effects of Methodism in a facetious manner, hardly atoned for the work’s irreverence: There is some humour in this letter of farmer Trusty’s; but we cannot help thinking it is rather indecently mixed with portions of scripture. Ridicule on sacred subjects, whether for or against them, always borders on profanity, and should be avoided by the advocate for true religion. If the church of Christ securely defies the rage of Satan, surely it should despise his sneers, at least too much to return them.45

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In its review of Augustus Toplady’s The Scheme of Christian and Philosophical Necessity Asserted (1775), the London Review lamented ‘seeing the most serious and sacred subjects treated with an unbecoming and unpardonable levity’: We would by no means recommend an affectation or false delicacy of stile and manner in treating religious subjects; but modus est in rebus [there is measure in things], there is certainly some difference and a proper mean betwixt the mincing dialect of the court-chaplain at St. James … and the lingo of Billingsgate and St. Giles, made use of at the tabernacles of Tottenham-court, Moorfield, and the Lock-hospital.46 Although the reviewer took a swipe at Methodism by suggesting that its preachers regularly relied on coarse and vulgar language (‘the lingo of Billingsgate’, etc.), such statements communicated a due regard for sacred subjects and represented a standard applied to both pro- and anti-Methodist writers. Another point on which a number of the review journals generally agreed concerned ad hominem attacks: authors should criticize their opponents’ arguments, not their persons, and should do so without vitriol. The London Review took issue with Toplady’s personal attacks on John Wesley: ‘Mr. Toplady’s zeal carries with it too much the appearance of personal pique against Mr. Wesley; a circumstance that may prove injurious to his character, if not to his cause; as it may seem, to some people, to arise from a jealousy of the success of a rival.’ Following an extract in which Toplady mocks Wesley for peddling medicinal as well as spiritual cures at Wesley’s London chapel, the reviewer stated, ‘It is a wanton digression, also, that Mr. Toplady makes from his subject, in turning his antagonist into ridicule about his physical recipe for the gout.’ The reviewer concluded ‘that strength [in argument] is not incompatible with elegance, or even delicacy’.47 Reviews such as these characterized pro-Methodist writers and apologists as vehement and antagonistic, to be sure, but the reviews did so by applying a critical standard on which they remained fairly consistent. The London Review insisted that the author of Zeal in Religion Defended, or an Apology for Dr. Coke (1777) ‘appears to be one whose zeal does not seem to be duly attempered by that christian [sic] charity, which attends the zeal recommended by the Apostle’.48 Both the London Review and the Gentleman’s Magazine concurred in their opinions of an exchange between Rowland Hill and Wesley. Referring to Hill’s Imposture Detected (1778), the London Review stated, ‘We hardly remember, indeed, to have before met with such a collection of Billingsgate abuse in print. We have instances of Mr. Hill’s zeal outrunning his judgement, but we did not, before, think him such an adept in the oratory of the vulgar tongue.’ Wesley’s reply, though substantively similar, was distinguished by its more moderate style: ‘Though at the bottom, perhaps, not a

The Monthly and the Critical Reviews 171 barrel has the better herring, [Wesley] hath the advantage of his opponent in experience and temper: and has therefore by much the best of the present dispute.’49 After explaining that a solitary, and seemingly innocuous, statement by Wesley regarding Whitefield provoked Hill’s treatise, the Gentleman’s Magazine rendered its opinion: From these few words Mr. Hill has brought (we must say) as railing an accusation against his brother … as if he had libelled and abused Mr. Whitefield in the grossest terms, in such terms as Mr. Hill himself has here employed; and none of our Christian readers, we are certain, will wish for a sample either of the reason or religion, the eloquence or urbanity, of this writer, when we assure them among his gentle Strictures, or rather opprobrious names, they will find lying apostle, false accuser, ungodly slanderer, designing wolf, libeller, etc. Can this be a disciple of a meek and humble master, of one who ‘returned not railing for railing, but contrariwise blessing’? Wesley, the reviewer went on to explain, ‘disproves, with becoming moderation, many of Mr. H.’s assertions’ in a rebuttal characterized by ‘the language of truth and soberness, and breath[ing] the spirit of the Gospel’.50 The Gentleman’s Magazine insisted that anti-Methodist authors similarly avoid abusive language while fully substantiating their claims against the Methodists. A reviewer described The Methodist and Mimic (1766) as ‘a very dull and coarse attempt at mirth’.51 Evan Lloyd’s long satiric poem entitled The Methodist, which both the Monthly and the Critical praised for tactfully satirizing the revivalists, came under more scrutiny in the Gentleman’s Magazine. Although the reviewer concluded that much of the poem was delivered in ‘a strain of lively and satyric humour’, he characterized the claim that Whitefield had been recruited by the devil as inappropriately hyperbolic: ‘This author … seems to have asserted too boldly what he cannot certainly know; and it is pity that he did not expose the folly and mischief of Methodism, without representing any individual of that denomination, as knowingly in league with the Devil, for the damnation of mankind.’ Though the reviewer agreed with the writer’s goal ‘to expose the folly and mischief of Methodism’, he likewise objected to sections of the poem in which ‘charges [were] brought against particular persons, with great bitterness’.52 At least some of the Monthly’s and the Critical’s imitators attempted to strike a balance between criticism and praise as a sign of impartiality. Although the London Review freely criticized Toplady for attacking Wesley’s character in its review of The Scheme of Christian and Philosophical Necessity Asserted, the magazine still recommended the substance of Toplady’s argument: ‘Setting aside the objections we have to the stile [sic] of this tract, we cordially recommend the matter of it to the attention of the reader; who will find in it a number of important points discussed in a lively, spirited and convincing manner.’53 A review of

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Fletcher’s Bible Arminianism and Bible Calvinism (1779) similarly balanced criticism with praise. After noting that Fletcher made ‘many shrewd, sensible and pious remarks’ and praising Fletcher’s purpose as ‘laudable and becoming a Christian minister’, the reviewer lamented that ‘the manner is sometimes too light and ludicrous for the matter’.54 In highlighting a work’s strengths and weaknesses, such reviews communicated a degree of impartiality and reinforced the reviewers’ ethos by indicating that they had perused the text from a relatively balanced point of view. William Combe’s series of anti-Methodist poems published between 1777 and 1779 also received mixed criticism in the London Review. Though the reviewer characterized The Saints (1777) as ‘a severe and well-written satire on the Methodists and other pretenders to extraordinary piety’ and announced that Combe was ‘in the main, right’, the reviewer allowed that Combe may have overgeneralized and insisted that ‘there is no general rule without exception’.55 Another review described Perfection (1778) as ‘a severe satire on John Wesley’ that, though generally well founded, included several charges that ‘ought to have been more fully attested, before they had been brought so fully home’ and even corrected an ‘errour’ in Combe’s account.56 Combe’s The Temple of Imposture (1778), by comparison, went too far in satirizing Wesley and the Methodists: This furious satirist has here again attacked, with his usual asperity, the whole tribe of religious and irreligious impostors, from Mahomet the Prophet to John Wesley the Methodist.—He appears, however, this time, to have more rhime [sic] than reason; being so enflamed with the weal of reformation, that he runs a-muck indifferently at pietists and hypocrites; between which should be made an essential distinction.57 As evidenced in the Monthly and the Critical, this reviewer suggested that satirists could be as overzealous in their attempts to ridicule Methodism as the Methodists were in their religion. Although this charge hardly vindicated the revivalists, it did, like those noted previously, check the manner in which anti-Methodist writers ridiculed devotees and thereby tempered the anti-Methodist critique, if only in a mostly nominal way. In sum, although the new review journals offered relatively unbiased accounts of Wesley’s Calm Address and the publications it spawned, none of the new review journals achieved the aim of merely epitomizing books—providing summative descriptions void of leading or biased commentary. Like the Monthly and the Critical, the new review journals’ treatment of pro- and anti-Methodist publications wavered between outright hostility toward Methodism and relative neutrality, between reviewer bias and critical objectivity. But even if these publications proved more successful in some cases, the corpus of their reviews attests to the difficulty, if not the impossibility, of achieving the kind of objectivity the reviewers routinely claimed undergirded their critical enterprises.

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Literary Reviewing in The Gospel Magazine As the literary review journals wrestled with the task of offering the public an impartial and critically nuanced account of newly published books, the revival magazines that cropped up in the 1760s and 70s embarked on a more transparent venture, admitting their biases from the outset of their undertakings. On the title page to its first volume, the Gospel Magazine, which originated with Calvinist evangelicals in 1766, announced its plan ‘to promote religion, devotion, and piety from evangelical principles’, and the magazine included various features in each issue to achieve these ends,58 such as doctrinal exegeses, biographical accounts of exemplary religious figures, devotional poetry, and reviews of books of divinity, ‘whereby the merit of religious treatises are [sic] discovered; and an opportunity taken of censuring and confuting such as strike at the fundamentals of the gospel of Christ’.59 Less interested in aesthetics, rhetorical acumen, or critical neutrality, the editors concerned themselves with promoting doctrinally sound books and condemning, and even arguing with, those they deemed heretical. The Gospel Magazine was not the first revival-related periodical. Several revival magazines materialized in the 1740s during the First Great Awakening—on both sides of the Atlantic. These magazines included The Christian Amusement (1740–41), The Weekly History (1741–42), and The Christian History (1743–48) in London; The Glasgow-Weekly-History Relating to the late Progress of the Gospel at Home and Abroad (1741–42) and The Christian Monthly History (1743–46) in Glasgow and Edinburgh, respectively; and The Christian History, Containing Accounts of the Revival and Propagation of Religion in Great Britain and America (1743–45) in Boston. All of these magazines had relatively short print runs and focused primarily on revival news. The editors occasionally referenced various books and pamphlets, including those the editors deemed faith promoting or those they judged heterodox. But none of these earlier periodicals were even tangentially interested in the kind of book reviewing that would come to define the Monthly and the Critical Reviews. By contrast, the Arminian Magazine, launched by John Wesley in 1778 in response to the Gospel Magazine, devoted a good deal of space to reprinting excerpts from books Wesley regarded as spiritually edifying (a form of book reviewing, to be sure), but his excerpts were typically of older books no longer in circulation (not newly published books), nor did he usually provide critical or evaluative commentary, at least during the first decade of the magazine’s existence. As he explained of the magazine’s ‘design’ in the first issue, Wesley published most of his extracts for the express purpose of educating his readers in correct doctrine and as a means of bolstering faith in the Arminian scheme: ‘Our design is, to publish some of the most remarkable Tracts on the Universal Love of God, and his willingness to save all men from all sin, which have been wrote in this and the last century. Some of these are now grown very scarce; some have not

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appeared in English before.’60 Accordingly, these excerpts served as an archive or repository of the most instructive religious books in the Protestant tradition according to the Methodist leader. Wesley fittingly began the first issue of the Arminian Magazine with ‘a Sketch of the Life of Arminius Extracted from an Oration Spoken at his Funeral’.61 The first issue likewise included ‘An Account of the Synod of Dort: Extracted from Gerard Brandt’s History of the Reformation in the Low-Countries’,62 a book that was originally published in 1666 and provided a clearly partisan account, in favour of the Arminians, of the Synod, which was convened by the Dutch Reformed Church in 1618. Most of Wesley’s extracts extended into multiple issues of the magazine over a period of several months. Beginning in May of 1780, Wesley began a series of extracts from Edward Bird’s Fate and Destiny, Inconsistent with Christianity (1726), which he concluded in November of the same year.63 Other excerpts published in the Arminian Magazine came from material Wesley had previously published in book or pamphlet form, whether written by himself or extracted from other authors. Wesley printed dozens of extracts from A Survey of the Wisdom of God in the Creation: or a Compendium of Natural Philosophy, a book Wesley originally published in 1763.64 He likewise reprinted, in a series of extracts, Predestination Calmly Considered, which Wesley first published in 1752, with the first extract appearing in October of 1779.65 Beginning in March of the same year, Wesley included a number of extracts from ‘The Scripture Doctrine concerning Predestination, Election, and Reprobation. Extracted from a late Author’, which Wesley originally printed in book form in 1741 under the same title.66 Extracts of more recently published books prove few and far between during the first decade of the Arminian Magazine. Beginning in March of 1789, Wesley extracted material from Joseph Easterbrook’s An Appeal to the Public Respecting George Lukins … Containing an Account of his Affliction and Deliverance, which first appeared in print the previous year.67 Although Wesley published most of his extracts without critical commentary, he occasionally assumed the role of literary critic by offering his opinions of books and writers in which he took an interest, though these offerings similarly tended to favour older published works. In April of 1781, Wesley published ‘Thoughts upon Baron Montesquieu’s Spirit of Laws’, a treatise on political theory that was published in France in 1748 and translated and published in England in 1750.68 In the January issue of 1782, Wesley included ‘Remarks upon Mr. Locke’s Essay on Human Understanding’;69 and in November of 1783, he printed ‘Thoughts on the Character and Writings of Mr. Prior’, in which Wesley defended the poetry of Matthew Prior from criticism levelled by Alexander Pope and others.70 In describing Prior’s merits, Wesley explained that his ‘diction is pure, terse, easy and elegant in the highest degree. And the Moral … may be of excellent use.’71 Wesley, to be sure, sounds like a literary critic in his ‘Remarks’ and uses the language of the Monthly’s and the Critical’s reviewers, but his

The Monthly and the Critical Reviews 175 attention to a poet who had died more than a half century before Wesley was writing aligns his efforts more with Joseph Addison and Richard Steele in the Tatler and the Spectator than with reviewers who preoccupied themselves with the literature of the present moment rather than the past. The Gospel Magazine was the first evangelical magazine to be deliberate and self-conscious about the kind of book reviewing practiced by the Monthly and the Critical. Indeed, the Gospel Magazine’s plan to incorporate reviews of newly published books and pamphlets speaks to the Monthly’s and the Critical’s influence as well as a shared understanding and commitment to the task of assisting readers in navigating the marketplace of books and ideas. Like the Monthly and the Critical, the editors of the Gospel Magazine recognized the proliferation of published materials as well as the potential impact these materials had on consumers, and the editors set out to regulate what and how their subscribers read. ‘An eager desire of reading many books,’ they explained, ‘though it is often supposed to be the effect of a taste for knowledge, is perhaps a principal cause of detaining multitudes in ignorance and perplexity.’ The editors continued by describing the bad effects caused by ‘a multiplicity of reading’: ‘Besides the confusion it often brings upon the judgment and memory, it occasions a vast expence [sic] of time, indisposes for close thinking; and keeps us poor, in the midst of seeming plenty, by reducing us to live upon a foreign supply, instead of labouring to improve and increase the stock of our own reflections’. ‘Religious books’ presented a particular challenge, since ‘many of them are truly excellent; but a very great number of those which are usually more obvious to be met with, as they stand recommended by great names and the general taste of the public, are more likely to mislead an inquirer, than to direct him into the paths of true peace and wisdom’. Hence, readers who were less discerning required ‘a prudent friend to direct [their] choice’, a role the Gospel Magazine assumed by including book reviews in its pages. In so doing, the editors competed with the major review journals by positioning themselves as regulatory agents in the English book trade.72 Although the competitive dynamic between the Gospel Magazine and the leading review journals mostly played out in implicit and indirect ways, at least one review in the Gospel Magazine brought that dynamic to the forefront of its critique of a piece entitled Diotrephes Admonished (1770), a commentary on a polemical skirmish between William Adams and Sir Richard Hill, which the magazine erroneously attributed to Adams himself.73 In taking Adams to task for his doctrinal position, one that failed to align with the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England, the Gospel Magazine’s reviewer cited the Monthly’s sympathetic response to Adams and other Anglican divines whose religious views were contradicted by the Articles, which, according to the Monthly, were in need of amendment: Let us hear what Dr. Adams good friends and allies, the Monthly Reviewers, say on this point in their last Review. ‘Poor Dr. Adams will

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The Monthly and the Critical Reviews have enough to do to defend himself, especially as his hands are bound, and his feet put into fetters by those entangling articles; from which we charitably wish him, and every rational conscientious divine of the establishment, well freed. These articles and subscriptions, the artillery of the church, we observe, are constantly turned against the clergy by such writers as Pietas Oxoniensis.’74

Whereas the Monthly argued for a reformation of the church’s articles away from Calvinist doctrines, the Calvinist Methodists routinely invoked those same articles to substantiate their doctrinal claims. In this particular case, the reviewer for the Gospel Magazine deliberately positioned his assessment of the exchange between Adams and Hill in opposition to the Monthly’s critique, one the Gospel Magazine’s reviewer implied deliberately conflicted with the church’s teachings. Like the Arminian Magazine, the Gospel Magazine published extracts of older books to advance and reinforce its doctrinal commitments and to direct readers to books it deemed of spiritual use. Beginning in May of 1769, the editors republished parts of a series of lectures delivered by Edward Dering, originally published in 1576, and did so monthly until December of 1770. In an introductory preamble, the editors explained their rationale: What stamps a peculiar value on this work is, that these lectures were delivered in the city of London, so long ago … in the reign of Q. Elizabeth. We by them discover how gloriously the sun of Righteousness shone for at that time, even when the reformation was in its infancy, and the Protestant church was but just emerging from the darkness of error, and the clouds of superstition. Hence we see, that the truth as it is in Jesus, is the same, yesterday, to-day and for ever [sic].75 The editors published other extracts for the express purpose of promoting more recent publications, not for monetary profit but for a work’s edifying effects on readers. The Gospel Magazine included a series of extracts, beginning in September of 1766, from Edward Reynold’s A Compassionate Address to the Christian World, originally published in the early eighteenth century but reprinted throughout the period.76 ‘The following Treatise,’ the editors announced, ‘is written with such a pious and christian [sic] concern for the souls of the poor sinful children of men, and has been blessed to the spiritual benefit of so many readers; that we hope it has a great tendency to promote the design of the Gospel-Magazine.’77 When the editors concluded their series of extracts in August of 1767, they recommended that readers purchase the book themselves: ‘This useful little book of the Compassionate Address being sold by the booksellers in London and in the country … we do not design to continue it farther in our Magazine, but to refer our readers to the book itself.’78

