BX 5205 .W3 H66 
 Hood, Edwin Paxton, 
 
 1885. 
 Isaac Watts 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2015 
 
 https://archive.org/details/isaacwattshislifOOhood_0 
 
rORTRAIT OV DR. WATTS. 
 
 PREPESTKU IIV HISS ATKrV TO UP. WlI.I.lAJIs' I 
 
Isaac W a t t s ; 
 
 Dis £ifc aitt) ^(ilrithtgs, 
 
 HIS HOMES AND FRIENDS. 
 
 " Few men have left behind such purity of character, or such monuinciits of 
 laborious piety. He has provided instruction foi all ages, from those «ho are 
 lisping their first lessons to the enlightened readers of Malebranche and Locke ; 
 he has left neither corporeal nor spiritual nature unexamined ; he has taught the 
 art of reasoning and the science of the stars." — Dr. 'Johnson. 
 
 "The Independents, as represented by Dr. Walts, have a just claim to l<c- 
 considcred the real founders of modern English hymnody. " — Loni Scltoriif. 
 
 L O N D O X : 
 THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY, 
 
 56, Paternoster Row; 65, Sr. Paii.'s C h f k t ti v a r d : 
 AND 164, P I c t A u I I, I. V. 
 MANCHESTER: CORPORATION STREET. IIKIOHTON : WESTERN ROAD. 
 
MOST men wlio have left behind them a name so 
 iiniversally honoured and beloved as that of Isaac 
 Watts have shone in many biographies ; he reverses the 
 rule, and really has more monuments in stone erected to 
 his memory than there have been readable biographies to 
 record the transactions of his life. 
 
 From time to time it seems necessary and natural 
 to attempt some fresh record of the memory of honoured 
 men ; even the best Ijiogi'apliies wear out, and succeed- 
 ing ages demand a tribute in harmony with varying 
 impressions or increased information. The life of Watts 
 was one of the most quiet and equable of lives ; it 
 flowed on in almost unbroken tranquillity and peace ; 
 it was passed in much seclusion, neither his taste nor 
 his health permitting him to come much personally into 
 the presence of the world. The authentic incidents of 
 his career, of which we have any record, are, indeed, very 
 few, yet, such as they are, they should surely be gathered 
 up, and put into some fitting memorial. Besides this, 
 it is a life always good to contemplate. Acquaint- 
 ance seems to lift the reader almost into that region 
 whose air the good man })reathed so freely. 
 
 The object of the following pages wUl be to attempt to 
 do some justice to the various attributes of his mental 
 
 A 
 
iv 
 
 Preface. 
 
 character. His fame as a writer of liynins has. In- its 
 very brightness, obscured departments of work ^\■hich 
 cost him far more hibour. Watts was modest ; iu every 
 estimate of himself he disckimed any title to the rank 
 of a poet ; but iu truth his powers^ as manifested iu his 
 writings, whether we regard him as a preacher, theologian, 
 or metaphysician, are all equally luminous and instruc- 
 tive. Beyond all these, a character exalted by seraphic 
 piety and all-embracing charity makes tlie narrative 
 of such a life well worthy of the study of all to ^vhom 
 it is pleasant to contemplate human nature in the liner 
 proportions of genius, sanctified and illustrated by Divine 
 grace. It is curious, and almost amusing, to notice that 
 Samuel Johnson quite tamed down his rugged temper 
 ai:d speech when he wrote the life of Watts. He 
 speaks of him as one who maintained orthodoxy and 
 charity not only in his works but in his innermost 
 nature : not a discourteous or disrespectful word flaws 
 the sketch he has written. 
 
