1726

To his Brother Samuel

[March 21, 1726]

DEAR BROTHER,--I should of certainly have writ you word my success on Friday (all Thursday I was detained at Lincoln [The day of his election as Fellow of Lincoln College. On 'Lincoln College and its Fellows,' see John Wesley, by J. H. Overton (Rector of Lincoln), pp. 16-19. 'There would be at least a tradition of learning and piety about the College when Wesley was elected. Wesley's own incidental remarks fully bear out this theory.... He "seems to have made an equally good impression upon his brother Fellows."' A letter from one of them, Lewis Fenton, shows how he was welcomed (Whitehead's Life of Wesley, i. 414).]), but that I thought it more advisable, since I had promised to send some verses in a. few days, to do both in the same letter. I am at the same time to ask pardon for letting anything prevent my doing the first sooner; and to return you my sincere and hearty thanks, as well for your past kindness, as for the fresh instance of it you now give me, in the pains you take to qualify me for the enjoyment of that success, which I owe chiefly, not to say wholly, to your interest. I am the more ready to profess my gratitude now, because I may do so with less appearance of design than formerly; -- of any other design, I hope, than of showing myself sensible of the obligation; and that, in this respect at least, I am not unworthy of it.

I have not yet been able to meet with one or two gentlemen, from whom I am in hopes of getting two or three copies of verses. The most tolerable of my own, if any such there were, you probably received already from Mr. Leyborn. [See letters of June 18, 1725, and April 4, 1725.] Some of those that I had besides I have sent here, and shall be very glad if they are capable of being so corrected as to be of any service to you.

HORACE, LIB. I. ODE XIX

The cruel Queen of fierce des'tres,

While youth and wine assistants prove,

Renews my long-neglected fires

And melts again my mind to love.

On blooming Glycera I gaze,

By too resistless force opprest;

With fond delight my eye surveys

The spotless marble of her breast.

In vain I strive to break my chain;

In vain I heave with anxious sighs:

Her pleasing coyness feeds my pain

And keeps the conquests of her eyes.

Impetuous tides of joy and pain

By turns my lab'ring bosom tear;

The Queen of Love, with all her train

Of hopes and fears, inhabits there.

No more the wand'ring Scythian's might

From softer themes my lyre shall move;

No more the Parthian's wily flight:

My lyre shall sing of naught but Love.

Haste, grassy altars let us rear;

Haste, wreaths of fragrant myrtle twine;

With Arab sweets perfume the air,

And crown the whole with gen'rous wine.

While we the sacred rites prepare,

The cruel Queen of fierce desires

Will pierce, propitious to my prayer,

The obdurate maid with equal fires.

ODE XXII

Integrity needs no defense;

The man who trusts to Innocence,

Nor wants the darts Numidians throw,

Nor arrows of the Parthian bow.

Secure o'er Libya's sandy seas

Or hoary Caucasus he strays;

O'er regions scarcely known to Fame,

Washed by Hydaspes' fabled stream.

While void of cares, of naught afraid,

Late in the Sabine woods I strayed;

On Sylvia's lips, while pleased I sung,

How Love and soft Persuasion hung !

A ravenous wolf, intent on food,

Rushed from the covert of the wood;

Yet dared not violate the grove

Secured by Innocence and Love:

Nor Mauritania's sultry plain

So large a savage does contain;

Nor e'er so huge a monster treads

Warlike Apulia's beechen shades.

Place me where no revolving sun

Does e'er h.is radiant circle run,

Where clouds and damps alone appear

And poison the unwholesome year:

Place me in that effulgent day

Beneath the sun's directer ray;

No change from its fixed place shall move

The basis of my lasting love.

SENT TO A GENTLEMAN WHOSE FATHER WAS LATELY DEAD.

In imitation of' Quis desiderio sit pugor.' [Horace's Odes, I. xxiv.]

What shame shall stop our flowing tears

What end shall our just sorrows know

Since Fate, relentless to our prayers,

Has given the long destructive blow!

Ye Muses, strike the sounding string,

In plaintive strains his loss deplore,

And teach an artless voice to sing

The great, the bounteous, now no more

For him the Wise and Good shall mourn,

While late records his fame declare;

And, oft as rolling years return,

Shall pay his tomb a grateful tear.

Ah I what avail their plaints to thee

Ah I what avails his fame declared

Thou blam'st, alas I the just decree

Whence Virtue meets its just reward.