The Monthly and the Critical Reviews 177 The editors of the Gospel Magazine likewise directed readers to various books and pamphlets via letters to the editor, or reader reviews, in which the magazine’s subscribers included extracted material, sometimes with critical commentary, from works that had assisted them in their own spiritual progress or that they judged heterodox. In introducing material extracted from William Couper’s Jacob’s Wrestling with God, or, the Triumph of a Christian (1607), one reader stated, I here send you an Extract from a choice and precious little Treatise, full of experimental godliness; which I trust, through divine grace, will be made comforting, edifying, and establishing to the hearts of many of your Christian Readers. As it is very ancient, being printed in the year 1639; and though then it had gone through ten editions, which is some proof of its estimation, yet I doubt not but it is also very scarce; therefore should be glad, through the means of your useful work, to republish it.79 Another subscriber provided an extract from a printed sermon he found personally profitable: ‘Here is an extract from a choice sermon printed in the last century, by an eminent divine of the church of England. It is a fit lookingglass for the professors of this day. It is a touch-stone of truth. Seeing it published in your Magazine will give me great pleasure, as I trust the Lord may bless it to many.’80 Yet another reader submitted his ‘observations’ on Wesley’s A Preservative Against Unsettled Notions in Religion (1758), part of which attacks the doctrines of predestination, election, and reprobation. Initially reluctant to criticize a tract written by the distinguished Methodist leader, the writer explained, ‘I must show my disgust, and hope God will enable me to expose the fallacy of the argument, and throw a different and more Christ-honouring light on this intricate subject.’81 The Gospel Magazine utilized other means, in addition to extracts and formal reviews, to promote the right kinds of books and criticize those it deemed unorthodox. The editors naturally took a keen interest in the published exchanges between Wesley and James Hervey over imputed righteousness,82 publishing in March of 1766 ‘A Dialogue between the Foundery [sic] and the Tabernacle, occasioned by the late publication of the Rev. Mr. John Wesley’s Sermon upon Imputed Righteousness’. The dialogue, like a review, included extracted material along with commentary, most of which, not surprisingly, criticized the substance of Wesley’s sermon: ‘Mr. Hervey has plainly proved that [Wesley] neither writes with the wisdom of the scholar, the judgment of the divine, the ability of the critic, nor with a becoming mildness and moderation: and that his principles are very erroneous.’ Like the reviewers for the Monthly and the Critical, the editors for the Gospel Magazine drew attention to Wesley’s doctrinal inconsistencies: ‘For judicious and discerning christians [sic] cannot be so easily reconciled to an author, whose writings of this day flatly

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contradict his own assertions of yesterday.’83 Two months later the Gospel Magazine included in its poetry section a poem entitled ‘Verses on reading the Rev. Mr. Hervey’s three Volumes of Theron and Aspasio’. The opening lines praised Hervey the author: ‘Hervey, thou pen-man of each truth sublime, / From thee my thoughts collect themselves in rhyme; / Serene as light they view thy heav’n-born soul; / Thy wheels of thought, how wonderful they roll! / How ev’ry volume, ev’ry book of thine / Displays each fruitful branch of God’s true vine!’84 The lines celebrated Hervey’s contributions to the debate between the Calvinists and the Wesleyans and directed readers to Hervey’s published works and their edifying effects.85 All of these modes contributed to the plan of the Gospel Magazine to provide an account of religiously focused books and pamphlets, ‘whereby the merit of religious treatises are [sic] discovered; and an opportunity taken of censuring and confuting such as strike at the fundamentals of the gospel of Christ’.86 But the editor’s more direct approach to achieving this aim, and the one most indebted to and informed by the Monthly and the Critical, materialized in formal review essays, though the inclusion of such essays proved sparse and sporadic during the Gospel Magazine’s first decade. Despite printing its first issue in January of 1766, the Gospel Magazine did not publish its first formal review until October of that year, a one-page endorsement of William Mason’s A Spiritual Treasury for the Children of God (1765) that combines praise with an extract from the book’s preface by William Romaine.87 The second formal review appeared in April of 1767.88 During the next twelve years, formal reviews appeared intermittently from issue to issue. Three reviews were published in 1768, all of the publications addressing the Oxford expulsion; seven reviews were published in 1769, five in 1770, and nine in 1771, followed by two years in which not a single review appeared. But beginning in 1779, the editors included a table of contents for the first time, in which they listed a review section in each issue thereafter until 1784 when the magazine ceased publication until 1795.89 The Gospel Magazine reviewed twenty-six total publications in 1779, nearly equalling the total number of reviews published up until that point. From that time until 1784, the formal review essay became the principal means by which the editors introduced their readers to newly published books and pamphlets. The Gospel Magazine adopted the format popularized in the Monthly and the Critical, combining detailed summaries and extracts with commentary, although a discernible shift in the editors’ reviewing practices occurred in 1779. The early reviews epitomized books via summary and extracts, and the reviewers likewise offered recommendations of books that conformed to the editors’ doctrinal leanings while censuring those works with which they disagreed. However, most of the reviews published during the magazine’s first decade provided meagre commentary on an author’s rhetorical technique or manner of writing. The reviewers’ standard of judgment rested principally on a work’s substance rather than its style. Of a

The Monthly and the Critical Reviews 179 collection of sermons by John Newton, a reviewer simply described them as ‘excellent and evangelical’, and after providing a ‘specimen of the first sermon’ via extracted material, pronounced, ‘These twenty sermons will suit those pious persons who desire to hear from the pulpit the doctrines of the gospel of Jesus and true christianity [sic]; for they do not, like too many sermons in this age, contain only mere outward morality.’90 As this review suggests, the reviewers utilized the review essay as a platform to reinforce Calvinist doctrines while arguing with and against their Arminian counterparts. This approach helps to explain why there was a spike in reviews between 1768 and 1771, dates that coincided with the Oxford expulsion and Minutes controversy, events that resulted in heated pamphlet wars between the Calvinists and the Wesleyans (discussed in the previous chapter). The reviewers responded to these publications in predictable ways. Of the publications connected to the Oxford expulsion, the Gospel Magazine only reviewed publications in support of the six expelled students, and the reviewers summarized—and confirmed—the authors’ arguments while highly recommending these publications to their readers. Whereas the Critical disparaged George Whitefield’s comparison of the students’ low births to that of biblical figures like King David, calling such comparisons melodramatic, the Gospel Magazine approved of Whitefield’s rhetorical approach: ‘The pious author of the Letter gives us various examples of the greatest heroes who have been fetched from the plough; and that being formerly of trades could have been no just impediment to these young men becoming … true gospel-ministers.’ Following an extract in which Whitefield criticized the university for condemning the students for praying extempore, the reviewer echoed Whitefield’s sentiment, albeit in a more ironic and perhaps rhetorically effective fashion: ‘Alas! what shall we say of this degenerate age and the declension of true piety? How dreadful is it to hear that six students, among other crimes of a like nature, should be expelled for using extempore prayer?’91 The Gospel Magazine dealt with Sir Richard Hill’s Pietas Oxoniensis in a similar way. While providing a detailed summary of Hill’s argument illustrated by lengthy extracts, the reviewer interjected with arguments that bolstered Hill’s defence: Before we proceed farther let us lament the spiritual blindness of those that bring an accusation against young men for being acquainted with some of the most eminent and most laborious servants of Christ in England, who have been honoured to preach the true gospel of Jesus Christ, and to be the instruments of convincing and converting many souls, and bringing them truly to believe in Christ for pardon and salvation. The magazine’s review of Goliath Slain, Hill’s response to the university’s reply to Pietas Oxoniensis, lauded Hill as the more able controversialist by

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describing Hill’s tract as ‘a Masterly performance’: ‘Here the gentleman, the scholar, the divine, the critic, and the disputant, shine with distinguished lustre.’ The review emphatically declared Hill the winner in the debate, stating that he ‘clearly proved that the sentence of expulsion against the six young students, was by far more severe, arbitrary and illegal, than has hitherto been represented’. More importantly, Hill had exposed the heretical doctrines on which the university’s argument rested, such doctrines as ‘free-will and justification by conditional works, universal redemption, and falling from grace’: ‘But our author has stripped him of his armour wherein he trusted; and hath made dreadful havock [sic] of his new fangled [sic] doctrine.’92 In commenting on works they deemed heretical, the reviewers for the Gospel Magazine dismantled these authors’ characters as well as their doctrinal claims. In its review of Arguments Against the Doctrine of General Redemption Considered by Walter Sellon (1769), the Gospel Magazine castigated Sellon in language reminiscent of the Monthly’s and the Critical’s treatment of Methodist authors: All through this heavy lump of dry controversy, scripture-instructed christians [sic] (if any such can have patience to read it) will easily perceive that the author is dangerously ill of the dreadful hurt he received by the fall; therefore, he is like a person raging in a high fever, with a false sense of his own wisdom, strength and power; having not yet received the spirit of a sound mind. Hear his reveries. Judge of them, and pity him. The reviewer went on by summing up Sellon’s attack on predestination as a ‘wild rant’ supported with ‘unscriptural jargon’ and concluded by quoting a passage from a parliamentary speech denouncing Arminianism as a pathway to popery and subjugation to a Catholic monarchy: ‘“If you mark it well, you shall see an Arminian reach his hand to a Papist, a Papist to a Jesuite; a Jesuite gives one hand to the pope, and another to the king of Spain, and these men have kindled a fire in our country.”’93 All of these claims—that discerning readers would see through the author’s fallacious appeals, or that his remarks represented an enthusiastic rant, or that Arminianism was synonymous with popery and led to civil unrest—repeated those claims levelled by the anti-Methodists. The editors even took advantage of the sullen occasion of Whitefield’s death to attack Wesley on doctrinal grounds in their review of Wesley’s funeral sermon. Not surprisingly, Wesley had downplayed doctrinal disagreements between himself and Whitefield, focusing instead on beliefs they held in common—namely, the New Birth and justification by faith—for which the reviewer took Wesley to task: ‘For we know Mr. Whitefield every where [sic] insisted, both from the pulpit and press, on other fundamental doctrines than these.’ The reviewer then stated emphatically, ‘Now these

The Monthly and the Critical Reviews 181 fundamental doctrines are, God the Father’s everlasting, unchangeable love to sinners—his election of sinners by his grace to salvation—the everlasting covenant which was entered into by the holy blessed glorious Trinity to save men.’ This omission by Wesley, the reviewer claimed, represented ‘a BAD SIGN’.94 Although Wesley chose the more diplomatic path by skirting his doctrinal disagreements with Whitefield, the reviewer focused the entire review on those points of contention, championing Calvinism in the process. The reviewer offered little, if any, real commentary on either the substance or style of Wesley’s sermon, nor did the reviewer offer praise for any part of Wesley’s discourse, which ultimately paid homage to a friend and colleague in the work of the revival. The reviewers for the Gospel Magazine proved as uncritically dismissive as they were reactionary to publications with which they disagreed. A reviewer simply described Sellon’s The Church of England Vindicated from the Charge of Absolute Predestination (1771) as ‘a Composition of low scurrility and illiberal abuse’.95 Haddon Smith’s Methodistical Deceit (1771), which specifically targeted the Calvinist Methodists, was denounced in similar terms: ‘Of all the low, mean, contemptible performances, we have ever seen, this is the most low, mean and contemptible. It really is ignorance at full breadth, and folly at full length. The Methodists have nothing to fear from such antagonists.’96 In its review of the anonymously published Methodism and Popery Dissected and Compared (1779), the reviewer deployed epithets reminiscent of those the Monthly and the Critical applied to Methodist writers, referring to the pamphlet’s author as a ‘literary Quixote’ with a ‘windmill in his head’ and ironically commending the author’s ‘good sense and penetration’.97 The Gospel Magazine’s one-sided approach to book reviewing is hardly surprising given the magazine’s audience and plan, which never included critical objectivity. As I have demonstrated throughout this study, even journals that professed impartiality routinely fell short of that standard, and the Monthly and the Critical could be just as uncritically approving or dismissive as the Gospel Magazine and equally combative in their reviews. That said, the Monthly and the Critical made a more deliberate attempt to support their judgments and recommendations with concrete standards in many of their reviews. For reasons I have been unable to identify, the Gospel Magazine followed suit in January of 1779, albeit in relatively modest but discernible ways. Prior to that time, the reviewers’ criteria could be summed up in three words: scriptural, evangelical, and Calvinistical, all of which spoke primarily to the substance of an author’s performance. A reviewer lauded a collection of sermons by James Hervey as a ‘truly evangelical publication’ that advanced Calvinist doctrines according to scripture: ‘The doctrine contained in these discourses is most scripturally displayed, and most beautifully illustrated.’98 But in 1779, the magazine began to include more nuanced, and balanced, reviews that addressed style as well as substance and juxtaposed praise with criticism. Although the

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editors still utilized the review essay as a means of engaging with their Arminian counterparts and endorsing pro-Calvinist works, their reviews took on a more critical feel reminiscent of the popular review journals. Several of the reviews published in 1779 evince a concern for an author’s manner, technique, or style of writing. A reviewer began his critique of William Hurd’s A New History of all Religions (1779) by outlining his standard of judgment: ‘This is a great undertaking. To render such a work acceptable to the public, these two things are absolutely necessary: I. That it be formed on a good plan; and, 2d, that it be well executed.’ In confirming that the author had achieved both objectives, the reviewer clarified his meaning—that the work combined ‘instruction with entertainment’ while helping readers ‘set a proper value on the great truths of the protestant religion’.99 The idea that ‘good’ writing should both delight and educate echoed a critical maxim emphasized throughout the eighteenth century and one the reviewers for the Gospel Magazine emphasized in other reviews. Of a collection of poetical essays, a reviewer stated, ‘These poems are written on the most interesting subjects, and the perusal of them cannot fail to administer both delight and profit to the pious mind. They are short, but weighty. The following may serve as a specimen of the whole, the style and sentiment of the rest being equally pleasing and instructive.’100 When assessing devotional poetry, the reviewers for the Gospel Magazine applied another neoclassical ideal by privileging simplicity over ornate forms of expression. Of a poem originally published in 1770 and reprinted in 1778 entitled Grace Triumphant by John Fellows, a reviewer declared that it was ‘set forth in a very agreeable and edifying manner’. The reviewer continued, ‘The plain, unaffected, yet convincing manner in which the most important truths of Christianity are enforced and recommended, evidently shew that the doctrines of grace stand in no need of the trappings of oratory, or the elegant dress of language … but come with peculiar efficacy to the serious mind when cloathed [sic] with their native simplicity.’101 Such language echoed the sentiments of John Dryden, cited earlier in this study, that ‘wit is best conveyed to us in the most easy language; and is most to be admired when a great thought comes dressed in words so commonly received that it is understood by the meanest apprehensions, as the best meat is the most easily digested.’102 At the same time that the reviewers privileged unaffected language, they condemned writing that lacked heart. In reviewing a sermon by Sir Harry Trelawny entitled Ministers, Labourers Together with God (1778), the Gospel Magazine criticized the style of the sermons, with no mention of the particular doctrines the sermons advocated, by juxtaposing the collection with the author’s previous publications: Very dry! Miserably cold! Wretchedly insipid! Every page reminds us of that awful charge, ‘Thou has left thy first love.’ And the whole constrains us, in the mournful, pathetic language of the prophet, to

