The Methodist Part 1

The Methodist.

by Evan Lloyd.

INTRODUCTION

Evan Lloyd's works consist chiefly of four satires written in 1766 and 1767,[1] all of which are now little-known. What little notice he receives today results from his friendship with John Wilkes and David Garrick and from one satire, _The Methodist_, which is usually included in surveys of anti-Methodist literature.[2] For the most part, his obscurity is deserved. In _The Methodist_, however, he partic.i.p.ates in a short-lived revolt against the tyranny of Augustan satire and shows considerable evidence of a talent that might have created a new style for formal verse satire.

The seventeen-sixties were a difficult period for satire. The struggle between Crown and Parliament, the new industrial and agricultural methods, the workers' demands for higher pay, the new rural and urban poor, the growth of the Empire, the deteriorating relations with the American colonies, the increasing influence of the ideas of the Enlightenment, the popularity of democratic ideas, the Wilkes controversy, the growth of Methodism, the growth of the novel, the interest in the gothic and the picturesque and in chinoiserie, sentimentality, enthusiasm--all these activities made England a highly volatile country. Some changes were truly dynamic, others just fads.

But to someone living in the period, who dared to look around him, the complexity of the present and the uncertainty of the future must have seemed enormous.

To a satirist, such complexity makes art difficult. Satire usually deals with every-day realities, to which it applies simple moral ideals. The Augustan satiric alternative--returning to older beliefs in religion, government, philosophy, art--and the stylistic expression of such beliefs--formal verse satire and epistle, mock-poem, heroic or Hudibrastic couplet, diction of polite conversation, ironic metaphysical conceits, fantastic fictional situations--become irrelevant to the satirist writing when the past seems lost. In his later works, Pope took Augustan satire about as far as it could go. _The Epilogue to the Satires_ becomes an epilogue to all Augustan satire and the conclusion of _The New Dunciad_ declares the death of its own tradition. There is a sense now that England and the world have reached the point of no return.

The satirist of the seventeen-sixties who repeats the ideas and styles of Butler, Dryden, Swift, Gay, and Pope seems not only imitative but out-of-touch with the world around him.

But such difficulties can provide the impetus for new forms and for original styles. And in the seventeen-sixties the writers of formal satire show signs of responding to the challenge. Christopher Anstey, Charles Churchill, Robert Lloyd, and Evan Lloyd seem, during this decade, to be developing their considerable facilities with satiric technique toward the creation of new styles. Anstey's _New Bath Guide_ has a combination of epistolary fiction, realism, use of naive observers, changing points of view, sweeping view of the social scene, great range of subjects, rolicking verse forms, and tone of detached amus.e.m.e.nt which suggests a satirist who, while still largely derivative, had the talent to create new techniques. Churchill and Robert Lloyd are explicit in their wish to break from Augustan style. Churchill argues that it was "a sin 'gainst Pleasure, to design / A plan, to methodize each thought, each line / Highly to finish." He claims to write "When the mad fit comes on"

and praises poetry written "Wild without art, and yet with pleasure wild"

(_Gotham_ [1764], II, 167-169, 172, 212). His satire--with its deliberate, irreverant, "Byronic" run-on lines, fanciful digressions, playful indifference to formal structure, impulsively involuted syntax, long, wandering sentences--seems to move, as does Robert Lloyd's satire (at a somewhat slower pace), toward a genuinely new style. In being chatty, fluid, iconoclastic, spontaneous-sounding, self-revealing, his satire might eventually prove capable of dealing with the problems that the Augustan satirists had predicted but did not have to deal with so directly. But both Churchill and Robert Lloyd died before they could develop their styles to the point that they had a new, timely statement to make. Anstey failed to develop beyond the _New Bath Guide_, and his influence proved to be more important on the novel than on verse satire.