 Watts was the Melancthon of his times,^ — not only in 
 the ranks of Nonconformity, but within the pale of the 
 Establishment there was no other mind so resembling the 
 mild and uniform spirit, and graced by the many-coloured 
 scholarship of the great Eeformer. It cannot indeed 
 be expected that those should know or care for Watts, 
 who are not in affinity with his mild and temperate, 
 and yet majestic nature. Equally removed from the 
 servility which would have enslaved, or the fanaticism 
 which wonld have inflamed, the portrait of Watts is 
 one which will be studied to advantage at all times. 
 When Johnson characterized the philosophical and lite- 
 rary writings of Dr. Watts as " productions which, when 
 a man sits down to read, he suddenly feels himself con- 
 strained to pray," he also describes the influence which 
 
Preface. 
 
 V 
 
 tlie reading or the study of his whole life is calculated 
 to have upon the mind. It is not fertile in personal 
 incidents, but it has been well remarked that the Christian 
 biography has other objects — it may be hoped that many 
 other biographies have higher objects — tliau that of 
 merely exciting the imagination, or agitating tlie mind 
 by the recital of romantic adventures, brilliant actions, 
 or daring exploits. Watts reminds us of that saying of 
 Pdchard Sibbes, that "a Christian must be neither a 
 dead sea nor a raging sea." His frecpient illnesses, as 
 in the case of Eichard Baxter, " set him upon learning 
 to die, and thus he learned how to liA'e." For the 
 greater portion of his life he lived painfully within sight 
 of the world to come ; he hovered on the border-land of 
 life; he is a fine iEustration of power in weakness, and 
 he adds another to the list of those men who surprise us 
 by the results of amazing industry, plied beneath all the 
 interferences of sickness, and a weak and frauile frame. 
 
 Thanks are due, and are hereby heartily rendered, to 
 the Eev. Herman Carlyle, ll.b., of Southampton, for 
 permission to engrave the portrait from the vestry of 
 Above Bar Chapel — it has never been engraved before, 
 and is believed to be the portrait presented by his pupil, 
 early in life, to the Eev. John Pinhorne, master of the 
 Southampton Grammar School ; and also to J. Hunter, 
 Esq., of Dr. Williams' Library, for his invariable courtesy, 
 and for permission, obtained through him, to use the 
 portrait formerly the property of Miss Abney, and the 
 bust, of which also engravings are given in the work. 
 
 E. PiVXTON HOOD. 
 
I. — Birth and Childhood of Isaac Watts .... 1 
 
 II. — In the AcADEinr at Stoke Newington . . . .15 
 
 III. — In the IIaetopp Family 32 
 
 rv. — Pastor of a London Church 40 
 
 V. — First Publication as a Sacked Poet 57 
 
 VI. — Residence in the Abney Family 75 
 
 VII. — Hymns . . - 84 
 
 VIII. — A Circle of Friends 13( 
 
 IX. — The Countess or Hertford and Mrs. Rowe . . .17 
 
 X. — Shimei Bradbury 189 
 
 XI. — His Times 20. 
 
 XII. — Return to Stoke Newington 2" 
 
 xiii. — The World to Come 22 
 
 XIV. — The Man 24 
 
 XV. — Death and Bubla.l 25 
 
 XVI. — Summary and Estimate of Prose Writings . . .27 
 
CHAPTEE I. 
 
 Wixih anb ChUb^oob of |saac Maffs. 
 
 aSAAC WATTS was born at Southampton, July 17th, ( 
 1G74, the same year in which John Milton died. He 
 was the eldest of nine children, and was named after his 
 father, Isaac. His father was a truly worthy and respect- , 
 a])le nian.J In the course of the future years of his veryj 
 long life, he became the master of a school of consideraljle 
 reputation in the town. Dr. Johnson says it was reported 
 that Watts' father was a shoemaker. In the year 1700 
 Isaac Watts, of 21, French Street, Southampton, was a 
 clothier or clotli factor ; so he is described in legal 
 documents which still exist in that town ; so he is 
 described in another deed of 1719 ; while in 1736 he is 
 described as " Isaac Watts, of the town and county of 
 Southampton, gentleman:"* this was the year in which 
 he died. [At the time, however, of Isaac's birtli, deep 
 
 * " Dr. Isaac "Watts," a Lecture by Hermann Carlylc, ll.b., scvonth 
 minister of the church of which Dr. Watts' father was for forty-eight 
 years a deacon. 
 
