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The same doggedness is seen in his attachment to Methodism. If, in his letter to Benson, he reveals the fatuity of the Brecon Preachers, he also unconsciously displays that innate loyalty to Methodism which, when he removed from Hay to Brecon in 1798, led him to join the Brecon Society. His integrity and religious convictions, unorthodox though they were towards the end of his life, are beyond doubt. How else can we explain the friendship of such men as Wesley, Coke, and Benson ? But there are two facts which may indicate that Wesley's high opinion of Churchey needs qualifying when Lady Huntingdon attempted to take possession of the Brecon Chapel, it was to that other Brecon lawyer that Wesley turned for assistance, but this may be because Bold was the more experienced lawyer; and whereas Coke was anxious that Churchey should enter the Anglican ministry, Wesley, as far as we know, was silent on the matter, and, what is more significant, nowhere is there a hint that Wesley suggested to Churchey that he should become an Itinerant, again, perhaps, because Churchey had neither a sense of call, nor the necessary gifts, or because of family ties. Be that as it may, Wesley held the lawyer in high esteem and with a warm and lasting affection, and one of his last letters, finished by an unknown hand, was sent to him. The pity of it all is that Walter Churchey deluded himself into the belief that he was a poet. Such a delusion may have been based on sporadic flashes of inspiration, but if, according to the dictum, genius is a composition of inspiration and perspiration, Churchey has only himself to blame for introducing to an ungrateful literary world an ill-begotten foundling. NOTES ^There were several lawyers in Brecon during these years Hugh Bold, Thomas Mayberry, Penoyre Watkins (with whom Theophilus Jones served his articles), Theophilus Jones, and Samuel Church see Theophilus Jones, The History of the County of Brecknockshire (Glanusk Edition, 1911), and Edwin Poole, The IUustrated History and Biography of Brecknockahire (1886) also the list of Subscribers in Churchey's Poems and Imitations of the BrittshPoets (1789), for Messrs. Powell, William Wilkins, and Thomas Williams, all of whom were Brecon lawyers. 2Mayberry Papers, Folio 71, at Brecon Museum. 3'1 know no attorney to be depended on like Mr. Bold of Brecon,' says Wesley in a letter to Zachariah Yewdall see John Telford (ed.), The Letters of John Wesley (1931), vol. vii, p. 49. Bold was Bailiff of Brecon in 1773, 1783, 1791, and 1804, and, according to The Welsh Biographical Dictionary, acted as solicitor to the Cyfarthfa Ironworks he was also one of the trustees of the Breconshire Turnpike Trust, and one of the proprietors of the Brecknock and Abergavenny Canal; see Mayberry Papers, quoted above. 4See T. R. Roberts (' Asaph '), A Dictionary of Eminent Welahmen (1908) E. Jones (' Iorwerth Ceitho '), Enwogion Cymru 1700-1900 (1906) T. Mardy Rees, Eminent WeUihmen (1908). 5D.N.B. and D.W.B. I have been unable to verify the date of Churchey's birth despite a search of St. John's (Cathedral Church), St. Mary's, and St. David's Parish registers.