of flax. This was the year of Blenheim, and upon news of the victory
Mr. Wesley sat down to commemorate it in heroic verse. The poem
(published in the early days of 1705), if inferior to Mr. Addison's
on the same occasion, ran to five hundred and ninety-four lines, and
contained compliments enough to please the great Duke of
Marlborough, who sent for its author, rewarded him with the
chaplaincy of Colonel Lepelle's regiment, and promised him a
prebend's stall. The Dissenters, who (with some excuse, perhaps)
looked upon Mr. Wesley as that worst of foes, a deserter from their
own ranks, using their influence in Parliament and at Court, had him
deprived of his regiment and denied the stall. In April Queen Anne
dissolved Parliament, and in May the late Tory members for the county
of Lincoln, Sir John Thorold--and the Dymoke who then held--as his
descendant holds to-day--the dignity of Royal Champion, fought and
lost an election with the Whig candidates, Colonel Whichcott and
Mr. Albert Bertie. The Dissenters of course supported these; and
Mr. Wesley, scorning insults and worse, the unpopular side: with what
results we may read in these extracts from letters to the Archbishop
of York.

Epworth, June 7th, 1705.

I went to Lincoln on Tuesday night, May 29th, and the election
began on Wednesday, 30th. A great part of the night our Isle
people kept drumming, shouting, and firing of pistols and guns
under the window where my wife lay, who had been brought to bed
not three weeks. I had put the child to nurse over against my
own house; the noise kept his nurse waking till one or two in
the morning. Then they left off, and the nurse being heavy with
sleep, overlaid the child. She waked, and finding it dead, ran