Survivors and Descendants

THE family group that surrounded Mrs. Wesley's death-bed consisted of her daughters Emilia, Susanna, Hetty, Anne, and Martha, and her son John. Emilia, Mrs. Harper, was now fifty years of age, a widow, and childless ; for though an infant had been born to her, it speedily died. She had known but little comfort during either her single or her married life; her temper was exacting and not very sweet ; she was conscious of possessing talents, and painfully aware that she had had no opportunity of shining. In youth she was engaged to a Mr. Leybourne, and though in consequence of the disapproval of Mrs. Wesley and Samuel the match was broken off, Emilia was not a woman to forget, or to love again readily. This disappointment embittered her whole life. She was very fond of her mother, and her affection for John, who was eleven years her junior, had a good deal of the maternal element in it, but when Hetty stumbled she was hard upon her. Poverty takes a great deal of the sweetness out of a woman's nature, and after her marriage she suffered even more from this cause than when in her girlhood money and clothes were scarce at Epworth. Mr. Harper was scarcely able to maintain himself, the profits of her school did not go very far, she fell into ill-health, had to sell her clothes in order to obtain food, and was reduced to the hourly expectation of having her very bed seized on account of being in arrears with her rent. Whether that calamity actually did come to pass or no is uncertain ; but, at all events, her husband's death left her free to wind up her affairs at Gainsborough and come with an old servant to London. From that time John supported her, and she was a great deal at the Foundry, though she does not appear to have lived there altogether. The Epworth ghost did not altogether desert her, as is shown by the following letter to John : — " DEAR BROTHER, " Feb. 16th, 1750.

" I want most sadly to see you and talk some hours with you as in times past. Some things are too hard for me ; these I want you to solve. One doctrine of yours and of many more, viz. no happiness can be found in any or all things in this world, that as I have sixteen years of my own experience which lie flatly against it, I want to talk with you about it. Another thing is that wonderful thing called by us ' Jeffery/ You won't laugh at me for being superstitious if I tell you how certainly that something calls on me against any extraordinary new affliction ; but so little is known of the invisible world, that I, at least, am not able to judge whether it be a friendly or an evil spirit. I shall be glad to know from you where you live, where you may be found. If at the Foundry, assuredly on foot or by coach I shall visit my dear brother, and enjoy the very great blessing of some hours' converse.

" I am your really obliged friend and affectionate sister, " EMILIA HARPER."

A memorandum on the back of this note, in John Wesley's own hand, affirms that it was answered on the 18th, but that answer has not been preserved. " JefEery " was an agent who usually proclaimed himself by raps and noises, and since, on the 8th of February, about a week previous to the date of the note, London had been thrown into confusion and alarm by a smart shock of earthquake, persons whose faith in the supernatural is not very strong, may be pardoned for imagining that Mrs. Harper may have mistaken noises produced by that convulsion of nature for those by which the sprite of Epworth had been in the habit of manifesting its presence.

When the Wesleyan body took the well-known chapel in West Street, Mrs. Harper and the old servant removed to the house which joined it, and took up their abode in rooms which communicated with the chapel by means of a gallery behind the pulpit and a window which, when thrown open, enabled the inmates to join in the services without being seen themselves. Mrs. Harper became a kindly and much subdued old lady when she had lost her memory, and died from general decay of nature in 1771, when nearly eighty years of age.

It will be remembered that Susanna Wesley, the second daughter of the Epworth family, married Richard Ellison in 1721, and that, though in fairly good circumstances, he was always considered an unpleasant son-in-law. When the four children born of this union were grown or growing up, a fire occurred in Mr. Ellison's house, and from that time his wife refused to live with him, and resided with first one and then another of her sons and daughters in London. The deserted husband tried by every means in his power to get her to return, but she would neither see him nor reply to his letters. At last he caused a report of his death to be circulated, and she straightway went down into Lincolnshire to attend his funeral. Finding that it was only a ruse to get her back again, she immediately returned to London, and no one could persuade her to be reconciled to her husband. Misfortune overtook Mr. Ellison in his later years. It was the business of the Commissioners of Sewers in the Fen Country to keep the great drains open, and, as this was neglected, the water flowed all over and submerged his land for a couple of years. His cattle and horses died, he could raise no crops, and obtain no compensation, and was consequently reduced to such poverty, that he went to the Foundry and threw himself on the charity of his brother-inlaw, John Wesley, who recommended him to a rich banker, having the distribution of some trust-moneys, saying that " the smallest relief could never be more seasonable." Although the unhappy man's wife kept aloof, John and Charles were very kind to him, and considered him quite a reformed character. He died in London early in April 1760, and Charles Wesley read the burial service over his remains.

