The heroic soul, amidst its bliss or woe,
Is never swell'd too high, nor sunk too low;
Stands, like its origin above the skies,
Ever the same great self, sedately wise;
Collected and prepared in every stage
To scorn a courting world, or bear its rage.
But wit which the "Spectator" has sent down to posterity, and poetry
which gave the promise of excellence, did not bound the noble ambition
of Henley; ardent in more important labours, he was perfecting himself
in the learned languages, and carrying on a correspondence with
eminent scholars.
He officiated as the master of the free-school at his native town in
Leicestershire, then in a declining state; but he introduced many
original improvements. He established a class for public elocution,
recitations of the classics, orations, &c.; and arranged a method of
enabling every scholar to give an account of his studies without the
necessity of consulting others, or of being examined by particular
questions. These miracles are indeed a little apocryphal; for they are
drawn from that pseudo-gospel of his life, of which I am inclined to
think he himself was the evangelist. His grammar of ten languages was
now finished; and his genius felt that obscure spot too circumscribed
for his ambition. He parted from the inhabitants with their regrets,
and came to the metropolis with thirty recommendatory letters.
Henley probably had formed those warm conceptions of patronage in
which youthful genius cradles its hopes. Till 1724 he appears,
however, to have obtained only a small living, and to have existed by
translating and writing. Thus, after persevering studies, many
successful literary efforts, and much heavy taskwork, Henley found he
was but a hireling author for the booksellers, and a salaried
"Hyp-doctor" for the minister; for he received a stipend for this
periodical paper, which was to cheer the spirits of the people by
ridiculing the gloomy forebodings of Amhurst's "Craftsman." About this
time the complete metamorphosis of the studious and ingenious John
Henley began to branch out into its grotesque figure; and a curiosity
in human nature was now about to be opened to public inspection. "The
Preacher" was to personate "The Zany." His temper had become brutal,
and he had gradually contracted a ferocity and grossness in his
manners, which seem by no means to have been indicated in his purer
days. His youth was disgraced by no irregularities--it was studious
and honourable. But he was now quick at vilifying the greatest
characters; and having a perfect contempt for all mankind, was
resolved to live by making one half of the world laugh at the other.
Such is the direction which disappointed genius has too often given to
its talents.
He first affected oratory, and something of a theatrical attitude in
his sermons, which greatly attracted the populace; and he startled
those preachers who had so long dozed over their own sermons, and who
now finding themselves with but few slumberers about them, envied
their Ciceronian brothers.
Tuning his voice, and balancing his hands.
It was alleged against Henley, that "he drew the people too much from
their parish churches, and was not so proper for a London divine as a
rural pastor." He was offered a rustication, on a better living; but
Henley did not come from the country to return to it.
There is a narrative of the life of Henley, which, subscribed by another
person's name, he himself inserted in his "Oratory Transactions."[47]
As he had to publish himself this highly seasoned biographical
morsel, and as his face was then beginning to be "embrowned with
bronze," he thus very impudently and very ingeniously apologises for
the panegyric:--
"If any remark of the writer appears favourable to myself, and be
judged apocryphal, it may, however, weigh in the opposite scale to
some things less obligingly said of me; false praise being as
pardonable as false reproach."[48]