He’d beg your worship, or your grace,

Unsight, unseen, to buy it.”

The book consists of 172 pages; and is dedicated “To the honoured Mr H. D——, Head Master of the Free School in D——, in the county of D——.” “Mr H. D——” was Mr Henry Dolling, who was Samuel Wesley’s schoolmaster at Dorchester. In the dedication, he informs us that this book is his “first formed birth,” and, in his epistle to the reader, he says that “all the Maggots are the natural issue of his own brain pan, born and bred there, and only there.” In reply to the objection, that the work is “light, vain, frothy, and below the gravity of a man, at least of a Christian,” he says, if the objector will lend him a handful of beard, and be at the charge of grafting it on, he will promise a speedy and thorough reformation. Besides, he argues, that time ought to be allowed for recreation as well as work; and, moreover, he hopes that he has written nothing to make even himself or his reader blush. He was never vain enough to think that his “Maggots” would procure him much reputation; neither was he ambitious of seeing his worthy name glittering in a Term Catalogue; and therefore he thought it not worth his while to throw away better time in making his book more perfect.[[20]]

Many of the poems flash with wit, and are most pleasantly expressed. Sometimes there is a want of delicacy; but that, perhaps, is not so much the fault of the man, as of the age in which he wrote. Southey says, “His imagination seems to have been playful and diffuse; and had he written during his son’s celebrity, some of his pieces might perhaps have been condemned by the godly as profane.” Dr A. Clarke demurs to this, and not without reason. There are in the “Maggots” what the present refined age would call indelicate and coarse expressions; but, in this respect, Samuel Wesley was only imitating Dryden and the standard writers of the period in which he lived.

Several of the poems are levelled against the vices of the day, and are scorchingly severe; but it would scarcely answer any good purpose to reproduce them.

We merely give one extract, taken from the piece on “the Tobacco Pipe,” and which is a fair specimen of the entire book. Perhaps, also, it indicates that he had already fallen into the unfortunate habit of smoking, which will have to be noticed in due time:—

“In these raw mornings, when I’m freezing ripe,

What can compare with a tobacco pipe?

Primed, cock’d, and touch’t, ’twould better heat a man

Than ten Bath faggots, or Scotch warming pan.