Evan Lloyd's first satire, _The Powers of the Pen_, is a clever but ordinary satire on good and bad writing. It has some historical interest as an example of the early influence of Rousseau in England, of part of the attack on Samuel Johnson for his adverse criticism of Shakespeare, of the influence of Churchill (Lloyd declared himself a disciple), and of the expression of the fashionable interest in artlessness which was influenced as much by Joseph Warton as by Rousseau. In a "quill shop" the narrator discovers magic pens which write like various authors. The one whose "Mate was purchas'd by Rousseau" can:

Teach the Pa.s.sions how to grow With native Vigour; unconfined By those vile Shackles, which the Mind Wears in the _School of Art_....

Yet will no _Heresies_ admit, To gratify the _Pride of Wit_ (p. 30).

He advances these critical dicta elsewhere in this satire, condemning Johnson because he tries "Nature" by "_Critic-law_" (p. 21). With fashionable Rousseauistic ideas he praises:

The _Muse_, who never lov'd the Town, Ne'er flaunted in brocaded Gown; Pleas'd thro' the hawthorn'd Vale to roam, Or sing her artless Strain at Home, Bred in plain Nature's simple Rules, Far from the Foppery of Schools (p. 36).

Evan Lloyd, Robert Lloyd, and Churchill, starting from somewhat different philosophic principles, all arrive at similar positions.

_The Curate_, his second satire, is largely autobiographical. It shows, as does _The Powers of the Pen_, some clever turns of phrases, pithy expressions, and amusing images. It also contains incisive criticism of corruption in the Church, of declining respect for Christianity, and, what seems to Lloyd almost the same thing, of a collapsing cla.s.s structure. The Church wardens, "uncivil and unbred! / Unlick'd, untaught, un-all-things--but unfed!" are "but sweepers of the pews, / The _Scullions of the Church_, they dare abuse, / And rudely treat their betters" (pp. 16-17). They show a lack of proper respect both for cla.s.s-structure and Christianity:

_Servant to Christ!_ and what is that to me?

I keep a servant too, as well as He (p. 17).

But _The Curate_ frequently descends to a whine. The curate is morally above reproach while those above him are arrogant and those below him are disrespectful.

The most serious problem with _The Curate_, however, is the same as the problem with all of Lloyd's satires except _The Methodist_, and the same as the problem with almost all satires between Pope and Burns or Blake.

The satirist seems unwilling to probe, to find out what are the political, ethical, psychological, or aesthetic forces that cause the problems which the satirist condemns, and to recommend what can be done to change these forces. If the satirist notes any pattern at all, it is one of ineffective, unmoving abstraction and generality.

One explanation for this deliberate avoidance of more profound issues is not hard to find. An astonishing number of satires of this period contain a large proportion of lines devoted to describing how wonderful everything is. The widespread conviction that whatever is, in the England of the late eighteenth century, is right, may have resulted from the influence of _An Essay on Man_. Or the _Essay_ may have been popular because it expressed ideas already in general acceptance. But whatever the explanation is, the catch-phrases extracted from Pope's most popular work become the touchstones of post-Augustan satire.

The problem that the satirist faced in the sixties was, then, formidable. The country was in upheaval but the conventions demanded that the satirist say everything was nearly perfect. As a result, satire tended toward personal whines, like _The Curate_, toward attacking tiresomely obvious objects, like the superficial chit-chat of Lloyd's _Conversation_, toward trivial quarrels, like Churchill's _Rosciad_, toward broadly unimpeachable morals, like Johnson's _The Vanity of Human Wishes_. It is understandable that many writers, such as Joseph Warton and Christopher Smart, abandoned satire for various kinds of enthusiasm.

Methodism lent itself to such satire. Methodists could be described as unfortunate aberrants from an essentially good world, typical of those bothersome fanatics and deviants at the fringe of society who keep this world from being perfect. They were also logical heirs to the satire once visited upon Dissenters but which diminished when Dissenters became more restrained in their style of worship. (The Preface to one anti-Methodist satire even takes pains to exclude "rational Dissenters" from its target.) Many Methodists were followers of Calvin. These Methodists brought out the old antagonisms against the Calvinist doctrine of Election (or the popular version of it), directed against its severity, its apparent encouragement of pride, and its antinomian implications. The ma.s.s displays of emotion at Methodist meetings would be distasteful to many people in most periods and probably were especially so in an age in which rational behavior was particularly valued. And there were those people who believed that Methodism, in spite of Wesley's arguments to the contrary, led good members of the Church of England astray and threatened religious stability.

