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at this Orphan-house. In his last will he left Lady Huntingdon sole executrix, who has now converted the lands and negroes belonging to the poor benefactors of Great Britain and her dominions, to the support of clergymen of the same irregular stamp with the deceased, but void of his shining talents, and it is become a seminary of dissension and sedition.
[Sidenote] Sketch of his character.
As George Whitfield appeared in such different lights in the successive stages of life, it is no easy matter to delineate his character without an uncommon mixture and vast variety of colours. He was in the British empire not unlike one of those strange and erratic meteors which appear now and then in the system of nature. In his youth, as he often confessed and lamented, he was gay, giddy and profligate; so fondly attached to the stage, that he joined a company of strolling actors and vagabonds, and spent a part of his life in that capacity. At this period it is probable he learned that grimace, buffoonery and gesticulation which he afterwards displayed from the pulpit. From an abandoned and licentious course of life he was converted; and, what is no uncommon thing, from one extreme he run into the other, and became a most zealous and indefatigable teacher of religion. Having studied some time at Oxford, he received ordination in the church of England; yet he submitted to none of the regulations of that or any other church, but became a preacher in churches, meeting-houses, halls, fields, in all places, and to all denominations, without exception. Though little distinguished for genius or learning, yet he possessed a lively imagination, much humour, and had acquired considerable knowledge of human nature and the manners of the world. His pretensions to humanity and benevolence were great, yet he would swell with venom, like a snake, against opposition and contradiction. His reading was inconsiderable, and mankind being the object of his study, he could, when he pleased, raise the passions, and touch the tone