Though sweeter sounds adorned thy tongue

Than Thracian Orpheus whilom played,

When list'ning to the morning song

Each tree bowed down its leafy head,

Never I ah, never from the gloom

Of unrelenting Pluto's sway

Could the thin shade again resume

Its ancient tenement of clay.

Indulgent Patience! heav'n-born guest!

Thy healing wings around display:

Thou gently calm'st the stormy breast

And driv'st the tyrant Grief away.

Corroding Care and eating Pain

By just degrees thy influence own;

And lovely lasting Peace again

Resumes her long-deserted throne.

To his Brother Samuel

LINCOLN COLLEGE, OXON, April 4, 1726

DEAR BROTHER,--I should have written long before now, had not a gentleman of Exeter made me put it off from day to day, in hopes of getting some little poems of his, which he promised to write out for me. Yesterday I saw them, though not much to my satisfaction, as being all on very wrong subjects, and run chiefly on the romantic notions of love and gallantry. I have transcribed one which is much shorter than any of the rest, and am promised by to-morrow night, -if that will do me any service, another of a more serious nature.

I believe I have given Mr. Leyborn at different times five or six short copies of verses: the latest were a translation of part of the Second Georgic and an imitation of the 65th. Psalm. If he has lost them, as it is likely he has in so long a time, I can write them over in less than an hour, and send them by the post.

My father, very unexpectedly a week ago, sent me in a letter a bill on Dr. Morley [John Morley, Rector of Lincoln College 1719-31. He held the living of Scotton, near Gainsborough. See Journal, iii. 511; and letter of Dec. 11, 1730.] for twelve pounds, which he had paid to the Rector's use at Gainsborough; so that, now several of my debts are paid and the expenses of my treat defrayed, I have above ten pounds remaining; and if I could have leave to stay in the country till my College allowance commences, this money would abundantly suffice me till then.

As far as I have ever observed, I never knew a college besides ours, whereof the members were so perfectly satisfied with one another and so inoffensive to the other part of the University. All I have yet seen of the Fellows are both well-natured and well-bred; men admirably disposed as well to preserve peace and good neighborhood among themselves, as to promote it wherever else they have any acquaintance.

By a cool fountain's flow'ry side

The fair Celinda lay;

Her looks increased the summer's pride,

Her eyes the blaze of day.

Quick through the air to this retreat

A bee industrious flew,

Prepared to rifle every sweet

Under the balmy dew.

Drawn by the fragrance of her breath,

Her rosy lips he found;

There in full transport sucked in death,

And dropt upon the ground.

Enjoy, blest bee, enjoy thy fate,

Nor at thy fall repine;

Each god would quit his blissful state,

To share a death like thine. [Priestley's Letters, p. 3.]

THE SEVEN FORMER VERSES OF THE FORTY-SIXTH PSALM

On God supreme our hope depends,

Whose omnipresent sight

Even to the pathless realms extends

Of uncreated night.

Plunged in the abyss of deep distress,

To Him we raise our cry;

His mercy bids our sorrows cease,

And fills our tongue with joy.

Though earth her ancient seat forsake,

By pangs convulsive torn;

Though her self-balanced fabric shake,

And ruined nature mourn;

Though hills be in the ocean lost,

With all their shaggy load,-

No fear shall e'er molest the just,

Or shake his trust in God.

What though the ungoverned, wild abyss

His fires tumultuous pours;

What though the watery legions rise

And lash the affrighted shores;

What though the trembling mountains nod,

Nor stand the rolling war,-

Sion, secure, enjoys the flood,

Loud echoing from afar.

The God Most High on Sion's hill

Has fixed His sure abode; I

Nor dare the impetuous waves assail

The city of our God.

Nations remote and realms unknown

In vain reject His sway;

For, lo! Jehovah's voice is shown,

And earth shall melt away.

Let war's devouring surges rise

And rage on every side,

The Lord of Hosts our refuge is

And Jacob's God our guide.

Mr. Le Hunte [William Le Hunte: matriculated, Christ Church, 1710, age 17; Proctor 1724, Vicar of Kidderminster I729, Rector of Oxhill 1731. He contributed a set of verses to the Carmina Quadragesimalia, or Lent Verses, vol. i. 1723, p. 79 (Wordsworth, University Life, pp. 309, 312).] and Mr. Sherman send their service.--I am

Your loving Brother.

I believe I could put off two or three more receipts if I had them. Pray my love to my brother and sister.

On Friday St. Peter's Church in the Baily was beaten down by the fall of the steeple. Saturday morning a chandler here murdered two men and wounded a third; in the evening a fire broke out at the Mitre, but was stopped in a few hours.