The Monthly and the Critical Reviews 183 exclaim, ‘How is the gold become dim! how is the fine gold changed!’ What a falling off from that glow of affection, that warmth of zeal for divine truth and grace, for the glory of Jehovah our Saviour, and for the salvation of precious souls by him, which heretofore were manifest in this author! Alas! now all appears crampt [sic] by the icy hand of winter, and congealed into the frigidity of nature and self.103 The reviewers’ plea for more emotionally charged language, however, did not preclude restraint or moderation. As one reviewer explained of a piece entitled Three Dissertations on the Inspiration of the Holy Scriptures (1779) by John Kiddel, ‘The zealous earnestness, tempered with moderation, wherewith the author has pursued his subject … are highly commendable.’104 Perhaps one of the more sophisticated forms of critique employed by the Gospel Magazine after 1779 involved genre-based criticism—juxtaposing a work with other examples of the same generic type. This form of critique helped establish the credibility of the reviewer by demonstrating the breadth of his reading and provided multiple points of comparison to evaluate an author’s achievement. One reviewer performed this type of analysis in reviewing Erasmus Middleton’s Biographia Evangelica, or an Historical Account of the Lives and Deaths of the Most Eminent and Evangelical Authors and Preachers (1779).105 ‘Other great and good men,’ the reviewer explained, ‘have been of the same opinion, and have promoted this method of teaching by example, in order to second the more doctrinal and didactic instructions of the pulpit.’ He then detailed some of these other productions and how Middleton’s work compared: Fuller’s and Clarke’s Lives of the Reformers are confined almost to one age; and are written not only in an obsolete style, but, in some instances with very little judgment. Other accounts have been published of some of these Reformers, by more modern and ingenious authors, but (though well written with respect to style) they have had no very great respect to evangelical truth. They have been more careful to represent them as men of this world, than to insist upon those holy principles, which the grace of God endued them with as citizens of another country, even of a heavenly. Mr. Middleton has taken a different ground. After describing the ways by which Middleton distinguished his work from that of his predecessors, the reviewer concluded, ‘This increases the merit and value of the present publication.’106 As this review implies, the Gospel Magazine continued to advocate for evangelical and pro-Calvinist publications but did not do so indiscriminately or without substantiating its literary claims after 1779. One of the more striking developments at this time was the inclusion of more critically balanced reviews that incorporated both praise and criticism. After challenging the grounds on which one author formed his interpretation of the Book of

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Revelations, a reviewer summed up the author’s achievement: ‘A warmth of imagination seems to have dictated this sentiment, which rather points out the goodness of the author’s heart, than the solidity of his judgment. There are, however, many valuable things in this pamphlet, which may be of great service to those who study the prophecies; for the author never loses sight of evangelical principles.’107 This final point, of course, helps to explain why the reviewer could offer praise for a work described as poorly executed, but another review assessing a collection of sermons replete with Arminian notions similarly balanced criticism with praise. Some parts of the collection, the reviewer conceded, ‘appear to be just, and sounded in truth’; other parts proved more problematic: ‘We cannot allow that he argues with the same propriety on the important doctrine of Salvation by Grace, but in that, and several other fundamental points, betrays much of the Arminian leaven.’108

Conclusion The influence of the Monthly and the Critical is not merely evident in the inclusion of reviews that combined commentary with summary and extracts but in reviews that offered critically nuanced and evaluative statements about a publication’s value and contribution to public religious discourse. At the same time, the Gospel Magazine made no pretence toward impartiality, nor was it principally concerned with establishing regulatory standards for the republic of letters, even as the magazine’s reviews shifted to a more critically rigorous mode. Although it is not entirely clear what triggered this shift, the results were reviews that still reinforced the magazine’s theological commitments while presenting reviews that reflected the evaluative methods and standards the Monthly and the Critical set out to establish from the outset of their ventures. In acknowledging their own biases, however, the reviewers for the Gospel Magazine may well have achieved a more candid and authentic form of reviewing than either the Monthly or the Critical or any of their imitators did.

Notes 1 The Gentleman’s Magazine, vol. 22 (London, 1752), n.p. Subsequent references to the Gentleman’s Magazine will include volume and page numbers as well as publication date. References to other periodicals will similarly include full bibliographic details in the first reference and then volume and page numbers and publication date in subsequent references. 2 The Gospel Magazine, vol. 1 (London, 1768), n.p. 3 Critical Memoirs of the Times (London, 1769), iv and vii. 4 Critical Memoirs, 33 (1769). 5 The London Review of English and Foreign Literature, vol. 1 (London, 1775), v. 6 The English Review, or an Abstract of English and Foreign Literature, vol. 1 (London, 1783), 3–4. 7 The Political Review and Impartial Review of Books, vol. 1 (London, 1767).

The Monthly and the Critical Reviews 185 8 Gentleman’s Magazine, 51:271 (1781). 9 Kenrick’s London Review ran from 1775 to 1780, whereas the Critical Memoirs of the Times, also founded by Kenrick, was in print for less than a year. By contrast, periodicals like the Gentleman’s Magazine, in which reviewing represented one of several of the magazine’s features, ran uninterrupted until 1922. 10 Gentleman’s Magazine, 38:225–6, 410–12 (1768). 11 Political Register, 3:192 (1768). 12 London Review, 2:327 (1775). As discussed in chapter 3, Wesley borrowed liberally from Samuel Johnson’s Taxation no Tyranny. Other journals similarly criticized Wesley for plagiarizing such sources. See The Town and Country Magazine, vol. 7 (London, 1775), 603–4. 13 London Review, 3:534 (1776). 14 London Review, 3:534 (1776). 15 London Review, 3:534 (1776). 16 Other divines, including Wesley’s opponents, were similarly criticized for their turn to politics, indicating that the London Review was consistent on this point. See the London Review, 2:330 (1775); 3:314 (1776); and 3:534 (1776). 17 London Review, 3:311 (1776). The Gentleman’s Magazine similarly suggested that Wesley was out of his element in its review of An Extract of a Letter to the Right Honourable Lord Viscount H**E, on his Naval Conduct in the American War, which the reviewer erroneously attributed to Wesley since it had been published at the Foundry: ‘We have no doubt that Mr. Wesley is the author, whom some, perhaps, will compare to the sophist who instructed Hannibal in the art of war’ (Gentleman’s Magazine, 52:35 [1782]). 18 London Review, 6:157 (1767). 19 See Albert M. Lyles, Methodism Mocked: The Satiric Reaction to Methodism in the Eighteenth Century (London, 1960), 120–3. 20 Richard Price, Observations on the Nature of Civil Liberty, the Principles of Government, and the Justice and Policy of the War in America (London, 1776). 21 Gentleman’s Magazine, 46:519 (1776). See also Town and Country Magazine 8:548. 22 Apart from a single tract, which I discuss later in this chapter, Whitefield’s writings do not appear in the new literary periodicals, most of which were launched after his death. 23 Gentleman’s Magazine, 46:33 (1776). The sermon was identified as A Sermon Preached at St. Matthew’s … for the Benefit of the Widows and Orphans of the Soldiers who Lately Fell Near Boston. 24 Gentleman’s Magazine, 45:137 (1775). 25 Gentleman’s Magazine, 53:40 (1783). 26 Gentleman’s Magazine, 46:226 (1775). 27 London Review, 3:412–13 (1776). 28 Lyles, Methodism Mocked, 118. 29 Political Register, 2:186 (1768). 30 London Review, 5:158 (1767). 31 Gentleman’s Magazine, 58 (part 2):811 (1788). 32 Gentleman’s Magazine, 51:423 (1781) 33 Gentleman’s Magazine, 59 (part 2):931 (1789). 34 Gentleman’s Magazine, 58:488–9 (1788). 35 Richard Brinsely Sheridan actually references the Town and Country Magazine in The School for Scandal (1777) as an effective vehicle for spreading gossip in high society. Richard Brinsley Sheridan, The School for Scandal (London, 1995), 10. 36 Town and Country Magazine, 10:n.p. (1778).

186 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64

65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76

The Monthly and the Critical Reviews Town and Country Magazine, 3:44 (1771). Town and Country Magazine, 2:599 (1770). Town and Country Magazine, 2:662 (1770). Town and Country Magazine, 3:155 (1771). Town and Country Magazine, 5:266 (1773). London Review, 1:122 (1775). English Review, 9:69–70 (1787). Gentleman’s Magazine, 38:619 (1768). Critical Memoirs of the Times, 259 (1769). London Review, 2:51–2 (1775). London Review, 2:52–3 (1775). London Review, 6:525 (1767). London Review, 7:78 (1768). Gentleman’s Magazine, 47:540 (1777). Gentleman’s Magazine, 36:145 (1766). Gentleman’s Magazine, 36:335 (1766). London Review, 2:54 (1775). London Review, 8:471 (1779). London Review, 6:523 (1777). London Review, 7:377 (1777). London Review, 8:212 (1779). The Gospel Magazine, vol. 1 (London, 1768). Gospel Magazine, 5:n.p. (1770) The Arminian Magazine, vol. 1 (London, 1778), v. Arminian Magazine, 1:9 (1778). Arminian Magazine, 1:17 (1778). Arminian Magazine, 3:233 (1780). The first extract appeared in January of 1786. See Arminian Magazine, 9:47 (1786). See also John Wesley, A Survey of the Wisdom of God in the Creation: or a Compendium of Natural Philosophy, 2 vols. (Bristol 1763). Wesley published later editions in 1770, 1777, and 1784. Arminian Magazine, 2:505 (1779). See also John Wesley, Predestination Calmly Considered (London, 1752). Arminian Magazine, 2:105 (1779). Wesley reprinted this text in 1775. See John Wesley, The Scripture Doctrine Concerning Predestination, Election, and Reprobation. Extracted from a Late Author (London, 1775). Arminian Magazine, 2:155 (1779). See also Joseph Easterbrook, An Appeal to the Public Respecting George Lukins … Containing an Account of his Affliction and Deliverance (Bristol, 1788). Arminian Magazine, 4:206 (1781). See also Baron De Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws, 2 vols. (London, 1750). Arminian Magazine, 5:27 (1782). Locke’s An Essay Concerning Human Understanding was originally published in 1689. Arminian Magazine, 5:600 (1783). Arminian Magazine, 5:660 (1783). Gospel Magazine, 8:61–2 (1773). Eighteenth Century Collections Online attributes the piece to Job Orton. Job Orton, Diotrephes Admonished (London, 1770). Gospel Magazine, 5:276 (1770). Gospel Magazine, 4:193 (1769). I have been unable to determine the year in which A Compassionate Address was first published, but Eighteenth Century Collections Online includes five

The Monthly and the Critical Reviews 187

77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105

106 107 108

editions published between 1761 and 1797. The English Short Title Catalogue lists thirteen different versions printed between 1730 and 1799. Reynolds died in 1727. Gospel Magazine, 1:420 (1766). Gospel Magazine, 2:382 (1767). Gospel Magazine, 3:329 (1768). Gospel Magazine, 5:159 (1770). Gospel Magazine, 4:419–20 (1769). For a synopsis of these exchanges, see Donald Henry Kirkham, Outside Looking In: Early Methodism as Viewed by Its Critics (Nashville, TN 2019), 291–5. Gospel Magazine, 1:138–9 (1766). Gospel Magazine, 1:239 (1766). The Arminian Magazine similarly published poems celebrating the literary achievements of its leaders. See, for example, ‘On Reading the Checks and Other Polemical Works of Mr. Fletcher’, Arminian Magazine 2:47 (1779). Gospel Magazine, 5:n.p. (1770) Gospel Magazine, 1:477 (1766). Gospel Magazine, 2:188–90 (1767). When the Gospel Magazine resumed publication, the editors continued to include a book review section. Gospel Magazine, 2:189–90 (1767). Gospel Magazine, 3:234–5 (1768). Curiously, the Gospel Magazine reviewed Whitefield’s treatise twice, once in May and again in June. See Gospel Magazine, 3:278 (1768) for the second, and equally favourable, review. Gospel Magazine, 4:126–7 (1769). Gospel Magazine, 4:385–90 (1769). Gospel Magazine, 6:40–1 (1771). Gospel Magazine, 6:358 (1771). Gospel Magazine, 6:446 (1771). Gospel Magazine, 6:676–7 (1779). The editors of the Gospel Magazine reset the volume numbers in 1774 without explanation; that is, the volume for 1773 was numbered 8 and the volume for 1774 was numbered 1. Gospel Magazine, 4:441–2 (1769). Gospel Magazine, 6:52 (1779). Gospel Magazine, 6:635 (1779). Gospel Magazine, 6:492 (1779). John Dryden, An Essay of Dramatic Poesy, in Lawrence Lipking (ed), The Norton Anthology of English Literature, vol. 1C (7th edn, New York, 2000), 2117. Gospel Magazine, 6:52–3 (1779). Gospel Magazine, 6:444 (1779). Middleton served as the editor of the Gospel Magazine at the time of this review, thus indicating that the magazine used at least some of its reviews to puff, or advertise, its own publications in ways similar to those of the Monthly and the Critical. See Nicholas Mason, Literary Advertising and the Shaping of British Romanticism (Baltimore, 2013), 37–49. It is possible that Middleton himself wrote the review, which would of course compromise the review’s credibility even more, though the method of critique I describe here still stands as a viable and critically sound means of reviewing, even if skewed in an author’s favour. Gospel Magazine, 6:585 (1779). Gospel Magazine, 6:104 (1779). Gospel Magazine, 6:389 (1779).

188

The Monthly and the Critical Reviews

References The Arminian Magazine (London). Critical Memoirs of the Times (London). De Montesquieu, Baron, The Spirit of the Laws, 2 vols. (London, 1750). Dryden, John, An Essay of Dramatic Poesy, in Lawrence Lipking (ed), The Norton Anthology of English Literature, vol. 1C (7th edn, New York, 2000), 2114–2118. Easterbrook, Joseph, An Appeal to the Public Respecting George Lukins … Containing an Account of his Affliction and Deliverance (Bristol, 1788). The English Review, or an Abstract of English and Foreign Literature (London). The Gentleman’s Magazine (London). The Gospel Magazine (London). Kirkham, Donald Henry, Outside Looking In: Early Methodism as Viewed by Its Critics (Nashville, TN 2019). The London Review of English and Foreign Literature (London). Lyles, Albert M., Methodism Mocked: The Satiric Reaction to Methodism in the Eighteenth Century (London, 1960). Mason, Nicholas, Literary Advertising and the Shaping of British Romanticism (Baltimore, 2013). Orton, Job, Diotrephes Admonished (London, 1770). The Political Review and Impartial Review of Books (London). Price, Richard, Observations on the Nature of Civil Liberty, the Principles of Government, and the Justice and Policy of the War in America (London, 1776). Sheridan, Richard Brinsley, The School for Scandal (London, 1995). The Town and Country Magazine (London). Wesley, John, Predestination Calmly Considered (London, 1752). Wesley, John, The Scripture Doctrine Concerning Predestination, Election, and Reprobation. Extracted from a Late Author (London, 1775). Wesley, John, A Survey of the Wisdom of God in the Creation: or a Compendium of Natural Philosophy, 2 vols. (Bristol 1763).

7

Epilogue

The degree to which the revivalists and their critics depended on print media in advancing their respective causes ensured that Methodism and the ideas associated with it materialized in and were filtered through the literary review essay. As I have attempted to demonstrate, the literature associated with the Methodist revival thus provides an apt case study for assessing the enterprise of review criticism as it evolved in the pages of the Monthly Review and the Critical Review and in the various review journals that followed in their path. Although literary historians have observed generally that the Monthly and the Critical did not always agree in their critical and sociopolitical commitments, this study has illustrated some of the ways in which the two leading review journals converged and diverged in their critical approaches and sensibilities as well as their politics and religious opinions. Despite sharing many of the same anti-Methodist attitudes, the Monthly’s and the Critical’s responses to the anti- and pro-Methodist literature were hardly uniform, particularly when religious prejudice was confronted with other biases or agendas, whether literary or sociopolitical. The tension between the reviewers’ anti-Methodism, which ranged from mild annoyance to outright hostility, and their attempts to provide a ‘fair and impartial’ account of newly published books and pamphlets highlight the challenges and limits of popular literary criticism as it developed in the eighteenth century. By extension, the reviewers’ efforts in this regard demonstrate the challenges associated with public discourse broadly speaking and the seeming impossibility of achieving Habermas’s ideal of critical, rational debate as a means of resolving matters of public import. High-minded ideals are one thing; what happens in actual practice is quite another. Perhaps the best we can hope to achieve in public and critical debate is a selfconsciousness about individual bias and a recognition of the limits of critical, rational discourse. In addition, the province of popular review criticism provides an avenue for assessing how a particular group of observers responded to the publications that attempted to inform public perception of the revival, whether written from a pro- or anti-Methodist point of view. Anti-Methodist sentiment proved so pervasive in eighteenth-century literature and culture that DOI: 10.4324/9781003392323-8

190

Epilogue

such sentiment appears to have gone unquestioned and unchallenged, except from the purview of the Methodists themselves. The pervasiveness of hostile opinions toward the Methodists, in turn, makes it easy to overgeneralize in our historical and critical assessments of the period. The Monthly’s and the Critical’s reviews suggest that the response to early Methodism was more nuanced than such generalizations imply. While it is probably impossible to precisely measure the impact of the pro- and antiMethodist literature on public opinion and perception of the revival, the review journals reveal how a specialized group of readers responded to the Methodists’ publishing efforts as well as to the anti-Methodist critique— and their responses proved both multifaceted and complex. Their focus on the medium and the message, coupled with their efforts to codify literary standards, meant that their own anti-Methodist views were often as qualified and contingent as their critical opinions were informed by and dependent on extra-critical concerns. Though they generally condoned the tenor of most anti-Methodist tracts, they just as readily criticized modes of expression that violated rules of social and literary decorum and condemned arguments that relied on fallacious appeals and reasoning. Even in attacking a maligned religious movement, the reviewers insisted that authors should do so in a way that reflected sound critical, and even ethical, principles. The reviewers thus evinced a relatively measured response to the revival—a response they communicated to their readers. The reviewers could charge John Wesley and George Whitefield with fomenting religious enthusiasm at the same time they acknowledged these men’s sincerity and good intentions; the reviewers might describe Methodist sermons as disjointed and irrational rants while admitting that some of their preachers produced cogently written religious treatises; and the reviewers censured anti-Methodist writers who went to extremes that the reviewers could not condone as quickly as they criticized Methodist religiosity. Because the reviewers attempted (unsuccessfully) to read every newly published book and pamphlet, they were more attuned to intra-Methodist feuding and registered an informed understanding of the Arminian-Calvinist divide. Their understanding outpaced the perspectives of most anti-Methodist writers and outside observers who either ignored or were not aware of the division within Methodism. In short, the reviewers proved to be relatively discerning spectators of a movement that was typically castigated in unqualified and oversimplified terms, suggesting that anti-Methodism in eighteenth-century Britain, like Methodism itself, cannot be relegated to a single and homogeneous category any more than Methodism in all its iterations can be defined by a single moniker. The reviewers’ response to Methodism also indicates that we need to be wary of viewing the Enlightenment as antithetical to religion and religious orthodoxy. Although the impulse to critique and catalogue the productions of the press is rooted in Enlightenment ideals, the reviewers’ proclivity for denouncing works that directly or indirectly disparaged religion or

