Richard Graves: The Spiritual Quixote (1773)

Abstract

There are many ways to undermine a set of beliefs and practices of which one does not approve; one may impute lunacy or roguery to one’s opponents; one may suggest that the appeal of the offending beliefs is confined to social inferiors who are, by definition, ignorant; one may seek to demonstrate that the content of the alternative Weltanschauung is lacking in originality — a mere rehash of ideas long since refuted and condemned as worthless. Richard Graves, in The Spiritual Quixote employed all of these techniques against Methodism; the author had himself been inconvenienced and humiliated by an itinerant preacher, and his younger brother had — to the horror of his family — been strongly influenced by the Wesleys. However, what concerns us here is Graves as a novelist and a minister of the Anglican Church; it is in this context that his view of Methodism becomes relevant.