hurrying to Mount Vernon, she entreated her son not again to expose himself to the perils and hardships of these frontier campaigns. She doubtless felt the value of his presence at home, to manage and protect the complicated interests of the domestic connexion, and had watched with solicitude over his adventurous campaigning, where so much family welfare was at hazard. However much a mother's pride may have been gratified by his early advancement and renown, she had rejoiced on his return to the safer walks of peaceful life. She was not a woman to be dazzled by military glory. The passion for arms which mingled with the more sober elements of Washington's character, would seem to have been inherited from his father's side of the house; it was, in fact, the old chivalrous spirit of his ancestors.

"His mother had once prevented him from entering the navy, when a gallant frigate was at hand, anchored in the waters of the Potomac. With all his deference for her, which he retained through life, he could not resist this appeal to his warlike sympathies, which called him to the head-quarters of General Braddock at Alexandria."

Here the young hero was received with the utmost cordiality, and it does not appear that the mother ever again attempted to interfere with his public career. He had burst the maternal bonds so far as related to his pursuit of warlike enterprise; but as the "pomp and circumstance of war" could never deprive him of the capacity for enjoying peaceful and rural occupations, so it is much to his honour, that no success in life, neither the fame nor the flattery

which always attend upon a brilliant career, could ever alienate him from the mother who had watched so anxiously over his early years, or induce him to neglect those filial duties, which from a heart so faithful as his were freely and spontaneously rendered.

Mrs. Washington lived to the great age of eightytwo. A short time previous to her death, she was visited by her son, who perceived that she was sinking under a fatal disease. "He took an affecting and final leave of her, convinced that he should never see her again. She had been a widow forty-six years. Through life she was remarkable for vigour of mind and body, simplicity of manners, and uprightness of character. She must have felt a mother's joy at the success and renown of her son, but this caused no change in her deportment, or style of living. Whenever he visited her at her dwelling, even in the height of his greatness, he literally returned to the scenes and domestic habits of his boyhood. Neither pride nor vanity mingled with the feelings excited by the attentions she received as the mother of Washington. She listened to his praises and was silent, or added only, that he had been a good son, and that she believed he had done his duty as a man.'

Life of Washington, by J. Sparkes.

X.

THE MOTHER OF JOHN WESLEY.

THERE are few men, of whose history we have any distinct knowledge, so clearly marked out by nature and circumstances for their own especial work as John Wesley. Indeed, the whole family of the Wesleys appear to have been endowed with rare qualities both of head and heart; amongst which stands forth pre-eminently a boldness of determination in the way of duty, which no worldly consideration, and no claims of kindred or affection, were able to move. Along whatever path the hand of duty led, they were prompt and obedient to follow. Obedient nowhere else, their submission here is the more astonishing. Whatever hindered their progress in the course which they believed themselves called to pursue, even if a right hand or a right eye, it must be struck off, or torn out. Ease, pleasure, prosperity, the good opinion of men, must be shaken off as the dust from their feet, when a call of duty required of them such sacrifice.

From the father to the sons, and no less remarkably in the case of their mother, this prompt and unhesitating determination seems to have been their leading characteristic; and, setting aside the fanaticism

of the times, and the peculiar circumstances in which the Wesleys lived, as requiring the application of peculiar means to the ends desired; setting aside, too, some strange blemishes of character always attaching more or less to tendencies like theirs, there is, perhaps, no stronger evidence of true greatness than that which distinguished this family in so many of its

members.

It is a little remarkable that the father of John Wesley, left at an early age to the kindness of some Nonconformist friends, should have become so disgusted with the views and the practices of the Dissenters as to throw up the many advantages which the patronage of these friends had promised for him, and, entering himself at college as a poor scholar, should ever afterwards have devoted himself strictly and faithfully to the discharge of his duties as a clergyman of the Established Church. In the same manner the wife, whom above all women he must have done wisely in choosing, was the child of Nonconformist parents; for some time a Socinian in her religious sentiments, but afterwards a zealous adherent of the same religious profession as her husband. Indeed, there could not have been any essential difference betwixt two such characters so closely allied. There must have been cordial union in all matters of the highest importance, or there could have been little happiness and no peace for them.

A curious instance of their mode of differing, and the serious consequences to which it led, is given in Southey's Life of Wesley. "When the Revolution was effected, Mr. Wesley (father of John) was the first

who wrote in its defence. He dedicated the work to Queen Mary, and was rewarded for it with the living of Epworth, in Lincolnshire. It is said that if the Queen had lived longer, he would have obtained more preferment. His wife differed from him in opinion concerning the Revolution; but as she understood the duty and the wisdom of obedience, she did not express her dissent; and he discovered it a year only before King William died, by observing that she did not say Amen to the prayers for him. Instead of imitating her forbearance, he questioned her upon the subject; and when she told him she did not believe the Prince of Orange was king, he declared he would never live with her as a husband until she did. In pursuance of this unwarrantable vow, he immediately took horse and rode away; nor did she hear of him again till the death of the king, about twelve months afterwards, released him from his rash and criminal engagement. John was their first child after this separation." *

But the union of the elder Wesleys must not be judged of by this extraordinary breach of the marriage compact. Seldom has intercourse been more really harmonious, or more blessed than theirs. In her natural endowments and her education, but especially in her superior and commanding intellect, Mrs. Wesley was exactly the woman to fill that honoured place in her family and household which boys are so quick to recognise when held by real worth, but so ready to dispute when only assumed as a matter of authority or caprice.

Mrs. Wesley was the daughter of Dr. Annesley, *Life of Wesley, by Robert Southey.