Epilogue

191

Christianity indicates the persistence of religious thinking and values, even among the intellectually curious. The reviewers condemned certain forms of religion, most notably forms that relied on emotion and seemingly inexplicable kinds of experience, at the same time they advocated for the utility of religious belief and practice in private and public life. Finally, the Monthly and the Critical ultimately contributed more to the campaign to discredit Methodism than they did to mediating the antiMethodist response. While they acknowledged Methodist infighting, they dismissed the controversy as trivial, thereby delegitimizing the movement as a whole. As much as the reviewers kept their readers informed about the controversies that affected Methodism, from the Methodists’ clashes with the theater and their Anglican critics to the Oxford expulsion and the Minutes controversy, they did so in a mostly predetermined and prejudicial way, one that reproduced many of the most common charges raised in opposition to the revival and its participants. If the reviewers were guilty of rehashing hackneyed arguments, they did so from an extremely influential social and cultural position as self-appointed—and to some degree, publicly recognized—arbiters of literary taste and merit, a position which invested their claims against the Methodists with a kind of authority unique to their enterprise. Though individual authorship of the reviews was usually subsumed by a corporate identity, and despite claims that the Monthly’s and the Critical’s contributors were no better than Grubstreet hacks, their opinions carried the weight of their institution while reaching an audience that far exceeded the reach of most anti-Methodist authors and their works. The Monthly and the Critical may well have done more to make Methodism a going concern in eighteenth-century Britain than did any other publication or collection of publications from the period. Thus, the Monthly and the Critical wielded a palpable influence on the ways in which those inside and outside of the movement experienced the books and pamphlets published in association with the revival.

Appendix A: Anti- and Pro-Methodist Publications Reviewed, 1749–89

The tables below list the publications associated with the Methodist revival reviewed in the Monthly Review, the Critical Review, and other review journals between 1749 and 1789. In addition to volume and page numbers and the names of reviewers (when known), the tables indicate whether the review was a Main Article (MA) or listed in the Monthly Catalogue (MC). Table 8.1 lists anti-Methodist publications reviewed in these venues; Table 8.2 lists proMethodist publications reviewed; and Table 8.3 lists reviews of publications associated with the Minutes Controversy.

Abbreviations: CM ER GM GSP LR MA MC PR TC

Critical Memoirs of the Times English Review Gentleman’s Magazine Gospel Magazine London Review Main Article Monthly Catalogue Political Register Town and Country Magazine

The Enthusiasm of the Methodists and Papists Compared, part 2 An Answer to a Late Pamphlet Entitled A Plain Account of the People Called Methodists A Letter to the Rev. Mr. George Whitefield, Occasioned by His Remarks on a Pamphlet Entitled The Enthusiasm of the Methodists and Papists Compared The Imposter Detected, or the Counterfeit Saint Turn’d Inside Out The Enthusiasm of the Methodists and Papists Compared, part 3 The History of Modern Enthusiasm The Bishop of Exeter’s Answer to Mr. J. Wesley’s Letter to His Lordship Candid Remarks on Some Particular Passages in the 5th Edition of Mr. Whitefield’s Sermons A Serious and Friendly Address to the Revd. Mr. John Wesley An Appeal unto the Honest and Sincere Hearted among the People Called Methodists and Quakers Dissertation on Enthusiasm

A Letter to the Rev. Mr. John Wesley The Great Secret Disclosed

1749

1756

1755

1754

1752

1751

1750

Title

Date

Thomas Green

John Webb

John Parkhurst

Theophilus Evans George Lavington

12:75, MC William Rose 14:366, MC 14:589–90, MC William Rose

9:152–3, MC Abraham Dawson 10:423–6, MA

6:483, MC

4:33–7, MA Ralph Griffiths 5:296, MC Ralph Griffiths 6:153–4, MC 6:312, MC

John Kirkby George Lavington

1:280+, MA Ralph Griffiths 1:319–20, MC Ralph Griffiths 2:114, MC

Monthly

George Lavington

Author

Critical

(Continued)

Other

Table 8.1 Anti-Methodist Publications Reviewed: In addition to publications devoted exclusively to criticizing the Methodist revival, Table 8.1 includes publications that make relatively cursory but still negative statements about the revival, to which the reviewers drew their readers’ attention, as well as works that may not have directly addressed Methodism but were nonetheless negatively associated with the Methodists by the reviewers

Appendix A 193

1759

A Discourse Concerning Plays and Players Dr. Free’s Edition of the Rev. Mr. John Wesley’s Second Letter

3

A Friendly Attempt to Remove Some Fundamental Mistakes in the Rev. Mr. Whitefield’s Sermons An Expostulatory Letter to the Rev. Mr. John Wesley, Occasioned by His Address to the Clergy Remarks on the Reverend Mr. John Wesley’s Sufficient Answer to the Author of the Letters on Theron and Aspasio Die and Be Damned: or, an Antidote against Every Species of Methodism and Enthusiasm Rules for the Discovery of False Prophets; or, the Dangerous Impositions of the People Called Methodists Detected at the Bar of Scripture and Reason Dr. Free’s Edition of the Rev. Mr. John Wesley’s First Penny-Letter Chiron, or the Mental Optician 1 Certain Articles Proposed to the Serious Consideration of the Court of Assistants of the Worshipful Company of Salters in London Eight Sermons Preached at St. Saviour’s Southwark Epistles Philosophical and Moral 2 The Whole Speech Which Was Delivered to the Reverend Clergy of the Great City of London Methodism Examined and Exposed

1757

1758

Title

Date

Table 8.1 (Continued)

A Methodist John Free

John Downes

21:357, MC William Rose 21:451–2, MC 21:456, MC

8:419–20, MC

6:439–53, MA

William Kenrick John Free

21:87, MC

5:412–3, MA

19:596, MC

John Free

John Green

19:208, MC

John Free

7:277–8 (1759), MC

5:244–8, MA 5:350, MC

18:506, MC

Thomas Mortimer

Critical

John Free

18:282–3, MC

16:585, MC

16:472, MC William Rose

Monthly

John Dove

Author

Other

194 Appendix A

1761

1760

The Minor Original Letters between the Reverend Mr. John Wesley and Mr. Richard Thompson, Respecting the Doctrine of Assurance A Satyrical Dialogue between the Celebrated Mr. F----teand Dr. Squintum The Principles and Practices of the Methodists Considered in Some Letters to the Leaders of That Sect A Letter from Mr. Foote to the Reverend Author of the Remarks, Critical and Christian A Letter to Mr. F----te,Occasioned by the Christian and Critical Remarks on his Interlude Called the Minor Memoirs of the Life of a Modern Saint Observations, Good or Bad, Stupid or Clever, Serious or Jocular, on Squire Foote’s Dramatic Entertainment Entitled The Minor A Friendly and Compassionate Address to all Serious and Well-disposed Methodists Of Justification of Faith and Works. A Dialogue between a Methodist and a Churchman An Additional Scene to the Comedy of the Minor Journal of the Travels of Nathaniel Snip, a Methodist Teacher of the World An Address to the Right Hon.-----… in Vindication of Her Conduct on Being Charged with Methodism The Register-Office The Mimic, a Poem The Principles and Practices of the Methodists Farther Considered in a Letter to the Reverend Mr. George Whitefield John Green

Joseph Reed

William Law

Alexander Jephson

11:77, MC

24:282–3, MC

25:121–4 (1762), MA

11:79, MC

24:162, MC

11:412–3, MC 11:419, MC 11:497–98, MC

11:247, MC

11:247, MC

24:144–6, MA William Rose 24:158, MC

10:243, MC

10:322, MC

23:328–9, MC 23:524, MC 23:524, MC

10:321–2, MC

23:328, MC

Samuel Foote

10:322, MC

23:243, MC 23:272–5, MA

10:69–70, MC

23:83, MC 23:172–3, MC

John Green

Samuel Foote

(Continued)

GM 36:145

Appendix A 195

Reflections on the Unacceptablenessof a DeathBed Repentance 4 A Letter from a Clergyman to One of His Parishioners Who Was Inclined to Turn Methodist An Answer to the Reverend Mr. John Wesley’s Letter to William Lord Bishop of Gloucester Four Charges to the Clergy of the Archdeaconry of Essex The Methodists: an Eclogue The Spiritual Minor A Review of the Genuine Doctrines of Christianity 5

A Conference between a Mystic, an Hutchinsonian, a Calvinist, a Methodist, a Member of the Church of England, and Others The Methodist: a Comedy Polyglott, or Hope of Eternal Life According to the Various Sentiments of the Present Day A Plain and Easy Road to the Land of Bliss The Crooked Disciple’s Remarks upon the Blind Guide’s Method of Preaching Presbyters and Deacons not Commissioned to Preach without the Bishop’s Allowance, a Discourse Addressed to a Certain Methodist Clergyman A Specimen of Preaching as Practiced amongst the People Called Methodists The Doctrine of Grace

1762

1763

Title

Date

Table 8.1 (Continued)

28:73–4, MC 28:315, MC 29:68–70, MC John Seddon 29:227–8, MC 29:236, MC

William Warburton

Richard Hardy Samuel Chandler Thomas Rutherford

Joseph Towers

John Robinson

Edward Harwood

27:236–7, MC William Kenrick 27: 369+, MA William Rose 27:453–6, MC

J. Helme

15:486, MC 16:74–5, MC 16:142–4, MA

15:435–44, MA

16:297–8, MA

14:370–85, MA

13:80, MC

13:358–9, MC 12:76, MC

26:236, MC John Harman

12:401, MC

25:392, MC 25:460–1, MA

Israel Pottinger

Critical

25:236–7, MC

Monthly

William Dodd

Author

Other

196 Appendix A

1766

1765

1764

Discourses on Several Subjects A Letter to the Rev. Mr. John Wesley Concerning His Inconsistency with Himself The Causes and Reasons of the Present Declension among the Congregational Churches in London and the Country A Rationale of the Literal Doctrine of Original Sin

6

Remarks upon the Life, Character, and Behaviour of the Rev. George Whitefield A Sovereign Remedy for the Cure of Hypocrisy and Blind Zeal The Methodist Instructed: or, the Absurdity and Inconsistency of their Principles Demonstrated Eleven Letters from the Late Rev. Mr. Hervey to the Rev. Mr. John Wesley A Trip to the Moon Mumbo Chumbo The Methodist and Mimic A very Humble, Earnest, and Affectionate Address to the Bishops and Clergy of This Kingdom An Ecclesiastical History … to Which Is Added an Appendix Giving an Account of the People Called Methodists The New Bath Guide Two Charges Delivered to the Clergy of the Diocese of Worcester, in the Year 1763 and 1766, Being Designed a Preservative against the Sophisticated Arts of the Papists and the Delusions of the Methodists The Methodist, a Poem

21:457–8, MC 22:257–66, MA

James Bates

22:75–7, MC

Samuel Newton

35:319–21, MC John Langhorne

Evan Lloyd

21:369–73, MA 22:66, MC

21:339–41, MA 21:400, MC

34:467–72, MA 35:247–8, MC

Christopher Anstey John Tottie

21:320, MC

William Cooper William Parker

34:244, MC 34:408, MC

17:429–32, MA 19:149–50, MC 21:233, MC 21:320, MC

19:113–7, MA

17:472, MC

31:73, MC William Rose 31:469, MC 32:148, MC

17:306–7, MC

30:76–7, MC

Peter Paragraph W. K.

Sir Humphry Lunatic

James Hervey

Philagathus Cantabrigiensis

John Harman

(Continued)

GM 36:335

GM 36:241

Appendix A 197

1770

1769

1768

A Dialogue between the Reverend Mr. John Wesley and a Member of the Church of England Concerning Predestination Methodism Triumphant

1767

An Apology for the Church of England A Dialogue between the Pulpit and the Reading Desk Modern Chastity: or, the Agreeable Rape, a Poem The Witness of the Spirit A Vindication of the Proceedings against the Six Members of E---- Hall, Oxford A Dissertation upon the Nerves 7 Remarks upon the Reverend Mr. Whitefield’s Letter to the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford Methodism a Popish Idol A Letter from a Lady to the Bishop of London Enthusiasm Detected, Defeated A Letter to the Rev. Mr. George Whitefield, Containing Remarks on His Letter to the Rev. Dr. Durell The Enthusiast’s Notion of Election to Eternal Life Disproved The Test of the True and False Doctrines Diotrephes Re-admonished: or, Some Remarks on the Second Edition of the a Letter from the Author of Pietas Oxoniensis to the Rev. Dr. Adams of Shrewsbury A Discourse on the True Nature of the Christian Religion. As It Stands Supported on Scripture Authority in Opposition to the Doctrines of Arians and Methodists

Title

Date

Table 8.1 (Continued)

William Adams Job Orton

John Allen

Samuel Roe

Booth Braithwaite

William Smith

Thomas Randolph

Allen Bennet

Joseph Parsons William Green

Nathaniel Lancaster

Author

29:319–20, MC 30:77, MC

30:80, MC

43:79–80, MC (1771) Jabez Hirons

28:80, MC

26:468–9, MC 468–9, MC 27:293–6, MA

25:414–7, MA 26:77, MC

25:319, MC 25:399–400, MC

42:80, MC

39:315, MC John Hirons 40:69, MC 40:73–6, MC 40:162–3, MC 40:514, MC

38:511–2, MC

38:248, MC

24:80, MC 24:236–7, MC

25:66–7, MC (1768)

24:236, MC

37:317, MC James Roberston 37:394–5, MC John Langehorne

Critical

Monthly

GSP 5:49–54

PR 3:192

Other

198 Appendix A

1774

1773

1772

1771

A Letter to the Rev. Mr. Bowman A Supplement to Mr. Wesley’s Pamphlet Entitled Thoughts upon Slavery Virtue in Humble Life 10

The Spiritual Quixote

The Spirit of Liberty: or, Junius’s Loyal Address A Letter to the Rev. Mr. John Wesley, in Answer to His Late Pamphlet Entitled Free Thoughts on the Present State of Pubic Affairs An Essay on the Holy Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper 8 An Essay Towards a Contrast between Quakerism and Methodism The Causes of Methodism Set Forth The Birth, Death, and Resurrection of Christ and the Descent of the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles Queries Recommended to the Consideration of the Public with Regard to the XXXIX Articles 9 The True State of the Christian Church

Some Considerations on Original Sin, the Fall of Man, and the Doctrine of Christ. Particularly Recommended to the Antinomians and Methodists The First of a Series of Letters to the Author of Pietas Oxoniensis in His Answer to his Letter to the Rev. Dr. Adams The Church of England Vindicated from the Rigid Notions of Calvinism: or, Some Observations on a Letter from the Author of Pietas Oxoniensis to the Rev. Dr. Adams of Shrewsbury Methodistical Deceit

Jonas Hanway

Richard Graves

William Penrice John Disney

Johannes Catholicus

Peter Waldo

John Allen Joseph Towers

Haddon Smith

48:166, MC Jabez Hirons 48:384–8, MA William Woodfall 50:236, MC 51:237, MC

46:265–6, MC Jabez Hirons

44:419–20, MC Jabez Hirons 44:420–1, MC Jabez Hirons

43:327–8, MC Jabez Hirons 44:72–4, MC 44:170, MC Gilbert Stuart

43:167–8, MC

43:165, MC

38:318, MC

35:275–86, MA

33:79–80, MC

32:77–8, MC

31:162, MC

31:243, MC

30:257, MC

(Continued)

TC 5:266

GSP 5:445–6

Appendix A 199

1776

Methodism, a Farce A Letter to the Rev. Mr. John Wesley, Occasioned by His Calm Address to the American Colonies A Second Answer to Mr. John Wesley, Being a Supplement to the Letter of Americanus Resistance no Rebellion The Old Fox Tarr’d and Feather’d

