Whate’er within this sacred hall you find,
Let judgment sort, and skilful method bind;
And as from these you draw your ancient store,
Daily supply the magazine with more.”—(Page 3.)
No sooner was the “Epistle concerning Poetry” out of hand, than Samuel Wesley devoted himself to a much larger poetic work, entitled “The History of the Old and New Testament, attempted in Verse, and adorned with three hundred and thirty Sculptures. Written by S. Wesley, A.M.; the Cuts done by J. Sturt. London: Printed for C. Harper.”
Dr Clarke says the first edition of this work was published in 1701; but the earliest edition with which the writer is acquainted was published in 1704, and is in three volumes, of about three hundred and fifty pages each. Another edition was published in 1717, and was dedicated to “the Most Honourable the Lady Marchioness of Normanby;”—a lady “ennobled by birth, beauty, and fortune, but more by piety and virtue.”
In his preface to the reader, he says: “I have but little to say concerning this small present which I here make thee. It is some account of the intervals of my time, which I wish had never been worse employed. There are some passages here represented which are so barren of circumstances, that it was not easy to make them shine in verse; though they could not be well omitted without breaking the thread of the history. But there are others where I have more liberty, wherein it is my own fault if I have not succeeded better. On the whole, if aught that is here may be useful to any good Christian, and tend to promote piety, I shall be better pleased than if I could have composed a book on any other subject worthy to be dedicated in the Vatican; for I hope I am got on the right side of the world, and am as indifferent to it as it can be to me.”
The engravings, or “Sculptures,” as the rector calls them, are small, but full of genius. John Sturt, the artist, was born in 1658, and died in 1730. He is celebrated principally for the extraordinary minuteness and beauty of his engraved writing. He engraved the Lord’s Prayer in the compass of a silver penny, and an Elegy on Queen Mary in so small a size that it might be set in a ring or locket. His most curious work, however, is the “Book of Common Prayer,” which he engraved with marvellous neatness on one hundred and eighty-eight silver plates, in double columns. Prefixed is a portrait of King George I., the lines on the king’s face being made by an inscription of the Lord’s Prayer, the Decalogue, the Creed, the Prayers for the Royal Family, and the 21st Psalm, all in writing so minute as scarcely to be read with the aid of a microscope. This remarkable work was published by subscription in 1717; and about the same time another of his productions was similarly issued, “A Companion to the Altar,” executed in the same ingenious manner. The poor artist, like the poor rector, was beset with poverty all his days. In his old age, he was offered an asylum in the Charter-House, but respectfully declined accepting it. Such was the man who engraved the “three hundred and thirty sculptures” which adorn and illustrate Samuel Wesley’s “History of the Old and New Testaments.”
This work of Wesley, like his Life of Christ, is permanently injured by the hastiness in which it was evidently written, and by the unfinished state of many of its lines; but, at the same time, it contains scores of passages worthy of Wesley’s great genius. To enable the reader to form an opinion of the book’s excellencies and faults, we subjoin a few random extracts, taking four from the Old Testament and four from the New.
After describing Moses and his flock at Horeb, Wesley writes:—