Ex Libris C. K. OGDEN The death is announced of the Rev. Samuel Wesley, an aged and highly-esteemed minister, who for many years acted as chaplain to the Wesleyan troops stationed at the Hounslow garrison. The deceased minister is said to have been a most interesting and unique personality, bearing a striking facial resemblance to the well-known Founder of Methodism. He was a descendant of John Wesley, A.M., one of the preachers who had been accepted by Oliver Cromwell's triers, and one of the notable 2,000 clergymen expelled in 1662. The deceased gentleman had several of the natural characteristics of the Epworth Wesley, and was the only descendant of that remarkable family in modern days remaining in the British Methodist ministry. He died at Raunds in his eighty-first year. 364 Wesley Family : Memoirs of the, by Adam Clarke, facs. autographs, views of Ep- Eminent Woinen Series EDITED BY JOHN H. INGEAM SUSANNA WESLEY (All rights reserved.) SUSANNA WESLEY BY ELIZA CLARKE LONDON: W. H. ALLEN & CO., 13 WATERLOO PLACE, S.W. 1886. (.411 rights reserved.) LONDON : PBIXTED BY W. H. ALLEN AND CO., 13 WATERLOO PLACE, S.W. PREFACE. THIS life of Susanna Wesley, the mother of John Wesley the founder, and of Charles Wesley the poet, of Methodism, differs from previous ones in not being written from a sectarian nor even from an eminently religious point of view. Having been much asso- ciated with those who had been in familiar inter- course with Charles Wesley's widow and children, and having heard Susanna Wesley continually spoken of as a woman " who underwent and overcame " more difficulties than most, the ideal of her life early aroused my imagination. I was delighted with the opportunity of writing her memoir, and have done so with the sympathetic admiration natural to one in whose veins runs some of her blood, however much diluted. I have done my best to reconcile dates, and give events and letters in their proper order; but it has been a somewhat difficult task, partly because the Old and New Styles have evidently been used indis- criminately, and partly on account of the habit of the family of making rough drafts as well as fair copies 2017799 vi PREFACE. of what they wrote, and the dates given being sometimes those of the actual documents, and some- times those of the copies. More of general interest about Mrs. Wesley ought to have been preserved ; but, unfortunately, she and her family have been regarded solely in connection with Methodism. She was nothing if not religious ; but she was a lady of ancient lineage, a woman of intellect, a keen politician, and, had her ordinary correspondence been preserved, it would have given us an insight into the life of the period which would have been full of deep and world-wide interest. In the preparation of this work I have been greatly indebted to the Rev. J. G-. Stevenson, not only for the use of his valuable Memorials of the Wesley Family, which have been collected from every possible source, but for the kind and patient manner in which he has answered endless questions, consulted autho- rities, supplied me with quotations, and lent me books and pamphlets. Mr. John Wesley also took an interest in my work, and repeatedly proffered me all the assistance in his power. ELIZA CLARKE. CONTENTS. PAGE CHAPTER I. BIKTH AND ANCESTRY . . .1 CHAPTEE II. YOUTH AND MARRIAGE . . *. ft< CHAPTEE III. EARLY MARRIED LIFE ... 15 CHAPTEE IV. LATER MARRIED LIFE ... 22 CHAPTEE V. TEACHING AND TRAINING ... 29 CHAPTEE VI. TRIALS AND TROUBLES ... 44 CHAPTEE VII. MATERNAL SOLICITUDE ... 59 CHAPTEE VIII. FIRE AND PERIL . . . . . 70 CHAPTEE IX. THE HOME REBUILT ... 87 CHAPTEE X. TEACHING IN PUBLIC . . .100 CHAPTEE XL THE SUPERNATURAL NOISES . .113 CHAPTEE XII. DISAPPOINTMENTS AND PERPLEXITIES 127 CHAPTEE XIII. PARTINGS . '. . . . 150 CHAPTEE XIV. WIDOWHOOD . . . . 182 CHAPTEE XV. LAST YEARS 199 CHAPTEE XVI. SURVIVORS AND DESCENDANTS . 212 LIST OF AUTHORITIES. Memorials of the Wesley Family, by the Rev. G. J. Stevenson. 1876. The Life of John Wesley, by the Rev. Luke Tyerman. 1870. Memoirs of the Wesley Family, by Dr. Adam Clarke. 1823. Life of Wesley, by Robert Southey. 1820. Original Letters by the Rev. John Wesley and his Friends, by Dr. Joseph Priestly. 1791. Life of Charles Wesley, by John Whitehead, M.D. 1805. The Mother of the Wesleys, by the Rev. John Kirk. 1876. The Methodist Pocket-Book. 1800. The Wesley Banner. April and May, 1852. Mrs. Wesley's original Papers. SUSANNA WESLEY. CHAPTER I. BIRTH AND ANCESTRY. THE armies of the Church Militant throughout the world were never commanded by a better general than John Wesley. The military instinct was strong in every fibre of his keen mind and wiry body, and his genius for organizing has probably had far more to do with keeping the hosts of Methodism in vigorous marching order for the last hundred and fifty years, than any of the tenets he inculcated. He had, moreover, the gift of an eloquence that was magnetic, that drew men after him as the multitudes followed Peter the Hermit, and that compelled self-surrender as did the teaching of Ignatius Loyola. He was a born leader of men, who went straight to his point, and carried it by force of personal superiority. He made a very effec- tual lieutenant of his brother Charles, who, had it not been for John, would probably have lived a peaceful, pious life, and been a diligently decorous parish priest 1 2 SUSANNA WESLEY. with a spice of scholarly erudition like his father before him. Men like John are not born in every generation, and, when they do arise, are usually the outcome of a race which has shown talent in isolated instances, but has never before concentrated all its strength in one scion. In the records of such a race there are sure to be certain foreshadowings of the coming prophet, priest or seer, and consequently the lives of his progenitors are full of the deepest interest. Boys usually repro- duce vividly the characteristics of their mothers, so in the person of Susanna Wesley we should seek the hidden springs of the boundless energy and grasp of mind that made her son stand out so prominently as a man of mark among his fellows. Had it not been for him it is probable that her memory would have perished, for, as far as outsiders saw, she was only the struggling wife of a poor country parson, with the proverbial quiverful of children, a narrow income, and an indomitable fund of what is termed proper pride. She was the twenty-fifth and youngest child of her father, Dr. Samuel Annesley, by his second wife, and was born in Spital Yard on the 20th of January 1669. On both sides of the house she was of gentle birth. Her mother's father, John White, born at Higlan in Pembrokeshire, like so many other Welshmen, graduated at Jesus College, Oxford ; he afterwards studied at the Middle Temple and became a bencher. He was probably a sound lawyer and a prosperous man, for we find that he had a goodly number of Puritan clients, and in 1640 was elected M.P. for Southwark. In the House he was known as an active and stirring member of the party opposed to the King, Charles I., and in the proceedings that led to the death of that BIRTH AND ANCESTRY. 