2 
 
 Birth and Childhood. 
 
 grief was round, and lieavy distress over tlie household. 
 The father was a Nonconformist, and a deacon of that 
 which is now the Above Bar Congregational Church iu 
 Southampton. It was a cruel time ; the laws were very 
 bitter against Nonconformists, and the traveller through 
 Southampton in many months of the year 1674^75 might 
 have seen a respectable young woman, with a child at her 
 breast, sitting on the steps of the gaol seeking and wait- 
 ing for admission to her husband. It was the mother of 
 "Watts, and the daughter of Alderman Taunton. Tra- 
 dition says, slie was French in her lineage, of an exiled 
 Huguenot family, driven over to England by intolerance 
 and the massacre of St. Bartholomew, in the reign of 
 Queen Elizabeth. Thus Watts was the child of persecu- 
 tion, and through all the earliest years of his life his mind 
 must have been habituated to such impressions and 
 associations as were well calculated to draw out and give 
 sharpness and distinctness to his convictions. The old 
 prison remains very nearly the same as when the young 
 mother sat with her child looking up to the barred room 
 in which her husband was confined. It stands upon the 
 beach of the sweet Southampton waters, which then 
 rolled much further in, and almost washed the prison 
 doors. Legend asserts that it was only a few steps from 
 this spot that Canute fixed his chair when, in order that 
 he might rebuke the adulation of his courtiers, he com- 
 manded the waves to retire. Perhaps the imprisoned man 
 turned to the incident, and thought of One who is able 
 to still the noise of the waves and the tumult of the 
 people, and to say to all billows, " Hitherto shalt 
 thou come, and no further." If able to climb to the 
 tower of his prison, a lovely scene opened to his view : 
 the charming hills of Bittern on the left ; the " sweet 
 
His Parentage. 
 
 3 
 
 fields beyond the swelling floods " opposite, on the right 
 of the Southampton waters ; at his foot the old houses 
 of the quaint little town, and his own persecuted 
 abode._^ 
 
 The author of " The Christian Life in Song " has not 
 unnaturally conceived that probably to his mother he was 
 indebted for the lyrical tendencies in which at a very 
 early period his faith sought to express itself. The Frencli 
 Huguenots led the way in the utterance of feeling in 
 sweet sacred hymns ; and the grieving young mother miglit 
 perhaps refresh her faith by some of the strains of her 
 old people, while little knowing that she held in her arms 
 one who was to eclipse the fame of Clement Marot in 
 this particular. As to the imprisonment of the father, a 
 licence had been issued in 1662 by Charles ll., under the 
 signature of Arlington, allowing " a room or rooms " in 
 the house of Giles Say to be used for congregational 
 worship, and Mr. Say, himself an exile and refugee from 
 the persecutions of France, to be "the teacher." In a 
 short time tliis licence of indulgence was withdrawn, and 
 Mr. Say and liis chief supporters were thrown into prison; 
 one of the principil of these, as we have seen, was Isaac 
 Watts the elder. It was an unpromising commencement 
 to an illustrious life ; and this trouble was no sooner 
 escaped from tlian it waa renewed. ^Liberated from prison, 
 Isaac was still a very young child when his father was 
 imprisoned again on the same charge for six months. In 
 1683 he was obliged to flee from home into exile from ' 
 his family. Where he passed his time we have no exact 
 information, but for two years he was living principally in 
 London ; and thus the family continued to pass througli a 
 course of domestic suffering until those happier days 
 came which brought the abdication of the Stuart family 
 
4 
 
 BirtJi and Childhood. 
 
 and ill honour of which, on the succession of William, 
 we cannot wonder that Isaac Watts was glad to pour out 
 some of his earliest verses. \ 
 