The children of this ill-matched pair were John, Ann, Deborah, and Richard Annesley Ellison. The eldest lived and died at Bristol, and some of his descendants still reside in that city. Ann married Pierre le Lievre, a French refugee, who died leaving her with one son; she afterwards married a Mr. Gaunt. She was a vivacious, clever, handsome little woman, and Mrs. Ellison resided principally with her, and died in her house, at the age of sixty-nine, early in December 1764. John Wesley wrote to Charles on the 7th, saying, " Sister Sukey was in huge agonies for five days, and then died in full assurance of faith. Some of her last words when she had been speechless for some time were ' Jesus is here, Heaven is love ! ' "

Mrs. Gaunt's son by her first marriage was named Pierre after his father, and educated at Kingswood, at the great school founded by the Wesleys near Bristol. He Anglicised his Christian name into Peter and dropped the particle before his surname. He went into the Church and became head-master of the Lutterworth Grammar School, and curate and assistant to Mr. Johnson, who, in those days of pluralities, was rector of Lutterworth and vicar of Claybrook. At the latter place Mr. Johnson had a very nice house and grounds, and received pupils, among whom was the late Lord Macaulay. Mr. Lievre married a Miss Sturges and reared six children. William, the last of them, died about twenty years ago at Bruntingthorpe, in Leicestershire, where he was probably master of one of those small endowed schools which have now either been remodelled by the Commissioners or absorbed by other educational institutions. He was a retiring, studious man, with the soul and much of the felicitous skill in diction of the true poet ; and had his lot been cast in literary circles he would no doubt have made a name and a niche for himself. As it was, he was laughed at by his family for his rhyming propensities, and degenerated into the fecklessuess often seen in those who have missed their true vocation. The Derbyshire and Leicestershire papers, however, gladly accepted his verses for their Poet's Corners. Several of them are very pretty, and, were they reprinted, would find favour with many.

Deborah Ellison also married a French refugee, a «ilk-weaver named Pierre Collett; and one of her daughters became the wife of a prominent Wesleyan, Dr. Byam.

Richard Anuesley Ellison died when only twenty-seven, leaving two daughters. The eldest of them married Mr. Voysey of the King's House, Salisbury, and became the mother of two sons and two daughters. The elder son died unmarried; the elder daughter married the Comte de Fauconpret de Thulus, a French savant of great reputation, who, during his exile in this country, translated all Sir Walter Scott's novels into French. On the accession of Louis Philippe in 1830, he returned with his wife to France, where he held a high position in the University of Paris. Their home was at Fontainebleau, where they gathered round them many of the choice spirits of the day, and there M. de Fauconpret died in 1842. His widow died at Hackney in the summer of 1868. Her younger sister was twice married, first to Mr. Edlin, and secondly to Mr. Bristow. Two of her sons and her three daughters by her first husband are all living, and she herself has died whilst this work has been passing through the press. Mrs. Ellison's youngest grandson, Annesley Voysey, married and became the father of Henry Voysey, an architect of some note, Richard Voysey, who took orders in the Church of England, and the Rev. Charles Voysey, whose career is well known. No one in this branch of the family has ever been deficient in brain power, or in the courage to maintain his or her own opinions.

Hetty Wesley, Mrs. Wright, was in very poor health at the time of her mother's death; she was worn out by what she endured at the hands of her besotted husband, who, nevertheless, seems to have preserved some kind of affection for her. She had several children, who died, much to her grief, in their babyhood ; but a daughter, named Amelia, is supposed to have lived for some years, even if she did not survive her mother. She is said to have retained the traces of her youthful beauty till quite late in life. She had been the trusted friend, and, in his latter days, the nurse of her uncle Matthew, who was very good to her in a pecuniary sense. In 1743 she was living at Stanmore in Middlesex; soon after she became a Methodist, and saw a good deal of her brothers. They were persuaded that the Clifton Hot-wells, rightly used, would cure most physical evils, and accordingly sent her there. They had many friends in Bristol and its neighbourhood, and their sister was received by a Mrs. Vigor, with whom she remained for several months. In the autumn of 1745, she was at home again, and wrote a letter to Charles, in which she spoke affectionately of her husband : — " London, Frith Street,

" I received both your kind letters and thank you for them, but am surprised you have heard no account of my better health, though I could not write myself, since many have seen me who I know correspond with you, and some of them are gone to Bath or Bristol lately, especially sister Naylor and Mrs. "Wigginton. Indeed, I continue exceeding weak, keeping my bed, except when I rise to have it made, and it is almost incredible what a skeleton I am grown, so that my bones are ready to come through my skin. But through mercy, the fever that immediately SURVIVORS AND DESCENDANTS.

