Wesley Corpus

Tuesday, 5. I rode on to Plymouth-Dock, and preached on, “Love is the bond of perfectness.” What pity that any thing short of this should usurp the name of religion | Last week I read over, as I rode, great part of Homer's Odyssey. I always imagined it was, like Milton’s “Paradise Regained,”-- The last faint effort of an expiring Musa But how was I mistaken How far has Homer’s latter poem the pre-eminence over the former ! It is not, indeed, without its blemishes; among which, perhaps, one might reckon his making Ulysses swim nine days and nine nights without suste nance; the incredible manner of his escape from Polyphemus, (unless the goat was as strong as an ox,) and the introducing Minerva at every turn, without any dignus vindice nodus.* * Difficult point, that requires a serious solution.-EDIT. Sept. 1769.] JOURNAL. 379 But his numerous beauties make large amends for these. Was ever man so happy in his descriptions, so exact and consistent in his characters, and so natural in telling a story? He like wise continually inserts the finest strokes of morality; (which I cannot find in Virgil;) on all occasions recommending the fear of God, with justice, mercy, and truth. In this only he is inconsistent with himself: He makes his hero say,- Wisdom never lies; And, Him, on whate'er pretence, that lies can tell, My soul abhors him as the gates of hell. Meantime, he himself, on the slightest pretence, tells deliberate lies over and over; nay, and is highly commended for so doing, even by the Goddess of Wisdom | Wed. 6.--I rode to Collumpton; and on Thursday rested at Tiverton. Friday, 8. I preached about nine at Taunton, and then rode on to Bridgewater, where the preaching had been discontinued for some years. It was supposed there would be much disturbance; but there was none at all. The very Gentry (all but two or three young women) behaved with good sense and decency. This afternoon I went to the top of Brent-Hill: I know not, I ever before saw such a prospect. Westward, one may see to the mouth of the Bristol Channel; and the three other ways, as far as the eye can reach.