 AVatts sprang from a fairly good family. Alderman 
 Taunton, his grandfather on his mother's side, is still 
 remembered in Southampton by his public benefactions. 
 The grandfather Watts had been engaged in the naval 
 service, and was commander of a man-of-war in the year 
 1656 under Admiral Blake. He appears to have been a 
 man of great courage and rnariy accomplishments. He 
 had some skill in the lighter recreations of music, paint- 
 ing, and poetry. A story ig told how in the East Indies 
 he had a personal conflict with a tiger, which followed 
 him into a riyer ; he grappled Avith the monster, and got 
 the better in the conflict, In the Dutch war the vessel 
 he comnianded exploded, and thus in the prime of life he 
 met his end. It has been tenderly remaiked that " the 
 grandmother Lois " is often as influential on the opening 
 mind as " the mother Eunice." The widow of the gallant 
 sailor, and grandmother of the poet, had not only many 
 stories to tell of her husband's adventures, but seems to 
 have been remarkably amiable, if she may be judged by 
 the glowing verses in which her grandson sought to do 
 honour to her memory. She sought to instil into his 
 mind the lessons of early piety, and exercised an influence 
 over his early education during the time when trial and 
 grief were strong in the household of her children. The 
 old people appear to have possessed considerable property, 
 but it was probably much diminished during those per- 
 secuting times. Such was the stock whence the poet 
 was descended. We may speak of it as a good strong 
 root, both upon the father's and upon the mother's side. 
 A sap of nobleness and gentleness seems to have given 
 
Isaac Watts the Elder. 
 
 5 
 
 vitality to both families, and to have left its best in- 
 fluences in their child. 
 
 Isaac Watts the elder was a man of great social worth. 
 In after years his lioarding-school became a most flonrisliing 
 establishment, and children were sent to it to receive their 
 training both from America and the West Indies. There 
 is a document written to his family wlien he was living 
 in exile from them, which places his high principles of 
 character, his prudence and his piety, his strong Pro- 
 testantism, and his intelligence in a very remarkable light. 
 He also had a taste for sacred verse, and many of his pieces 
 liave been preserved breathing a saintly meditative spirit. 
 
 Mr. Parker, the amanuensis of Dr. Watts, mentions a 
 singular anecdote to illustrate how his advice was sought 
 by persons of the town on account of his reputation for 
 wisdom. A person, a stonemason, in Southampton, had a 
 dream. He had purchased an old building for its materials ; 
 previous to his pulling it down he dreamed that a large 
 .stone in the centre of an arch fell upon him and killed 
 him. Upon asking Mr. Watts his opinion, he said, " I am 
 not for paying any great regard to dreams, nor yet for 
 utterly slighting them. If there is such a stone in the 
 building as you saw in your dream" (which lie told him 
 there really was), " my advice to you is, that you take 
 great care, in taking down the building, to keep far enough 
 off from it." The mason resolved to act upon his opinion, 
 but in an unfortunate moment he forgot his dream, went 
 under the arch, and the stone fell upon him and crushed 
 him to death. 
 
 This good father lived to the advanced age of eighty- 
 five; his son Isaac was then in his sixty-third year, and 
 only two or three days before his father's death addressed 
 to him the following tender and satisfying letter : — 
 
6 
 
 Birtli and Childhood. 
 