threatens me (with a violent cough and some fatal symptoms) is gone off, and I am more likely to recover than ever ; nay, if I could once get my strength, I should not make a doubt of it. This ease of body and great calm of mind, I firmly believe, is owing to the prayer of faith. I think this support the more extraordinary, because I have no sense of God's presence, ever since I took my bed ; and you know what we are when left to ourselves under great pain and apprehensions of death. Yet, though I am yet in desertion, and the enemy is very busy, I enjoy so great a measure of quietness and thankfulness as is really above nature. Hallelujah ! Whether or no the bitterness of death is past, I am perfectly easy and resigned, having given up this, with dear Will's spiritual welfare and all other things, to the Sovereign Physician of souls and bodies.

" Dearest brother, no selfish consideration can ever make me wish your stay in this most dangerous diabolical world ; yet we must always say, ' Thy will be done ' ; and I am pleased still to think God will permit us to meet again, though I cannot say I desire life a minute longer, even upon these terms. Willy gives his love, and would be unfeignedly glad to see you. Pray join in prayer with me still that he may persevere. Matty, too, gives her duty and desires your prayers. Neither of their souls prosper as I could wish them. Strange that though we know sanctification is a gradual work, we want our neighbours to go faster than ourselves ; but poor Willy only waits for the first gift. I have not one fear for those who are truly in earnest.

" If the nation is run stark mad in politics, though never a jot the wiser or holier, no wonder that the person you mentioned in your last is brimful of them, though she keeps within bounds, and does not talk treason, whatever she may think. I am glad the believers T know seem to run into no extreme about the present affairs, either of losing the one thing needful by talking too much or praying too little. The Lord give us a right judgment in all things.

" My prayers, love, and best wishes attend all dear iriends at Bristol, from whom I have received innumerable obligations ; but, above all, Mrs. Vigor and her family, who showed unwearied love in serving and humouring me. . . .

" It has been one of my heaviest crosses that I have been unable to write to them all ; but if ever I recover, I despair not of doing it yet, if acceptable from a novice. You think, perhaps, I may write to them as well as you ; but, dear Charles, I write now in bed, and you cannot believe what it costs me. I trust to remember and bless you many times yet before I die ; wishing we may have another happy meeting first, if it is best. So, with prayers for the universal Church, ministers, assistants, and all mankind, I take leave to subscribe myself your most obliged and loving sister, " MEHET. WRIGHT."

Mrs. Wright seems to have partially recovered from this illness, though she was never strong again ; but in January and February 1750, it was evident that her «nd was approaching. She shared in the exaggerated and almost hysterical sentiments so common among the early Methodists, and to a friend who went to see her said, " I have ardently wished for death, because you know we Methodists always die in a transport of joy." Charles seems to have been the only brother just then in London, and he speaks of her on March 14th and 18th as " very near the haven " ; but when he called on the 21st, her spirit had just departed. On the 26th, he adds, " I followed her to her quiet grave, and wept with them that weep." She was fifty-three years of age.

Mr. Wright was inconsolable, and begged Charles Wesley not to forsake him, though his sister was dead. He survived her several years, married again, and did not always live peaceably with his second wife. For some years he saw nothing of the Wesleys, but, when struck down by palsy, sent for Charles, and was much rejoiced to see him. That sanguine evangelist saw reason for hope in his end, and perhaps, after all, his faults were rather those of the head than of the heart.

Dr. Adam Clarke collected and published ten of Mrs. Wright's poems ; they were in accordance with the ideas of the people among whom she moved, and tinged with the melancholy that saddened her existence; but unbounded weariness of this world, and ecstatic longing for the unknown and unknowable future is always morbid and unhealthy. The only verse worth quoting here is from a little poem addressed to a mother on the death of her children : — " Though sorer sorrows than their birth Your children's death has given ;

Mourn not that others bear for earth, While you have peopled Heaven/' We have no further glimpse of Anne Wesley, Mrs. Lambert, and her husband, after their presence at the mother's funeral in Bunhill Fields, nor is anything known of their son's career.

Martha Wesley, Mrs. Hall, so closely resembled her brother John in personal appearance, that Dr. Adam Clarke declared that no one would have known which was which if they had only been dressed alike. Her handwriting, also, was very much like his, and this must have arisen from the fact that when she was about nineteen she wrote "miserably," to quote her own expression, and felt very far inferior to Emilia and Hetty. John, therefore, set her some copies, which she imitated most carefully, and thus modelled her calligraphy by his.

