Maggots: or Poems on Several Subjects never before Handled was no very marketable book of rhymes. Yet it served its purpose and helped him, through Dunton, to become acquainted with a few men of letters and learning. He had something better, too, to cheer his start in London. Dunton in 1682 had married Elizabeth, one of the many daughters of Dr. Samuel Annesley, the famous Dissenter, then preaching at a Nonconformist church which he had opened in Little St. Helen's, Bishopsgate. Young Wesley, a student at Newington Green, had been present at the wedding, with a copy of verses in his pocket: and there, in a corner of the Doctor's gloomy house in Spital Yard, he came on the Doctor's youngest daughter, a slight girl of fourteen, seated and watching the guests.
She was but a child, and just then an unhappy one, though with no childish trouble. Minds ripened early in Annesley House, where scholars and divines resorted to discuss the battle raging between Church and Dissent. Susanna Annesley had listened and brooded upon what she heard; and now her convictions troubled her, for she saw, or thought she saw, the Church to be in the right, and herself an alien in her father's house, secretly rebellious against those she loved and preparing to disappoint them cruelly. She knew her father's beliefs to be as strong and deep as they were temperately expressed.
So it happened that Samuel Wesley, halting awkwardly (as a hobbledehoy will) before this slip of a girl and stammering some words meant to comfort her for losing her sister, presently found himself answering strange questions, staring into young eyes which had somehow surprised his own doubts of Dissent, and beyond them into a mind which had come to its own decision and quietly, firmly, invited him to follow. It startled him so that love dawned at the same moment with a lesser shock. He seated himself on the window cushion beside her, and after this they talked a very little, but watched the guests, feeling like two conspirators in the crowd, feeling also that the world was suddenly changed for them both.
And thus it came about that Samuel Wesley dropped his pen, packed his books, and tramped off to Oxford. He was back again now, after five years, with his degree, but no money as yet to marry on. He started with a curacy at 28 pounds a year; was appointed chaplain on board a man-of-war, when his income rose to 70 pounds; and began an epic poem on the Life of Christ, scribbling (since he had leisure) at the rate of two hundred couplets a day; but soon returned to London, where he obtained a second curacy and 30 pounds year. His pen earned him another 30 pounds, and on this he decided to marry.
Between him and Susanna Annesley there had been little talk of love, but no doubt at all. She was now close upon twenty, and ready to marry him when he named the day. So married they were, in 1689. Less than a year later their first child, Samuel, was born in their London lodgings, and soon after came an offer, from the Massingberd family, through the Marquis of Normanby, of the living of South Ormsby in Lincolnshire. Thither accordingly they journeyed on Midsummer Day, 1690, and there resided until the spring of 1697 in a vicarage little better than a mud-built hut. There Mrs. Wesley bare Emilia, Susannah and Molly, besides other children who died in infancy, and there the Rector put forth his Life of our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. A heroic poem in ten books: besides such trifles as "The Young Student's Library: containing Extracts and Abridgments of the most Valuable Books printed in England and in the Foreign Journals from the year '65 to this time. To which is added A New Essay upon all sorts of Learning."
Close by the parish church stood the Hall, the great house of the Lord Marquis of Normanby who in 1694 made Mr. Wesley his domestic chaplain. The Marquis was a rake, and he and his mistresses gave the poor clergyman many searchings of heart. There was one who took a fancy to Mrs. Wesley and would be intimate with her. Coming home one day and finding this visitor seated with his wife, Mr. Wesley went up to her, took her by the hand and very fairly handed her out. It cost him his living: but the Marquis, being what is called a good fellow in the main, bore him no grudge; nay, rather liked his spirit, and afterwards showed himself a good friend to the amount of twenty guineas, to which the Marchioness (but this is more explicable) added five from her own purse.
By good fortune the living of Epworth fell vacant just then, and in accordance with some wish or promise of the late Queen Mary, to whom he had dedicated his Life of Christ, Mr. Wesley was presented to it, a decent preferment, worth about 200 pounds a year in the currency of those times. But by this time his family was large; he was in debt; the fees to be paid before taking up the living ate farther into his credit; a larger house had to be maintained, with three acres of garden and farm-buildings; and his new parishioners hated his politics and made life as miserable for him as they could. They were savage fighters, but they found their match. In 1702 they set fire secretly to the parsonage-house, and burned down two-thirds of it. In the winter of 1704 they destroyed a great part of his crop of flax. This was the year of Blenheim, and upon news of the victory Mr. Wesley sat down to commemorate it in heroic verse. The poem (published in the early days of 1705), if inferior to Mr. Addison's on the same occasion, ran to five hundred and ninety-four lines, and contained compliments enough to please the great Duke of Marlborough, who sent for its author, rewarded him with the chaplaincy of Colonel Lepelle's regiment, and promised him a prebend's stall. The Dissenters, who (with some excuse, perhaps) looked upon Mr. Wesley as that worst of foes, a deserter from their own ranks, using their influence in Parliament and at Court, had him deprived of his regiment and denied the stall. In April Queen Anne dissolved Parliament, and in May the late Tory members for the county of Lincoln, Sir John Thorold—and the Dymoke who then held—as his descendant holds to-day—the dignity of Royal Champion, fought and lost an election with the Whig candidates, Colonel Whichcott and Mr. Albert Bertie. The Dissenters of course supported these; and Mr. Wesley, scorning insults and worse, the unpopular side: with what results we may read in these extracts from letters to the Archbishop of York.
Epworth, June 7th, 1705.
I went to Lincoln on Tuesday night, May 29th, and the election began on Wednesday, 30th. A great part of the night our Isle people kept drumming, shouting, and firing of pistols and guns under the window where my wife lay, who had been brought to bed not three weeks. I had put the child to nurse over against my own house; the noise kept his nurse waking till one or two in the morning. Then they left off, and the nurse being heavy with sleep, overlaid the child. She waked, and finding it dead, ran over with it to my house almost distracted, and calling my servants, threw it into their arms. They, as wise as she, ran up with it to my wife and, before she was well awake, threw it cold and dead into hers. She composed herself as well as she could, and that day got it buried.
A clergyman met me in the castle yard and told me to withdraw, for the Isle men intended me a mischief. Another told me he had heard near twenty of them say, "if they got me in the castle yard, they would squeeze my guts out." My servant had the same advice. I went by Gainsbro', and God preserved me.