e to which, a frothy concoction, apologizes to the
reader because the book is neither grave nor gay. The first poem, "On a
Maggot," is composed in hudibrastics, with a diction obviously Butlerian,
and it is followed by facetious poetic dialogues and by Pindarics of the
Cowleian sort but on such subjects as "On the Grunting of a Hog." In 1688
Wesley took his B.A. at Exeter College, Oxford, following which he became
a naval chaplain and, in 1690, rector of South Ormsby; he became rector of
Epworth in 1695. During the run of the _Athenian Gazette_ (1691-1697)
he joined with Richard Sault and John Norris in assisting John Dunton, the
promoter of the undertaking. His second venture in poetry, the _Life of
Our Blessed Lord and Saviour_, an epic largely in heroic couplets with
a prefatory discourse on heroic poetry, appeared in 1693, was reissued in
1694, and was honored with a second edition in 1697. In 1695 he dutifully
came forward with _Elegies_, lamenting the deaths of Queen Mary and
Archbishop Tillotson. _An Epistle to a Friend concerning Poetry_
(1700) was followed by at least four other volumes of verse, the last of
which was issued in 1717. His poetry appears to have had readers on a
certain level, but it stirred up little pleasure among wits, writers, or
critics. Judith Drake confessed that she was lulled to sleep by
Blackmore's _Prince Arthur_ and by Wesley's "heroics" (_Essay in
Defence of the Female Sex_, 1696, p. 50). And he was satirized as a
mare poetaster in Garth's _Dispensary_, in Swift's _The Battle of
the Books_, and in the earliest issues of the _Dunciad_. Nobody
today would care to defend his poetry for its esthetic merits.

For a few years in the early eighteenth century Wesley found himself in
the vortex of controversy. Brought up in the dissenting tradition, he had
swerved into conformity at some point during the 1680's, possibly under
the influence of Tillotson, whom he greatly admired (cf. _Epistle to a
Friend_, pp. 5-6). In 1702 there appeared his _Letter from a Country
Divine to his friend in London concerning the education of dissenters in
their private academies_, apparently written about 1693. This attack
upon dissenting academies was published at an unfortunate time, when the
public mind was inflamed by the intolerance of overzealous churchmen.
Wesley was furiously answered; he replied in _A Defence of a Letter_
(1704), and again in _A Reply to Mr. Palmer's Vindication_ (1707). It
is scarcely t