We have already seen that she lived with her husband at Salisbury, and that Mrs. Wesley spent a good deal of time with them before her removal to the Foundry. During her residence in that city, Mrs. Hall had ten children, only one of whom lived beyond infancy. Mr. Hall was a strange, and, as it proved, an immoral man. He possessed all the qualifications necessary for a Mormon elder, and had he lived in these days, would very probably have joined that body. A good many of his shortcomings resulted from reaction after the strain and tension of religious fervour in his youth ; he began to think for himself, and to entertain doubts which, though common enough now, were then regarded with horror. In a word, Mr. Hall became unorthodox and refused to believe in a great many doctrines which are now passed over in silence except by very ardent religionists. This was the true head and front of his offending in the estimation of many of John and Charles Wesley's coadjutors, who condemned him in stronger terms than the brothers did themselves. Human nature is prone to these extremes.

There is a certain hardness about the following letter from John, written to Mrs. Hall very shortly after the burial of their mother. It is as if he would insinuate that the time spent by a mother in her natural duties towards her children must be abstracted from that which should be occupied in furthering her own spiritual advancement, and, if so, is an item of a very selfish creed. Happily/ most of us believe that in rightly and conscientiously performing our parental and other obligations, we are best fulfilling the ends for which we are created. John Wesley, who never had a child of his own, and whose marriage was not precisely a union of souls, looked at the matter from quite another point of view : — " Newcastle-on-Tyne, " DEAR SISTER, " November 17, 1742.

" I believe the death of your children is a great instance of the goodness of God towards you. You have often mentioned to me how much of your time they took up. Now that time is restored to you, and you have nothing to do but to serve our Lord without carefulness and without distraction, till you are sanctified in body, soul and spirit. As soon as I saw Mr. Hall, I invited him to stay at the Foundry, but he desired I would have him excused. There is a strange inconsistency in his temper and sentiments with regard to me. The still brethren have gradually infused into him as much as they could of their own contempt of me and my brother, and dislike of our whole method of proceeding, which is as different from theirs as light from darkness. Nay, they have blunderingly taught him to find fault even with my economy and outward management, both of my family and society. Whereas I know this is the peculiar talent which God has given me, wherein (by His grace) I am not behind the very chiefest of them. Notwithstanding this, there remains in him something of his old regard for me which hehad at Oxford, and by-and-by it will prevail. He will find out these wretched men, and the clouds will flee away.

" My belief is that the present design of God is to visit the poor desolate Church of England, and that, therefore, neither deluded Mr. Gambold nor any who leave it will prosper. Oh ! pray for the peace or Jerusalem. ' They shall prosper that love thee/ Mr. Hall has paid me for the books. I don't want any money of you, your love is sufficient. But write as often and as largely as you can to your affectionate friend and brother, "J.WESLEY."

This letter proves how very far from John Wesley'sown thoughts was any secession from the Church of England, and also shows him to have been thoroughly aware of his own gift for organization.

It is very uncertain whether Mrs. Hall confided in her relations so far as to tell them of her husband's infidelities till she had been outraged by them for many years. She was a woman of the highest and rarest type, and so resolutely crushed out all natural selfishness that she nursed the children of others with as much devotion as if they had been her own, while for the unhappy Hagars who gave them birth she showed as much tenderness and sympathy as if they had not been preferred by her husband to herself. Mr. Hall in his better moments felt and showed the greatest admiration of her conduct, but he was a weak mortal and had no control over himself. It is said that on one occasion the father was angry with the Isaac of the family while his mother was tending an Ishmael, and frightened the child terribly by locking him up in a dark cupboard for some very trivial fault. This was almost more than she could endure, but she was determined that her husband's authority over his boy should not suffer. The punishment was out of all proportion to the offence, but she could not persuade him of it. At last she reminded him that though he was unreasonably passionate with her child she had not turned his out of the cradle, but declared that she would do it unless he released and forgave the terrified little fellow. John and Charles ultimately removed their nephew from his father's house and educated him at their own expense; but when about fourteen he caught the small-pox at school, and died before his mother could reach him. This was a grief which it was feared would have killed her ; but she was patient and resigned, and Time, the great healer, brought her consolation.

Charles Wesley once asked his sister how she could provide comforts and even money in her hour of need for a woman who had usurped her place. " Ah," she said., "I knew I could obtain what I wanted from many ; but she, poor creature, could not, for so many would make a merit of abandoning her to the distress she had brought upon herself. . . . I did not act as a woman, but as a Christian/' It was a sublime Christianity and worthy of that Master who did not spurn Magdalen from His feet. Few, indeed, are the professing Christians who attain to anything like it.