 "Newington: Fcbrunry Stii, 173G-37. 
 "HONOUKED AND PEAR SiR, 
 
 "It is HOW ten days since I heard from you, 
 and learned by my nepliew that you had been re- 
 covered from a very threatening illness. When you are 
 in danger of life, I believe my sister is afraid to let me 
 know the worst, for fear of affecting me too much. But 
 as I feel old age daily advancing on myself, I am 
 endeavouring to be ready for my I'emoval hence ; and 
 though it gives a shock to nature when what has been 
 long dear to one is taken away, yet reason and religi(ui 
 should teach us to expect it in these scenes of mortality 
 and a dying world. Blessed be God for our immortal 
 liopes, through the blood of Jesus, who has taken away 
 the sting of death ! What could such dying creatures do 
 without the comforts of tlie Gospel ? I hope you feel 
 those satisfactions of soul on the borders of life which 
 nothing can give but this Gospel, which you taught us all 
 in our younger years. May these Divine consolations 
 support your spirits under all your growing infirmities ; 
 and may our blessed Saviour form your soul to such a 
 holy heavenly frame, that you may wait with patience 
 amidst the languors of life for a joyful passage into the 
 land of immortality ! May no cares nor pains ruffle nor 
 afflict your spirit ! May you maintain a constant serenity 
 at heart, and sacred calmness of mind, as one who has long 
 passed midnight, and is in view of the dawning day ! ' The 
 night is far spent, the day is at hand ! ' Let the garments 
 of light be found upon us, and let us lift up our heads, 
 for our redemption draws nigh. Amen. 
 
 " I am, dear Sir, 
 " Your most affectionate obedient Son, 
 
 " Isaac Watts." 
 
Listings in Numhers. 7 
 
 £^roubled. as were the early years of his life, the subject 
 of our biography furnishes one of those rare instances in 
 which the precocity of infancy was not purchased at the 
 expense of power in maturity ; it is said that before he 
 could speak plainly, when any money was given to him, 
 he would cry, " A book ! a book ! buy a book ! " He 
 began to learn Latin at the age of four years, and in the 
 knowledge of this language and in Greek he made swift 
 progress ; it is probable that of Latin, Greek, and^Hebrew 
 he had considerable knowledge while yet a child_ He is 
 one of those who have been said to " lisp in numbers." 
 His utterances of infant rhyme are not astonishing, but 
 every biography of him has repeated the story how, when 
 he was seven years of age, his mother after school-hours 
 one afternoon offered him a farthing if he would give her 
 some verses, when he presented her with the well-known 
 couplet : 
 
 I write not for a farthing, but to try 
 How I your farthing writers can outvie. 
 
 /Tt was about the same time that, some verses of his 
 falling into the hands of his mother, she expressed her 
 doubts whetlier he could have written them, whereupon he 
 immediately wrote the following acrostic ; and if some of 
 the lines seem to falter, the last two are certainly remark- 
 able as the expression of a mere child, and have even a 
 kind of prophecy in them of his future years ; 
 
 I am a vile polluted lump of earth, 
 
 S o I've continued ever Hince my birth ; 
 
 A Ithovjgh Jehovah grace does daily give me, 
 
 A fl sure this monster Satan will deceive me, 
 
 C ome, therefore, Lord, from Satan's claws relieve me. 
 
 "W ash me in Thy blood, O Chriat, 
 
 A nd grace Divine impart, 
 
 T hen search and try the comers of my heart, 
 
 T hat I in all things may be fit to do 
 
 S ervice to Thee, and sing Thy praises too. I 
 
8 Birth and Childhood. 
 
 fit was perhaps from the uncertainty of tuition at home, 
 or from the youthful student outstripping the attainments 
 of his father, that he was early sent to the grammar- 
 school at Southampton, of which the Eev. John Pinhorne 
 was the principal. He was a man of good character and 
 attainments, rector of All Saints Church in Southampton, 
 prebendary of Leckford, and vicar of Eling, in the New 
 Forest. The Nonconformist relations of his young pupil 
 appear to have produced no uncharitable effect upon the 
 master's mind. From the first he prophesied the future 
 eminence and celebrity of the young scliolar. He died in 
 1714, when these were in their dawn. Watts held him in 
 most reverent and grateful memor}'', and illustrated these 
 feelings in a Pindaric Latin ode, which, in its recapitulation 
 of the classical authors, to whose pages the master had 
 guided his knowledge, certainly shows at once the abun- 
 dant scholarship of the worthy pair. 
 
