Up to the time that Mr Wesley went to Oxford University, he was a Nonconformist, the child, and the grandchild of expelled Nonconformist ministers, and a student trained in Nonconformist academics, and having none but Nonconformist acquaintances. His life at Oxford was retired, and, therefore, not likely to make him many friends of another description. On his return to London, in 1688, he not only kept up a friendship with some of his old Dissenting associates, but also began to become acquainted with several gentlemen of the Church of England. One of these, knowing that Wesley had been educated in a Dissenting academy, zealously, if not wisely, urged him to write an account of the inner life of such establishments. For some time Wesley resisted this request; but at length a circumstance happened which led him to comply. He tells us that he went, with some of his Dissenting acquaintances, to a Dissenting festival, held in a house in Leadenhall Street. The discourse of these festive Dissenters was so fulsome, profane, and lewd, that he was not able to endure it. In a little while they sat down to supper, and now they all began to rail against monarchy, and to blaspheme the memory of King Charles the martyr. These proceedings convinced Wesley that his old friends, who some years before had prompted him to “dabble in rhyming lampoons both on Church and State,” were as disaffected and disloyal as ever. He felt disgusted, and leaving the room, he went home, and, before he slept, wrote the letter, which was published some twelve or thirteen years afterwards. But here we must pause. The festival, at which Wesley was present, was the anniversary of the notorious Calves-head Club, and a brief account of that infamous fraternity seems needful. In the British Museum, there is a small quarto pamphlet of twenty-two pages, entitled “The Secret History of the Calves-head Club; or, The Republican Unmasked: Wherein is fully shown the religion of the Calves-head heroes, in their anniversary thanksgiving songs, on the 30th January, by them called anthems, for the years 1693 to 1697; now published to demonstrate the restless, implacable spirit of a certain party still among us, who are never to be satisfied, till the present establishment in Church and State is subverted. London: Printed and sold by the booksellers of London and Westminster, 1703.” From that pamphlet the following particulars are taken:— The preface states, that, “the poems, or ribaldry, and trash following were composed and set to music for the use of the Calves-head Club, which was erected by an impudent set of people, who have their feasts of calves’ heads, in several parts of the town, on the 30th of January, in derision of that day, and in defiance of monarchy; at divers of which meetings the following compositions were sung, and which, in affront of the Church, were called anthems.”