SOURCE: Kinservik, Matthew J. “The Censorship of Samuel Foote's The Minor (1760): Stage Controversy in the Mid-Eighteenth Century” Studies in the Literary Imagination 32, no. 2 (1999) pp. 89-103.

[In the essay which follows, Kinservik examines the controversy surrounding a work by Foote in which he allegedly satirized particular religious figures. Kinservik also argues that Foote accepted the censorship of his play as a means of legitimizing his works in the public eye.]

Samuel Foote, known in his day as the “English Aristophanes,” profited from his talent for mimicking real people on the stage and presenting daring satiric plays within—and sometimes beyond—the bounds of the censorship imposed by the Stage Licensing Act of 1737. His anti-Methodist play, The Minor (1760), is rightly considered an important example of his satiric technique and as the occasion for an important instance of theatrical censorship. The play featured an epilogue in which Foote mimicked the cross-eyed Methodist evangelist, George Whitefield, whom Foote renamed Mr. Squintum. This impersonation caused an uproar and resulted in the publication of twenty-two books, pamphlets, plays, and poems that either condemned Foote or praised him. When Foote transferred The Minor from the Little Theatre in the Haymarket to Drury Lane in the fall of 1760, the epilogue and a few other speeches were omitted by order of the lord chamberlain. Some scholars conclude that the print debate pressured the lord chamberlain to censor the play (Conolly 118; Trefman 114). However, this conclusion ignores compelling evidence that the lord chamberlain was unsympathetic to Whitefield's allies and very reluctant to censor The Minor. It is based on a superficial reading of the arguments offered in the print debate and a consequent misunderstanding of exactly what was at issue in the controversy over The Minor. This is, indeed, an important instance of censorship, but one that needs serious reexamination if we are properly to understand how theatrical censorship functioned in the eighteenth century.

The Minor presumably was licensed prior to its 28 June premiere at the Little Haymarket. Although no manuscript examination copy is preserved among the Larpent Manuscripts in the Huntington Library, the title page to the first edition declares that it is presented “By Authority from the Lord Chamberlain.”¹ This means that the lord chamberlain exercised his prerogative to suppress the epilogue after he had (at least tacitly) licensed it and after it had been performed thirty-five times. This action is not unprecedented: in 1758, the license for Foote's popular play, The Author, was revoked after the play had been performed thirty-three times. Operating under these uncertain conditions, an actor-playwright like Foote would have had good reason to complain that the system of censorship established by the Licensing Act was arbitrary and capricious.

Yet Foote did not complain about the censorship, nor did he have much reason to. On the contrary, I will argue that he had cause to be quite grateful for the Licensing Act. As the contributors to the print debate over The Minor point out, Foote benefited from the legitimacy that the lord chamberlain's license conferred. This legitimation is precisely what made The Minor controversial. It is particularly important because Whitefield was a decidedly illegitimate clergyman, denied access to Church of England pulpits and derided for much of his life as a fanatic. Foote joined in this derision by producing The Minor, but at issue in the print debate is not just that Foote was engaging in personal abuse of the much-abused Whitefield, but that the lord chamberlain sanctioned that ridicule. The lord chamberlain's authorization of personal satire was seriously called into question by Whitefield's supporters. Most of their arguments are designed not to persuade the lord chamberlain to censor the play, as previous scholars maintain, but to protest his refusal to suppress it altogether. For this reason, the controversy over The Minor offers us an excellent opportunity to assess attitudes toward the stage and its regulation at mid-century. It also requires us to reexamine how we define censorship, for in this instance the distinction between “censor” and “censored” is blurry and ultimately misleading. Indeed, to understand the significance of the censorship of The Minor, we must abandon the presumption that the censor is necessarily in conflict with the censored at all.

‘LUDERE CUM SACRIS’: SATIRIZING METHODISM ON STAGE

In place of a prologue, The Minor opens with a short skit featuring Foote (who played himself) and two men, Smart and Canker, who wander into the Little Haymarket to watch a rehearsal of Foote's new piece. The rehearsal format had been used to great effect by satiric playwrights like Buckingham and Fielding because it allows for sarcastic commentary by the “spectators” on stage. But Foote uses it for a different reason. Smart and Canker never reappear after the action of the play proper begins; instead, they exist only to suggest to the spectators in the auditorium that they are about to see something scandalous. Upon meeting Foote on stage, they ask whom he intends to mimic in his new piece, offering up several possibilities. To their surprise, Foote refuses each suggestion. Then, just when Canker and Smart seem ready to give up hope for scandal, Foote suggests he has something that might please them: a play attacking the Methodists. Canker responds: “Have a care. Dangerous ground. Ludere cum sacris, you know” (8). Despite this warning, Foote bravely presses his point, insisting that “ridicule is the only antidote against this pernicious poison” (9). But how dangerous was an attack on Methodism in 1760? Was Foote, as Canker suggests, toying with the sacred?