To his Brother Samuel

LINCOLN COLLEGE, December 5, 1726,

DEAR BROTHER,--I return you thanks for your favorable judgment on my sermon, and for the alterations you direct me to make in it; yet, in order to be still better informed, I take the liberty to make some objections to some of them, in one or two of which I believe you misunderstood me.

I. The reasons why I conceive the Samaritans to have been idolaters are, first, because our Savior says of them, ' Ye worship ye know not what '; which seems to refer plainly to the object of their worship: and, secondly, because the old inhabitants of Samaria, who succeeded the Israelites, were undoubtedly so; and I never heard that they were much amended in after-times, -- ‘These nations feared the Lord, and served their graven images, both their children and their children's children' (2 Kings xvii. 41).

II. Were the Jews obliged to love wicked men And is not our commandment extended to some cases to which theirs did not reach to the excluding some instances of revenge, which were indulged to them

We are doubtless to love good men more than others; but to have inserted it where I was only to prove that we were to love them, and not how much, would not, I think, have been to my purpose. Where our Savior exerts His authority against His opposers, I cannot think it safe for me to follow Him. I would much sooner in those cases act by His precepts than 'example: the one was certainly designed for me, the other possibly was not. The Author had power to dispense with His own laws, and wisdom to know when it was necessary: I have neither.

No one would blame a man for using such sharpness of speech as St. Stephen does; especially in a prayer made in the article of death, with the same intention as his.

III. What you understand as spoken of rulers, I expressly say of private men: ' As well every ruler as every private man must act in a legal way; and the latter might with equal reason apply the civil sword himself as use violent means' (by which I here mean reviling, studiously and unnecessarily defaming, or handing about ill stories of wicked men) 'to preserve the Church.'

1. I believe it to be more especially the duty of governors to try to amend scandalous offenders. 2. That flagrant immorality is a sufficient reason to shun any one. 3. That to the weak and private Christian it is an unanswerable reason for so doing. 4. That in many cases a private Christian, in some a clergyman, is not obliged to admonish more than once. But this being allowed, still the main argument stands, that the Scripture nowhere authorizes a private person to do more than to shun an heretic, or (which I expressly mention) an obstinate offender. I had not the least thought of any retrospect in them, neither when I wrote or spoke those words, 'If Providence has pointed you out, &c.'

My mother's reason for my cutting off my hair is because she fancies it prejudices my health. As to my looks, it would doubtless mend my complexion to have it off, by letting me get a little more color, and perhaps it might contribute to my making a more genteel appearance. But these, till ill health is added to them, I cannot persuade myself to be sufficient grounds for losing two or three pounds a year: I am ill enough able to spare them. [See letter of Nov. 17 1731.]

Mr. Sherman says there are garrets somewhere in Peck water to be let for fifty shillings a year; that there are, too, some honest fellows in college who would be willing to chum in one of them; and that, could my brother [Charles had been elected to a studentship at Christ Church this year.] but find one of these garrets, and get acquainted with one of these honest fellows, he might very possibly prevail upon him to join in taking it; and then, if he could but prevail upon someone else to give him seven pounds a year for his own room, he would gain almost six pounds a year clear if his rent were well paid. He appealed to me whether the proposal was not exceeding reasonable; but as I could not give him such an answer as he desired, I did not choose to give him any: at all.

Leisure and I have taken leave of one another [One of the first of Wesley's memorable sayings.]: I propose to be busy as long as I live, if my health is so long indulged to me. In health and sickness I hope I shall ever continue, with the same sincerity,

Your loving Brother,

My love and service to my sister.

To Mr. Wesley, Great Dean's Yard,

Westminster.

To his Brother Samuel [1]

LINCOLN COLLEGE, December 6, 1726.

DEAR BROTHER -- The very thing I desire of you is this, that you would not content yourself with your own opinion, nor fix your own opinion at all, till you have heard my story as well as theirs who accuse me. 'Tis very hard: I have said all that I can say, -- I have professed my sincerity and integrity, more perhaps than it became me to profess them; I have asked yours as well as my father's pardon for any real or supposed slight I have put upon you; to you in particular I have given all the satisfaction which I could contrive to give in words; and yet am now just as far, if not farther, from a reconciliation than I was when I first set out.

Since all probable methods of gaining my cause have failed, I will try one way more: I will relate the controverted facts as plainly as I can, without desiring you either to believe me or not. If you do, I shall be glad both for your sake and my own; if not, I have done my part, and can therefore quietly commit my ways to Him, who in His own good time will make my innocence as clear as the light.

