The letter, from which the above is copied, refutes Mr. Watson’s assertion, that “Mrs. Vazeille was a woman of cultivated understanding”; and confirms Mr. Jackson’s statement, that “neither in understanding nor education was she worthy of the eminent man to whom she was united.” Without altering the sense, we have been obliged to revise both the orthography and syntax of the letter, in order to make it at all fit to appear in print. Mrs. Wesley was evidently a woman of no education, beyond the ability to read and write. Perhaps no better description of her character, as a woman and a wife, can be furnished than what is patent in the peevish, petulant, murmuring, miserable letter just given. Here we leave her, simply adding that, after being Wesley’s wife for a little more than thirty years, she died at the age of seventy-one, on October 8, 1781.[136] Wesley, at the time, was in the west of England; but writes, on October 12, as follows: “I came to London, and was informed that my wife died on Monday. This evening she was buried, though I was not informed of it till a day or two after.” Her fortune, which, by losses and by fraud, had been reduced from ten to five thousand pounds, she bequeathed to her son; and left her husband nothing but a ring.[137] The epitaph on her tombstone describes her as “a woman of exemplary piety, a tender parent, and a sincere friend”; but is wisely silent concerning her conduct as a wife. Perhaps more than enough has been already said. It must be remembered, however, that John Wesley’s marriage affected and tinged thirty years of his public life. It was one of the gravest events in his chequered history; and, on this ground, it deserves attention. Wesley was not faultless. He married too hurriedly to know the character of the woman whom he made his wife; and he would have acted more wisely if he had refrained from writing religious letters to female members of his society, of whom his wife was jealous. This is all that can be fairly alleged against him. No one will venture to affirm, that he was wanting in affection; and no one can successfully accuse him of treating his wife with coldness and reserve. Charles, a keen judge of character, declared that nothing could surpass his brother’s patience in bearing with his perverse and peevish spouse. Several of his letters to her, written after their marriage, have been preserved; and display the tenderest affection, and justify the opinion that, had it been his happiness to be married to a woman that was worthy of him, he would have been one of the most loving husbands that ever lived. The truth is, John Wesley’s wife was scarcely sane. Mr. Jackson writes: “Scores of documents in her handwriting attest the violence of her temper, and warrant the conclusion, that there was in her a certain degree of mental unsoundness.” This is the most merciful view that it is possible to take of her strange behaviour. In no respect was she a helpmeet for him.