Yet all these causes do not explain the harshness of anti-Methodist satire. No other subject during this period received such severe condemnation. Wesley and Whitefield were accused of seducing their female converts, of fleecing all their converts of money, of making trouble solely out of envy or pride. Evan Lloyd is not so harsh nor so implacably bigoted about any other subject as he is about Methodism.

He was an intimate friend of John Wilkes, the least bigoted of men.

Also, there are essential differences between the Dissenters of the Restoration and the Methodists of the late eighteenth century that would seem to lessen the antagonism toward the Methodists. To the satirists of the Restoration, Dissenters were reminders of civil war, regicide, the chaos that religious division could bring. Now the only threat of religious war or major civil disturbance had come from the Jacobites, and even that threat was safely in the past. It is notable that Swift, Pope, and Gay tended to satirize Dissenters within the context of larger problems. The a.s.sault on Methodists, then, is actually not a continuation of anti-Dissenter satire but something new. Hence the whole movement of anti-Methodist satire in the sixties and seventies has an untypically violent tone which cannot be explained solely in terms of satiric trends or religious att.i.tudes. The explanation lies, I think, partly in the social, political, and economic background.

The Methodist movement was perhaps the most dramatic symptom (or at least the symptom hardest to ignore) of the changes taking place in England.

The Methodist open-air services were needed because new industrial areas had sprung up where there were no churches, and lay preachers were necessary because of population shifts but also because of the increase in population made possible by new agricultural and manufacturing methods. The practice of taking lay preachers from many social cla.s.ses had obvious democratic implications. Wesley, in spite of his political conservatism, challenged a number of widely-held, complacent aphorisms, such as the belief that people are "poor only because they are idle."[3]

The ma.s.s emotionalism of the evangelical meetings were reminders that man was not so rational as certain popular ideas tried to make him. Wesley's insistence (with irritatingly good evidence) that he did no more than adhere to the true doctrine of the Church of England strongly suggested that the Church of England had strayed somewhere. (It is rather interestingly paralleled by Wilkes's insistence that he only wanted to return to the Declaration of Rights, a reminder that the government had also strayed.) And Methodism, by its very existence and popularity, posed the question of whether the Church of England, in its traditional form, was capable of dealing with problems created by social and economic changes.

These social, economic, and political issues are touched upon by a number of the anti-Methodist satirists. Most of these satirists, however, are contented simply to complain about the lower cla.s.s tone of the Methodist movement, to note generally, as Dryden and Swift had noted before, that Protestantism contained the seeds of mob rule. The anonymous author of _The Saints_ fears "Their frantic pray'r [is] a mere _Decoy_ for _Mob_"

(p. 4) and the author[4] of _The Methodist and Mimic_ claims that Whitefield's preaching sends "the Brainless Mob a gadding" (p. 15). Evan Lloyd is the one anti-Methodist satirist who explores the larger implications.

Lloyd constructs his satire around the theme of general corruption, that nothing is so virtuous that it cannot be spoiled either by man's weakness or by time. The theme is common in the period and could have become ba.n.a.l, except that Lloyd applies it to the corruption of the Church and its manifestations in daily life, giving it an immediate, lively reference. The Methodist practice of lay preachers, for example, Lloyd treats as an instance of the collapse of the cla.s.s system:

Each vulgar Trade, each sweaty Brow Is search'd....

Hence ev'ry Blockhead, Knave, and Dunce, Start into Preachers all at once (p. 29).

Lloyd combines the language of theology, government, and civil order to suggest a connection between recent riots, the excesses of the Earl of Bute, the Protestant belief that religious concepts are easily understood by all social cla.s.ses, democracy, the emotional displays of Methodism, and lay preachers:

Hence Ignorance of ev'ry size, Of ev'ry shape Wit can devise, Altho' so dull it hardly knows, ...

