The book is also illustrated with a most hideous picture of the five cities of the plain, probably designed and executed by the untutored hand of John Whitelamb; two maps of the region of the Red Sea; another plate, pretending to represent the tombs of Rachel, Dionysius, the Maccabees, Semiramis, and Herod the Great; two maps of Arabia; a map of Maundell’s Journey from Aleppo to Jerusalem; an illustration of the Borealis; together with large-sized engravings of the hippopotamus, the crocodile, and the horse.
In reference to the horse, the following anecdote is worth preserving. It appears that Lord Oxford had in his possession, what was supposed to be, the finest Arab horse in existence. His Lordship had already shown great kindness to Mr Wesley’s son Samuel at Westminster, and, thus encouraged, the rector wrote, saying he was wishful to illustrate his Dissertations by an engraving of the Arab horse, and that he had been told that his lordship’s “Bloody Arab” was the finest animal of that breed that existed. He adds:—“I have an ambition to get him drawn by the best artist we can find, and place him as the greatest ornament of my work. If your lordship has a picture of him I would beg that my engraver may take a draft from it, or, if not, that my son may have the liberty to get one drawn from life.”[[260]]
Samuel Wesley, jun., shared the intimate friendship of this distinguished statesman, and was a frequent guest at his lordship’s house; and there can be little doubt that, through him, the father’s request was granted, especially remembering that Lord Oxford was not only a great encourager of literature, but the greatest collector, in his time, of curious books and manuscripts, and that he it was who formed the nucleus of the celebrated Harleian library, now one of the richest treasures of the British Museum.
Prefixed to Mr Wesley’s Dissertations is a list of subscribers’ names, numbering more than three hundred, and including thirty-one nobles, fifteen bishops, and twenty-two deans and other dignitaries of the Church. The following are some of the distinguished names in this illustrious list, given alphabetically:—Earl of Ashburnham, Bishop Atterbury, Lord Bathurst, Lord Bolingbroke, Duke of Buckinghamshire, Earl of Burlington, Archbishop of Canterbury, Bishop of London, Earl of Malton, Earl of Orrery, Earl of Oxford, Alexander Pope, Earl of Portmore, Sir Hans Sloane, Dean Swift, Lord Tyrconnel, Dr Waterland, Samuel, John, Charles, and Matthew Wesley, and William Whiston. Such names are a strong intimation of Mr Wesley’s high repute as a literary man.
The proposals for publishing the Dissertations were circulated in 1729, but the book was not ready for the market until about the year 1736, that being the date of a copy now before us. The work was dedicated by permission to Queen Caroline, to whom it was presented by John Wesley, two days before he set sail for Georgia. He says, her Majesty received it with “many good words and smiles.”[[261]] Dr Clarke relates that, when Wesley was introduced into the royal presence, the Queen was romping with her maids of honour; but she suspended her play, took the book from his hand, and said, “It is very prettily bound,” and then laid it down without opening it. He rose up, bowed, walked backward, and withdrew. The Queen bowed and smiled, and immediately resumed her sport.[[262]]
Samuel Badcock, whose friendship for the Wesley family was dubious, says, Mr Wesley’s Dissertations were “never held in any estimation by the learned.” John Wesley replied, “I doubt that. The book certainly contains immense learning, but of a kind which I do not admire.”[[263]]
Bishop Warburton, of whom Dr Johnson says, “his knowledge was too multifarious to be always exact,” writing to Bishop Hurd, remarks: “Poor Job! It was his eternal fate to be persecuted by his friends. His three comforters passed sentence of condemnation upon him, and he has been executing in effigie ever since. He was first bound to the stake by a long Catena of Greek fathers; then tortured by Pineda; then strangled by Caryll; and afterwards cut up by Wesley, and anatomised by Garnet. He was ordained, I think, by a fate like that of Prometheus, to lie still upon his dunghill, and have his brains sucked out by owls.”[[264]]
As a set-off to Warburton’s slap-dash wit, we give a letter which Alexander Pope addressed to Dean Swift in the year 1730:—“This is a letter extraordinary, to do and say nothing but recommend to you a pious and good work, and for a good and honest man; moreover, he is about seventy, and poor, which you might think included in the word ‘honest.’ I shall think it a kindness done to myself, if you can propagate Mr Wesley’s subscription for his Commentary on Job among your divines, (bishops excepted, of whom there is no hope,) and among such as are believers, or readers of Scripture. Even the curious may find something to please them, if they scorn to be edified. It has been the labour of eight years[[265]]of this learned man’s life. I call him what he is—a learned man; and I engage you will approve his prose more than you formerly could his poetry. Lord Bolingbroke is a favourer of it, and allows you to do your best to serve an old Tory and a sufferer for the Church of England, though you are a Whig, as I am.”[[266]]
Lord Oxford wrote to Swift in the same year, requesting the same favour, and says: “The person concerned is a worthy, honest man; and by this work of his he is in hopes to get free of a load of debt which has hung upon him for some years. This debt of his is not owing to any folly or extravagance, but to the calamity of his house having been twice burned, which he was obliged to rebuild; and having but small preferment in the Church, and a large family of children, he has not been able to extricate himself out of the difficulties these accidents have brought upon him. Three sons he has bred up well at Westminster, and they are excellent scholars. The eldest has been one of the ushers in Westminster School since the year 1714. He is a man in years, yet hearty and able to study many hours in a day. This, in short, is the ease of an honest, poor, worthy clergyman; and I hope you will take him under your protection. I cannot pretend that my recommendation should have any weight with you, but as it is joined to and under the wing of Mr Pope.”
We have now passed in review the whole of Mr Wesley’s literary productions, excepting one. This was “A Letter to a Curate,” originally written for the use of the brother of the Rev. Mr Hoole of Haxey, who was about to be ordained, and to become Samuel Wesley’s curate at Epworth. A year or two after, the manuscript was sent to John Wesley, who published it shortly after his father’s death, and says, in his preface, that the reader will “find strong sense and deep experience, in plain, clear, and unaffected words, and a strain of piety running through the whole, worthy a soldier of Jesus Christ.” This considerably-sized pamphlet is now extremely scarce, but the reader may find a reprint of it in an Appendix to Jackson’s “Life of Charles Wesley,” vol. ii. p. 500. As the pamphlet throws great light upon Mr Wesley’s character, displays his immense reading, mentions the leading men of his times with whom he was personally acquainted, and makes several statements respecting his own proceedings as a parish priest, we take the liberty of giving a lengthened outline of its valuable contents.[[267]]