3 ill-fated monarch he seems to have taken some consider- able share. He was by no means silent or passive when Episcopacy was under discussion, and would fain have seen the offices of deacons, priests, and bishops abolished. He was chairman of the Committee for Religion, and in that capacity had to consider the cases of one hundred clergymen who lived scandalous lives. These cases he published in a quarto volume of fifty- seven pages, a copy of which, under the title of The First Century of Scandalous and Malignant Priests, may be seen in the British Museum. Mr. White was, moreover, a member of the Westminster Assembly of Divines ; and what with the excitement and unrest of the times, his natural zeal, and the heat of party spirit, he wore himself out at the comparatively early age of fifty- four, and was buried with a considerable amount of ceremony in the Temple Church on the 29th of January 1644. Over his grave was placed a marble tablet with this inscription : Here lyeth a John, a burning, shining light, Whose name, life, actions all were White. It was no doubt to his maternal great-grandfather that Charles Wesley alluded many years after, when his daughter Sally refused to believe that kings reigned by Divine right ; and in his anger at her contumacy exclaimed, " I protest, the rebel blood of some of her ancestors runs in her veins ! " Dr.- Annesley was himself of aristocratic lineage, and looked it every inch. His father and the Earl of Anglesey of that date were first cousins, their fathers being brothers. Samuel Annesley was an only child, and received the Christian name that has been trans- mitted to so many of his descendants, at the request of 1 * 4 SUSANNA WESLEY. a saintly grandmother who was called to her rest before his birth. He was born in 1620 at Haseley in War- wickshire, and inherited a considerable amount of pro- perty. He had the misfortune to lose his father when only four years old, and was brought up by his mother, who seems to have been an eminently pious woman. Religion, it must be remembered, was the burning question of the day, and Puritanism was at its height ; though there were many godly and exemplary people in the opposite, or what we should now call the High Church party. Young Annesley entered at Queen's College, Oxford, at the age of fifteen, acquitted himself well there, and in due course took his M.A. degree. When he was twenty-four years of age and had deli- berately chosen the Church as his profession, the affairs of the nation had reached a crisis. Charles I. had de- clared war against the Parliament, and his queen had sailed from Dover with the crown jewels, hoping to sell them, and thereby procure munitions of war for the husband to whom she was so deeply attached. The Royalist party withdrew from their seats in the House of Commons, whereupon the remaining members drew closer together, enrolled the militia, and appointed the Earl of Warwick Admiral of the Fleet. He it was who, having a kindness for his young county neighbour, and receiving a certificate of his ordination signed by seven clergymen, procured for him his diploma as LL.D. and appointed him chaplain to a man-of-war called the Globe. This post, however, did not suit Samuel Annesley, and we speedily find that he quitted it and accepted the living of Cliffe in Kent, worth about four hundred pounds a year. This cure had been left vacant by the sequestration of the previous vicar for immorality, so that his appointment probably marks BIRTH AND ANCESTRY. 5 liis acquaintance with John White, whose daughter he married in after years. But before settling at Cliffe he had espoused a young wife, who bore him a son, named Samuel after his father. She died, and was buried in the chancel of the church where her hus- band officiated, and her little boy survived her only four years, and was buried there in 1653. Dr. Annesley was much opposed when he first went to Cliffe, for the people were tarred with the same brush as their previous vicar, and received the new one with spits, pitchforks, and stones. Nothing daunted by this, he assured them that he was the last man to be frightened away from his post, and he should stay at Clifie till they were prepared by his means for the ministry of someone better. He was as good as his word, and had the pleasure of seeing great im- provement among them before he was called else- where. In 1648 a solemn national fast day was proclaimed, and Dr. Annesley sent for to preach a sermon before the House of Commons. His sermon won him much favour and was printed by command : it contained a passage very acceptable to the Parliament in its then temper, but which gave great offence to the Royalists, who justly regarded it as a reflection on the King, who was at that moment imprisoned at Carisbrooke Castle. According to the young divine's own account, which is still to be found in the State Paper Office, when the King was executed the following year he publicly asserted his conviction that it was a " horrid murder/' spoke against Cromwell as " the arrantest hypocrite that ever the Church of Christ was pestered with/' and said other disrespectful things of the ruling powers, which, being repeated, led to his leaving Cliffe, or 6 SUSANNA WESLEY. possibly being turned out of it, to the great regret and sorrow of his parishioners, who had learned to love and trust him. The inhabitants of the parish of St. John the Evan- gelist, Friday Street, Cheapside, unanimously chose him as their minister in 1652 ; and though he speaks of it as the smallest in London, it is evident that he remained there six or seven years. He must have married Miss White on his first settlement in the metropolis. That he would gladly have gone else- where is rendered probable by his declaration that Cromwell twice refused to present him to a living worth four hundred pounds a year, though he was the nominee of the patron. In July 1657 the Protector, however, gave Aunesley the Lord's Day evening lecture at St. Paul's, which brought him one hundred and twenty pounds a year; and twelve months after, through the favour of Richard Cromwell, he was made vicar of St. Giles', Cripplegate, against the wish of some of the inhabitants, who at the Restoration petitioned Charles II. for his removal. That monarch, however, confirmed him in his living possibly because he did not wish to make too rapid or sweeping changes. Dr. Amiesley had been a prominent man among the Puritan divines, whether he approved of the execution of the "martyred King'' or no, for he had been one of the commissioners appointed by the Act of Parlia- ment for the approbation and admission of ministers of the Gospel after the Presbyterian manner. No doubt he would have liked to have retained his living and won the favour of the King, for his ancestral instincts were likely to make him Royalist rather than Round- head. But when it came to a question of conscience he was firm to his principles, and in 1662, when the BIRTH AND ANCESTRY. 7 Act of Uniformity was passed, he refused to subscribe to it, and, like Howe and Baxter, and two thousand of the best and most prominent clergy of the time, was ejected on St. Bartholomew's Day. The Earl of Anglesey strove hard to persuade his kinsman to con- form, and promised him preferment ; but it was impos- sible to move him, and he frequently preached in private, though ten years elapsed before the Declaration of Indulgence made it safe for him to get the Meeting House in Little St. Helen's licensed, where he offi- ciated to a large and affectionate congregation till his death. He was a remarkably handsome man, tall and dignified, and of a very robust constitution, and several of his children resembled him in personal beauty. Comparison of his portraits with those of living types, show that his aquiline nose, short upper lip, wavy brown hair, and peculiarly strong and durable sight, have been largely transmitted to his descendants. Few of them, however, have been tall, although the majority have been strong and hardy. He was devotedly fond of his wife, and their family increased annually and even oftener. There were two boys, Samuel who died in India, and Benjamin who was executor to his father's will, but most of the chil- dren were girls. Judith was a very handsome and strong-minded woman, whose portrait was painted by Sir Peter Lely ; Anne was a wit as well as a beauty, and married a rich man ; Elizabeth, who married