Susanna Wesley

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, sometime
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