Foote's attack on Methodism, although perhaps the most famous of the eighteenth century, is one of thousands. As Albert M. Lyles has demonstrated, the satiric reaction to Methodism in the eighteenth century was widespread, and most of the ridicule was directed at Whitefield personally. Lyles point out that “of 200 anti-Methodist publications, not simply satires, issued during 1739 and 1740, 154 were aimed at Whitefield” (127-28). Contrary to the rhetoric of the introduction, Foote was being neither original nor daring by writing a satire on Methodism that singled out Whitefield for censure. Trefman is correct when he concludes that The Minor “reflects the popular prejudices and opinions concerning the Methodist movement rather than exposing real abuses made by them” (113). This was common practice for Foote: he aims his satire at an uncontroversial target while implying that he is being scandalous. But as in so many of Foote's plays, we need to consider not just the content of the satire, but also its method of presentation. On the page, The Minor is a conventional dramatic satire that criticizes the doctrines of Methodism. On the stage, it was much more than that.

The plot is essentially a rehash of The Author and one that Sheridan later used in The School for Scandal (1777). A father returns from abroad secretly to observe and test the moral character of his son. In this instance, Sir William Wealthy enlists the help of his brother, Richard, and a mimic, Shift, to ruin the finances of his dissolute son, George. There is also a subplot involving Richard Wealthy and his daughter, Lucy, whom he disinherited because she refused to marry according to his wishes. Lucy falls into the snares of a bawd named Mrs. Cole, who is a recent convert to Methodism. Shift and Mrs. Cole provide the play with much of its life, and Foote played both roles. Significantly, they are also the two characters who deliver the satiric attack on Methodism. In Methodism, Mrs. Cole has found a form of Christianity that perfectly reconciles her sinful occupation and spiritual aspirations. In a metaphor that alludes uncomfortably to both her profession and the Methodist doctrine of regeneration, she explains that Mr. Squintum (i.e., Whitefield) “stepp'd in with his saving grace, got me with the new birth, and I became, as you see, regenerate, and another creature” (46). She can discuss liaisons between her customers and the prostitutes in her service without any compunction, but recoils with Christian indignation when Mr. Loader suggests that she pass off an experienced prostitute on one of her customers as a virginal country girl. She exclaims, “Tip him an old trader!—Mercy on us, where do you expect to go when you dye, Mr. Loader?” (44). Her juxtaposition of the sacred and the profane leads Sir George to observe, “With what ease she reconciles her new birth to her old calling!—No wonder these preachers have plenty of proselytes, whilst they have the address, so comfortably to blend the hitherto jarring interests of the two worlds” (47). In this way, Mrs. Cole serves as a means for Foote to attack the Methodist doctrines of regeneration and salvation by grace.

Foote was essentially a defender of the establishment and English nationalism, as Susan Lamb recently has argued. His attacks on Methodist doctrine concern the two major points of divergence from the Church of England. Regeneration smacked of unseemly religious enthusiasm, and justification by faith seemed a destructive popular form of antinomianism. Fear of Methodism's effect on the established Church is responsible for much of the anti-Methodist satire of the eighteenth century, including that contained in The Minor. Although Whitefield and the Wesleys never renounced their affiliation with the Church of England, their detractors considered them to be the leaders of a separate and competing sect. But the anti-Methodist satire in The Minor concerns more than just doctrine: it also focuses on Whitefield in the character of Mr. Squintum. Mrs. Cole's references to Methodism are deliberately linked to Squintum, who converted her. Whitefield was an easy target: flamboyant, charismatic, and eager for publicity, he was much more visible than John and Charles Wesley and so was easier to attack. Whitefield also differed from the Wesleys by lashing out against the stage in language reminiscent of Jeremy Collier, and just a few years before Foote produced The Minor, Whitefield preached against the stage in Long Acre, in the heart of the theater district. He also happened to be cross-eyed.