Duntoii, the eccentric bookseller, was very pretty, sweet-natured, and perhaps as near perfection as any mortal can be. There was also a Sarah and three others, of whom all we know is that they grew up to womanhood and married. Susanna was slim and very pretty, and retained her good looks and symmetry 8 SUSANNA WESLEY. of figure to old age, although she was the mother of nineteen children. There is a well-known anecdote of the Rev. Thomas Manton, who, after christening Susanna, was asked by a friend how many olive branches Dr. Annesley had ; he replied that it was either a couple of dozen or a quarter of a hundred. It is probable, however, that out of this large number several died in infancy. Still, the quiver was very full indeed, though, the parents not being by any means poor, all who survived were well cared for and solidly educated. CHAPTER II. YOUTH AND MARRIAGE. WHATEVER accomplishments Susanna Annesley may have lacked, she was perfect mistress of English unde- tiled, had a ready flow of words, an abundance of common sense, and that gift of letter- writing which is supposed to have vanished out of the world at the introduction of the Penny Post. She pro- bably had sufficient acquaintance with the French language to enable her to read easy authors ; but at an age when a girl of her years and capacity ought to have been reading literature, she appears to have been studying the religious questions of the day. It is true that they were uppermost in all minds, but it is equally true that her father, Dr. Annesley, had laid controversy aside and did not add a single pamphlet to the vast army of them which invaded the world at that epoch. He was a liberal and a large-minded man, and no stronger proof of it can be adduced than that his youngest daughter, before she was thirteen, was allowed so much liberty of conscience, that she deliberately chose and preferred attaching herself to the Church of England rather than remaining among the Noncon- formists, with whom her father had cast in his lot. 10 SUSANNA WESLEY. Perhaps he sympathised with her, at all events he neither reproached nor hindered her ; to the end of his life she remained his favourite child, and it was to her care that he committed the family papers, which, unfortunately, were destroyed in the fire that many years after wrecked the parsonage at Epworth. Among the many visitors to the hospitable house in Spital Yard was Samuel Wesley, the descendant of a long line of " gentlemen and scholars," as they were termed by one of his grandsons. He was an inmate of the Rev. Edward Veal's dissenting academy at Stepney, and was a promising student with a ready pen. The pedigree of his family was traceable to the days of Athelstan, when they were people of some repute, probably the remnants of a good old decayed stock. They were connected with the counties of Devon and Somerset, always intermarrying with the best families ; some of them fought in Ireland and acquired property there. It need only be added that Lord Mornington, the Duke of Wellington, Sir Robert Ker Porter and his sisters, the famous novelists, were among their kith and kin, to show that many and rare talents and a vast amount of energy were hereditary gifts. Samuel Wesley was the son of the Rev. John Wesley, some- time vicar of Winterborn, Whitchurch, in Dorsetshire, one of the ejected clergy, and a grandson of the Rev. Bartholomew Wesley, who married Ann Colley of Castle Carbery, Ireland, and was the third son of Sir Herbert Wesley, by his wife and cousin Elizabeth Wesley of Daugan Castle, Ireland. These few facts will probably make clear to most minds the main points respecting the family connections and their proclivities. Samuel Wesley had been from his youth a hard YOUTH AND MARRIAGE. 11 worker, and as the course of his education did not for many years take the direction he desired, he contrived to earn for himself the University training essential to- a scholar. The foundation of a liberal education was laid at the Free School, Dorchester, where he remained till nearly sixteen, when his father died, leaving a widow and family in very poor circumstances. The Dissenting friends of both parents then came forward and obtained for the promising eldest son an exhibi- tion of thirty pounds a year, raised among themselves, and sent him to London, to Mr. Veal's at Stepney, where he remained for a couple of years. There are two things almost inseparable from a tincture of Irish blood at all events in the upper and cultivated classes a wonderful facility for scribbling and a hot-headed love of engaging in small controver- sies. Both of them speedily came to light in Samuel Wesley, for he at once became a dabbler in rhyme and faction, and so far pleased his patrons that they printed a good many of his jeux (f esprit. Some words of sound advice were given him by Dr. Owen, who was, perhaps, afraid that the intoxication of seeing himself in print might lead to neglect of severer studies. He counselled the youth to apply himself to critical learn- ing, and gilded the pill by a bonus of ten pounds a year as a reward for good conduct and progress. In conse- quence of continual magisterial prosecutions, Mr. Veal was obliged to give up his establishment, and his clever young pupil was transferred to that of Mr. Charlea Morton, M.A., of Newington Green, which then stood foremost among Dissenting places of education. Samuel Wesley's mother and a maiden aunt appear to have migrated to London, and with them he made his home. Literary work and remuneration opened before him, 12 SUSANNA WESLEY. for he was engaged to translate some of the works of John Biddle, regarded as the father of English Unita- rians ; but it is said that as he could not conscientiously approve of their tendency, he threw up the affair. The passion of writing lampoons, however, remained strong, and was further fanned by his meeting at Dr. Annesley's with John Dunton, the bookseller, who was then wooing Elizabeth Annesley. The two became firm friends, as is not unusual when a wealthy publisher meets with a young man of literary ability, whose peculiar line of talent runs parallel with the taste of the times. From that hour his literary earn- ings went far towards his support, and he needed them , for he was becoming discontented with the Dissenters and beginning to find fault with their doctrines. Dr. Owen wished him and some others to graduate at one of the English universities, with the notion that the tide might soon turn, and that Dissenters might be allowed to take the ordinary degrees ; but the idea that any of them would prove recreant to Nonconformist prin- ciples does not appear to have entered the good man's head. It also appears that a e: reverend and worthy " member of the Wesley family came to London from a great distance, and held serious converse with his young kinsman against the " Dissenting schism " ; so it is probable that several influences combined to induce Samuel, at the age of one-and-twenty, to quit his non-conforming friends and join the Church of England. He had, moreover, made up his mind to go to Oxford, and, as a young man of spirit, could surely not have wished to be hampered and baulked in his University career by entering that abode of learning without belonging to the Established Church. It was the reaction of the frame of mind in which he had YO UTH AND MA RR I A GE. 1$ written squibs and lampoons on the opposite side of the question, and the scars of persecution and contro- versy were still too recent to enable the friends who had hitherto watched his career, to reflect that " our little systems have their day" and ultimately "cease to be." Hearts are the same in all centuries, and, consider- ing that Susanna Wesley was some years younger than her future husband, one cannot help