First I shall tell you what I suspect, and next what I know. My suspicion is that, on your receiving a letter from me, you immediately set yourself to consider what 'tis probable I shall say to your last: and if you hit upon any of my objections, then they are to go for nothing; you have already found out the emptiness of them. You then proceed to read, taking it for granted that if I will not tell a downright lie, which is a question, I will however color and palliate everything, as far as my wit will serve me to do with any show of truth; that calmness is an infallible mark of disrespect, as warmth is of guilt; and with a few of these either praecognita or praeconcessa, 'tis perfectly easy to demonstrate that I am totally in the wrong.

Without some proceedings of this kind, I cannot imagine or guess how you come to be so displeased at me: why, alter I have over and over desired that my past miscarriages might be forgotten, your language still shows them to be fresh in your memory; to what end, since it does not appear that different expressions would not do as well, you give me in every one of your letters one or more of those taunting sentences, 'It would have been fair enough ad hominem,' ' I hope 'tis not only pro forma that you labor.' I do believe you are yet my affectionate friend; but very much fear you will not be so long, if everything I say has so strange a construction put upon it.

My father's words and your reflection upon them were both perfectly unintelligible to me till I read the Canon he mentions. I should then have been exactly as much at a loss as before, but that my brother Charles accidentally, while we were in the country, repeated to me part of a conversation he had with my father in their return from my brother Ellison's. The substance of it, as near as I remember, was this: ‘My father last night was telling me of your disrespect to him; he said you had him at open defiance. I was surprised, and asked him how or when. He said, "Every day, you hear how he contradicts me, and takes your sister's part before my face. Nay, he disputes with me, preach --” And then he stopped short as if he wanted to recall his word, and talked of other things.’ I said I wondered what he meant; till recollecting with my brother that my father, mother, sister Emly, and I had several times been speaking of the treatment we should show ill men; and that my brother having likewise had many disputes with me about it, I told him ‘I had for near a twelvemonth intended writing on Universal Charity, having read over Dr. Clarke and Bishop Atterbury's Sermons for that purpose; that I would set about it immediately, and there he should hear at once, and so would be better able to judge of my arguments.' I wrote it accordingly, and after my mother's perusal and approbation, she making one alteration in the expression, preached it, on Sunday, August 28. I had the same day the pleasure of observing that my father the same day, when one Will. Atkins was mentioned, did not speak so warmly nor largely against him as usual.

The next day (29) I went to Epworth, and returned from thence on Thursday (September 1). In the evening my brother desired me to take a walk, and told me what I have above recited. We supped, and walked about a quarter of an hour in the garden; from whence I ran in to find my father. I met him by himself in the hall, and told him, not without tears, that I learned from my brother I had offended him, both by speaking often in contradiction to him and by not offering myself to write for him, but, I now promised to do whatever he pleased. He kissed me, and I believe cried too; told me he always believed I was good at bottom (those were his words), and would employ me the next day. The next day I began transcribing some papers for him; and find, by my diary, I employed the same way part of every day, from the 2nd to the 12th inclusive; only excepting Sunday the 11th, in which all the spare time I had was employed in writing what I remembered of my father's sermon. On Thursday of the following week I dined at my sister Lambert's, and was her son's godfather, and was detained there by fresh company coming in till evening; on Friday my father, brother, and I walked over to dinner to Mr. Hoole's; on Saturday morning came over Mr. Harper of Epworth and Mr. Pennington, to take leave of my brother and me. In the rest of the week I wrote and transcribed a sermon against Rash Judging, which with my father's leave I preached on Sunday. On Monday the 19th we set out for Oxon. Neither did my father, while I was with him, speak one word to me of that sermon he complains of; nor did it appear, unless by that one word to my brother, that he had then taken offence at all. If he had, he would surely have used some means 'to have satisfaction made where the offence was given,' and not have' suffered me again to occupy that place I had once abused'; especially till I had 'faithfully promised to forbear all such matter of contention in the church,' which I was not likely to do till I was apprised of my fault.

The 53rd Canon runs thus: 'If any preacher in the pulpit particularly or narrowly of purpose impugn or confute any doctrine delivered by any other preacher in the same church -- or in any church near adjoining, because upon such public dissenting and contradicting there may grow much offence and disquietness to the people the churchwardens or -party grieved shall forthwith signify the same to the Bishop, and not suffer, &c.'