For whatever reasons, Squintum never appears on stage during The Minor, nor does he come on during the controversial epilogue. Instead, Foote offers an imitation of an imitation: the impersonation of Whitefield is performed by the character, Shift. This way, Foote is not mimicking Whitefield; rather, Shift is mimicking Squintum. Having assisted Sir William Wealthy in his scheme to ruin and reclaim his son, Shift turns to the son and says:

And what becomes of your poor servant Shift?
Your father talks of lending me a lift—
A great man's promise, when his turn is serv'd!
Capons on promises, would soon be starv'd:
No, on myself alone, I'll now rely:
‘Gad I've a thriving traffic in my eye—
Near the mad mansions of Moorfields I'll bawl;
Friends, fathers, mothers, sisters, sons and all,
Shut up your shops, and listen to my call.
With labor, toil, all second means dispense,
And live a rent-charge upon providence.
Prick up your ears; a story now I'll tell,
Which once a widow, and her child befell,
I knew the mother, and her daughter well;
Poor, it is true, they were; but never wanted,
For whatsoe'er they ask'd, was always granted:
One fatal day, the matron's truth was try'd,
She wanted meat and drink, and fairly cry'd.
[Child.] Mother, you cry! [Moth.] Oh, Child, I've got no bread.
[Child.] What matters that? Why providence an't dead!
With reason good, this truth the child might say,
For there came in at noon, that very day,
Bread, greens, potatoes, and a leg of mutton,
A better sure, a table ne'er was put on:
Ay, that might be, ye cry, with those poor souls;
But we ne'er had a rasher for the coals.
And d'ye deserve it? How d'ye spend your days:
In pastimes, prodigality, and plays!
Let's go see Foote! ah, Foote's a precious limb!
Old-nick will soon a football make of him!
For foremost rows in side-boxes you shove,
Think you to meet with side-boxes above?
Where giggling girls, and powder'd fops may sit,
No, you will all be cram'd into the pit,
And crowd the house for satan's benefit.
Oh, what you snivel; well, do so no more,
Drop, to attone, your money at the door,
And, if I please,—I'll give it to the poor.(2)

The key to the imitation comes in the sixth line, when Shift shifts from his own voice to that of Squintum as he declares, “'Gad I've a thriving traffic in my eye.” At this point, Foote obviously assumes the posture of Whitefield and crosses his eyes, as a contemporary print shows him doing.³

The mimicry of Whitefield is gratuitous and does not further the satiric attack on Methodism. Apart from raising a laugh at the expense of Whitefield's eyes, the only other satiric jab comes in the very last line, where Foote hints that Whitefield kept some of the money he raised to support such charities as his orphanage in Georgia. The majority of the epilogue concerns neither Whitefield nor Methodism but Foote. Indeed, the epilogue seems more an exercise in self-promotion than satiric detraction, in which Foote again asserts the supposedly inflammatory nature of his satire. Just as the play begins with an introduction that promises that Foote will scandalize his audience by toying with the sacred, so it ends with an epilogue in which the satiric target denounces him for having done just that. The story of the poor widow and child recalls Whitefield's habit of relating personal anecdotes in his sermons, yet it serves not to criticize Whitefield or his sermons, rather (by means of a creaky transition at ll. 25-27) it attacks “pastimes, prodigality, and plays”—and Foote. The epilogue has been noted for its cruel impersonation of Whitefield, and that is certainly what led to its suppression. But focusing solely on the mimicry obscures the fact that the content of the epilogue concerns Foote's supposedly transgressive satire. Foote is not mimicking Whitefield's actual reaction to The Minor; he is producing that reaction in the epilogue itself. Just as Canker warned Foote that he was treading on “Dangerous ground” by satirizing Methodism, so does Squintum/Whitefield threaten Foote and his audience with damnation for enjoying that satire. Beginning and ending the play in this way, Foote repackages the widely held skepticism of Methodists as dangerous satire, and by doing so, he helped to manufacture a stage controversy.

ATTITUDES TOWARD THE STAGE AT MID-CENTURY

The pamphlet war over The Minor was due chiefly to Foote's skill at self-promotion. This is not to suggest that the play was entirely uncontroversial. The fact that the lord chamberlain ordered the suppression of the epilogue is proof that the impersonation of Whitefield was considered, by some, to be controversial. As L. W. Conolly demonstrates, personal satire on the eighteenth-century stage was contentious, and a de facto policy developed against attacking “prominent members of society” (113). Whitefield obviously was not prominent enough to merit the lord chamberlain's protection in the first case; instead, the epilogue was suppressed (along with some lines that refer to Squintum) as a result of the intercession of the countess of Huntingdon and the archbishop of Canterbury. Yet even they failed in their efforts to have the play banned outright.