thinking that Cupid had something to do with the change of views she avowed so early in her teens, and that her kind and warm-hearted father had some suspicion of the truth, and no objection to it. Samuel Wesley did not care to encounter home opposition ; consequently, he rose before dawn one August morning in 1683, and with forty-five shillings in his pocket walked down to Oxford, where he en- tered himself as a servitor at Exeter College. Here he maintained himself by teaching, by writing exer- cises, &c. that wealthy undergraduates were too idle to do for themselves (a practice he ought not to have countenanced), by whatever literary employment Dun- ton could put into his hands, and by collecting and publishing his various scattered rhymes and poems in a volume, which appears to have rather more than paid its own expenses. He passed his various examinations creditably, and in June 1688 took his B.A. degree. The fact that he was the only student of Exeter who obtained that very moderate distinction in that year, does not say much for the abilities or industry of his companions as a body. Samuel Wesley left Oxford just at the time when James II. had issued his fresh Declaration of Indul- gence, which the clergy for the most part refused to 14 SUSANNA WESLEY. read in their churches, while Archbishop Sancroft and six of his suffragans protested, and were in consequence imprisoned in the Tower. Thus it came to pass that, in the enforced absence of the Bishop of London, Samuel Wesley received deacon's orders at the hands of Dr. Sprat, Bishop of Rochester. The curacy that gave him a title was worth only twenty- eight pounds a year ; but he did not remain in it more than twelve months, when he was ordained priest by Dr. Compton, Bishop of London, at St. Andrew's, Holborn, on the 24th of February 1689, exactly twelve days after William and Mary had been declared sove- reigns of Great Britain. It is said that he wrote and printed the first pamphlet that appeared in support of the new government. It is possible that this procured for him the appointment of chaplain on board a man-of-war, where he was comparatively rich with seventy pounds a year, and had leisure for a good deal of writing, most of which he employed in the compo- sition of a curious poem on the Life of Christ. He was most likely anxious to be in London, for he soon resigned the chaplaincy, and became again a curate in the metropolis, with an income of thirty pounds, which he doubled by his pen. Money was worth much more then than now, yet it was hardly prudent to marry on so small a pittance; but lovers have so much faith in one another, that he and Susanna Annesley seem to have had no misgivings but plighted their troth in the spring of 1689. It is not known in what church they were married, nor who married them, but it is believed that the bride's new home was in apartments near Holborn. CHAPTER III. EARLY MARRIED LIFE. SUSANNA WESLEY must have been an economical woman and a good housekeeper, for she and her husband lived for two years in London lodgings, during which time their eldest son Samuel was born, and managed to pay their way and keep perfectly free from debt on their small income. The young husband now entered into a literary project, which he hoped would add considerably to his resources. He joined Mr. Dunton and a few others in establishing the Athenian Gazette, a weekly publication, that lived for some years. The meetings of the coadjutors were held at stated periods at Smith's Coffee-house in George Yard, now George Street, near the Mansion House. It is calculated that during the existence of this periodical Mr. Wesley contributed about two hun- dred articles to its pages, and it is from the pen of one of his fellow- workers, Charles Gildon who afterwards wrote a history of the " Athenian Society " that we have the best sketch of what manner of man Susanna's husband was in his early prime. " He was a man of profound knowledge, not only of the Holy Scriptures, of the Councils, and of the 16 SUSANNA WESLEY. Fathers, but also of every other art that comes within those called liberal. His zeal and ability in giving spiritual directions were great. With invincible power he confirmed the wavering and confuted here- tics. Beneath the genial warmth of his wit the most barren subject became fertile and divertive. His style was sweet and manly, soft without satiety, and learned without pedantry. His temper and conversation were affable. His compassion for the sufferings of his fellow-creatures was as great as his learning and his parts. Were it possible for any man to act the part of a universal priest, he would certainly deem it his duty to take care of the spiritual good of all mankind. In all his writings and actions he evinced a deep con- cern for all that bear the glorious image of their Maker, and was so apostolical in his spirit, that pains, labours, watchings, and prayers were far more delight- ful to him than honours to the ambitious, wealth to the miser, or pleasure to the voluptuous." Looking back at this distance of time on Samuel Wesley's literary work, it is evident that he was a learned theologian, and had the gift of fluent versifi- cation. His mind and style were narrowed by being continually bent on controversial theology, and he wrote so much and so rapidly in one groove, in order to earn the wherewithal to bring up his large family, that he never attained the high standard of which his youth gave such fair promise. But he was a good man, and a faithful pastor of souls in the obscure corner of Lincolnshire where his lot was afterwards cast ; although, had he remained in London, it is pro- bable that he would have come more to the front, and have become one of the shining intellectual lights of his day. EARLY MARRIED LIFE. 17 The Marquis of Normanby had in some way heard of the young divine and his straitened circumstances, and, in 1690, when the little parish of South Ormsby became vacant by the death of the rector, he mentioned Mr. Wesley to the Massingberds, who then, as now, were lords of the manor and patrons of the living. Their offer of it was at once made and readily accepted, and regarded as a step in advance. The stipend was fifty pounds a year ; there was a house to live in, though a very poor one, and, as the pastoral work was by no means onerous, there was the prospect of abundant leisure for writing. The new incumbent was just eight- and-twenty, his wife was in her twenty-second year, and their babe only four months old, when they left London for the country place that was to be their future home, and with which their memories are indelibly connected. The monotony of country life and the utter absence of the excitement to which Mr. Wesley had been accus- tomed must very soon have chafed his spirit, though he tried to be thankful, as may be seen from his own description : " In a mean cot, composed of reeds and clay, Wasting in sighs the uncomfortable day : Near where the inhospitable Humber roars, Devouring by degrees the neighbouring shores. Let earth go where it will, I '11 not repine, Nor can unhappy be, while Heaven is mine/' There were only thirty-six houses and about two hundred and sixty inhabitants in the parish, wherein the ancient church of St. Leonard stood on rising ground just above the parsonage. The young couple arrived in June, and got settled before the winter came. As the months passed, and little Samuel began to walk, 2 18 SUSANNA WESLEY. his mother was distressed to observe that, though healthy and extremely intelligent, he showed no sign of talking. This made her very anxious, and the care of a child who she feared was dumb, as well as the very natural tenderness for a first-born son, caused " Sammy," as they called him, to be her favourite, a predilection which