Against this I have offended, if I have in the pulpit particularly or of purpose impugned any doctrine there delivered before. But this plainly supposes the impugner to know that the doctrine he opposes was preached there before; otherwise he can't possibly be said to impugn it particularly or on purpose. Now, it is not possible he should know it was there delivered, unless he either heard it preached himself or was informed of it by others. The disputed point between my father and me was the particular measure of charity due to wicked men; but neither have I heard him, neither did he himself or any other person inform me, that he ever preached at all in Wroot Church on that subject. So that I am in no wise guilty of breaking the Canon, unless it obliges every preacher to inquire what particular tenets have ever been maintained (for the time is not limited) both in his own and the adjoining churches: if he is to inquire of the former, he must inquire of the latter too; the Canon equally speaking of both. If there be any objection made to the sermon itself, I have it by me, and, for the matter of it, am not ashamed or afraid to show it anybody.

Why you defer your advice till my debts are paid [See letter of March 19, 1727.] you may probably see a reason; I do not. I reckon my Fellowship near sixty pounds a year. Between forty and fifty it will infallibly cost to live at college, use what management I can. As for pupils, I am not qualified to take them till one of our tutors goes away; when that will be is very uncertain. What you mean by my debt at Wroot I do not apprehend. If the whole I have at any time received of my father, I know not how much it is, and shall not therefore know (as neither will you) when it is satisfied; if what I have received at the University, I may be ruined for want of advice before I can possibly repay that; if what I received when last in the country, that was nothing at all, for I not only bore my own expenses in traveling, but paid ready money for whatever I brought from thence, and left money behind me -- though for several reasons I did not think good to tell my father so much when he blamed me with being so expensive to him in that journey.

My sister Hetty's behavior has, for aught I have heard, been innocent enough since her marriage. Most of my disputes on Charity with my father were on her account, he being inconceivably exasperated against her. 'Tis likely enough he would not see her when at Wroot: he has disowned her long ago, and never spoke of her in my hearing but with the utmost detestation. Both he, my mother, and several of my sisters were persuaded her penitence was but feigned. One great reason for my writing the above-mentioned sermon was to endeavor, as far as in me lay, to convince them that, even on the supposition that she was impenitent, some tenderness was due to her still; which my mother, when I read it to her, was so well aware of that she told me as soon as she had read it, 'You writ this sermon for Hetty; the rest was brought in for the sake of the last paragraph.'

My sister Lambert behaved herself unexceptionally while we were in the country. That she had lately altered her conduct, which indeed is highly improbable, I did not hear till now. I very heartily desire (though I see not how it can be effected, unless you will take my word till my actions disprove it) that you should entertain a just opinion, as of the morals in general, so in particular of the gratitude of

Your loving Brother.

Editor's Introductory Notes

[1] After Wesley was elected Fellow of Lincoln on March 17, 1726, he obtained leave of absence in April from the University and spent; the summer in Lincolnshire. A facsimile page of his Diary during. that time is given in the Journal, i. 68. He served as his father's curate at Epworth and Wroot, transcribed his father's Job, and began a. paraphrase of Psalm civ. His mother advised him: ' I would not have you leave off making verses; rather make poetry sometimes your diversion, though never your business.' He returned to Oxford on September 21.

This letter to his eider brother gives some indication of the family trouble about Hetty Wesley, who had married William Wright in 1725, after getting herself into disgrace through the wiles of a young solicitor who kept her away from home for a night. John evidently looked more leniently upon her conduct than did his father, who resented his son's plea for gentler treatment. Anne Wesley made a happy marriage with John Lambert, a land surveyor in Epworth, in 1725.

Dr. Samuel Clarke, Rector of St. James's, Westminster, preached on December 30, 1705, before Queen Anne, on the Great Duty of Universal Love and Charity, from 1 John iv. 21: 'True greatness, therefore, is to imitate God in His most glorious perfection of goodness.' Atterbury's sermon (1 Pet. iv. 5), on the Power of Charity to cover Sin, was preached in Bridewell Chapel on August 16, 1694.

Samuel Wesley (in a letter 'in the Colman Collection) replied on December 10 that he would not pretend to defend what he had almost forgotten. He is resolved to do what he can to reconcile his father and mother and Emilia to Hetty. ‘Your reading to my mother was a very wrong step too; you might have had it to say that no one living had seen it; for the authority of her approbation on the one side did not outweigh the suspicion of combination on the other.' As to his father's temper, he says: ‘I have lived longer with him than you, and have been very intimate, and yet almost always pleased him, and am confident I shall do so to the end of my life.' Emilia speaks of her father's ' unaccountable love of discord.'

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