1775

Sermons Preached before the University of Oxford A Letter to a Friend on the Subject of Methodism A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing, or an Old Jesuit Unmasked A Scheme of Christian and Philosophical Necessity Asserted in Opposition to Mr. John Wesley’s Tract on That Subject A Constitutional Answer to the Rev. Mr. John Wesley’s Calm Address to the American Colonies A Letter to the Rev. John Wesley, on his ‘Calm Address’ to the American Colonies British Constitutional Liberty 12 A Reply to the Rev. Mr. Fletcher’s Vindication of Mr. Wesley’s Calm Address Political Empiricism: A Letter to the Rev. Mr. John Wesley An Examination of the Rev. Mr. John Wesley’s Primitive Physic Naked Thoughts on Some of the Peculiarities of the Field-Preaching Clergy

Title

Date

Table 8.1 (Continued)

William Hawes

Caleb Evans Caleb Evans

Augustus Toplady

Patrick Bull

John Tottie

54:419–20, MC

42:232, MC

LR 3:412–3 GM 46:226–7

LR 3:311–4

54:326, MC

LR 2:51–5

LR 2:330–2 TC 7:604

LR 2:328–30 TC 7:604

Other

LR 3:534

41:406, MC

40:402 11, MC

41:155–6, MC

40:444, MA

40:402, MC 40:402, MC

40:311, MA

39:166, MC 40:310–1, MA

Critical

53:528, MC 54:326, MC

53:514, MC

53:439, MC

MC 53:440, MC 53:427–30, MA William Enfield

53:363, MC

53:439–40, MC (1776)

Augustus Toplady

W. Denham

53:350, MC (1776) William Enfield 53:438–9, MC (1776)

Monthly

Caleb Evans

Author

200 Appendix A

1780

1779

1778

1777

The Religion of the Times, or a New Mirror for the Dignified Clergy The Foundery Budget Opened, or the Arcanum of Wesleyanism Disclosed

The Saints, a Satire A Discourse on Repentance 13 The Pastor Perfection, a Poetical Epistle A Calm Inquiry into Rational and Fanatical Dissention, with a Word to the Methodists Sketches for Tabernacle Frames, a Poem The Love-Feast, a Poem The Temple of Imposture Reasons for Quitting the Methodist Society An Ode Addressed to the Scotch Junto and their American Commission 14 A Discourse Previous to a Day of General Humiliation Fanatical Conversion, or Methodism Displayed Voltaire’s Ghost to the Apostle of the Sinless Foundry Methodism and Popery Dissected and Compared

Observations on Mr. Wesley’s Second Calm Address Two Letters to the Rev. Thomas Coke

The Ruin of Methodism

Political Sophistry Detected, or Brief Remarks on the Rev. Mr. Fletcher’s Late Tract, Entitled American Patriotism A Check to Enthusiasm

John MacGowan

William Combe William Combe

William Combe William Combe William Combe John Helton

William Combe Thomas Mole John Hough William Combe MC MC MC MC

48:479, MC

63:393–4, MC (1780) Samuel Badcock 62:321–3, MC Samuel Badcock 63:157, MC

49:152, MC

47:155, MC

46:315, MC

45:472–3, MC

45:399, MC

44:473–4, MC 44:155, MC

43:319–20, MC

43:307, MC

42:237, MC

60:478, MC 60:478, MC

60:245, MC

59:156, 59:156, 59:157, 59:236,

58:76, MC 58:305, MC 58:483, MC

57:87, MC Jabez Hirons 58:73, MC (1778)

John Thomas

Capel Lofft

55:164–5, MC Abraham Rees 55:327–8, MC Abraham Rees 56:401–2, MC

55:156, MC (1777)

Mr. Sophronikos

Caleb Evans

(Continued)

GSP 15:635–6

GSP 15:676–9

LR 8:212 LR 8:471

LR 7:378–80

LR 7:377–8

LR 6:523

LR 6:535

LR 4:479

Appendix A 201

81:471, MC

William Kingsford William Kingsford

A Vindication of the Baptists from the Criminality of a Charge Exhibited against Them by the Rev. Mr. John Wesley Three Letters to the Rev. Mr. Wesley

Methodism Unmasked

1789

David Lamont

David Gilson

76:455, MC Samuel Badcock 77:172, MC

64:101–2, MA Samuel Badcock 64:237–9, MC Samuel Badcock

Monthly

Sermons on Practical Subjects 18

Sermons

1788

17

James Webster

John Oswald

John Mainwaring

Arthur O’Leary

John Mainwaring

Author

77:456–7, MA Jabez Hirons 78:266, MC John Rotheram 81:76, MC Christopher Lake Moody 81:186–7, MC Jabez Hirons 81:471, MC

Remarks on the Postscript of Dr. Hallifax’s Preface to the Sermons of the Rev. Dr. Ogden Mr. O’Leary’s Remarks on the Rev. Mr. Wesley’s Letters in Defence of the Protestant Associations in England An Essay on the Character of Methodism Grace without Enthusiasm 15 Gospel Experiences, and Memoirs of the Late Pious and Reverend Gabriel D’Anville Ranae Comica Evangelizantes, or, the Comic Frogs Turned Methodist Discourses on Several Subjects 16

1781

1787

Title

Date

Table 8.1 (Continued)

63:160, MC

51:159, MC 52:71, MC

Critical

ER 9:69–70

GM 51:527–8

Other

202 Appendix A

Some Remarks on a Pamphlet Entitled The Enthusiasm of Methodists and Papist Compared An Extract of the Rev. John Wesley’s Journal, from September 3, 1741 to October 27, 1743 Mercy for the Methodist Proved to Be the Law and the Prophets, the Gospel and the Reformation A Third Letter to the Author of a Piece Entitled The Enthusiasm of the Methodists and Papists Compared Deism Genuine Antimethodism Predestination Calmly Considered Mrs. Hannah Halliday’s Letter to John Maddox The Principles and Preaching of the Methodists Consider’d 19 An Expostulatory Letter Addressed to Nicholas Lewis Count Zinzendorf Ten Sermons An Account of Some Lent and other Extraordinary Processions and Ecclesiastical Entertainments Seen Last Year at Lisbon

1749

1754 1755

1753

1752

1751

1750

Title

Date

9:233, MC 12:479, MC

8:484–5, MC

George Whitefield John Smart George Whitefield

8:139, MC

6:151–2, MC 6:312, MC 7:395–6, MC

A Woman John Wesley Hannah Halliday Robert Cruttenden

6:80, MC Ralph Griffiths

Vincent Perronet

5:461–2, MC Ralph Griffiths

2:36, MC

1:280–90, MA Ralph Griffiths

George Whitefield John Wesley

Monthly

Author

Critical

(Continued)

Other

Table 8.2 Pro-Methodist Publications Reviewed: Table 8.2 lists publications that overtly promoted Methodism, including Wesleyan and Calvinist Methodist tracts as well as publications that were associated, sometimes incorrectly, with the revivalists by the reviewers, either for the doctrines these publications promoted or the style in which they were written. Anglican and dissenting ministers with evangelical views were often linked to the Methodists as were writers whose prose style was deemed either too emotional or incoherent

Appendix A 203

1756

A Letter to the Rev. Mr. Potter, in Answer to His Sermon Preached … against the Methodists A Letter to the Reverend Dr. Free Enthusiasm. A Poem The Great Assize Remarks and Observations on the Morality and Divinity Contained in Dr. Free’s Certain Articles Proposed to the Court of Assistants of the Worshipful Company of Salters Sin Destroyed, and the Sinner Saved

A Brand Plucked out of the Fire A Genuine Letter from a Methodist Preacher in the Country to Laurence Sterne 22

1758

1760

1759

An Evening Walk, a Poem Miscellaneous Devotions in Prose and Verse The Doctrine of Original Sin

1757

A Short Address to Persons of all Denominations, Occasioned by the Alarm of an Intended Invasion Scripture Marks of Salvation 20

Charles Wesley

An Epistle to the Reverend Mr. John Wesley A Letter to the Reverend Mr. Law

19:207, MC 19:588, MC

21:356–7, MC William Rose 22:172–3, MC 23:85, MC

Richard Elliot 21

17:445–6, MA Benjamin Dawson 18:283, MC

14:463, MC William Rose 16:363, MC 17:381–2, MC

14:256, MC William Rose 14:257, MC

12:509, MC

Monthly

John Wesley Edmond Fox John Wesley William Mason

Cornelius Cayley

Convert from Infidelity John Wesley

Risdon Darracott

George Whitefield

John Wesley

Author

Title

Date

Table 8.2 (Continued)

5:445–6, MC 5:446–7, MC

Critical

Other

204 Appendix A

1763

1761

Christian and Critical Remarks on a Droll, or Interlude, Called the Minor An Exhortatory Address to the Brethren in the Faith of Christ. Occasioned by a Remarkable Letter from Mr. Foote to the Reverend Author of Christian and Critical Remarks on the Minor Twelve Discourses upon the Law and Gospel A Letter to David Garrick, Esq, Occasioned by the Intended Representation of the Minor at the Theatre-Royal in Drury-lane A Letter to Mr. Foote, Occasioned by His Letter to the Rev. Author of the Christian and Critical Remarks on The Minor An Address to the Clergy of the Church of England The Works of the Reverend Thomas Jones A Letter to the Right Reverend the Lord Bishop of Gloucester Observations on Some Fatal Mistakes in a Book Entitled The Doctrine of Grace The Scripture Doctrine of Grace, in Answer to a Treatise on the Doctrine of Grace by William Lord Bishop of Gloucester A Letter Occasioned by the Lord Bishop of Gloucester’s Doctrine of Grace The Experience of Saints Asserted and Proved An Essay on Preaching 16:194–203, MA 16:237–8, MC 16:298–301, MA

Benjamin Wallin Robert Sandeman

29:428–31, MA John Seddon

16:96–102, MA

15:368–71, MA 16:293–7, MA

John Payne

John Andrews

George Whitefield

Thomas Jones John Wesley

11:413–4, MC

10:408, MC

Martin Madden

25:160, MC (1762) William Rose 28:233, MC 28:235, MC William Kenrick 28:394–5, MC

10:402, MC

Martin Madden

10:238, MC

10:312–4, MA

23:416, MC

23:167, MC

William Romaine

Martin Madden

(Continued)

GSP 5:221–22 23

Appendix A 205

1768

1767

A Letter to the Rev. Dr. Durell Priestcraft Defended Pietas Oxoniensis: or, a Full and Impartial Account of the Expulsion of Six Students from St. Edmund-Hall, Oxford The Pastor, a Poem: or, a Caution against Error and Delusion

A Description of the Storm That Happened in West Kent 24 Fifty-two Sermons An Answer to All That Is Material in Letters Just Published under the Name of the Rev. Mr. Hervey The Life of Francis Xavier Brief Animadversions on Some Passages in the Eleven Letters to the Rev. Mr. James Hervey An Address to the Clergy Concerning Their Departure from the Doctrines of the Reformation An Answer to “Aspasio Vindicated in Eleven Letters” Short Hymns on Selected Passages of the Holy Scriptures Troublers of Israel 25

1764

1765

Title

Date

Table 8.2 (Continued)

George Whitefield John Macgowan Richard Hill

Charles Wesley

Walter Sellon

Dominique Bohours

39:78–80, MC

38:51–5, MA Ralph Griffiths 38:70, MC John Langehorne 38:511, MC 38:511, MC 38:512, MC

37:399, MC

37:74–5, MC Andrew Kippis

32:386, MC 33:158–60, MC

25:312, MC

25:396–8, MC 25:398, MC

25:235, MC

24:235–6, MC

23:468–9, MC

20:78, MC 20:240, MC

17:240 MC 19:156, MC

32:226–7, MC

Samuel Walker John Wesley

Critical 17:65 MC

Monthly

John Hedges

Author

GSP 3:324–8

GSP 3:233+

Other

206 Appendix A

1770

1769

A Letter to His Excellency Governor Wright, Giving an Account of the Steps Taken Relative to the Converting the Georgia Orphan-House into a College Strictures on an Answer to the Pietas Oxoniensis A Letter to a Young Gentleman under Sentence of Death Goliath Slain: Being a Reply Toe the Rev. Dr. Nowell’s Answer to Pietas Oxoniensis The Oxford Expulsion Condemned An Alarm to Dissenters and Methodists A Letter to the Rev. Dr. Nowell A Letter from Farmer Trusty to His Landlord Sir William Worthy … to Which Is Annexed an Evening Conversation between Four Very Good Old Ladies over a Game of Quadrille Arguments against the Doctrine of General Redemption Considered 26 A Sermon by the Rev. Mr. George Whitefield The Fool of Quality 27 A Letter to the Rev. Dr. Adams of Shrewsbury, Occasioned by the Publication of His Sermon Preached against the Rev. Mr. Romaine, Entitled a Test of True and False Doctrines Pietas Salopiensis: or, an Answer to the First of a Series of Letters Addressed to the Author of Pietas Oxoniensis The Putting on the New Man a Certain Mark of the Real Christian 26:469

39:482–3

43:166, MC (1771)

Richard Hill George Whitefield

42:330, MC MC 42:331–4,

27:158, MC 27:318, MC

40:164, MC 40:343–4, MC 40:513, MC

30:400, MC

30:77–8, MC

28:320, MC

28:308–9, MC

27:238–9, MC

27:77–8, MC

40:70, MC

26:77, MC

MC 25:396, MC

MC 39:236–37, MC Jabez Hirons

Henry Brooke Richard Hill

George Whitefield

Richard Hill

Richard Hill

George Whitefield

(Continued)

GSP 5:102–10

CM 259 GM 39:155

GSP 4:128

GSP 4:126–8

Appendix A 207

1772

1771

Date

44:174, MC John Langhorne 44:174, MC 44:312–6, MA Ralph Griffiths MC 44:502, MC Jabez Hirons

Charles Wesley

Jean Steuert

45:499–500, MC Andrew Kippis 45:500, MC

Augustus Toplady William Romaine

Philalethes

B. Francis

43:74–5, MC 44:90, MC John Langhorne 44:90–1, MC John Langhorne 44:168, MC

31:76, MC

31:321–2, MC

31:475, MC

31:75–6, MC

31:76, MC

31:74–5, MC

30:487, MC

Richard Elliot

John Newton 28

30:485–6, MC

John Wesley

Critical

A Sermon on the Death of the Rev. Mr. George Whitefield Grace and Truth, or a Summary of Gospel Doctrine, Considered in a Funeral Sermon Preached on the Death of the Rev. Mr. George Whitefield A Review of Ecclesiastical History A Monody on the Death of the Reverend Mr. George Whitefield An Elegiac Poem on the Death of the Rev. Mr. George Whitefield The Travels of Father William Orleans, a Jesuit An Elegy on the Late Reverend Mr. George Whitefield An Elegy on the Death of the Rev. Mr. George Whitefield Meditations upon Several Texts of Scripture 29 The Methodists Vindicated from the Aspersions Cast upon Them by the Rev. Mr. Haddon Smith A Funeral Ode on the … Lamented Death of the Rev. Mr. George Whitefield Free Thoughts on the Projected Application to Parliament for the Abolition of Ecclesiastical Subscriptions A Treatise upon the Walk of Faith

Monthly

Author

Title

Table 8.2 (Continued)

GM 41:86 TC 3:155

GSP 6:94–5

GSP 6:39–46

Other

208 Appendix A

1776

1775

1774

1773

Some Memoirs of the Life of John Glover Sermon Preached at St. Matthew’s, Bethnal Green A Full Defence of the Rev. Mr. John Wesley [re. Calm Address] A Vindication of the Rev. Mr. Wesley’s Calm Address to our American Colonies

A Paraphrase on the Eleven First Chapters of St. Paul’s Epistles to the Romans 30 Eighteen Sermons Preached by the Late Rev. George Whitefield Extract of the Rev. Mr. John Wesley’s Journal, from May 27, 1765 to May 1768 The Works of the Reverend George Whitefield The Excellency of the Knowledge of Jesus Christ 31 Memoirs of the Life of Rev. George Whitefield An Appeal to Matter of Fact and Common Sense: or, a Rational Demonstration of Man’s Corrupt and Lost Estate A Present for Your Neighbour Thoughts upon Slavery The Lord Our Righteousness A Paraphrase on the General Epistle of St. James Mistakes in Religion Exposed A Calm Address to Our American Colonies 47:249–50, MC 48:241, MC

John Liborious Zimmermann George Whitefield John Fletcher

54:325, MC

John Fletcher John Whitehead

54:325, MC

53:349–50, MC (1776) William Enfield 53:526, MC 53:528, MC

Thomas Olivers

John Wesley

Henry Venn John Wesley

Richard Hill John Wesley Benjamin Ruffin Cornelius Murdin

49:408, MC 51:234–7, MC 51:405, MC

47:79–80, MC

George Whitefield

41:156, MC

39:165, MC 40:305–10, MA

38:235, MC

34:349–52, MA

34:148, MC

33:221–4, MA

46:226–8, MA Ralph Griffiths 46:467, MC

George Whitefield John Wesley

33:175, MC

Thomas Adam

(Continued)

LR 3:534

LR 3:534

GM 46:32–3

LR 2:327–8 TC 7:603–4

GM 45:137

Appendix A 209

1787

1778 1779 1781 1783 1785 1786

1777

Date

A Calm Address to the Inhabitants of England Sermon at the Ordination of the Rev. Sir Harry Trelawny Poetical Essays on Religious Subjects The Sadducee, a Poem 32 Cardiphonia, or the Utterance of the Heart The Beauties of Methodism The Vanity of Human Knowledge, a Poem Preached on Occasion of the Death of the rev. Mr. John Fletcher Member of the Establishment not Liable to Penalties Inflicted upon Seditious, Disloyal Sectaries Sermon Delivered July 9, 1786 in the Surrey Chapel Parochialia, or Observations on the Discharge of Parochial Duties William Jesse