she, as well as others, fully recog- nised. In 1691 a little girl was born, and named after her mother, and in January of the following year Emilia made her appearance. In April 1693 the infant Susanna died, making the first break in the circle. In 1694 twin boys, Annesley and Jedediah, were born, but died in infancy, and a few months after their death came another girl, who was also named Susanna, and lived to a ripe old age. Mary, the last born at South Ormsby, through a fall became deformed and sickly ; so that it is evident that Mrs. Wesley's hands were always full and her strength sorely tried. It might have been imagined that in this remote village no social difficulties were likely to arise ; but it was not so. The Marquis of Normanby, like many others of his time, was a man of sadly loose morals, and kept a " lady '* at a house in South Ormsby. She took a great fancy to the Rector's pretty wife, and would fain have been very intimate with her. Mrs. Wesley, secure in her own position as a happy wife and mother, does not seem to have harshly discouraged her fallen sister ; but her hot-tempered and high-handed husband was not going to endure it, and, it is averred, coming in one day when the peccant woman was sitting with his wife, he handed her out of the house in a sufficiently peremptory manner. John Wesley says that this conduct gave such offence to the EARLY MARRIED LIFE. 19 Marquis as to necessitate his father's resignation of the living ; but this statement is not borne out by facts. If the story were absolutely correct, the Mar- quis must have recognised the natural indignation of a gentleman, and have respected him accordingly, for Mr. Wesley did not cease to be his private chaplain, nor to dedicate books to him and the Marchioness, nor did the nobleman forget to mention the Rector of South Ormsby at Court. The actual rencontre may very possibly have been with some woman connected with Lord Castleton, who rented the Hall and lived a very dissolute life there. It all happened long before John Wesley was born, so he may easily have been mistaken as to the facts. When Samuel was between four and five years old his parents were relieved of all anxiety about his speech. He was very fond of the cat, and would carry it about and often get away with it into quiet corners, where we may presume that the other little ones did not follow to molest either pussy or her juvenile master. One day he was so long out of sight that his mother grew uneasy. She hunted all over the house and garden, and at length, while calling his name, she heard a voice saying, " Here am I, mother ! " It came from under the table, and, stooping down, she saw Sammy and his cat. From this time forth he spoke as well as other children : Mrs. Wesley's thankfulness may be imagined. It was in 1693 that Mr. Wesley published his heroic poem in ten books, entitled The Life of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and dedicated it to Queen Mary. It was not published by the friendly brother-in-law, Dunton, but " printed for Charles Harper, at the Flower-de-Luce, over against 2 * 20 SUSANNA WESLEY. St. Dunstan's Church, in Fleet Street ; and Benjamin Motte, Aldersgate Street." In truth, Dunton did not think it would improve its author's reputation, and denounced it as " intolerably dull," an opinion shared by Pope. The present generation would certainly endorse their views ; yet it went through a second edition in 1697, and was reprinted in a revised and abridged form a century later. The most interesting passage, and the only one it is desirable to quote here, is Mr. Wesley's sweet and appreciative portrait of the wife to whom he had then been married about four years : " She graced my humble roof and blest my life, Blest me by a far greater name than wife ; Yet still I bore an undisputed sway, Nor was 't her task, but pleasure to obey : Scarce thought, much less could act, what I denied. In our low house there was no room for pride ; Nor need I e'er direct what still was right, She studied my convenience and delight. Nor did I for her care ungrateful prove, But only used my power to show my love : Whatever she asked I gave without reproach or grudge,. For still she reason asked, and I was judge. All my commands requests at her fair hands, And her requests to me were all commands. To other thresholds rarely she 'd incline : Her house her pleasure was, and she was mine ; Rarely abroad, or never but with me, Or when by pity called, or charity.'' In 1694 the Marquis of Normanby did his best both with the Queen and Archbishop Tillotson to recommend Mr. Wesley for the Bishopric of an Irish EARLY MARRIED LIFE. 21 diocese, two of which were then vacant. Considering how much Irish blood ran in the veins of the Wesleys, and also that their connections were people of position in the Emerald Isle, he would probably have been well placed in such a see, and the difference it would have made to his family would have been incalculable. Possibly neither Queen Mary nor the Archbishop knew of these circumstances, but simply thought that a clergyman at thirty-two years of age was too young, and the pastor of two hundred and fifty country people too inexperienced, for such a post. The Queen, how- ever, did not forget him, and it is said that it was in consequence of a wish expressed shortly before her last illness that the living of Epworth was offered to him. It was just before leaving South Ormsby that Mrs. Wesley had the grief of losing her father, Dr. Annesley, who died, after five months' illness, on the last day of 1696. The news, of course, did not travel very quickly, nor was it unexpected ; but it was none the less keenly felt. She was then twenty-seven, and expecting her eighth child, only one of her family having been seen by its grandfather. She was a strong believer in communion between the spirits of the departed and those dear to them who are still in the body, and throughout the remainder of her life loved to think that her father was far nearer to her than while she was in Lincolnshire and he in the flesh in Spital Yard. 22 SUSANNA WESLEY. CHAPTER IV. LATER MARRIED LIFE. IT was early in 1697 that the Wesleys removed to Epworth, on the opposite side of the county of Lincoln, which, though only a small market town with about 2,000 inhabitants, was the principal place in the Isle of Axholme, a district ten miles long by four broad, enclosed by the rivers Trent, Don, and Idle. The church is an ancient structure, dedicated to St. Andrew, and the rectory was at that time a palace in comparison with the "mud hut" at South Ormsby. It was not a brick or stone-built house, but a three- storied and five-gabled timber and plaster building, thatched with straw, and containing " a kitchinge, a hall, a parlour, a buttery, and three large upper rooms and some others for common use; and, also, a little garden ; " together with a large barn, a dove-cote, and a hemp kiln. The children had ample space now to roam about in as well as for ease and comfort indoors ; but there were fees to be paid on entrance into the living, furniture to be bought for the larger house, and, as the new rector determined to farm his own glebe, implements and cattle for that worse than amateur farming, for which a bookish man brought up in town LATER MARRIED LIFE. 23 was eminently unfit. Mr. Wesley, who was already in debt, borrowed a hundred pounds from the Bishop of Salisbury, which proving insufficient, before he was fairly installed he had to borrow another fifty pounds. The interest on and repayment of these sums hung like a millstone round his neck for the remainder of his life. The family could have been only just settled at Epworth when Mehetabel, the fifth daughter, was born, and just about the same time Mrs. Wesley heard of the death