When Mrs. Hall fell into poverty she was still sogenerous that her brother Charles said, " It is in vain to give Patty anything to add to her comforts, for she invariably gives it away to some person poorer than herself."

In 1747 Mr. Hall became so incensed during one of John's visits to Salisbury, probably by his remonstrances, that he turned both him and Martha out of doors. Shortly afterwards Mrs. Hall left him, and wrote to explain the reason why : — " Being at last convinced that I cannot possibly oblige you any longer by anything I can say or do, I have for some time determined to rid you of so useless a burden, as soon as it should please Grod to give me an opportunity. If you have so much humanity left for a wife who has lived so many years with you as to allow anything towards a maintenance, I will thank you/' She is thought to have forgiven and returned to him after this, but only to leave him again and seek John's protection at the Foundry. That she harboured no unkind feelings against her faithless husband, and regarded the separation only as temporary, is shown in another letter.

" Though I should have been very glad to have heard from you, yet I cannot wonder at your not answering my letter, seeing I not only left you a second time, but desired conditions which, I fear, you do not find yourself at all disposed to grant. Indeed, I am obliged to plead guilty to the charge, and, as I look upon you as the sole judge, I shall make no appeal from that sentence; only I desire leave to speak a few words before you pass it. You may remember, whenever I was angry enough to talk of leaving you, you could never work me up to such a height as to make me say I would never return/' Unlike the majority of badly-treated women, Mrs.

Hall never spoke ill of her husband, and used to say that it was impossible for a wife with true love in her heart to do so.

She was living at the Foundry when Charles married Miss Sarah Gwynne at Garth in South Wales, and wrote her her affectionate congratulations. As the pair did not for some little time provide themselves with a home, she would gladly have prepared for their reception in London, but they preferred settling at Bristol. To that city Mr. Hall also betook himself, and summoned his wife to join him ; but as his feelings towards her family were the reverse of friendly, she evidently did not communicate with Charles or his young wife in Stoke's Croft. Charles met her by chance in the street when on his way to the room where he preached, and took her with him ; but in the middle of the sermon Mr. Hall entered and fetched her away. The next day he went in again, calling Charles by name. Flight appeared the wisest policy, and Mr. Hall followed, but did not succeed in discovering his brother-in-law's retreat. The affair ended in Mrs. Hall's departure to London, and that of her peccant husband to Ireland, whence he finally went to the West Indies, but not alone. On the death of his companion he returned to England full of penitence, and was warmly received by his patient wife, who remained with and nursed him till his death, which took place at Bristol in January 1776, forty years after their marriage. During his last hours he exclaimed, " I have injured an angel, an angel that never reproached me." These words made up to Mrs. Hall for all the sorrow he had caused her.

In the long interval between Charles Wesley's marriage and Mr. Hall's death, Mrs. Hall had come to 15 * know a good deal of her Welsh sister-in-law, and also of her friends the Joneses of Fonmon Castle, with whom she became so intimate that they lived together for some time at Salisbury. She also took an almost maternal interest in the children of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Wesley, who named a little girl after her. Like many other babes born to them, it died ; but when Charles junior, Sally, and Samuel arrived, successively, she took the warmest delight in them. Sally grew up to be her beloved companion and friend, and, had it not been for the intimacy between them, much that we now know of the Wesley family would have been lost.

Mrs. Hall appears to have been very serenely happy during the latter part of her life, which was principally spent in London. She was a methodical, deliberate person, looking on the bright side of everything and everybody, and shunning all sad subjects. She spent a great deal of time with Dr. Johnson, who enjoyed her lively conversation and depended on her strong and accurate memory. He would gladly have persuaded her to become an inmate of his house, but two old ladies, Mrs. Williams and Mrs. Du Moulin, lived with him already, and she thought her own presence, except as an occasional visitor, unnecessary.

John Wesley respected the old lexicographer very highly, and sent him, through Mrs. Hall, a copy of his Notes on the Old and New Testament. She also had the pleasure of introducing them personally to one another, and Dr. Johnson liked the zealous scholarly man extremely, and would fain have seen more of him. He got quite provoked because John, who had long ago taken leave of leisure, had not time to cultivate him and his circle, and said one day to Boswell :

"I hate to meet John Wesley; the dog enchants you with his conversation, and then breaks away to go and visit some old woman/' And again :

" John Wesley's conversation is good, but he is never at leisure. He is always obliged to go at a certain hour. This is very diagreeable to a man who loves to fold his legs and have his talk out as I do/' One feels that Dr. Johnson certainly was not made for an age of railways and steamboats, but that John Wesley would have taken to them very kindly.