The lord chamberlain suppressed the personal satire, but approved, protected, and encouraged the attack on Methodism. In a letter to David Garrick of 25 October 1760, the duke of Devonshire writes that, despite pressure from the archbishop to ban The Minor entirely, “I got off from it, and concluded with sending a recommendation … to the author, to alter those passages that are liable to objection: his Grace would not point them out, so I think very little alteration may do. This to yourself; let me hear what has passed” (Boaden 1: 120). This is a remarkable statement for several reasons. It shows just how personal and arbitrary were the standards on which the lord chamberlain based his decisions. The Licensing Act was a flexible tool that the state could use in order to protect the powerful; therefore, we ought not to be surprised at the idea of the archbishop of Canterbury sitting down with the lord chamberlain to peruse a play text. What is surprising is that the archbishop knew better than to point out specific passages, fearing that doing so would encourage Foote to publish a new edition pointing out the archbishop's corrections. Clearly, the archbishop realized that the censor was friendly with Garrick and Foote (Foote dedicated The Minor to Devonshire), and not friendly to Methodism. But what is most surprising is the tone of conspiracy in the letter. In this instance, the censor is complicit with the censored, advising Garrick that “very little alteration” is necessary since the lord chamberlain “got off from” the pressure to ban the play altogether. We tend to think of censors and satirists in conflict, the former trying to silence the latter, but that model does not accurately describe what happened with The Minor. Here, we have the censor and the satirist working together against the satiric target. The only thing Devonshire wants Garrick and Foote to be silent about is the fact of his complicity (“This to yourself”).

Conolly has characterized the lord chamberlain's conduct in this episode as “liberal and fair,” but this itself is a partisan judgment (122). Devonshire's protection of the play was arbitrary and motivated not by a liberal concern for fairness or free speech but by an establishmentarian disdain for Methodism. Conolly recognizes this when he says that The Minor “reflected the prevailing mood of the government in 1760, and so received the backing of the Lord Chamberlain” (118). Had Foote taken a genuinely controversial position, like satirizing the Church of England, he would certainly have found the lord chamberlain less than “liberal and fair.” Despite Devonshire's injunction to secrecy, their complicity was common knowledge. Indeed, Devonshire's endorsement of the play was printed on the title page to each edition of The Minor. As much as anything in the play itself, this official endorsement of the satire rankled Foote's antagonists, cheered his allies, and gave the print debate over The Minor its unique character.

The pamphlet war had no practical effect on the lord chamberlain's decisions concerning the censorship of The Minor. The private appeals of Whitefield's powerful allies are what led to the suppression of the epilogue and some speeches. Yet the print debate is significant as an airing of attitudes about the stage at mid-century, one that we can compare with the Collier controversy sixty years earlier to assess how those attitudes had changed. Not surprisingly, the passage of the Licensing Act and the establishment of a censorship bureaucracy in the office of the lord chamberlain had a profound effect on the way people viewed and argued about the stage. The Collier controversy was concerned with fundamental questions: What is the function of stage plays? Does the theater have a right to exist, or ought it to be abolished? These questions were debated from the publication of Collier's A Short View of the Profaneness and Immorality of the English Stage (1698) up to the 1720s, and the right of the stage to exist was affirmed in 1737 with the passage of the Licensing Act. The abolition of the nonpatent theaters and the pre-performance review of play texts had a corrosive effect on the production of new plays, but these things also legitimated the new plays that passed muster and the theaters in which they were performed. However, the function of stage plays remained an issue of contention, as the debate over The Minor shows.

The legitimating effect of licensing was terribly important in the eighteenth century, and Foote calls attention to the official endorsement of his play in the dedication to the lord chamberlain. In light of the ensuing controversy, the first sentence seems prescient: “THE MINOR, who is indebted for his appearance on the stage, to your grace's indulgence, begs leave to desire your grace's further protection, at his entering into the world” (A2r). As I have shown, the lord chamberlain did continue to protect the play, a fact that was not lost on Foote's detractors. The first publication to attack the play, attributed to Martin Madan, was Christian and Critical Remarks On a Droll, or Interlude, called The Minor (1760). Madan was a Methodist partisan and warm defender of Whitefield, with whom he shared an abhorrence of the theater. At the end of Madan's Remarks are seven pages of observations on the stage which are summed up by the radical conclusion that “To put up the stage therefore, is to pull down the church” (39). But while this sounds like the abolitionist sentiments of Collier, Madan's conclusion is not so absolutist as it seems, for he goes on to warn fellow clergymen to “be not co-operators with the magistrate in sapping the foundations of the stage” (40). Taken together, these statements constitute a denunciation not of the stage in general, but of the state of the stage under the current lord chamberlain (“the magistrate”), who is not interested in defending religion from satiric attacks. The important point is that Madan, who approvingly cites Christian denunciations of the stage, concedes that the theater is a legitimate institution, albeit one that was poorly regulated.