of her sweet elder sister Elizabeth, the wife of John Dunton. The Duutons had continued lovers up to the day of the wife's death, and the bereaved husband declared that during the fifteen years of their union not an angry look had passed between them. She had been his book and cash keeper, and always took an active part in his business, and, in spite of cares and worries, he never once went home and found her out of temper. She nursed him devotedly in sickness, and when there seemed some possibility of their migrating to America and settling there in business, acquiesced in the voyage, cheerfully assuring her " most endeared heart " that she would joyfully go over to him, adding, " I do assure you, my dear, yourself alone is all the riches I desire ; and if ever I am so happy as to have your company again, I will travel to the farthest part of the world rather than part with you any more. . . . I had rather have your company with bread and water than enjoy without you the riches of both Indies." In another she says, " Prithee, my dear, show thy love for me by taking care of thyself. Get thee warm clothes, woollen waistcoats, and buy a cloak. Be cheerful; want for nothing; doubt not that God will provide for us." She seems to have been proverbials 24 SUSANNA WESLEY. in her own generation, for the natural goodness and amiability which unfortunately do not always go hand in hand with the sincerest piety. Mrs. Wesley had been very happy in the brotherly friendship which existed between her own husband and her sister and Mr. Dunton, and felt the bereavement deeply. Mr. Wesley wrote the epitaph which was en- graved on Mrs. Dunton's tomb in Buuhill Fields, and, though it was the fashion of the day to attribute every virtue under the sun to those who had epitaphs written for them, it was acknowledged by general consent that every word of it was true : " Sacred urn ! with whom we trust This dear pile of buried dust, Know thy charge, and safely guard, Till death's brazen gate 's unbarred ; Till the angel bids it rise, And removes to Paradise A wife obliging, tender, wise ; A friend to comfort and advise; Virtue mild as Zephyr's breath ; Piety, which smiled in death ; Such a wife and such a friend All lament and all commend. Most, with eating cares opprest, He who knew, and loved her best ; Who her loyal heart did share, He who reigned unrivalled there, And no truce to sighs will give Till he die, with her to live. Or, if more he would comprise, Here interred Eliza lies. The two sisters were considered very much alike both in person and character, so that anything recorded of LATER MARRIED LIFE. 25 Mrs. Dunton throws a side light on Mrs. Wesley's own personality. Mr. Wesley had been present at the wedding of the Duutons, and then presented them with an " Epitha- lamium " which was all doves and loves, and Cupids and Hymens. He evidently had a shrewd suspicion that the widowed bookseller was not made to live alone, for in the letter enclosing the epitaph he slily remarks that he hopes it may arrive before another Epithala- mium is wanted. Mr. Dunton did marry again, within six months, and Mr. Wesley dropped his acquaintance as precipitately as Dr. Primrose might have done under the same circumstances. He was never tried in the same way himself, as Mrs. Wesley survived him, but, judging from what we know of his character, it is more than probable that he would not have lived long without a wife had he had the misfor- tune to lose his faithful partner. Most likely it was when Mrs. Wesley was first in- stalled at Epworth that she faced the problem of education for her children. Had she not done so, her daughters would have grown up ignorant, for funds wherewith to send them to school would never have been forthcoming. Strenuous efforts would naturally have been made for the boys; for educa- tion, and that at a public school, was regarded as & sine qua non by the father, and he would have moved heaven and earth to procure it for them. Mrs. Wesley was a quietly practical woman, who, having much to do, found time to do everything, by dint of unflagging energy and industry and a methodical habit of mind. It was, of course, impossible to teach her eldest boy till he was able to speak, but as soon as he began to talk she began to instruct him. 26 SUSANNA WESLEY. It was a rapid and pleasant process, for she wrote that " he had such a prodigious memory that I do not remember to have told him the same word twice. What was more strange, any word he had learned in his lesson he knew wherever he saw it, either in his Bible or any other book, by which means he learned very soon to read an English author well." For two years or so, Samuel was her only pupil, and from her experience with him she never attempted to teach any of her children the alphabet till they were turned five, although the youngest of all, Kezia, picked up her letters before that age. Her mother regretted this, and said it was none of her doing, but reading must have been in the atmosphere. Mrs. Wesley's ninth child was born at Ep worth in 1698, but, the parish registers having been destroyed by fire, it is not known whether it was a boy or girl. This child speedily died, and the next addition to the family was a John who was followed the next year by a Benjamin, both of whom died in infancy. It appears that during the earlier part of the time at Epworth, Mr. Wesley's aged mother lived with him r and was, probably, a valuable assistance to the young wife, who always had a baby coming, and was fre- quently confined to her room and couch for six months at a time, though, as she rarely had more than one maidservant for all purposes, she must have managed the children even in her moments of greatest weakness, and it was this perpetual strain of mind and body that added so much to her feebleness. On the 16th of May 1701, husband and wife took counsel together. Money was terribly scarce and coals were wanted, for, though it was almost summer, it would not have done to be without firing when LATER MARRIED LIFE. 27 another child was hourly expected. Every penny was collected together, but they could only muster six shillings between them. The coals were sent for, but the pockets were empty. On Thursday morning there was a joyful surprise. Kind Archbishop Sharpe, who knew how poverty pinched the family at Epworth, and all about the debts, and how hard the rector worked in hammering rhyme and prose out of his brains for London publishers, spoke to several of the nobility about him, and even appealed to the House of Lords in his behalf. The Countess of Northampton, moved by the tale of privation, gave twenty pounds for the Archbishop's proteges, ten of which, at Mr. Wesley's desire, were left in his Lordship's hands for old Mrs. Wesley, and the other ten were sent by hand to the Rector, arriving on the morning that found him penni- less. The money was not an hour too soon, for that very evening twins, a boy and girl, were born. In, announcing the event to the Archbishop, Mr. Wesley wrote : " Last night my wife brought me a few children. There are but two yet, a boy and a girl, and I think they are all at present ; we have had four in two years and a day, three of which are living." Neither the twins nor the boy who preceded them survived many months, and in 1702 Anne was born ; and the mother having now, for a wonder, only one baby in hand, while little Mehetabel, or Hetty as she was called, having attained the dignified age of five years, Mrs. Wesley began to keep regular school with her family for six hours a day, and kept it up, for twenty years, with only the few unavoidable interrup- tions caused by successive confinements, and a fire at the Rectory. 