Henry Venn

76:366, MC Jabez Hirons 76:426–7, MC Samuel Badcock

74:569, MC

74:79, MC

John Crisp Joseph Priestley John Newton John Wesley John Stuckey John Wesley

57:335, MC

John Wesley

55:154–5, MC (1777)

55:156, MC (1777)

Monthly

56:71–2, MC Jabez Hirons 56:309, MC

John Wesley

John Fletcher

John Wesley

An Essay on Liberty and Necessity, in Answer to Augustus Toplady’s Tract Some Observations on Liberty

American Patriotism Farther Confronted with Reason, Scripture, and the Constitution Zeal in Religion Defended, or an Apology for Dr. Coke A Concise History of England

Author

Title

Table 8.2 (Continued)

62:317, MC

45:473, MC 47:75, MC 52:365–8, MA 56:394–5, MC 59:70–1, MC

43:232, MC

44:308, MC

43:319, MC

42:237, MC

42:233–7, MC

Critical

GSP 15:635 GSP 15:52

LR 5:238

LR 6:535

GM 46:519 TC 8:548

Other

210 Appendix A

1789

1788

A Defence of the Harmony of Satisfaction and Free Grace

The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano Essays on Several Religious Subjects

A Narrative of Facts with Occasional Remarks and Spiritual Experiences of the Author Preached at the Chapel in TottenhamCourt Road The School of Virtue on a New Plan Lectures Supposed to Have Been Delivered by the Author of a View of the Internal Evidence of the Christian Religion The Female’s Meditations

Messiah 33

81:568–9, MC Jabez Hirons

Joseph Milner Samuel Rowles

80:551–2, MC

80:279, MC

78:249–50, MC 78:355–6, MC William Enfield

78:175, MC

77:211–3, MA William Enfield 77:249, MC Jabez Hirons

Olaudah Equiano

Hannah Wallis

William Jesse

John Newton

67:152, MC

68:404–5, MC

69:116, MC (1790) 68:150, MC

GM 59:539

Appendix A 211

A Letter to the Rev. Mr. John Wesley, Relative to His Pretended Abridgment of Zanchius on Predestination A Letter to the Rev. Mr. Toplady, Occasioned by His Late Letter to Wesley A Conversation between Richard Hill, Esq., the Rev. Mr. Madden, and Father Walsh The Church of England Vindicated from the Charge of Absolute Predestination A Vindication of the Rev. Mr. Wesley’s Last Minutes Five Letters to the Rev. Mr. F----r A Second Check to Antinomianism A Review of All the Doctrines Taught by the Rev. Mr. John Wesley A Third Check to Antinomianism Friendly Remarks Occasioned by the Spirit and Doctrines Contained in the Rev. Mr. Fletcher’s Vindication, and more Particularly in his Second Check to Antinomianism Some Remarks on a Pamphlet Entitled A Third Check to Antinomianism Some Remarks on Mr. Hill’s Review of All the Doctrines Taught by Mr. John Wesley

1770

1772

1771

Title

Date

45:157, MC Jabez Hirons 46:467–8, MC 46:468, MC 46:468, MC 47:159–60, MC 47:160, MC 47:160, MC

47:160, MC 47:397–8, MC

Richard Hill John Fletcher Richard Hill John Fletcher Rowland Hill

Richard Hill John Wesley

45:500–1, MC (1772)

Richard Hill Walter Sellon

44:421, MC Jabez Hirons

42:482–3, MC Jabez Hirons

Monthly

Thomas Olivers

Augustus Toplady

Author

Table 8.3 Reviews of Publications Related to the Minutes Controversy

34:316–7, MC

33:176, MC 33:404–5, MC 34:314–6, MC

33:176, MC

33:401, MC

32:474, MC

Critical

Other

212 Appendix A

1777

1775

1774

1773

Richard Hill

A Lash at Enthusiasm

Imposture Detected, and the Dead Vindicated An Answer to Mr. Rowland Hill’s Tract

50:237–8, MC 51:78, MC 52:93–4, MC 52:278–9, MC Andrew Kippis 52:280, MC

Thomas Olivers John Fletcher Richard Hill Richard Hill

48:241, MC

John Fletcher 49:235, MC

48:241, MC

Augustus Toplady

John Wesley

48:240, MC

Richard Hill

57:332, MC 57:332, MC

Rowland Hill John Wesley

Richard Hill

MC 48:240, MC 48:240, MC

John Fletcher

Logica Genevensis, or a Fourth Check to Antinomianism Logica Wesleiensis: or, the Farrago Double Distilled, with an Heroic Poem in Praise of Mr. John Wesley The Finishing Stroke, Containing Some Strictures on the Rev. Mr. Fletcher’s Logica Genevensis More Work for John Wesley: or, a Vindication of the Decrees and Providence of God An Appeal to Matter of Fact and Common-Sense Some Remarks on Mr. Hill’s Farrago Double Distilled A Scourge to Calumny Logica Genevensis Continued Three Letters Written by Richard Hill A Gross Imposition on the Public

44:79–80, MC

43:480, MC

35:158, MC

35:157–8, MC

LR 1:511 GM 47:540–1 LR 7:78 GM 47:540–1 LR 7:78 GM 47:540–1

Appendix A 213

214

Appendix A

Notes 1 This novel includes a single passage satirizing Methodist hypocrisy and austerity, which the reviewer highlighted in the review. 2 Kenrick does not include a direct reference to Methodism, though the reviewer treated his tract as an anti-Methodist text. 3 Despite being written by ‘a Methodist’, this tract is a satiric parody of the Methodists’ attacks on the theatre. 4 Though Harwood does not refer to or attack the Methodists directly, the reviewer contextualized his review by lambasting Whitefield and Wesley, among other Methodist leaders, and their followers. 5 This work primarily attacks Calvinism without referencing Methodism directly, though the reviewer conflated Calvinism and Methodism in his review. 6 Although Cooper only briefly mentions Methodism, the reviewer highlighted the anti-Methodist references in his review. 7 Smith discusses the effects of Methodism in his section on hypochondria, which the Critical highlighted in its review. 8 This piece in the main does not attack Methodism, but Waldo includes an appendix in which he directly chastises the Methodists for disrupting the peace and harmony of the church, to which the reviewer drew attention. 9 The author references Methodism in his preface as a way of contextualizing the need for his argument, which the reviewer emphasized in his review. 10 This work consists of a collection of fictional conversations, one of which addresses Methodism, which the reviewer foregrounded in his review. 11 The Critical listed this work but did not include a review. 12 This work does not include a direct reference to either Methodism or John Wesley; nonetheless, the reviewer critiqued it as a reaction to Wesley’s views on the American situation. 13 Although Mole does not target Methodism, the Critical distinguished his achievement by insisting that Mole had avoided the enthusiastic notions of the Methodists. 14 This anonymous publication does not deal with Methodism, though the reviewer mentioned the author’s previous attacks on Wesley and the Methodist in his review. The reviewer appears to have assumed that William Combe authored the piece, which was published by J. Bew, Combe’s printer. 15 Although this publication does not specifically mention Methodism, the reviewer claimed that the author wrote in ‘opposition to the Methodists’. 16 The second discourse in this collection addresses the ‘Rise, Progress, and Doctrines of Methodism’, which the reviewer discussed in his review. 17 This collection includes a sermon ‘On Religious Deception’, which attacks Methodism and was discussed by the reviewer. 18 The reviewer discussed the sermon ‘On Schism’, which references ‘misguided zealots’ the reviewer supposed were Methodists. 19 Clive Field lists this publication in his bibliography of anti-Methodist literature, but the piece is pro-Methodist and was reviewed as such in the Monthly. See Clive D. Field, ‘Anti-Methodist Publications of the Eighteenth Century: A Revised Bibliography’, Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester 73/2 (1991), 195. 20 Risdon Darracott was a dissenting clergyman who associated with Whitefield and other Methodists. The reviewer described this piece as being ‘tinctured with Enthusiasm’. 21 An obituary in The European Magazine and London Review for 1789 notes that Elliot had lost his chaplaincy at St. George’s Hospital ‘on the charge of Methodism’ in 1759. See The European Magazine and London Review, vol. 15 (London, 1789), 79.

Appendix A 215 22 A later issue in the same volume included a review of A Letter from the Rev. George Whitefield, B.A. to the Rev. Laurence Sterne, which the reviewer claimed was the same piece reissued by the publisher with Whitefield’s name. See Monthly Review, 23:327–9 (1760). 23 This review is of the second edition of this work. 24 The reviewer assumed this piece was written by a Methodist based on its emotive style. 25 Field lists this publication in his bibliography of anti-Methodist literature, though both the Monthly and the Critical derisively claim it was written by a Methodist to promote the work of the revival. See Field, ‘Anti-Methodist Publications’, 214. 26 The Critical speculated that Wesley wrote this tract. 27 Henry Brooke was not a Methodist, though the Monthly insisted that his novel consisted of ‘the visionary jargon of fanaticism’ and, somewhat prophetically, anticipated that Brooke’s sentimental novel would become popular among the Methodists. Wesley, in fact, published an abridged version in 1781. 28 Although Newton was not formally aligned with the Methodists, he was influenced by Methodism, and the reviewers regularly associated his writings with the revivalists. 29 Although the author of this publication is not identified as a Methodist, Griffiths claimed her letters were as replete with enthusiastic notions as Whitefield’s journals or sermons. 30 Although Adam was not a Methodist, the Critical maintained in its review that the doctrines espoused in this tract were among the ‘favourites’ promoted by the Methodists. 31 This is a German piece translated into English that the Critical associated with Methodism. 32 Though the reviewer wrongly attributed this poem to a Methodist, such an attribution was not without cause. This poem was praised by the reviewers of the Gospel Magazine. See Gospel Magazine 15:52 (1789). 33 Enfield viewed this publication as being connected to the Methodists.

Index

Academical Society for Members of the Daventry Dissenting Academy 49 Adam, Thomas 61 Adams, William 175–76 Addison, Joseph 7, 120, 175 Allen, John 146 Allestree, Richard 73 American Revolution: John Fletcher on 102–3; Monthly Review on 25n61, 45, 163; John Wesley on 4, 18, 22, 25n61, 47, 84, 85, 101–4, 147, 163, 164, 172, 185n12 Anstey, Christopher, The New Bath Guide 118, 119 anti-Methodism: and ad hominem attacks 170–72; in Critical Review 1–2, 3, 8, 9–10, 11, 13–16, 18, 25n56, 25n61, 39, 47, 58–63, 64, 65–68, 70–71, 77, 78n18, 84, 96–97, 98, 122, 129, 130, 143, 153, 154, 166–68, 180, 190; and critical standards 64–68, 70–71, 77–78, 112–20, 171; on disruption of status quo 47; Clive Field’s bibliographies of publications on 17; and Richard Graves 113; Simon Lewis on 58–59; on Methodism’s appeal to poor of society 62–63, 64, 69, 70, 77; on Methodism’s disruption of social and political order 15–16, 63, 77, 87; on Methodist doctrine 60–61, 67, 78n19; on Methodist emphasis on salvation by faith 60–61, 63–64, 78n19, 121; on Methodist misinterpretation of biblical texts 60, 61, 70; on Methodist preachers 62, 63–64, 66, 120, 122, 143, 152, 166, 167, 190; on Methodist publications 60, 69–71, 73, 76–77; on Methodist

religious experience 117, 118, 119; in Monthly Review 1–2, 3, 8, 9–10, 11, 12, 13–16, 18, 25n61, 39, 47, 58–59, 61, 62, 64, 65–68, 72, 77, 78n18, 84, 87, 129, 130, 140, 141–42, 152, 153, 154, 166–68, 180, 190; in novels 14, 19, 113–14, 118–19, 122, 156n50; pervasiveness of 189–90; in poetry 114, 115–18, 122, 130n17, 171, 172; in polemical literature 4, 5, 8, 10, 19, 58, 66, 77, 84; publications reviewed 193–202; on reading public 64; and religious arguments 41; on religious enthusiasm 57, 59–60, 61, 63–64, 65, 66, 67, 69, 70, 74, 77, 84, 87, 88, 92, 106n17, 113, 124, 127, 141, 152; and review journals 10–16, 17, 18, 31–32, 59–64, 77–78, 92–93, 105, 130, 152, 166–72; in satiric literature 1, 5–6, 10, 11, 18, 21, 111–17, 118, 119, 120–24, 127, 171, 172; and women’s associations with Methodism 37 antinomianism 10, 78n19, 121, 150, 152, 156n49 Arbuthnot, John 120 Arminian Magazine 3, 146, 173–75, 176 Arminian Methodists: and Calvinist Methodists 90, 179, 180, 182; and doctrinal disputes 4, 10, 17, 22, 91, 103, 144, 179, 190; Richard Hill on 141; William Mason on 80n61; and Minutes controversy 135, 147; on Oxford expulsion 135; poetry published by 187n85; and John Wesley 3. See also Wesleyan Methodists Armstrong, John 46 Ashburner, Edward 62

Index 217 Badcock, Samuel 46, 117–18, 131n26 Baker, Frank 156n34 Basker, James 7–8, 11–12, 25n43, 26n74, 74, 112 Bate, James 16 Berridge, John 156n49 Bew, J. 116 Bickerstaffe, Isaac 169 Bird, Edward 174 Bloom, Edward 45 Bohours, Dominick 71 Boswell, James 45–47, 134 Braithwaite, Booth 65 Brandt, Gerard 174 Brooke, Frances 11–12, 16, 25n45 Brooke, Henry 128 Brown, Thomas 139 Bulkley, Charles 61 Burney, Fanny 8–9, 75–76 Burton, Vicki Tolar 72, 85 Butler, Samuel 115 Calhoun, Craig 52n23 Calvinism: on good works 61; John Wesley on 90, 91, 106–7n35, 148; George Whitefield on 3, 84, 88, 91, 144 Calvinist Methodists: and Arminian Methodists 90, 179, 180, 182; and Countess of Huntingdon 136; and doctrinal disputes 4, 22, 90, 91, 103, 136, 144, 145–46, 148–49, 154–55, 155n30, 163, 178, 179, 190; Gospel Magazine published by 3, 159, 173, 179; Richard Hill’s support for 141; William Mason on 80n61; and Minutes controversy 17, 22, 146, 147–48, 150, 151, 153, 163; and Oxford expulsion 135, 136, 142; Haddon Smith on 65, 181; John Wesley on 4, 90, 91, 106–7n35, 145–46, 148 Cayley, Cornelius 4, 23n9 Cervantes, Miguel de 72, 113–14, 143, 168 Champion, The 11 Chandler, Samuel 97, 107n58 Christian Amusement, The 173 Christian History, The 173 Christian Monthly History, The 173 Church of England: anti-Methodist publications of 6, 21, 105; church and state 32, 45; ecclesiastical critics of

Methodism publishing treatises 57–58; Methodism’s break with 22, 144, 156n34; Methodists barred from pulpit 136; publications of 5; and reviewers of Critical Review 84, 98, 107n63; and reviewers of Monthly Review 46, 84, 98, 107n63; reviews of John Wesley 83–84, 93–101, 105; reviews of George Whitefield 83–84, 93–101, 105; theological defining of 58; Thirty-nine Articles of 136, 147, 175–76 Clark, J. C. D. 94 Clarke, Samuel 73 Cleland, John, Fanny Hill 118–19, 131n33 coffeehouse culture 29, 32, 51n7 Combe, William 115–16, 130n17, 172 Cooper, William 13 Couper, William 177 Critical Memoirs of the Times 159, 160, 169, 185n9 Critical Review: on academic and theological tracts 30; on American Revolution 163; Anglican Church defended by 58; anti-Calvinist bias of 90–91, 148; anti-Methodist bias of 4, 11, 15–16, 67, 68, 92–93, 99, 111–12, 113, 124, 129, 143, 171, 181, 189, 191; anti-Methodist critique in review essays 1–2, 3, 8, 9–10, 11, 13–16, 18, 25n56, 25n61, 39, 47, 58–63, 64, 65–68, 70–71, 77, 78n18, 84, 96–97, 98, 122, 129, 130, 143, 153, 154, 166–68, 180, 190; authors’ letters in 8; competition with Monthly Review 25n56; comprehensive scope of 30; conservative positions of 15, 19, 25n61, 45, 68, 104; critical neutrality espoused by 159, 160, 161, 181; on critical standards 64–68, 70–71, 77, 84, 95, 96, 100, 112, 113–14, 116, 117, 118, 119–20, 129, 137, 138, 144, 160, 167–68, 181; critiquing of 160–63; editorial ‘we’ invoked by 31, 42; ethical standards of 7; on Samuel Foote 120, 123–24; format of review essays 16, 84, 178, 184, 189; forprofit motive of 9, 42–43; on Richard Hill 143; impact on public’s bookbuying decisions 9, 129, 160; inclusivity among subscribers and