This line of argument is taken up in another pamphlet attributed to Madan, A Letter to David Garrick (1760). Although Mary Megie Belden considers the author of this piece to believe in the “absolute unlawfulness of stage entertainments,” the text suggests otherwise (92). Flattering references to Collier and William Law aside, the nature of the document concedes the legitimacy of theatrical entertainment. It is an appeal to Garrick not to produce The Minor at Drury Lane. Granted, the author denounces the stage and calls The Minor “a Dramatic Libel against the Christian Religion” (7). But, unlike the polemics in the Collier controversy, the goal of this pamphlet is the abolition of a specific play, not plays in general. In a move that would have seemed a deadly concession to Collier and Law, the author tells Garrick, “as you, sir … are the chief director of Drury-Lane Stage, I can't suppose any person so proper as yourself, to be applied to on the subject of redress of grievances” (3). The very appeal itself confers legitimacy on the patentee and indicates a pragmatic acceptance of the stage. Appealing to Garrick also can be seen as a calculated insult to the lord chamberlain, who refused to redress the author's grievance by not banning a play whose attack on religion is an offense “against the whole community, and carries with it a very high contempt of publick government” (22-23). The reference to the lord chamberlain may be oblique, but the substance of the complaint is not: the censor has failed to protect the community, the church, and the government from offense.

On the other side of the debate, Foote and his defenders were proud of the lord chamberlain's support because of the legitimacy it conferred. The author of A Letter to Mr. F—te (1760) objects to the phrase “Said to be Acted by Authority” in the title of Madan's first pamphlet, calling the phrase “an Affront to the Authority, which empowered you to act” and calling on Foote to reply in print (2). Foote did just this in A Letter from Mr. Foote, to the Reverend Author of the Remarks, Critical and Christian, on The Minor (1760). He huffily repeats that The Minor had the lord chamberlain's approval, and he accuses Madan of arguing “in Conjunction with Collier and the other virulent Declaimers against the Stage” (26). The negative reference to Collier is understandable in this context, yet it is inconsistent with Foote's earlier praise for Collier. In an early critical treatise, The Roman and English Comedy (1747), Foote declared that “Collier's Complaint was but too just,” and claimed that Vanbrugh and Congreve were particularly immoral playwrights (24-25). This inconsistency was noted by Madan, who responded in A Letter to Mr. Foote (1760). Madan called Foote a hypocrite who lived a scandalous life, yet “takes upon him to censure Congreve and Vanbrugh for Wickedness and Obscenity, and sets up as a sort of Censor of the Manners of the Age” (16-17). Perhaps Foote was a hypocrite. At the very least, his attitude toward Collier had changed as a result of the controversy over The Minor. As a young critic, Foote was inclined to praise Collier, but as a controversial playwright, Foote found it expedient to vilify him and his imitators, like Madan, for trying to usurp the censorial powers of the state.

Whitefield's supporters understood that, in practical terms, the legitimacy of the stage was a non-issue. Instead of arguing for the abolition of the stage, they focused on the specific theatrical abuses that they believed the lord chamberlain ought to prohibit: the ridicule of religion and mimicry. Many of the pieces were written before the premiere of the epilogue-less play on 22 November 1760; therefore, these were still pertinent issues.⁴ In a passage typical of these complaints, Madan writes:

As for Mr. Foote and Aristophanes, there is a very great resemblance between them. Both being buffoons, libellers, instead of satyrists; and their pieces alike temporary, local and personal; which leaves them destitute of any merit, (supposing them to have any at all) exclusive from what they derive from an instant of time and a peculiar spot of ground.

(Christian and Critical Remarks 27)

The comparison to Aristophanes was hardly Madan's innovation. Foote was well-known as the “English Aristophanes” because he exposed real people to ridicule on the public stage. So complete was this identification that he was often referred to simply as “Aristophanes.” For the most part, Foote embraced the label because it enhanced his image as a transgressive satirist. Aristophanic characterization was a staple of Foote's satiric method, and in cases like epilogue to The Minor, it was denounced as an illegitimate theatrical practice. But in the print debate over The Minor, the identification with Aristophanes was not just applied to Foote—it was also applied to Whitefield, complicating the debate over theatrical legitimacy in surprising ways.

MIMICRY, FIELD PREACHING, AND THE QUESTION OF LEGITIMACY

Just as the legitimacy conferred by the Licensing Act prevented Whitefield's allies from calling for the abolition of the theaters, so did his controversial preaching style limit the effectiveness of their denunciations of Foote. The pamphleteers wanted to question the authority by which Foote performed his Aristophanic satire, and they sought to show that bringing real people on stage was immoral, libelous, and therefore illegal. But they had three things working against them. First, Whitefield himself was susceptible to the charge of bringing real people before the public (on the pulpit, not the stage). Second, Foote performed by authority at the Little Haymarket, whereas Whitefield was kept from preaching in the Church of England—making his performances more illicit than Foote's. Third, the more Whitefield's allies denounced Foote as a scandalous satirist, the more they helped to promote the very public image that Foote wished to project. Foote couldn't lose.