Curiously enough Mrs. Hall was neither witty herself nor admired wit in others. Even as a child she was grave and staid ; and when her mother once found her little ones romping and laughing, and exclaimed, " Ah ! you will all be serious some day," Martha looked up in her face and asked, " Shall I too be more serious?" and Mrs. Wesley answered her with an emphatic "No," as if that were impossible. Charles said, " Sister Patty was too wise to be witty ''; and it is on record that once, when Dr. Johnson was in doleful mood and holding forth on the unhappiness of mortals in her presence, she said : " Doctor, you have always lived among the wits, not the saints ; and they are a race of people the most unlikely to seek true happiness or find the pearl of great price/' She refused to admire Swift's works, which were favourites with her brothers and sisters, and especially disliked The Tale of a Tub, which she considered irreverent in the extreme.

After spending some twenty years of married life in Bristol, Charles Wesley and his wife removed with their children to London, where Mrs. Hall had the pleasure of introducing her niece Sally to the burly Doctor, and showing him the verses she wrote from time to time. The sage used to pat her head kindly, and say to her aunt, " She will do, Madam; she will do/' James Boswell tells, in his life of Johnson, how on Easter Sunday, 1781, Mrs. Hall, a Mr. Allen, and himself dined with the Doctor and the two old ladies who were his pensioners. The day naturally gave its tone to the conversation, and Boswell " mentioned a kind of religious Robin Hood society, which met every Sunday evening at Coachmakers' Hall for free debate, and that the subject for this night was the text which relates what happened at our Saviour's death — ' And the graves were opened, and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many/ Mrs. Hall said it was a very curious subject, and she should much like to hear it discussed. Johnson replied, somewhat warmly, ' One would not go to such a place to hear it.' I, however resolved that I would go. ' But, Sir,' said she to Johnson, ' I should like to hear you discuss it.' He seemed reluctant to engage in it. She talked of the resurrection of the human race in general, and maintained that we shall be raised with the same bodies. Johnson : ' Nay, Madam, we see that it is not to be the same body, for the Scripture uses the illustration of grain sown. You cannot suppose that we shall rise with a diseased body ; it is enough if there be such a sameness as to distinguish identity of person/ The Doctor told the story of hearing his mother's voice one day calling him when he was at Oxford. She seemed desirous of knowing more, but he left the question in obscurity/' On this occasion Mrs. Williams and Mrs. Hall talked at their host so persistently that he at last stopped them by quoting the well-known line from the Beggars' Opera — But two at a time there 's no mortal can bear.

Dr. Johnson had a little weakness for being the chief speaker, and no man likes to be what he calls " preached at" by a woman. Mrs. Hall's preaching, however, was probably of a mild description, and dealt with theories rather than persons. She had something good to say of everyone ; and if faults had to be mentioned, she always remembered extenuating circumstances.

She remained well and strong and able to take long walks to the last ; and when she was over eighty, Sally Wesley tried to obtain a promise that she might be with her in her dying moments. " Yes/' replied her aunt, "if you are able to bear it; but I charge you not to grieve for me more than half-an-hour."

John Wesley died in March 1791, leaving Mrs. Hall the sole survivor of the Epworth household, and she felt his loss deeply. She was then eighty-five, and only outlived him by about four months. In the beginning of July it was evident that she was gradually sinking, and Sally claimed the privilege of watching by her ; but the invalid, unselfish to the end, insisted that she should always go home at night, " lest you should not sleep — then your anxiety would create mine." She died on the 12th; and shortly before, when her niece asked if she suffered any pain, she answered, " No, but a new feeling/' Just before the end she called Sally, and, pressing her hand said, " I have the assurance which I have long prayed for. Shout ! " Immediately afterwards she expired.

It seemed very natural that she should be buried in the same grave as her favourite brother in the City Road Burial Ground, and never was a more suitable inscription placed on any tomb than when, after her name and age, these words of the wise man of Israel were cut on the stone : "She opened her mouth with wisdom, and in her tongue was the law of kindness/' Mrs. Hall left her very small income, as well as her papers and letters, to her beloved niece, who prized them as the relics of one who had been to her a second mother.

