papers behind him. He must have died when far advanced in life. It appears that his father was a married man, and had a family in 1662; and it is probable that Matthew, who was his eldest son, might have been born about the year 1662 or 1664; and as the verses on his death were inserted in the Gentleman's Magazine in the month of June, 1737, in which year he certainly died, he must have been, at his death, about seventy-eight or seventynine years of age.

*

I have before supposed that both he and his brother Samuel might have had the rudiments of a classical education from their father, though they were both comparatively young at the time of his death. But there was such an aptitude to learn, and such a power of comprehension in all the Wesley family, that at ten or twelve years of age they had acquired as much as most others have done when they have arrived at sixteen. We shall meet proofs of this as we proceed in the history of this family.

It is most likely that Matthew continued with the Nonconformists till his death, as we find no intimation that he left their communion. But as he seems to have taken no part in the political and polemical disputes which divided and tortured the people of that day, he was thought by several to be indifferent to all forms of religion. "Had this been so," said Miss Wesley, in a letter now before me, “I should hardly have supposed that such good parents as my grandfather and grandmother would have intrusted him with their darling daughter [Martha.] He had Hetty before. Martha often told me she never had reason to believe it, as he approved her habit of going regularly to morning prayers at church, and was exemplarily moral in his words and actions, esteeming religion, but never talking of its mysteries. Silence on the subject in that age, when controversy was frequent, might give rise to the suspicion that he was skeptically inclined, especially in a family jealous for its spirituality."

Patty lived long with him, the family say from thirteen years of age, and was used by him with the greatest tenderness: but she complained that he was not decidedly religious, though he was strictly moral in his conduct, and

*This, as we have seen, took place about the close of the year 1677, or the beginning of 1678.-" Letter from a Country Divine," p. 4.

highly esteemed piety in others.

See a letter of hers to

her brother John, in the memoirs of her life.

There is an excellent saying of his recorded by Mrs. S. Wesley in a letter to her son John in 1735, which should not be omitted: -"Never let any man know that you have heard what he has said against you. It may be he spake on some misinformation, or was in a passion, or did it in a weak compliance with the company; perhaps he has changed his mind, and is sorry for having done it, and may continue friendly to you. But if he finds that you are acquainted with what he has said, he will conclude you cannot forgive him, and upon that supposition will become your enemy."

Mr. Surgeon Wesley had a son who was educated at Oxford, but shortened his life by intemperance. Of any other part of his family I have heard nothing. The late Mr. Charles Wesley used to say, "This young man was a profligate, and the only drunkard in the family." In the Bankrupt's Directory for 1708 is the name of Matthew Wesley, apothecary, London. This was most probably the son of old Dr. Matthew Wesley, who not only shortened his life, but dissipated his goods, by riotous living. "Familiar Epistle to a Friend," also published in the poems of Mr. Samuel Wesley, jun., Cambridge edition, 1743, p. 159, there appears to be an allusion to this "battered rake," in a "tale," which he says was "told by my aunt of seventy-five," referring to Matthew's wife, together with her profligate son.

In a

SAMUEL WESLEY, RECTOR OF EPWORTH,

FATHER OF THE REV. JOHN WESLEY, FOUNDER OF THE METHODISTS.

We have already seen that John Wesley, vicar of Winterborn Whitchurch, Dorsetshire, left two sons, Matthew and Samuel. Of the former we have spoken according to the scanty documents which remain. Of the latter we have more copious materials, with some original informa tion which has never yet been laid before the public.

Mr. Samuel Wesley appears to have been born at Whitchurch in the year 1666. He was educated at the freeschool at Dorchester, by Mr. Henry Dolling, to whom,

out of respect, he dedicated the first work he printed. Afterward he became a pupil of the very worthy and learned Mr. Edward Veal, one of the Bartholomew confessors, who at that time was an eminent tutor of a dissenting academy at Stepney. From thence he was removed, after a period of two years, and placed under the care of the ingenious Mr. Charles Morton, who kept another of these dissenting academies at Newington Green. In each of these places he appears to have profited much in classical learning; though there were many things in the private academies of the Dissenters with which he found fault, and which, from one of his publications on the subject, we learn, were very reprehensible: but they appear to have been chiefly of a political nature. His objections to the manner in which the dissenting academies were conducted, he stated in a private letter to a friend, who, several years after, (in 1703,) without Mr. Wesley's consent or knowledge, published it, which produced a controversy that shall be noticed in its proper place.

The famous Daniel De Foe was educated at the same school,* and has some good remarks on their academies : "It is evident," says he, "the great imperfection of our academies is, want of conversation: this the public universities enjoy; ours cannot. If a man pores upon his book, and despises the advantages of conversation, he always comes out a pedant, a mere scholar, rough and unfit for anything out of the walls of the college. Conversation polishes the gentleman, acquaints him with men and with words; gives him style, accent, delicacy, and taste of expression; and when he comes to appear in public, he preaches, as he discourses, easy, free, plain, unaffected, and untainted with force, stiffness, formality, affected hard words, and all the ridiculous part of a learned pedant, which is, being interpreted, a school-fop. While, on the other hand, from our schools we have abundance of instances of men, that come away masters of science, critics in Greek and Hebrew, perfect in languages, and perfectly ignorant, if that term may be allowed, of their mother tongue." -P. 19.

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Many of the tutors in our academies, being careful to keep the knowledge of the tongues, have all their readings

* Rev. Charles Morton's Newington Green.