Wesley Corpus

Wednesday, 10, and the following days, I corrected my brother's posthumous poems; being short Psalms, (some few excepted,) [hymns] on the four Gospels, and the Acts of the Apostles. They make five volumes in quarto, containing eighteen or nineteen hundred pages. They were finished April 25, 1765. The revisal finished, April 24, 1774. A second revisal finished, January 26, 1777. A third revisal finished, February 20, 1780. A fourth revisal finished. A fifth revisal finished. 442 REv. J. wesley’s [Dec. 1788. A sixth revisal finished. A seventh revisal finished. The last revisal finished, May, 1787. Many of these are little, if any, inferior to his former poems, having the same justness and strength of thought, with the same beauty of expression; yea, the same keenness of wit on proper occasions, as bright and piercing as ever. Mon. 15.--In the evening I preached at Miss Teulon's school in Highgate. I think it was the coldest night I ever remember. The house we were in stood on the edge of the hill, and the east wind set full in the window. I counted eleven, twelve, one, and was then obliged to dress, the cramp growing more and more violent. But in the morning, not only the cramp was gone, but likewise the lameness which used to follow it. About this time I was reflecting on the gentle steps whereby age steals upon us. Take only one instance. Four years ago my sight was as good as it was at five-and-twenty. I then began to observe that I did not see things quite so clear with my left eye as with my right; all objects appeared a little browner to that eye. I began next to find some difficulty in reading a small print by candle-light. A year after, I found it in reading such a print by day-light. In winter, 1786, I could not well read our four-shilling hymn-book, unless with a large candle; the next year I could not read letters, if wrote with a small or bad hand. Last winter a pearl appeared on my left eye, the sight of which grew exceeding dim. The right eye seems unaltered; only I am a great deal nearer sighted than ever I was. Thus are “those that look out at the windows darkened;” one of the marks of old age.