Even before the print war, Foote suggested that Whitefield's unorthodox preaching style made him a fair target for satire. In the introduction to The Minor, when Canker warns Foote against toying with the sacred, Foote replies: “Now I look upon it in a different manner. I consider these gentlemen in the light of public performers, like myself; and whether we exhibit at Tottenham-court, or the Hay-market, our purpose is the same, and the place is immaterial” (8). The charge of theatricality was not new. Whitefield had long been denounced for his use of dramatic techniques in his sermons, which relied more on pathos than scripture. He illustrated his points with real-life anecdotes, often impersonating the characters as he told their stories. In a famous example of his histrionic powers, Whitefield described a blind man on a precipice so convincingly that Lord Chesterfield allegedly sprang from his seat and cried, “Good God, he is gone!” (Belden 83). Garrick is said to have envied Whitefield's melodious voice, and he must also have envied the preacher's drawing power. Whitefield regularly attracted crowds of thousands, and sometimes tens of thousands, just to see him perform a sermon.

Harry S. Stout, Whitefield's most recent biographer, calls him an “actor-preacher” and argues that the key to his unprecedented popularity was his use of theatrical techniques in his preaching. But, as Stout points out, the sites of Whitefield's histrionics were also important. In the eighteenth century, ministers, like actors, could perform to a few thousand people at most. Whitefield regularly exceeded this number because he preached in market squares, fields, and other outdoor locations. He did so because his controversial preaching style caused most Church of England ministers to prohibit him from addressing their congregations. While field preaching began as a necessity for Whitefield, he soon recognized its value as a means of generating publicity. Itinerant field preaching was essential to Whitefield's continuing popularity, and to keep himself before such large crowds, he needed to ensure that the established church remained closed to him. He achieved this by dealing with Church of England ministers in a confrontational manner and by publicizing the establishment's disdain of him in newspaper paragraphs, letter campaigns, his published journals, and his own periodical. Stout quotes Whitefield's musings about his successful formula, “little do my enemies think what service they do me. If they did one would think, out of spite they would desist even from opposing me” (103). Like Foote, Whitefield knew the publicity value of generating controversy by being a renegade.

Although Whitefield was vocal in his denunciations of the stage in general, he did not enter the print debate over The Minor. An experienced controversialist himself, he knew that responding to Foote would only do Foote a service. By contrast, his allies were not silent, nor were they sensitive to the similarities between him and Foote. In A Letter to David Garrick, Madan acidly comments on Foote's marginal techniques and venue when he tells Garrick that he is not surprised that a “few poor abandoned wretches, should gladly embrace any opportunity, of crawling forth, to bask in the sunshine of a summer's licence—but no such motive can you have; you have … too great a command over the attention of the town, for you to stand in need of such an auxiliary as Mr. Foote” (34). Foote had anticipated such criticism in his dedication to The Minor. He acknowledges that the “palaces of Parnassus” (i.e., the patent theaters) are closed to him, but thanks the lord chamberlain for throwing open “a cottage on its borders, where the unhappy migrants may be, if not magnificently, at least, hospitably entertained” (iv). In essence, Foote tries to preempt the very criticism Madan levels at him by arguing that a summer license is better than no license at all. Foote might be an “unhappy migrant,” but at least he is not reduced to performing in the open fields. Foote profited from his transgressive image, but he did not wish to be a strolling player, the theatrical equivalent of an itinerant preacher.

The issue of legitimacy is addressed more forcefully in A Letter from Mr. Foote. Foote reiterates his claim that The Minor is performed by authority and asks, “what, d'ye suppose that I play as you preach, upon my own Authority? No, sir, a Religion turned into a Farce, is, by the Constitution of this Country, the only Species of the Drama that may be exhibited for Money, without Permission” (2). Stout mistakenly suggests that, like itinerant preachers, eighteenth-century actors “could call upon no traditional institution or agency for protection” from attacks (244). As Foote's reply to Madan shows, his strongest defense was the explicit sanction of no less an established authority than the lord chamberlain. Foote then goes on to credit Whitefield with being the first to revive the techniques of the Ancient Comedy by relating true stories about real people to public audiences. Foote claims, rather disingenuously, that he practices the Middle Comedy, in which the facts are real, but the persons are feigned. The logic of this justification perhaps explains why in the epilogue we see Shift impersonating Squintum rather than Foote impersonating Whitefield—all the names are safely changed. In any event, Foote's reply is effective because Foote proves that he performs by authority, while Whitefield does not, and that Whitefield is guilty of the same theatrical practices as Foote, if not worse ones.

