The founder of Exeter College was Walter Stapleton, Bishop of Exeter, Lord Treasurer of England, and Secretary of State to King Edward II., 1316. He founded a society of thirteen—that is, a rector and twelve fellows—one of whom, the chaplain, was to be appointed by the dean and chapter of Exeter; eight were to be elected out of the archdeaconries of Exeter, Totnes, and Barnstaple; and four out of the archdeaconry of Cornwall. Among the subsequent benefactors of Exeter College was Edmund Stafford, Bishop of Exeter, who settled two fellowships for the diocese of Sarum. Sir William Petre obtained a new charter and new statutes, and founded eight additional fellowships. Charles I. added one for Jersey and Guernsey; and Mrs Shiers added two more for Hertford and Surrey. The number of students was about eighty, and the visitor was the Bishop of Exeter.
Samuel Wesley entered this college as a servitor. A “servitor” means a scholar or student, who attends and waits on another scholar or student, and receives, as a compensation, his maintenance. Such was the position of young Wesley. There was no help for it. He was determined to secure the benefits of a university education; and, in the absence of money and of friends, he became a servant to some other scholar in order to find himself bread. There was no disgrace in this; and yet, it is not difficult to imagine that such a “servitor,” notwithstanding his cleverness, would be subjected to taunts from beardless youths, who, in all respects excepting one, were vastly his inferiors. Here was a young man, twenty-one years of age, respectably connected, highly educated, but well-nigh as poor as poverty could make him, resolved upon the acquisition of academic fame; and, in the struggle, battling with his innate pride, and patiently, if not cheerfully, submitting to annoyances for the sake of obtaining that upon which his heart was set. Difficulties, which would have discouraged others, aroused him; and he resolved to conquer or to die.
Samuel Wesley was a servitor; and he was also entered as pauper scholaris, which was the lowest of the four conditions of members of the Exeter College. He began as low as he could begin; but struggling with discouragements increased his strength instead of lessening it. He rose superior to his obstacles. Besides attending to the humiliating duties of a servitor, he composed exercises for those who had more money than mind, and gave instructions to those who wished to profit by his lessons; and thus, by unwearied toil and great frugality, the poor, fatherless, and friendless scholar, not only managed to support himself, but when he retired from Oxford in 1688, he was seven pounds fifteen shillings richer than he was when he first entered it in 1683. Who can tell his struggles during the five years of privation spent at this great seat of learning? His servitorial services might obtain him bread; but what about the payment of his fees, the purchase of his clothes, and the procuring of fire? The first winter of his residence at Oxford, was one of the severest recorded in the annals of English history. Calamy tells us that “the Thames was frozen over, and the ice so firm and strong, that there were hundreds of booths and shops upon it. Coaches plied as freely from the Temple Stairs to Westminster, as if they had gone upon the land. All sorts of diversions were practised on the congealed waters, and even an ox was roasted whole on the river, over against Whitehall.” Such was the bitter commencement of Samuel Wesley’s collegiate life; and, at the most, he only had about two pounds, in his almost needless purse, to meet it.
“Necessity is the mother of invention.” It was this, probably, that induced Samuel Wesley to publish his first work in 1685. Whilst he was at Mr Veal’s and Mr Morton’s academies, he wrote a number of boyish rhymes, several of which were recited from the platforms of those academies, and gained applause from the tutors and pupils present. Other poetical pieces of a similar description were written after he went to Oxford; and the whole, during the second year of his residence, were published under the title of “Maggots; or Poems on several subjects never before handled, by a Scholar, London. Printed for John Dunton, at the sign of the Black Raven, near the Royal Exchange, 1685.”
This book will neither instruct the reader, nor contribute to the author’s literary fame; and yet, because it was the first book published by an eminent literary man; and because it is now so extremely scarce, that hardly one Wesleyan student in a thousand has ever seen it, a brief description of it may be interesting, if not useful.
The book begins with an anonymous portrait of the author, crowned with laurel, and having a Maggot seated on his brow. Beneath the portrait are the following lines:—
“In his own defence the author writes,
Because when this foul maggot bites,
He ne’er can rest in quiet:
Which makes him make so sad a face,