Wednesday with the Wesleys

18th century replica mother and
daughter dresses @ Epworth Rectory

The talented, unhappy Hetty Wesley was the elder sister of John and Charles and a poet who turned her sorrows into words. The picture below is said to be of Susanna Wesley instructing Hetty and her siblings. Deprived because of her sex of an education beyond her mother Susanna’s excellent home schooling, she was bound in marriage to a man of little learning and no tenderness. He was a brutal alcoholic her father Samuel forced her to marry after she scandalously eloped with another man who then jilted her, leaving her pregnant. Sadly, like all her children, this one did not survive.

Here is her poem “Wedlock” ...

Thou tyrant, whom I will not name,

Whom heaven and hell alike disclaim;

Abhorred and shunned, for different ends,

By angels, Jesuits, beasts and fiends!

What terms to curse thee shall I find,

Thou plague peculiar to mankind?

O may my verse excel in spite

The wiliest, wittiest imps of night!

Then lend me for a while your rage,

You maidens old and matrons sage:

So may my terms in railing seem

As vile and hateful as my theme.

Eternal foe to soft desires,

Inflamer of forbidden fires,

Thou source of discord, pain and care,

Thou sure forerunner of despair,

Thou scorpion with a double face,

Thou lawful plague of human race,

Thou bane of freedom, ease and mirth,

Thou serpent which the angels fly,

Thou monster whom the beasts defy,

Whom wily Jesuits sneer at too;

And Satan (let him have his due)

Was never so confirmed a dunce

To risk damnation more than once.

That wretch, if such a wretch there be,

Who hopes for happiness from thee,

May search successfully as well

For truth in whores and ease in hell.

~ Mehetabel Wesley Wright (“Hetty”)