28 SUSANNA WESLEY. How patiently she taught was shown when, one day, her husband had the curiosity to sit by and count while she repeated the same thing to one child more than twenty times. " I wonder at your patience/' said he ; " you have told that child twenty times that same thing." " If I had satisfied myself by mention- ing it only nineteen times," she answered, " I should have lost all my labour. It was the twentieth time that crowned it." Mrs. Wesley does not seem to have thought much of her own system of education, but she could not suffer her children to run wild, and could not afford either governesses, tutors, or schools. The only way of teaching them was to do it herself, and, while they were quietly gathered round her with their tasks, she plied her needle, kept the glebe accounts, wrote her letters, and nursed her baby in far more ease and comfort than she could have done if the little crew had been racing about and getting into boisterous mischief. It was at the desire of her son John, when a man of thirty, and perhaps with his own aspirations to family life, that she wrote down the details of how she brought up and taught her children, and that record is best given in her own words. 29 CHAPTER V. TEACHING AND TRAINING. JOHN WESLEY certainly could not have remembered the beginning of his mother's educational work, as it commenced before his birth ; but he must have expe- rienced its benefits, as she, with some assistance from her husband in rudimentary classics and mathematics, prepared him to enter the Charterhouse at eleven years of age with considerable credit to himself and his teachers. He pressed her repeatedly in after life to- write down full details for his information, and she was evidently somewhat loath to do it, for at the end of a letter dated February 21st, 1732, she says : " The writing anything about my way of education I am much averse to. It cannot, I think, be of service to anyone to know how I, who have lived such a retired life for so many years, used to employ my time and care in bringing up my children. No one can, without renouncing the world, in the most literal sense, observe my method; and there are few, if any, that would entirely devote above twenty years of the prime of life in hopes to save the souls of their children, which they think may be saved without so much ado ; for that 30 SUSANNA WESLEY. was my principal intention, however unskilfully and unsuccessfully managed." Happily she did ultimately allow herself to be per- suaded, and wrote to her son John as follows : " DEAR SON, " Epworth, July 24th, 1732. " According to your desire, I have collected the principal rules I observed in educating my family. " The children were always put into a regular method of living, in such things as they were capable of, from their birth ; as in dressing and undressing, changing their linen, &c. The first quarter commonly passes in sleep. After that they were, if possible, laid into their <;radle awake, and rocked to sleep, and so they were kept rocking till it was time for them to awake. This was done to bring them to a regular course of sleeping, which at first was three hours in the morning, and three in the afternoon ; afterwards two hours till they needed none at all. When turned a year old (and some before) they were taught to fear the rod and to cry softly, by which means they escaped abundance of correction which they might otherwise have had, and that most odious noise of the crying of children was rarely heard in the house, but the family usually lived in as much quietness as if there had not been a child among them. " As soon as they were grown pretty strong they were confined to three meals a day. At dinner their little table and chairs were set by ours, where they could be overlooked ; and they were suffered to eat and drink (small beer) as much as they would, but not to call for anything. If they wanted aught they used to whisper to the maid that attended them, who came and spake to me ; and as soon as they could handle a knife and TEACHING AND TRAINING. 31 fork they were set to our table. They were never suf- fered to choose their meat, but always made to eat such things as were provided for the family. Morn- ings they always had spoon meat ; sometimes at nights. But whatever they had, they were never permitted at those meals to eat 'of more than one thing, and of that sparingly enough. Drinking or eating between meals was never allowed, unless in case of sickness, which seldom happened. Nor were they suffered to go into the kitchen to ask anything of the servants when they were at meat : if it was known they did so, they were certainly beat, and the servants severely reprimanded. At six, as soon as family prayer was over, they had their supper ; at seven the maid washed them, and, beginning at the youngest, she undressed and got them all to bed by eight, at which time she left them in their several rooms awake, for there was no such thing allowed of in our house as sitting by a child till it fell asleep. " They were so constantly used to eat and drink what was given them that when any of them was ill there was no difficulty in making them take the most unpleasant medicine; for they durst not refuse it, though some of them would presently throw it up. This I mention to show that a person may be taught to take anything, though it be never so much against his stomach. " In order to form the minds of children, the first thing to be done is to conquer their will and bring them to an obedient temper. To inform the under- standing is a work of time, and must with children proceed by slow degrees, as they are able to bear it ; but the subjecting the will is a thing that must be done at once, and the sooner the better, for by neglect- 32 SUSANNA WESLEY. ing timely correction they will contract a stubbornness and obstinacy which are hardly ever after conquered, and never without using such severity as would be as painful to me as to the child. In the esteem of the world they pass for kind and indulgent whom I call cruel parents, who permit their children to get habits which they know must be afterwards broken. Nay, some are so stupidly fond as in sport to teach their children to do things which in a while after they have severely beaten them for doing. When a child is corrected it must be conquered, and this will be no hard matter to do, if it be not grown headstrong by too much indulgence. And when the will of a child is totally subdued, and it is brought to revere and stand in awe of the parents, then a great many childish follies and inadvertencies may be passed by. Some should be overlooked and taken no notice of, and others mildly reproved ; but no wilful transgression ought ever to be forgiven children without chastise- ment less or more, as the nature and circumstances of the case may require. I insist on the conquering of the will of children betimes, because this is the only strong and rational foundation of a religious educa- tion, without which both precept and example will be ineffectual. But when this is thoroughly done, then a child is capable of being governed by the reason and piety of its parents, till its own understanding comes to maturity, and the principles of religion have taken root in the mind. " I cannot yet dismiss the subject. As self-will is the root of all sin and misery, so whatever cherishes this in children ensures their after wretchedness and irreligion : whatever checks and mortifies it, promotes their future happiness and piety. This is still more TEACHING AND TRAINING. 