When it is Day, or when 'tis Night, Shall yet pretend to keep the Key Of _G.o.d_'s dark Secrets, and display His _hidden Mysteries_, as free As if _G.o.d's privy Council_ He, Shall to his Presence rush, and dare To raise a _pious Riot_ there (pp. 29-30).

Lloyd presents an essentially disorderly world in which chaos spreads almost inevitably, in which riots, corrupt ministers, arrogant fools, disrespectful lower cla.s.ses, giddy middle cla.s.ses, and lascivious upper cla.s.ses are barely kept in check by a system of social cla.s.s, government, and church. Now, with the checks withdrawn, lawyers and physicians spread their own disorder even further as they:

Quit their beloved wrangling _Hall_, More loudly in a _Church_ to bawl: ...

And full as fervent, on their Knees, For _Heav'n_ they pray, as once for _Fees_; ...

The _Physic-Tribe_ their Art resign, And lose the _Quack_ in the _Divine_; ...

Of a _New-birth_ they prate, and prate While _Midwifry_ is out of Date (pp. 30-31).

He combines the language of tradesmen with the language of mythology and theology to suggest, rather wittily and effectively, that disorder can be commonplace and cosmic simultaneously:

The _Bricklay'r_ throws his _Trowel_ by, And now _builds Mansions in the Sky_; ...

The _Waterman_ forgets his _Wherry_, And opens a _celestial Ferry_; ...

The _Fishermen_ no longer set For _Fish_ the Meshes of their Net, But catch, like _Peter_, _Men of Sin_, For _catching_ is to _take them in_ (pp. 32-34).

This spreading confusion is, however, not just a pa.s.sing social problem but one that results from many b.r.e.a.s.t.s being "tainted" and many hearts "infected" (p. 34). The corruption is almost universal and results in Wesley (as he actually did) selling "Powders, Draughts, and Pills." Madan "the springs of Health _unlocks_,/ And by his Preaching cures the _P_[_ox_]," (he was Chaplain of Lock Hospital) and Romaine:

Pulls you by _Gravity up-Hill_, ...

By your _bad Deeds_ your _Faith_ you shew, 'Tis but _believe_, and _up You go_ (p. 36).

Lloyd treats the confusion between s.e.xual desire and religious fervor as another aspect of general human depravity, extending the satire beyond the crude accusation of hypocrisy or cynicism. He argues that the confusion is a part of the human condition, allowed to go out of control by a religion that puts pa.s.sion before reason. The Countess of Huntingdon, "cloy'd with _carnal_ Bliss," longs "to taste how _Spirits_ kiss." In his all-inclusive catalogue of "_Knaves_/ That crawl on _Earth_" Lloyd includes "_Prudes_ that crowd to _Pews_,/ While their _Thoughts_ ramble to the _Stews_" (p. 48).

What makes Lloyd interesting, in spite of his many derivative ideas and techniques, is inadvertently pointed out by the _Critical Review_, which complains that "the author outmethodizes even Methodism itself."[5] That the brutal tone of _The Methodist_ went beyond the license usually permitted the satirists was recognized by Lloyd himself. At the conclusion of the satire he asks G.o.d to halt the Methodist movement by getting to its source:

Quench the hot flame, O G.o.d, that Burns And _Piety_ to _Phrenzy_ turns!

And then, after a few lines, he applies the same terms to himself:

But soft----my _Muse_! thy Breath recall---- Turn not _Religion_'s Milk to Gall!

Let not thy _Zeal_ within thee nurse A _holy Rage_! or _pious Curse_!

Far other is the _heav'nly Plan_, Which the _Redeemer_ gave to Man (pp. 52-53).

The satirist, as Robert C. Elliott points out, has always, in art, satirized himself.[6] But there is here as throughout this satire, some attempt to develop a style which will express the belief that the world will always be disorderly and that the disorder stems from man's "Zeal within." This condition of the world can be expressed satirically by a personal, informal satire which recognizes and dramatizes just how universal the corruption is and how commonplace its manifestations have become.