Most incidents in the lives of John and Charles Wesley are so well known that it is needless to recapitulate them here. It is, however, rather curious that the family name has been transmitted only through Charles and his youngest son Samuel. Mrs. Charles Wesley was twenty-three at the time of her marriage, and her husband forty-two. They had nine children, only three of whom lived to grow up ; and, as the eldest son and the daughter lived and died single, all the descendants are those of Samuel, several of whose children are still alive.

The maiden name of Mrs. C. Wesley was Sarah Gwynne, and her parents lived at Garth in South Wales. Her mother belonged to a very rich family, being one of six sisters, each of whom had thirty thousand pounds for her marriage portion. Beautiful voices and musical talent were hereditary in the family, so it was doubtless mainly through their mother that the two sons, Charles and Samuel, derived the genius for music that has made them famous. The union of Charles and Sarah Wesley lasted thirty-nine years, when he died at the age of eighty, and she survived him for thirty-four years, being ninety-six when she departed.

Their eldest son Charles, born December llth, 1757, first showed his talent when nearly three years old, by picking out a tune correctly on the harpsichord, and, what was more, putting a true bass to it. At four years of age his father took the little fellow to London, where the first musicians of the day pointed out that he ought to be brought up to follow his natural bent as a profession. His father and uncle do not appear to have made the slightest objection, and it was probably very pleasing to them when they found that the boy turned instinctively to cathedral music. Dr. Boyce was long his principal master, and after him Mr. Kelway, who introduced his pupil and protege to the notice of King George III.

Under his father's tuition he received the rudiments of a classical education, grew up to have very gentle and even courtier-like manners, and for his simplicity and kindness of heart was a universal favourite ; but so little calculated was he to take care of himself in this naughty world, that his sister devoted herself to him, and acted as a sort of guardian angel, though a very unobtrusive one.

The first time Charles received the royal command to attend at Buckingham House was in 1775, when he was just eighteen ; and he was carried across the Park in a sedan-chair, after having been, it is said, carefully dressed by his mother and sister. From that time forth he was annually summoned to Windsor ; and when Princess Charlotte was old enough to require a music master, he was selected for the post. He ultimately became organist at Marylebone Church, and was well known in musical circles. One who knew him well, said, " In music he was an angel ; in everything else a child." He scarcely knew a day's illhealth, and died in 1834 at the age of seventy-seven.

Sally, as she was called to distinguish her from her mother, was born at Bristol in 1759, and from the first was a great favourite with her father, who was a most affectionate parent. Busy as he was riding to and fro between London and Bristol, and fulfilling his brother's behests, which were neither few nor far between, he managed to write long letters to his wife about the children. The little girl must have been about a year old when he wrote : " She should take after me, as she is to be my child. One and another give me presents for Charley, but nobody seems to take any notice of poor Sally — even her godmother seems to slight her." He was always thinking of his daughter, contriving surprises for her, and bidding her mother send her up the hill to Gotham from their home in Stoke's Croft, that she might be strengthened by the country breezes. She grew up to be a great reader, and early aimed at authorship, in verse of course, or she would not have been a Wesley. John Wesley was very fond of her, and, when she was about fifteen, promised to take her with him to Canterbury and Dover. A scandal arose which seemed to make it imperative that he should remain in London, and Charles urged him to postpone the journey. " Brother," said John, " when I devoted to God my ease, my time, my life, did I except my reputation ? No. Tell Sally I will take her to Canterbury to-morrow/' She was a clever woman, and wrote a very neat, clear hand, expressing herself always in pure English, such as might be written by a lady of the present day ; and her orthography was perfect. Every language she had the opportunity of learning came to her easily, as it had done to her father and grandfather ; and she added to her slender income by translating foreign letters for the journals of tlie day. Like her mother, she early lost her personal beauty through small-pox, and it added to the shyness of her disposition, which, however, wore off to some extent in her later years. She supplied Dr. Adam Clarke with a great many of the details he used in his Wesley Family. It is difficult to select a short poem illustrative of her style, but the following, which was addressed to Campbell on the death of one of his children, is a very good specimen. It was first published from her own manuscript in 1876 in Mr. Stevenson's Memorials, and was republished in the Quiver, with some original letters of her own and her brother's, a few months later : — ON THE DEATH OF AN INFANT. For thee no treacherous world prepares A youth of complicated snares : No wild ambition's raging flame Shall tempt thy ripened years with fame ; No avarice shall thine age decoy, Far off from sweet diffusive joy ; Happy beyond the happiest fate, Snatched from the ills that vex the great, From anxious toils, entangling strife, And every care of meaner life. Happy ! though thou hast scarcely trod The thorny path which leads to God, Where friendless virtue weeps and prays, Oft wildered in the doubtful maze, Nor knew that virtue wept in vain — Nor felt a greater ill than pain, Already sainted in the sky, Sweet babe ! that did but weep and die !

