In opposition to such eulogists, it is only fair to state, that Dunton describes Wesley’s “Life of Christ” as “intolerably dull;” and it has been asserted, that Alexander Pope had so mean an opinion of its merits, that, in one of the early editions of his “Dunciad,” he honoured Wesley with a place in the Temple of Dulness.[75] The work was also fiercely assailed by Samuel Palmer, (to be noticed hereafter,) to whom Wesley replied,[76] “I know my poem is very faulty; but whether it be in itself so absolutely contemptible as Mr Palmer represents it, I desire may be left to more impartial judges. If he will be so kind as to let me know the particular faults of that poem, I shall own myself highly obliged to him, and will take care to correct them. I am sensible there are too many incorrect lines in it, which had better been left out; but I remember, too, some lines struck out which, perhaps, had been as well left in. I care not if I oblige him with two or three of them, which were in the original but were not printed, and leave him to guess the reason— “Or murmuring deep with harsh incondite tone, With eyes reversed, and many a brutal groan, We are the favour’d few, the elect alone.” Badcock, in the _Gentleman’s Magazine_ for 1784, tells us that Wesley’s “heroic poem, the ‘Life of Christ,’ excited the ridicule of the wits.” John Wesley, in his reply to this, in the same periodical for 1785, p. 246, simply states, that his father’s own account of it was, “The cuts are good; the notes pretty good; the verses so-so.” Samuel Wesley, jun., ardently loved his father, and admired his genius, but speaks of his “Life of Christ” in the following measured terms:— “Whate’er his strains, still glorious was his end: Faith to assert, and virtue to defend. He sung how God his Saviour deigned to expire, With Vida’s piety, though not his fire.” John Wesley, who, though he seldom wrote poetry, had as fine poetic taste as any member of his family, observes: “In my father’s poem on the ‘Life of Christ’ there are many excellent lines, but they must be taken in connexion with the rest. It would not be at all proper to print them separate.”[77] ----- Footnote 75: The edition of the “Dunciad” in which Wesley appeared was a surreptitious one. The following were the lines printed:— “How all the suffering brotherhood retire, And ’scape the martyrdom of jakes and fire; A Gothic library of Greece and Rome, Well purged; and worthy Wesley, Watts, and Brome.”