Susanna Wesley

38 SUSANNA WESLEY.
hardly have been very conversant with anything of
that kind ; corresponded with her lord and master, and
diligently instructed her children.
Just a little ease from pecuniary difficulties seems
to have dawned on the Wesleys in the spring of
1702. The rector's " History of the Old and New
Testament attempted in verse, and adorned with three
hundred and
" thirty sculptures had appeared a few
months before, and doubtless was expected to prove a
source of considerable profit. The money, however,
came in very slowly, and creditors pressed so hard for
what was due to them, that in March Mr. Wesley once
more mounted his horse and rode to London for aid.
His appeal was responded to in various quarters, for the
Dean of Exeter gave him ten pounds, the Archbishop
of Canterbury ten guineas, the Marquis of Normanby
twenty, and the Marchioness five. A few other small
sums raised the amount to sixty pounds, and the good
man rode joyfully home with it, paid off some debts
entirely, and a portion of others, and kept ten pounds
in his own hands towards the expense of getting in his
harvest.
It need not necessarily be assumed that these
moneys were given him out of charity pure and simple,
for publishing was then, as now, an expensive process,
and authors who had no capital accomplished
it
by
subscription. It is very possible that the Marquis and
the Archbishop and others had promised their subscriptions
but not paid them up, so that Mr. Wesley
may only have collected money justly due to him.
But loss and poverty pursued him, for the summer
proved hot and the thatched roof of the parsonage got
very dry, and perhaps the kitchen chimney wanted
sweeping. At all events, some sparks fell
upon it, and
though the house was not burnt down, a great deal of