Page:Susanna Wesley (Clarke 1886).djvu/50

38 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