218

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authority 31; institutional character of 19–20; intention of 6, 7, 9; on George Lavington 83–84, 95; legacy of 22; Main Articles of 18, 19; on Methodist publications 4, 6, 17, 23, 26n72, 30–31, 32, 36–39, 44, 46, 57, 64, 68, 69, 70–72, 77–78, 127–29, 162, 180; on Methodist religiosity 35; Methodist stereotypes in 11, 64, 69; on Minutes controversy 18, 22, 146, 148, 149, 151, 152, 153; notices of publications printed 18–19; on novels 75, 76–77, 113–14; on Oxford expulsion pamphlets 18, 22, 135, 136–41, 143–44, 153, 179; on poetry 115–16, 127–28; popularity and wide circulation of 8, 10, 11, 48–49, 50, 162; pro-Methodist publications reviewed by 18; public discourse institutionalized by 30; in public sphere 41–45; published sermons review by 17; and rational-critical discourse 36; readership of 45–50, 53n66, 166; regulation of literary tastes in 1, 7, 8, 9, 30; religious and sociopolitical commitments of 47, 189; reviewers contributing to 19, 46, 48, 191; reviewers’ impartiality and objectivity 7, 42–44, 45, 160–61, 171; reviewers’ influential position 6, 7, 8–9, 11, 48, 160, 175, 191; on satiric literature 111–12, 114–15, 117, 118, 119–24, 130; Tobias Smollett as founding editor of 6–7, 15–16, 24n22, 25n64; Tobias Smollett as reviewer of 26n74; Tory sensibilities of 84, 103; on William Warburton 83–84, 95–97; on Charles Wesley 127; on John Wesley 9–10, 13, 17–18, 25n61, 46, 83–84, 85, 86, 87, 90, 92, 94–97, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 163, 164, 165, 190; on George Whitefield 1, 9–10, 12–13, 17–18, 46, 61, 85, 86, 87, 88–89, 94–95, 97–98, 99, 100, 101, 136–38, 179, 190 Cromwell, Oliver 16, 126–27 Cruttenden, Robert 38, 69 Cyrano de Bergerac 111 Dawson, Abraham 46, 87, 106n19, 106n32 Dawson, Benjamin 46, 89, 106n32

Defoe, Daniel 85 Deists 34, 45 Dering, Edward 176 Derrick, Samuel 46 devotional literature: in The Gospel Magazine 22; of Methodism 2, 3, 18, 64, 76–77, 84; reviews of 19, 21, 58, 59, 64, 76–77, 112, 114 Dodd, William 66 Donoghue, Frank 8–9, 19–20, 53n66 Dryden, John 120, 124, 182 Easterbrook, Joseph 174 eighteenth-century print culture: Grub Street productions 8, 9–10, 30, 115; and literacy rates 47–48, 50; and Methodism 3–6, 22, 162; proliferation of periodicals in 5, 26n69, 29, 159–60, 161, 162; reading public of 29, 47–48, 50; religious works dominating marketplace of 2, 17, 23n2; volatility of 162 Eliot, George 22–23 Elliot, Richard 12, 25n47, 61 Enfield, William 102 English Civil Wars 126–27 English Review, The 159, 161, 168–69 English Short Title Catalogue (ESTC) 17 Enlightenment 33, 41, 190–91 evangelical doctrines, Methodism associated with 61, 68, 78n18, 136 Evans, Caleb 102–3, 163–64 Evans, Theophilus 15 Farquhar, George 122 Fellows, John 182 feminine conduct books 49 Fergus, Jan 48–49 Fetter Lane Society 144 Field, Clive 17, 24n14 Fielding, Henry 5, 150 Firman, Catharine K. 134 First Great Awakening 173 Fletcher, John: on American Revolution 102–3; Bible Arminianism and Bible Calvinism 172; Richard Hill on 149–50; on Minutes controversy 150–53, 156n49; Vindication of the Rev. Mr. John Wesley’s Last Minutes 146; Vindication of the Rev. Mr. Wesley’s Calm Address to our American Colonies 147, 148, 164

Index 219 Fletcher, Mary 52n27 Fog’s Weekly Journal 57 Foote, Samuel: caricature of George Whitefield 18, 120, 122, 123; The Lyar 43–44; The Minor 4, 5, 18, 22, 120–24, 163; and pamphlet war 18, 22, 120, 123; on reviewers’ impartiality 43–44 Forster, Antonia 6–7, 15, 31, 43, 45, 48, 112 Forster, Nathanial 60 Foster, Henry 60, 78n18 Fox, Edmond 127 Franklin, Benjamin 84 Franklin, Thomas 46 Free, John 12, 25n47, 98, 100 Free Grace controversy 91, 144–45 Garrick, David 123 Gentleman’s Magazine, The: on Isaac Bickerstaffe 169; critical objectivity of 162; critical standards of 171; on William Ludlam 166; on Oxford expulsion 163; popularity of 185n9; reader-reviews in 166–67; reviews of 159, 163; on John Wesley 164, 165, 170–71, 185n17, 185n23 Gillies, John 86 Glas, John 106n17 Glasgow-Weekly-History, The 173 Goldsmith, Oliver 101 good works 60–61, 78n19, 121, 144, 148, 149 Gospel Magazine: book recommendations in 175, 176, 178, 179, 182, 183–84; Calvinist Methodists’ publishing of 3, 159, 173, 179; on Edward Dering 176; on Diotrephes Admonished 175–76; genre-based criticism in 183; on heretical works 180; and Minutes controversy 146, 179; on Oxford expulsion 178, 179; and poetry 178, 182; reader reviews in 177; readership of 175; review essays in 22, 160, 173, 175–84, 187n89; on Edward Reynold 176, 186–87n76; on John Wesley 180; and George Whitefield 179, 187n91 Graham, Walter 7 Graves, Richard, The Spiritual Quixote 19, 113–14, 156n50, 168 Green, John 59, 63, 67, 99 Grell, Ole Peter 33

Griffiths, Ralph: as dissenter 45, 107n63; as founder and publisher of Monthly Review 19, 24n22, 38, 42, 43, 46, 65; on George Lavington 45–46, 93–94; pro-Whig sensibilities of 45; on religious establishment 45, 46; reviews of Methodist publications 38, 64, 69, 93–94; on Charles Wesley 125; on John Wesley 100 Habermas, Jürgen: on public sphere 2, 20, 29, 31–33, 35, 36, 41, 45, 47, 52n23, 189; on religion 31, 33, 35, 41; on status of art critics 29–30 Hardy, Richard 60 Harman, John: as astrologer 100–101, 108n72; The Crooked Disciple’s Remarks 1, 5, 18; Remarks upon the Life, Character and Behaviour of the Rev. George Whitefield 100–101 Harrison, Peter 33 Harwood, Edward 87 Haweis, Thomas 136 Hawes, William 101, 165 Hedges, John 128 Heitzenrater, Richard 10, 145 Hempton, David 37, 41 Hervey, James 106n17, 177–78, 181 Hill, Richard: and William Adams 175–76; anti-Methodist publications on 65; Finishing Stroke, The 149–50; Friendly Remarks 152; Goliath Slain 141, 143, 179–80; A Lash at Enthusiasm 141; A Letter from Farmer Trusty 141, 169; Logica Wesleiensis 149; on Minutes controversy 148, 149–52; on Oxford expulsion 135, 136, 141–43, 179–80; Pietas Oxoniensis 141–42, 143, 152, 179; A Present for Your Neighbor 77; Review of all the Doctrines Taught by Rev. Mr. John Wesley 149; Three Letters Written by Richard Hill 151 Hill, Rowland 79n26, 151–52, 156n49, 170–71 Hirons, Jabez 36–38, 46, 65, 73, 108n77, 150–51 Hough, John, The Pastor 115 Hume, David 46–47 Hunter, J. Paul 47–48 Huntingdon, Countess of 136 Hurd, William 182 Hutchinsonians 4, 63, 68

220

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Jephson, Alexander 60, 67 Johnson, Samuel: as Critical Review contributor 46; Dictionary 67; on Monthly Review 45; on Oxford expulsion 134; on power of prose fiction 74–75; religious leanings of 46–47; Taxation no Tyranny 102, 103, 163 John X (pope) 87 Jones, T. 25n45 Jones, Thomas 68–69, 128 Kelly, Hugh 166 Kenrick, William 63, 79n28, 95–97, 160–61, 185n9 Kiddel, John 183 Kippis, Andrew 38, 46, 69 Kirkby, John 100 Kirkham, Donald 4 Lambert, Frank 3–4, 73, 85 Lamont, David 73 Lancaster, Nathanial, Methodism Triumphant 114–15 Langhorne, John 46, 64, 79n34, 114–15, 127 Latitudinarians 34 Lavington, George: anti-Methodist attacks of 22, 83–84, 93–94, 95, 98, 105; The Enthusiasm of the Methodists and Papists Compared 19, 45–46, 93–95; and William Warburton 46, 149 Law, William 38–39, 90, 95 Lennox, Charlotte 113 Lewis, Simon 58–59 literacy rates 47–48, 50 literary review essay: development of 47, 50, 76, 84, 130, 159–60; extracritical considerations and socioreligious concerns shaping 1–2, 3, 159–60; Methodism filtered through 189; sociopolitical and literary ends of 104 Lloyd, Evan, The Methodist 114, 171 Locke, John 35, 174 London Evening Post 69 London Review: and anti-Methodism 166, 168; on William Combe 172; on Caleb Evans 163–64; and literary reviews 159, 160, 164, 170–71; on political involvement of divines 164,

185n16; press run of 185n9; on John Wesley 163, 164, 165–66, 170–71 Lucian 111 Ludlam, William 166 luxury, books and pamphlets published on 5, 165 Lyles, Albert 4, 102, 165–66 Macgowan, John 139, 155n16 Mack, Phyllis 40–41 Madan, Martin 123 Marriot, Thomas 49 Mason, Nicholas 43, 131n33 Mason, William 70, 80n61, 178 men, literacy rates of 47–48 Mendelssohn, Moses 33 mental illnesses, Methodist religiosity associated with 59, 63, 69, 78n9 Methodism: as antithetical to reasonbased debate 31; and centrality of textual culture 17; commercial publishing of 2, 3, 4–5; contradictions in 40–41; as countercultural movement 3; devotional literature of 2, 3, 18, 64, 76–77, 84; doctrinal fault lines within 3, 4, 10, 135, 136, 144–46, 148–50, 154–55, 190, 191; doctrine and practice criticized 4, 12, 15–16, 21, 41, 57, 60, 70, 86, 143; and eighteenth-century print culture 3–6, 22, 162; evangelical doctrines associated with 61, 68, 78n18, 136; evolution from ‘Holy Club’ at Oxford 10; as independent denomination 25n37; institutional status of 10; and internal illumination 36; lack of rational-critical discourse in 36–41; as mainstream Christian denomination 22; on New Birth 10, 34, 119, 180; perceptions of 32, 47, 142; popery associated with 14, 64–65, 72, 89, 117, 180; public discourse on 5, 9–10, 16, 20, 31, 32, 33; in public sphere 36–41; readers’ response to 2, 3; review journals’ regulation of impact of books and pamphlets on 10, 30–31, 77–78, 135; reviews of books in Monthly and Critical 9–10, 17, 30–31, 32; as revolutionary force 47; on salvation by faith 10, 60–61, 63–64, 78n19, 121, 148; scholarly assessments of 40; stereotypes of

Index 221 Methodists 11, 14, 37, 39, 64, 69, 70, 124–25; textual culture of 20, 32; as threat to state authority 32. See also anti-Methodism; Minutes controversy; Oxford expulsion Methodist Conference (1744) 145 Methodist Conference (1770) 145 Methodist controversialists 37, 38, 90, 143, 152, 164, 179–80 Methodist Episcopal Church, founding of 25n37 Methodist publications: Critical Review on 4, 6, 17, 23, 26n72, 30–31, 32, 36–39, 44, 46, 57, 64, 68, 69, 70–72, 77–78, 127–29, 162, 180; and literary expression 112, 124–29; Monthly Review on 4, 6, 17, 18, 23, 26n72, 30–31, 32, 36–39, 41, 44, 46, 47, 57, 64, 68–69, 72, 73, 77–78, 104, 125–29, 162, 180; on Oxford expulsion 142; popularity of 73; proMethodist publications reviewed 203–11; promoting the faith and 71–77; review journals on 69–71, 78, 125, 130, 163–68, 190; and style of writing 16, 21, 70, 71, 124–26, 127, 128, 129, 137, 146, 166, 167; John Wesley’s role in 84–86; George Whitefield’s role in 84–86 Methodist religiosity: anti-Methodism on 117, 118, 119; and conversion 99, 108n67; ecstatic forms of expression in 40; mental illnesses associated with 59, 63, 69, 78n9; public debate of 31–32, 35, 38–41; and religious enthusiasm 10, 11, 12–13, 15–16, 34–35, 37–41, 57, 59–61, 63–67, 69, 70, 74, 84, 96–97, 99, 127, 138, 141, 190; review journals on 35, 36–37, 45, 190; William Smith on 59 Methodist revival: books and pamphlets associated with 30–31, 32; centrality of print media to 3–4, 5; and coffeehouse culture 51n7; declining number of publications associated with 26n77; doctrinal debates on 58, 145; literary and periodical culture intersecting with 17; literary reviews covering 2, 3, 6, 11, 16, 17, 18, 20, 26n72, 30–31, 62, 68, 166–67; magazines of 145, 173–84; oral practices of 71; and Oxford expulsion

142; readers’ response to pro- and anti-Methodist literature 2, 5, 190; reviewers’ opinions of 19, 21, 44, 50, 59–60, 71, 78, 94–95, 135, 154, 159, 161, 162, 163, 189, 190; scholarly views on 40; undermining of 1, 5, 21, 68, 71, 89, 94–95, 104–5; women’s role in 37 Middleton, Erasmus 183, 187n105 Milner, Joseph 36, 38 Milton, John 114 Minutes controversy: as detrimental to Christianity 149, 150, 151, 164; and doctrinal differences 4, 22, 91, 103, 144–46, 148–49, 154–55, 155n30, 163, 178; John Fletcher on 150–53, 156n49; and Oxford expulsion 136; pamphlets published in response to 17, 22, 26n77, 135, 145–53; and reviews of pro- and anti-Methodist works 18, 22, 135, 146–53; reviews of publications related to 212–13; and John Wesley 135, 145–46, 148–51 Mitchell, T. 145 Mole, Thomas 60 Molière 122 Monthly Review: on academic and theological tracts 30; on William Adams 175–76; on American Revolution 25n61, 45, 163; antiCalvinist bias of 90–91, 141, 148; anti-Methodist bias of 4, 11, 15, 67, 68, 92–93, 99, 124, 129, 171, 181, 189, 191; anti-Methodist critique in review essays 1–2, 3, 8, 9–10, 11, 12, 13–16, 18, 25n61, 39, 47, 58–59, 61, 62, 64, 65–68, 72, 77, 78n18, 84, 87, 129, 130, 140, 141–42, 152, 153, 154, 166–68, 180, 190; authors’ letters in 8; competition with Critical Review 25n56; comprehensive scope of 30; critical neutrality espoused by 159, 160, 161, 181; on critical standards 58, 65–68, 70–71, 77, 84, 94, 100, 112, 113, 117, 129, 143, 144, 151, 160, 167–68, 181; critiquing of 160–63; on dissenting views 46, 58, 66; editorial ‘we’ invoked by 31, 42; feminine conduct books reviewed by 49; as first review journal 7; on Samuel Foote 120, 123; format of review essays 16, 84, 178,

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184, 189; for-profit motive of 9, 24n22, 42–43; Ralph Griffiths as founder and publisher of 19, 24n22, 38, 42, 43, 46, 65; on Richard Hill 141–42, 143; impact on public’s book-buying decisions 9, 129, 160; inclusivity among subscribers and authority 31; institutional character of 19–20; on George Lavington 83–84; legacy of 22; liberal positions of 15, 19, 25n61, 45; Main Articles of 18, 19; as mediator between booksellers and reading public 6; on Methodist apologists 46; on Methodist publications 4, 6, 17, 18, 23, 26n72, 30–31, 32, 36–39, 41, 44, 46, 47, 57, 64, 68–69, 72, 73, 77–78, 104, 125–29, 162, 180; on Methodist religiosity 35; Methodist stereotypes in 11, 37, 64, 69; on Minutes controversy 18, 22, 146–53; notices of publications printed 18–19; on novels 75, 113, 115, 128; on Oxford expulsion pamphlets 18, 22, 135, 136, 138–44, 152, 153–54; on poetry 115–16, 126, 127–28; popularity and wide circulation of 8, 10, 11, 48–49, 50, 162; public discourse institutionalized by 30; in public sphere 41–45; and rational-critical discourse 36; readership of 45–50, 53n66, 166; regulation of literary tastes in 1, 7, 8, 9, 30; religious and sociopolitical commitments of 47, 189; reviewers contributing to 19, 46, 48, 191; reviewers’ impartiality and objectivity 7, 42–44, 45, 160–61, 171; reviewers’ influential position 6, 7, 8–9, 12, 48, 160, 175, 191; on satiric literature 111–12, 116–17, 118, 119, 120–21, 122, 130; scope of 8; on William Warburton 83–84; on John Wesley 9–10, 13, 17–18, 25n61, 46, 83–86, 87, 89–90, 92, 94–95, 97, 98–99, 101, 102, 104, 107n58, 108n77, 108n93, 163, 164, 165, 190; Whig leanings of 84, 102, 104; on George Whitefield 9–10, 12–13, 17–18, 46, 85–86, 87, 88, 89, 94–95, 97, 98, 99–100, 136, 190 Moravians 4, 62, 63, 129, 144 Morgan, James 71–72 Morrissey, Lee 74