Whitefield's allies responded ineptly to such criticism. For example, rather than deny that Whitefield discussed and even impersonated real people in his sermons, Madan simply asserted that the practice had precedent in Christ's ministry (A Letter to Mr. Foote, 8). True as this may be, it still left Whitefield open to attacks as a pseudo-theatrical charlatan. The title of one anonymous poem shows how common the theatrical metaphor was: A Letter of Expostulation from the Manager of the Theatre in Tottenham-Court, to the Manager of the Theatre in the Hay-Market (1760?). In this poem, Whitefield is represented as anxious about Foote's success because he recognizes the similarity between their “theaters,” albeit with one exception: Foote has gained the favor of the theatrical establishment, while Whitefield is an outlaw in the religious establishment. In order to avoid competition, Whitefield invites Foote to join his Methodist theater, promising more spectators, cash, and sex than Foote can get at the Haymarket. John Harman's The Crooked Disciple's Remarks (n.d.) extends the theatrical metaphor by offering an alleged specimen of Whitefield's preaching, complete with stage directions to give readers a sense of what a performance at the Methodist Tabernacle was like.

Whitefield's theatricality and his use of real persons in his sermons were favorite targets of Foote's supporters. In fact, Whitefield's unorthodox and stagey preaching style had been the object of derision for over two decades by the time of the controversy over The Minor. But the specifically theatrical nature of this debate revived the theatrical metaphor for Whitefield's ministry and made him more vulnerable to charges of hypocrisy. Could one who profited from theatrical practices denounce Foote for the same thing—especially when Foote's performances were sanctioned by the state? These questions are raised in The Methodist and Mimick (1766), an anonymous poem written just after Foote's riding accident and the amputation of his leg. In that poem, Foote's Haymarket, by that time called the “Scandal Shop,” is compared to “Squintum's Schism Shop” (5). When news of Foote's accident reaches the Tabernacle, the Methodists rejoice and decide that, in an enfeebled state, Foote might be susceptible to conversion. The messenger they send to Foote's bedside fails to convert the mimic, eliciting instead a strong denunciation of Methodism and Whitefield's transgressions against the established church. Pointedly contrasting Foote's legitimacy against Whitefield's illegitimacy, Foote cries out:

… an Act of Parliament,
All Strolling Preachers to prevent;
Drive the vile Vermin from their Tubs,
Like ‘Prentices from Spouting Clubs;
Who do more Mischief with their Pray'rs,
Than twenty Setts of Strolling Players;
And send the Brainless Mob a gadding,
To W[hitefiel]d, or Apostle M[a]d[a]n.

(14-15)

Later, Foote demands to know who authorized the Methodists to preach as they do and to defy the established church, then compares them to seventeenth-century puritans who “Pull'd down the Church, and kill'd the King” (19). This exchange is entirely fictional, but it does illustrate how the issue of theatrical legitimacy worked to the Methodists' disadvantage in this debate.

As these examples show, Foote was in an invulnerable rhetorical position. If Whitefield's allies attacked him for transgressing the bounds of decency and the Licensing Act, they simply reinforced the image that he sought to convey. They also left Whitefield open to criticism for his similarly illicit practices, thereby exposing his supposed hypocrisy. Foote enjoyed his reputation as the English Aristophanes, and he worked hard to cultivate a transgressive image, as the introduction and epilogue to The Minor illustrate. But he also enjoyed being a favorite of the well-heeled and part of the theatrical establishment. The contradictions in these aspirations are obvious, but because of the particular circumstances of the Minor controversy, they were productive for Foote. He could at once appear to be the daring Modern Aristophanes and tar Whitefield with the same brush. He could at once appear to be the victim of state censorship and a defender of the state church. The more Foote was attacked, the more he seemed truly controversial for attacking Methodism and the more Whitefield seemed a hypocrite. Indeed, the surest evidence that this dynamic was in play is Foote's verbosity and Whitefield's silence. Both inhabited similar marginal positions in their respective spheres, and both understood how to publicize their rebellious images. The difference is that Foote had the luxury of stoking the debate, while Whitefield realized the necessity of remaining silent. While this silence is understandable, it seems to have frustrated Whitefield's enemies, who either accused him of speaking through proxies like Madan or took the liberty of speaking for him. Of course, Foote had done just this in the epilogue to The Minor, in which he showed Whitefield railing against Foote's devilish satire. The other writers who put words into Whitefield's (or Squintum's) mouth do much the same. All the writers have Whitefield damn Foote, and one goes so far as to have Whitefield order Foote's assassination.⁵ In the absence of a real outburst from Whitefield, Foote and his supporters offered imaginary ones in which the supposedly daring satirist always gets the better of the supposedly fanatical clergyman.

