Wesley Corpus

Bolton’s curious works. He has carried every thing which he takes in hand to a high degree of perfection, and employs in the house about five hundred men, women, and children. His gardens, running along the side of a hill, are delightful indeed; having a large piece of water at the bottom, in which are two well-wooded islands. If faith and love dwell here, then there maybe happiness too. Otherwise all these beautiful things are as unsatisfactory as straws and feathers. Sat. 13.--I spent an hour in Hagley-Park; I suppose inferior to few, if any, in England. But we were straitened for time. To take a proper view of it, would require five or six hours. Afterwards I went to the Leasowes, a farm so called, four or five miles from Hagley. I never was so sur prised. I have seen nothing in all England to be compared with it. It is beautiful and elegant all over. There is no thing grand, nothing costly; no temples, so called; no statues; (except two or three, which had better have been spared;) but such walks, such shades, such hills and dales, such lawns, such artless cascades, such waving woods, with water intermixed, as exceed all imagination | On the upper side, from the openings of a shady walk, is a most beautiful and extensive prospect. And all this is comprised in the compass of three miles I doubt if it be exceeded by any thing in Europe. The father of Mr. Shenstone was a gentleman-farmer, who bred him at the University, and left him a small estate. This he wholly laid out in improving the Leasowes, living in hopes of great preferment, grounded on the promises of many rich and great friends. But nothing was performed, till he died at forty-eight; probably of a broken heart! Sun. 14.--I heard a sermon in the old church, at Birming ham, which the Preacher uttered with great vehemence against these “hairbrained, itinerant enthusiasts.” But he totally missed his mark; having not the least conception of the persons whom he undertook to describe. Mon. 15.-Leaving Birmingham early in the morning, I Aug. 1782.] JOURNAL. 233 preached at nine in a large school-room at Coventry. About noon I preached to a multitude of people, in the brick-yard, at Bedworth. A few of them seemed to be much affected.