Mortimer, Thomas 62 Murdin, Cornelius 60, 78n17 Murdoch, Patrick 46 Nangle, Benjamin Christie 19 New Society of Clergymen 49 Newton, John 125, 131n57, 179 Newton, Thomas 13–14 novels: anti-Methodism in 14, 19, 113–14, 118–19, 122, 156n50; Samuel Johnson on 74–75; and Methodist literary expression 128; popularity of 5, 9, 74–75; reviews of 2, 8–9, 49, 75–77, 113–14, 115, 128, 168. See also satiric literature Nowell, Thomas 138–39, 143 Okely, John 57 Old Maid, The 11 Oliver, Thomas 150–51, 164 Oswald, John 117 Oxford expulsion: charges associated with 134–35; Richard Hill on 135, 136, 141–43, 179–80; Samuel Johnson on 134; and Methodism’s place in larger society 135, 154; pamphlets published on 134, 135, 136, 137–38; reviews of pamphlets addressing proceedings 18, 22, 135, 136, 137–44, 152, 153–54, 155, 179, 191; John Wesley on 135, 136; George Whitefield on 135, 136–38, 139, 142, 143–44, 179 Oxford Holy Club 57, 136 Oxford University 4, 136 Packhurst, John 87 Payne, John 95–96 Pearne, Thomas 42 Plain and Easy Road, A (1762) 119–20 poetry: anti-Methodism in 17, 114, 115–18, 122, 130n17, 171, 172; John Dryden on 124; and Methodist literary expression 112, 124–28, 129, 167, 187n85 polemical literature: anti-Methodism in 4, 5, 8, 10, 19, 58, 66, 77, 84; of Methodism publications 76–77, 91, 124–25; reviews of 19, 21, 31, 58–59, 76–77, 84, 93–94, 112, 114, 146; John Wesley on 58, 86, 90, 91, 94–99, 106–7n35; George Whitefield on 58, 86, 94–95, 97–98

Index 223 Political Register, The 159, 162, 163, 166 Polyglott, The (1761) 86–87, 106n17 Pope, Alexander 120, 126, 174 popular literary criticism: Jürgen Habermas on 29; Methodism’s textual culture merged with 20; and religion 35–36; rise of 3, 6–10, 22, 50, 74, 189 popular review criticism: critical neutrality of 159, 160–61, 162; democratization of literary culture 31; extracritical considerations and socioreligious concerns shaping literary review essay 1–2, 3, 159–60; as mainstay of literary culture 48; Methodism filtered through literary review essay 189; politicization of 84; and public sphere 36, 47, 50; reviewers’ disputes with Methodism 64, 84; rise of 17, 29, 45, 189; scrutiny of 160; shaping of literary review essay 47, 50, 76, 84, 130, 159–60; sociopolitical and literary ends of literary review essay 104; standards for literary merit applied by 1–2, 29–31, 68, 71, 77–78, 112–20, 122, 124, 129–30, 161, 190, 191 Porter, Roy 33 Portner, Ruth 48–49 Pottinger, Israel, The Methodist 122 Price, Richard 164 Priestly, Joseph 128 print media. See eighteenth-century print culture; Methodist publications; review journals Prior, Matthew 174 Protestant Reformation 3, 33, 58, 78n19 public sphere: evolution of 2, 29, 31, 44; exclusions from 47; liberal model of 33, 34, 45; Methodism in 36–41; participatory nature of 47; and popular review criticism 36, 47, 50; and rational-critical discourse 2, 20, 29, 31–32, 33, 34, 36, 39, 41, 44, 45, 47, 52n23, 189; and religion 20, 32–36 Quarles, Francis 126 Quevedo, Francisco de 111 Quixotism 71–72, 143, 181

Rack, Henry 41 Rambler 74 rational-critical discourse: challenges associated with 44–45; as fragile concept 36, 42; and public sphere 2, 20, 29, 31–32, 33, 34, 36, 39, 41, 44, 45, 47, 52n23, 189; in religion 31–32, 33, 34, 35, 44–45; reviewers’ advocacy of 31–32, 36 reading public: anti-Methodism on 64; book-buying decisions of 9, 48, 129, 160; characteristics of 29, 47–50, 162; concept of 50; and literacy rates 47–48, 50 Rees, Abraham 46, 115, 130n13 religion: and biblical scholars 34; controversies of 32; and Enlightenment 33, 190–91; Jürgen Habermas on 31, 33, 35, 41; intellectualizing of 33; and public sphere 20, 32–36; rational-critical discourse in 31–32, 33, 34, 35, 44–45; secular study of 33–34 religious enthusiasm: anti-Methodist publications on 57, 59–60, 61, 63–64, 65, 66, 67, 69, 70, 74, 77, 84, 87, 88, 92, 106n17, 113, 124, 127, 141, 152; and Methodist religiosity 10, 11, 12–13, 15–16, 34–35, 37–41, 57, 59–61, 63–67, 69, 70, 74, 84, 96–97, 99, 138, 141, 190; and Methodist style of writing 125–26, 127, 128, 129, 137, 146, 166, 167, 190; John Wesley on 40–41 religious toleration 33 Relly, James 106n17 Repository, The, or General Review 44 Restoration 74, 120, 126 review journals: and accessibility of academic and theological tracts 30–31; on ad hominem attacks 170–72; anonymity of reviewers 19–20, 42, 46; and anti-Methodism 10–16, 17, 18, 31–32, 59–64, 77–78, 92–93, 105, 130, 152, 166–72; attitudes toward Methodism shaped by 48, 135; book clubs subscribing to 48, 49; community of readers created by 31; comprehensive scope of 30–31; on contested nature of Methodism 20; critical standards codified by 168–72; extraliterary factors in reviewers’

224

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treatment of works 84; for-profit motive of 42–43; institutional authority of 31; lists of newly published sermons 17; mediation of readers’ experiences with printed texts 11–13, 16, 20, 25n43, 30, 68, 78, 129; on Methodist doctrine 155n30; on Methodist publications 69–71, 78, 125, 130, 163–68, 190; on Methodist religiosity 35, 36–37, 45, 190; on Minutes controversy 144–53, 154, 155, 163, 191; on novels 75–76, 113–14; on Oxford expulsion debate 135, 136–44, 154, 155, 191; and participation in literary and print culture 45; popularity and wide circulation of 16, 45, 48–49, 50; proliferation of 159–60, 161, 162; and pro-Methodist publications 20; and public sphere 32; readership of 31, 42, 45–50, 53n66; reviewers’ impartiality and objectivity 7, 42–44, 45, 171–72, 173; reviewers’ opinion and assessment of literary merit 1–2, 29–31, 68, 71, 77–78, 94–95, 111–12, 114, 122, 124, 129–30, 137, 144, 191; on ridiculing the sacred 168–69; on John Wesley 84–93, 105, 163–65; on George Whitefield 84–93, 105, 185n22. See also Critical Review; Gospel Magazine; Monthly Review Reynold, Edward 176, 186–87n76 Rivers, Isabel 4–5, 72, 85–86 Robertson, James 91 Roe, Samuel 66 Romaine, William 4, 15, 23n9, 68, 178 Rose, William 19, 38–39, 46, 65, 79n38, 89–90, 108n96 Rutherforth, Thomas 39 Salgård Cunha, Emma 72, 74 Sandeman, Robert 63, 70–71, 79n31, 106n17 satiric literature: anti-Methodism in 1, 5–6, 10, 11, 18, 21, 111–17, 118, 119, 120–24, 127, 171, 172; and genre-centered criticism 114; and literary decorum and social propriety 21, 114, 116, 117, 118, 119–20; and Oxford expulsion 134, 139; and pamphlet wars 18, 22, 120, 123; and poetry 114, 115–18, 122, 130n17,

171, 172; and ridiculing the sacred 114, 116–17, 119, 120–24, 130, 169; and theatre 120–24; on John Wesley 164, 165–66, 172; on George Whitefield 1, 18, 86, 88–89 Schismatics 66 Schlenther, Boyd Stanley 136 Scott, Sarah 75 Sekora, John 5 Sellon, Walter 107n42, 180, 181 Seward, William 35, 84, 145 Shakespeare, William 11 Sheridan, Richard Brinsely 185n35 Shirley, Walter 146, 150 Short, Thomas 49 Smith, Haddon 37–38, 65, 70, 79n40, 181 Smith, William 59 Smollett, Tobias: anti-Methodist views of 16, 46; and effect of reviews on reader’s perception 12; as founding editor of Critical Review 6–7, 15–16, 24n22, 25n64; History of England 16, 46, 101; Humphry Clinker 5, 16, 46, 156n50; impartiality of 43; on religious enthusiasm 15–16; religious leanings of 46; as reviewer for Monthly Review 6; reviews authored in Critical 26n74, 112; Sir Lancelot Greaves 16 social class: anti-Methodism on 62–63, 64, 69, 70, 77, 137, 163; in novels 76 Society for the Distribution of Religious Tracts among the Poor 85 Sorkin, David 33 Spectator 7, 175 Spiritual Minor, The (1760) 121–22 Squire, Samuel 59 state, alliances between church and state 32, 45 Steele, Richard 7, 175 Steuart, Jean 64 Stuart, John 25n59 Suarez, Michael F. 23n2 Suckling, John 126 Swift, Jonathan 66, 111, 119–20 Tatler 7, 175 Thompson, E. P. 40 Thompson, Richard 99 Tillotson, John 73, 147 Tindal, Matthew 34 Toplady, Augustus: and Calvinist

Index 225 Methodism 38; on Minutes controversy 146–48, 150, 151; on Oxford expulsion 135, 136; A Scheme of Christian and Philosophical Necessity Asserted 151, 170, 171; on John Wesley 103, 170 Tottie, John 67 Towers, Joseph 61, 65, 67 Town and Country Magazine 167–68, 185n35 Trapp, Joseph 34–36 Trelawny, Harry 62, 79n26, 182–83 Trevecca College 136 Trip to the Moon, A (1764) 111–12 Vernet, Jacob 33 Vindication of the Proceedings against the Six Members of E-Hall, Oxford, A (1768) 139–41 Voltaire 117, 169 Walker, Samuel 70 Wallin, Benjamin 70, 80n63 Wallis, Hannah 127–28, 132n74 Warburton, William: anti-Methodist attacks of 22, 83–84, 95, 105; The Doctrine of Grace 4, 18, 19, 95, 163; and George Lavington 46, 149; and religious Enlightenment 33; and John Wesley 95–97; and George Whitefield 94, 98 Ward, Edward 139 Weekly History, The 173 Weekly Miscellany 26n69 Wesley, Charles 16, 125–27, 144, 167 Wesley, John: on American liberty and slavery 4, 18, 22, 25n61, 47, 84, 85, 101–4, 108n93, 147, 163, 164, 172, 185n12; Anglican critics of 83–84, 93–101, 144; Answer to Mr. Rowland Hill’s Tract, An, Entitled Imposture Detected 151; and Arminian Magazine 3, 146, 173–75, 176; as author, publisher, distributor, and editor 72, 78n6, 84–86, 106–7n35, 128; and Henry Brooke 128; A Calm Address to our American Colonies 4, 18, 22, 85, 102, 103, 104, 147, 163, 164, 172, 185n12; on Christian perfection 144; Complete English Dictionary 85; Concise History of England 85, 101; as controversialist 90; Critical Review on 9–10, 13, 17–18, 25n61, 46, 83–84,

85, 86, 87, 90, 92, 94–97, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 163, 164, 165, 190; death of 22, 92; The Doctrine of Original Sin 89; on doctrines of election and reprobation 144, 155n30; An Estimate of the Manners of the Present Times 165; Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament 85–86; Free Grace 4, 91, 144, 145; John Free on 12; The Great Assize 87, 89; and James Hervey 177–78; John Hough’s The Pastor attacking 115; hymns and hymnals of 79n26, 125; on interpretation of religious texts 60; Journal 104, 144; and George Lavington 94, 149; A Letter to the Reverend Mr. Law 89–90, 104; A Letter to the Right Reverend the Lord Bishop of Gloucester 96–97; literacy encouraged by 72; Methodist Episcopal Church founded in America by 25n37; and Minutes controversy 135, 145–46, 148–51; Monthly Review on 9–10, 13, 17–18, 25n61, 46, 83–86, 87, 89–90, 92, 94–95, 97, 98–99, 101, 102, 104, 107n58, 108n77, 108n93, 163, 164, 165, 190; as ordained clergyman in Church of England 10; ordination of preachers for ministry in America 144; and Oxford expulsion 135, 136; parody of journals of 116; on polemical literature 58, 86, 90, 91, 94–99, 106–7n35; political activities of 47, 164; political writings of 84, 101–4, 163, 164–65, 185n17; Predestination Calmly Considered 90, 174; A Preservative Against Unsettled Notions in Religion 177; Primitive Physic 85, 101, 164, 165; printing press of 3; promotion of books among followers 58, 72–74; promotion of Reformation-era doctrines 10; published works of 3, 4, 17, 21; on reason 35; on relationship between faith and works 78n19; on religious enthusiasm 40–41; religious societies organized by 10; response to critics 5–6, 21, 22, 83–84, 86, 94–99, 104–5, 105n1; sermons of 79n26, 87, 91, 144, 145, 165, 185n23; Tobias Smollett on 16; Some Observations on Liberty 103, 164; Some Remarks on Mr. Hill’s Review of all the Doctrines

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Taught by Mr. John Wesley 148; as soul-searching example 52n36; on spiritual experience 35; A Survey of the Wisdom of God in the Creation 174; Thoughts upon Slavery 165; Joseph Towers’s letter to 65; on Joseph Trapp 34–35, 36; on universal redemption 84; and William Warburton 95–97; on ways of knowing 34; and George Whitefield 91, 144–45, 156n39, 171, 180–81 Wesleyan Methodists: and doctrinal disputes 4, 22, 91, 103, 144, 145–46, 148–49, 154–55, 155n30, 163, 178; and Minutes controversy 4, 17, 22, 91, 103, 146, 148–50, 151, 152, 153, 154, 163; structure of 10. See also Arminian Methodists Whitefield, George: Account of Some Lent 89; advertising media used by 3, 4; American preaching tour of 4, 73, 144; Anglican critics of 83–84, 93–101; as author, publisher, and distributor 72, 78n6, 84–86, 89–90; Frances Brooke’s critique of 11–12; on Calvinism 3, 84, 88, 91, 144; Cornelius Cayley influenced by 23n9; Countess of Huntingdon as patroness of 136; Critical Review on 1, 9–10, 12–13, 17–18, 46, 61, 85, 86, 87, 88–89, 94–95, 97–98, 99, 100, 101, 136–38, 179, 190; Robert Cruttenden on 38; death of 18, 61, 86, 87, 88, 91, 92, 98, 127, 145, 167, 180; Samuel Foote’s caricature of 18, 120, 122, 123; John Free on 12; and fundraising accusations 88, 106n24; and John Green 99; Ralph Griffiths on 64; Richard Hill’s support for 141; inflammatory remarks printed by 4; on interpretation of religious texts 60; and George Lavington 93–94, 149; A Letter to the Rev. Dr. Durell, ViceChancellor of the University of Oxford 136–38; Memoirs 86, 88–89; on Minutes controversy 145; Monthly

Review on 9–10, 12–13, 17–18, 46, 85–86, 87, 88, 89, 94–95, 97, 98, 99–100, 136, 190; Observations on Some Fatal Mistakes in a Book Entitled The Doctrine of Grace 97; as ordained clergyman in Church of England 10; on Oxford expulsion 135, 136–38, 139, 142, 143–44, 179; parody of journals of 116; on persecution as badge of honor 5; poetry in honor of 127; on polemical literature 58, 86, 94–95, 97–98; on power of printed word 75; preaching style of 138; promotion of books among followers 58, 72–74; promotion of Reformation-era doctrines 10; published works of 3, 4, 17, 21; The Putting on the New Man a Certain Mark of the Real Christian 167; on relationship between faith and works 78n19; response to critics 5–6, 21, 22, 83–84, 86, 93, 94–98, 99, 104, 105n1; satirical attack on 1, 86; sermons of 74, 77, 87–88; A Short Address to Persons of All Denominations 89; Tobias Smollett on 16; on Joseph Trapp 34, 35, 36; and William Warburton 94, 98; on ways of knowing 34; Charles Wesley’s elegy for 127; and John Wesley 91, 144–45, 156n39, 171, 180–81 Whitehead, John 92, 104 Wither, George 126 women: on discourse about Methodism 37, 52n27; literacy rates of 48; review journal readership and 49–50; role in Methodist revival 37; sacred verse published by 125–26; stereotypes of 37 Woodfall, William 19, 46, 113–14 Woolston, Thomas 34 Zaret, David 32–34 Zimmermann, John Liborious 71