Bedminster down, "Tripe and Cow-heels sold here, as usual, except on the Lord's-day, which the Lord help me to keep holy." And on my enquiring about the person who exhibited this remarkable show-board at the inn just by, I was informed that the pious tripeseller generally got drunk on Sundays, after he returned from the barn-preaching; which accounts for his not selling tripe on that day, having full employment, though possibly not so inoffensive, elsewhere.

I also saw, in a village near Plymouth in Devonshire, "Roger Tuttel, by God's grace and mercy, kills rats, moles, and all sorts of vermin and venomous creatures." But I need not have gone so far for pious cant, as, no doubt you must remember that a few years since, a certain pious common-councilman of the metropolis, advertised in the public papers for a porter that could carry three hundred weight, take care of horses, and serve the Lord. Of the same worthy personage I have heard it asserted, so very conscientious is he, that he once staved a barrel of beer in his cellar because he detected it working on the sabbath-day, which brought to my recollection four lines in drunken Barnaby's Journey:

"To Banbury came I; O prophane one!
Where I saw a puritane one,

Hanging of his cat on Monday,

For killing of a mouse on Sunday."

Mr L -e, a gentleman of my acquaintance, informs me, that a Methodist neighbour of his, in St Martin's lane, who keeps a parcel of fowls, every Saturday night makes a point of conscience of tying together the legs of every cock he has, in order to prevent them from breaking the sabbath, by gallanting the hens on Sundays; as colonel Lambert says, doctor Cantwell used to do by the turkey-cocks.

I have a few more observations to make on this remarkable sect, but, fearing I have already tired you, shall reserve them for my next.

"Seeming devotion doth but gild the knave,
That's neither faithful, honest, just, or brave,
But where religion does with virtue join,
It makes a hero like an angel shine."

WALLER.

1 am, dear friend, yours.

LETTER XXIX.

"Under this stone rests Hudibras,
A knight as errant as e'er was:
The controversy only lies,
Whether he was more fool than wise;
Full oft he suffer'd bangs and drubs,
And full as oft took pains in tubs :
And for the good old cause stood buff,
'Gainst many a bitter kick and cuff,
Of which the most that can be said,

He pray'd and preach'd, and preach'd and pray'd."
BUTLER'S Posth. Works.

DEAR FRIEND,

He

Ir is very remarkable that while I was writing the last five lines of my former letter to you, on Wednesday the 2nd of March 1791, I received the news of the death of Mr John Wesley, who, I am informed, died that morning at his own house, in the City road, Moorfields, in the eighty-eighth year of his age. had no illness, but the wheels of the machine being worn out, it stopped of course. As I am on the subject of Methodism, I hope you will not deem it impertinent if I devote a few lines to this great parent of a numerous sect, whom I well knew, and feel a pleasure in speaking of with some respect.

Several days preceding his interment, being laid in his coffin, in his gown and band, he was exposed to the view of all his friends who came, and the public,

and I suppose that forty or fifty thousand persons had a sight of him. But the concourse of people was so great that many were glad to get out of the crowd without seeing him at all, and although a number of constables were present, yet the pickpockets contrived to ease many of their purses, watches, &c.

To prevent as much as possible the dreadful effects of a mob, he was interred on Wednesday, March the 9th, between five and six o'clock in the morning, in the burial ground behind his own chapel in the City road. After which Dr Whitehead (the physician) preached his funeral sermon ; but notwithstanding the early hour many thousands attended more than the chapel would hold, although it is very large.

As soon as it was known that Mr Wesley was deceased, a number of needy brethren deemed it a fair opportunity of profiting by it, and each immediately set his ingenuity to work, to compose what he chose to call a life of him; and for some weeks since the funeral, the chapel-yard and its vicinity has exhibited a truly ludicrous scene, on every night of preaching, owing to the different writers and venders of these hasty performances exerting themselves to secure a good sale; one bawling out that his is the right life; a second with a pious shake of the head, declares his the real life; a third protests he has got the only genuine account; and a fourth calls them all vile cheats and impostors, &c.; so that between all these competitors, the saints are so divided and perplexed in their opinions that some decline purchasing either, others willing" to try all and keep that which is good," buy of each of these respectable venders of the life and last account of that celebrated character, while the uninterested passenger is apt to form a conclusion that the house of prayer is again become a den or thieves. Thus we see those holy candidates for heaven are so influenced by self-interest that it

"Turns meek and secret sneaking ones
To raw-heads fierce and bloody bones."

HUDIBRAS.

I cannot help thinking that Mr John Wesley, the father of the Methodists, was one of the most respectable enthusiasts that ever lived, as it is generally thought that he believed all that he taught others, and lived the same pious exemplary life that he would have his followers practise. The sale of his numerous writings produced net profits to the amount of near two thousand pounds per annum; and the weekly collection of the classes in London and Westminster amounted to a very large sum; besides this, great sums were collected at the sacraments and love-feasts, for quarterly tickets, private and public subscriptions, &c. &c. In a pamphlet which was published in the beginning of this year 1792, by an old member of their society, it is asserted that for the last ten years, the sums collected in Great Britain and Ireland have amounted to no less than four hundred thousand pounds per annum, which reminds me of Peter Pindar's humorous lines.

"I've often read those pious whims,
Methodists' sweet damnation hymns,
That chant of heav'nly riches:

What have they done, those heavenly strains,
Devoutly squeez'd from canting brains,

But fill'd their earthly breeches?"

Besides the above, many private collections are made in all his societies throughout the three kingdoms, so that Mr Wesley might have amassed an immense fortune, had riches been his object. But instead of accumulating wealth he expended all his own private property, and I have been often informed, from good authority, that he never denied relief to a poor person that asked him. To needy tradesmen I have known him to give ten or twenty pounds at once. In going a few yards from his study to the pulpit he generally gave away a handful of half-crowns to poor old people of his society. He was indeed charitable to an extreme, as he often gave to unworthy objects, nor would he keep money sufficient to hold out on

his journies. One of his friends informs me, that he left but four pounds ten shillings behind him, and I have heard him declare that he would not die worth twenty pounds, except his books for sale, which he has left to the " general Methodist fund, for carrying on the work of God, by itinerant preachers," charged only with a rent of eighty-five pounds a year, which he has left to the wife and children of his brother Charles.

His learning and great abilities are well known. But I cannot help noticing that in one of his publications (stepping out of his line) he betrayed extreme weakness and credulity, though no doubt his intentions were good. What I allude to is his 'Primitive Physic,' a work certainly of a dangerous tendency, as the majority of remedies therein prescribed are most assuredly inefficacious, and many of them very dangerous, if administered. The consequence of the first is, that while poor ignorant people are trying these remedies (besides the very great probability of their mistaking the case) the diseases perhaps become so inveterate as to resist the power of more efficacious remedies properly applied; and with regard to those of a highly dangerous nature, how rash to trust them in the hands of such uninformed people as this book was almost solely intended for, especially when sanctioned by the name of an author whose influence impressed the minds of the unfortunate patients with the most powerful conviction! Many fatal effects, I fear, have been produced by a blind adherence to this compilation; which carries with it more the appearance of being the production of an ignorant opiniated old woman, than of the man of science and education: one melancholy instance is fresh in my memory; a much esteemed friend having fallen an immediate sacrifice to an imprudent application of one of these remedies.

Permit me just to give you one specimen of the author's wonderful abilities, by quoting a receipt,