33 evident if we farther consider that religion is nothing else than doing the will of God and not our own ; that the one grand impediment to our temporal and eternal happiness being this self-will, no indulgence of it can be trivial, no denial unprofitable. Heaven or hell depends on this alone, so that the parent who studies to subdue it in his child works together with God in the renewing and saving a soul. The parent who indulges it does the Devil's work ; makes religion impracticable, salvation unattainable, and does all that in him lies to damn his child body and soul for ever. " Our children were taught as soon as they could speak the Lord's prayer, which they were made to say at rising and at bedtime constantly, to which, as they grew bigger, were added a short prayer for their parents, and some collects, a short catechism, and some portion of Scripture as their memories could bear. They were veiy early made to distinguish the Sabbath from other days, before they could well speak or go. They were as soon taught to be still at family prayers, and to ask a blessing immediately after, which they used to do by signs, before they could kneel or speak. " They were quickly made to understand they might have nothing they cried for, and instructed to speak handsomely for what they wanted. They were not suffered to ask even the lowest servant for aught with- out saying ' Pray give me such a thing ' ; and the servant was chid if she ever let them omit that word. " Taking God's name in vain, cursing and swearing, profanity, obscenity, rude ill-bred names, were never heard among them ; nor were they ever permitted to call each other by their proper names without the addition of brother or sister. 3 34 SUSANNA WESLEY. n ty. Jlngtaw. VOLUMES ALREADY ISSUED: George Eliot. By MATHILDE BLIND. Emily Bronte. By A. MARY F. ROBINSON. George Sand. By BERTHA THOMAS. Mary Lamb. By ANNE GILCHRIST. Maria Edge worth. By HELEN ZIMMERN. Margaret Fuller. By JULIA WARD HOWE. Elizabeth Fry. By MRS. E. R. PITMAN. Countess of Albany. By VERNON LEE. Harriet Martineau. By MRS. FENWICK MILLER. Mary Wo 1 1 sto nee raft Godwin. By ELIZABETH ROBINS PENNELL. Rachel. By MRS. A. KBNNARD. Madame Roland. BY MATHILDE BLIND. Susannah Wesley. By MRS. E. CLARKE. LONDON: W. H. ALLEN & CO., 13 WATERLOO PLACE. S.W OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. George Eliot. By MATHILDE BLIND. " Miss Blind's book is a most excellent and careful study of a great genius." Vanity Fair. "No page of this interesting monograph should be skipped." Graphic. "Nothing is more needed in the present day than short treatises on great writers like these. Miss Blind has spared no pains to make a coherent and attractive narrative, and has succeeded in presenting us with a complete biography ; inter- spersing her account with incisive criticisms." British Quarterly ~ Emily Bronte. By A. MAKY F. KOBINSON. "Miss Robinson makes the biographical part of her book of extreme interest, while her criticism of her author is just, searching, and brilliant." Truth. "In the volume before us we have a critical biography of the author of ' Wuthering Heights,' and presenting to the mind's eye a clear and definite conception of the truest and most unalloyed genius this country has produced. What Mrs. Gaskell did for Charlotte Bronte, Miss Robinson has with equal grace and sympathy done for her younger sister." Manchester Courier. George Sand. By BERTHA THOMAS. " Miss Thomas' book is well written and fairly complete ; she is well intentioned, always fair, and her book deserves decided recommendation as an introduction to its subject." Athenteum. " In this unpretending volume general readers will find all that they need to know about the life and writings of George Sand. Miss Thomas has accomplished a rather difficult task with great adroitness." St. James' Gazette. Margaret Fuller. By JULIA WARD HOWE. " A very fresh and engaging piece of biography, and a worthy addition to Mr. Ingram's carefully-selected and well-edited series." Freeman's Journal. " Well worthy of association with its popular predecessors, and among the new books that should be read." Derby Mercury. LONDON : W. H. ALLEN & CO., 13 WATERLOO PLACE. S.W. OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. Mary Lamb. By ANNE GILCHKIST. " Mrs. Gilchrist's ' Mary Lamb ' is a painstaking cultivated sketch, written with knowledge and feeling." Pall Mall Gazette. " To her task of recording this life, Mrs. Gilchrist has evidently brought wide reading and accurate knowledge. She is to be congratulated on the clearness and interest of her narrative, on the success with which she has placed before us one of the gentlest and most pathetic figures of English literature." Academy. " A thoroughly delightful volume, lovingly sympathetic in its portraiture, and charged with much new and interesting matter." Harpers' Magazine. Maria Edgeworth. By HELEN ZIMMERN. " A very pleasing resume' of the life and works of our gifted countrywoman." Freeman's Journal. " An interesting biography." Echo. " Miss Zimmern is the first to tell the story as a whole for English readers, and the way in which she describes the Irish home, the literary partnership of eccentric father and obedient daughter, the visit to France, and Miss Edgeworth's sight of certain French celebrities including Madame de Genlis, is full of liveliness." Pall Mall Gazette. Elizabeth Fry. By MRS. E. E. PITMAN. " Of all English philanthropists, none exhibits a nobler nature or is worthier of a permanent record than Mrs. Fry. For this reason we welcome the sketch of her by Mrs. Pitman, published in the Eminent Women Series." Times. " An excellent idea of Mrs. Fry's noble life and work can be got from Mrs Pitman's simple but impressive work." Contem- porary Review. " This is a good book, worthy of a place in the interesting Eminent Women Series." Spectator. LONDON : W. H. ALLEN & CO., 13 WATEBLOO PLACE. S.W. OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. Countess of Albany. By VEBNON LEE. " There is a vivid power in Vernon Lee's realization of Floreu tine life and society, and much beauty and glow of colour in her descriptions." Saturday Review. " This romantic biography is as exciting as any work of imagination, and the incisive and graphic style of its author renders it singularly attractive." Morning Post. Harriet Martineau. By MRS. FENWICK MILLER. "A faithful and sympathetic account of this remarkable woman." Scotsman. "As a reflective broad-minded woman's faithful description of another woman's private life and brilliant literary career, this critical sketch is admirable." Whitehall Review. " Mrs. Miller has done her difficult work well, and her volume is one of the ablest and most interesting of the able and interest- ing series to which it belongs." Derby Mercury. Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin. By ELIZABETH ROBINS PENNELL. " An impartial, judicious, complete representation of the life and work of a justly celebrated woman." Whitehall Review. " A very excellent life. . . . The author has evidently that thorough sympathy with her subject without which it is probably impossible to write a really good biography." Guardian. Rachel. By MRS. KENNARD. "This volume of the Eminent Women Series fully sustains the admirable character of the series. It is certainly the best collection of female biographies we know." Literary World. " Mrs. Kennard has done her work well and sympathetically, and has accomplished the only life of Rachel worthy of the name." The Lady. "Worthily maintains the reputation of the Series." Sheffield Telegraph. Madame Roland. By MATHILDE BLIND. " Full of excellent material, biographical and critical, and a model of careful and conscientious workmanship. . . . As it stands, the book is more readable than most of the current novels, and is altogether worthy of Miss Blind's .high reputation." Pictorial World " Few volumes of the Eminent Women Series are more in- teresting." Morning Post. " A book which is strong, pathetic, and deeply interesting." Graphic. LONDON : W. H. ALLEN & CO., 13 WATERLOO PLACE. S.W. *w* WSSo fv; vc ,.