CONCLUSIONS

Foote enjoyed tremendous rhetorical and publicity advantages over Whitefield in the Minor controversy. In order better to understand the censorship of The Minor, we need foremost to recognize that Foote was the beneficiary of official endorsement and encouragement. The lord chamberlain's license (not to mention his secret maneuvers to keep The Minor on the stage) meant that Foote enjoyed political and theatrical legitimacy of a sort that Whitefield never did. While there was enough similarity between the two men to draw comparisons between the Little Theatre in the Haymarket and the Tabernacle in Tottenham-Court Road, only one of those operations had the government's explicit endorsement. Foote operated on the margins of the theatrical establishment for decades, receiving short term licenses to operate the Little Haymarket and offer shows like The Minor that reportedly (though not actually) aggravated the censors. In 1766, this allegedly dangerous satirist was given a lifetime patent to operate a summer theater. His summer patent prohibited him from competing directly with Drury Lane and Covent Garden, but it meant Foote was no longer the “unhappy migrant” he claimed to be in the dedication of The Minor.

Whitefield, by contrast, remained a “migrant” until his death, a fact that is also crucial to our understanding of the Minor controversy. Foote chose an easy victim who could not mount an effective response. Although Whitefield enjoyed the protection of noble patrons and never officially broke with the Church of England, his position was more truly marginal than Foote's. Whitefield's theatrical preaching style, crossed eyes, and anti-establishment position made him an ideal target for Foote's mimicry and crude physical humor. More important, though, was the marginal status of Methodism in general and Whitefield in particular. Methodism's lack of power and influence made it an attractive subject for Foote, whose satire is generally quite conservative. Contrary to Foote's assertions, satirizing Methodism was anything but dangerous; therefore, Foote took great pains to make it appear so. Whitefield's reliance on his own transgressive image kept him popular with the Methodist brethren, but it left him vulnerable to attackers like Foote.

Finally, by recognizing Foote's establishmentarian position and Whitefield's marginal one, we can see why a print debate occurred in the first place. Whitefield's patrons had enough influence to suppress Foote's mimicry, but only after months of public ridicule. True, Whitefield's popularity depended on his continuing to draw the establishment's fire. But Foote's mimicry reduced him to a laughing stock—a cross-eyed buffoon whose pretensions to piety were both contemptible and laughable. In some instances, satiric attacks confer a measure of dignity and legitimacy on the satiric object by suggesting that it merits attention, but in others it is simply corrosive. Sir Robert Walpole recognized this when he pushed for passage of the Licensing Act, as did Whitefield's patrons when they invoked the act to suppress the epilogue. The simple fact that the law existed but failed to protect Whitefield before the fact is what made The Minor controversial. Foote's mimicry was denounced as not just mean-spirited and irreligious but illegal. Whitefield's other defenders had no access to or influence with the lord chamberlain's office, and so they took to the public forum of the printed page in a campaign to pressure several different constituencies to get The Minor off the stage, including the lord chamberlain, Garrick, and theatergoers. By so doing, they denounced not just Foote's mimicry, but also Garrick's repertory decisions, the audience's taste, and the lord chamberlain's censorial practice because these things were inseparable: the first was sanctioned by all the others. Particular censure is directed at the lord chamberlain, however, because he had the final word on what could be staged and gave explicit public (and extraordinary private) approval to Foote's satire. All this proves that Whitefield's allies recognized something that we ought to remember: the censorship of The Minor constitutes not an act of state repression, but protection.

Notes

1. Taylor assumes that since no Larpent copy exists for the Haymarket production, the play was never submitted for a license (8-9). This may be true; there are no Larpent manuscripts of Foote's plays from this period unless they were transferred to one of the patent theaters and submitted by the patent house managers. However, the Larpent collection is not complete, and some plays that are known to have been licensed are not preserved in the collection. Charles Macklin's Love à la Mode (1759) is one example.

2. In the editors' introduction to The Minor, Backscheider and Howard suggest that the epilogue was never printed, but in fact it is part of the very facsimile edition they produce. As Belden points out, the epilogue is not distinct from the end of the play, but is Shift's final speech (84).

3. See “Mr. Foote in the Character of Dr. Squintum,” Henry E. Huntington Library (rpt. In Trefman, following 154).

4. Interestingly, two days after The Minor premiered at Drury Lane, it opened at Covent Garden with Tate Wilkinson performing Foote's roles. In the absence of a separate petition for a license, one wonders if the Covent Garden production featured the epilogue.

5. A Satirical Dialogue between the Celebrated Mr. F—te and Dr. Squintum; as it happened near the Great Lumber-House in Tottenham-Court Road (1760).

Works Cited

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

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