Miss Wesley died at Bristol, in the autumn of 1828, of sore throat, when sixty-nine years of age. She was buried in the same grave with five of her brothers and sisters, in St. James' Churchyard ; and Charles, inconsolable for her loss, and all but incapable of acting for himself, posted back to London, at an expenditure of thirty-six pounds !

Samuel was born on February 24th, 1766, on the eighty-second anniversary of Handel's birth. He was not so precocious as Charles in music, and, instead of instinctively playing a true bass by ear, did not attempt it till he had learned his notes. Someone gave him a small violin, and he used to accompany Charles on it, and sing to his playing, and sometimes, rather to the horror of those holding the notions of the time — that an elder brother was to be held infallible by the younger — he would presume to find fault. He began composing an oratorio called Ruth before he was six years old, and had quite finished and written it down by the time he was eight, when he gravely presented it to Dr. Boyce, who received it with ceremonious thanks. He must have been quite a child when he took the organ at Bath Abbey for a month, and played the first violin in many private concerts. He made satisfactory progress in his general education, and had plenty of common sense.

After Charles Wesley removed to London, and when his sons were a good deal talked about, Dr. Johnson — who, as is well known, had no ear for music — felt that it was his bounden duty, out of respect aiid friendship for the family, to call and hear the lads play. He made no preamble about the matter, but at once introduced the subject by saying — in his ponderous fashion — to the father, " I understand, Sir, your boys are skilled in music ; pray, let me hear them." They were always willing, and sat down to their instruments at once. Dr. Johnson took a chair, and, picking up a book from the window-seat, immediately began to read and to roll about, as was his custom. The moment the music ceased he looked up, closed his book, said, " Young gentlemen, I am much obliged to you/' and departed.

Samuel Wesley had a great dislike to London, and for many years sought and found musical engagements in the country. After his marriage he lived for some time near Barnet, and then at Camden Town, which was quite rural in those days. He was an indefatigable letter-writer, and used to fill many sheets of paper with musical and other gossip, for the amusement of Charles and Sally. He gave at least ten " hostages to fortune," and died in October 1837, in his seventy-second year.

He lived to see his eldest son, Charles, a Doctor of Divinity, and Sub-Dean of the Chapels Royal. For thirty years Dr. Wesley was thus connected with St. James's Palace, and, in his official capacity, was present when Queen Victoria was confirmed, crowned, and married, and also when she was " churched," after the birth of her first child, the Princess Royal. He was at the royal infant's christening, and, seventeen years later, at her marriage with the Crown Prince of Prussia. He died at St. James's in 1859, and left two daughters.

Samuel Sebastian Wesley, well known as a Doctor of Music, was the third son of Samuel Wesley, and in his youth was one of the choristers of the Chapel Royal, St. James's. When little more than twenty-one he was chosen organist of Hereford Cathedral, where, a year or two afterwards, he married the sister of the Dean, Dr. Merewether. In 1835 he became organist at Exeter Cathedral ; but, after remaining there for seven years, he went to Leeds, and held the post of organist of the parish church during part of the late Dean Hook's long and vigorous incumbency. In 1849 the position of organist at Winchester Cathedral was offered to and accepted by him. This was a position very much to his taste, especially as it enabled his five sons to be educated at Winchester School. In 1865 he became organist at Gloucester Cathedral, and from that time took a prominent part in the musical festivals of the West of England. Two of his sons are clergymen in the Church of England, two are Doctors of Medicine, and one is pushing his way in Australia. He died on the 19th of April 1876, at the comparatively early age of sixty-six, which, to quote his Aunt Sally, when speaking of another relative, was far from being the term of life " attained by our respectable ancestors."

It is remarkable that Wesleyanism has found so little favour in its founder's own family. With the exception of some of their sisters, who became connected with the Society, John and Charles stood alone during their lifetime, so far as their relatives were concerned, and the majority of those who have since borne their name have adhered staunchly to the Church of England. This is as John himself would have had it, for he was no Separatist, though he could not stop the movement of which he was the mainspring ; nor did he wish to do so, but he did not see that it would necessarily lead to secession. Blood, however, will tell, and a vast amount of talent and energy are still manifested in all the descendants of the Epworth family. Impetuous and quick-witted, and, perhaps, not overmuch given to take thought for the morrow, they must all be up and doing, and in these characteristics they vindicate their lineage, and the vigour of that original strain which is still so far from being worn out.

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