 There, in the grammar-school of the town, in the dark 
 reigns of the Second Charles and James, the little Puritan 
 was the most diligent and advanced scholar, the beloved 
 of his master. He very early exhibited a great proficiency 
 in Latin, Greek, and French. A spare, pale child, there 
 was perhaps nothing peculiarly prepossessing in his fea- 
 tures, if we except the bright, intense sparkling eye, and 
 the quivering, nervous expression. There was certainly 
 nothing robust about him, but all the indications of the 
 future scholar. May we not also say the indications of the 
 future saint — a little meditative Samuel — of a time in our 
 histoiy of which we may say " the Word of theJLord was 
 precious in those days, there was no open vision V'_) 
 
 These first years, when the mind was gathering t5 
 itself the many tools of knowledge, were passed in his 
 father's house at Southampton — an utterly different 
 
Impressiom of Old Southampton. 
 
 9 
 
 Southampton from that which we see noAv — a charming 
 little sequestered town; the gentle river rolled its pleasant 
 and pellucid waves before it, undisturbed by the iron 
 floating bridge, as the nobler Southampton "Water rolled 
 along between it and the Isle of Wight. Unsullied by- 
 steamboats, it M'as no depot for the great navies of the 
 West, but it must have been a charming country town, 
 its streets almost overshadowed by the noble trees of the 
 New Forest. The historian and antiquarian will find no 
 lack of material for observation and suggestion in South- 
 ampton ; it is rich in old nooks and reminiscences, and 
 as full of material for the artist as for the archfeologist. 
 Legend and story of St. Benedict or King Canute, of the 
 knightly Bevia and Ascapart were, we may be sure, not 
 less fragrant then than they are there to-day. Many of 
 the old houses are standing ; the old towm walls, the 
 monuments of the great Eoman road, and the noble bars 
 of the town looked, we rnay be sure, more perfect then 
 / than now ; the neighbourhood in which Watts lived still 
 \ bears traces of being the oldest part of the town ; other 
 spots, which bear the marks of nineteenth century im- 
 provements in handsome pai-ks and squares and streets, 
 were then only wide, open fields ; and many of the objects 
 interesting to those who visit English shrines have 
 altogether passed away. The gaol in which Watts' 
 father was confined, St. Michael's Prison, the old Bull 
 Hall, and the buildings round the old Walnut tree — the 
 town retains the names of these places, and still conveys 
 some impression of what they were. The Blue Anchor 
 Postern still exliihits its massive old masonry, the relics 
 of a building inhabited l)y King John, and a royal resi- 
 dence of Henry iii. Yet more interesting memories 
 gather in another part of the towu, round the Widow.s' 
 
10 
 
 Birfh and Childhood. 
 
 Almshouses,* founded by Mr. Thorner, the friend and 
 co-religionist of Watts' father. The little town, from 
 being one of the most inconsiderable, has become one of 
 the most thri^dng and famous in the empire. 
 
 Still, changed as Southampton is during the last two 
 hundred years, it is not difhcult to realize something of its 
 ancient character. Its counterpart or resemblance may 
 still be found in some of those small seaport towns of 
 France which have been left to their primitive isolation by 
 the retreating tides of population. Yet a good many 
 things in the old town of Southampton remain unchanged. 
 It is full of quaint nooks and corners, gateways and arch- 
 ways bearing the evident marks of high antiquity. For a 
 long period Soiithampton sank into a state of sequestra- 
 tion and repose ; but her early history was something like 
 her later, and there was ,a day when in the most palmy and 
 splendid time of Venice her connection with that great 
 commercial republic was as intimate as it is now with the 
 Eastern and Western Indies. Its glory dates from the 
 time of the Conquest; and a circumstance ominous to 
 England in the landing tliere of Philip il., of Spain, the 
 husband and ill-adviser of Mary, is the last instance 
 recorded of its prominence and splendour in the ancient 
 day. The old parish of All Saints, in which Watts was 
 born, and the neighbourhood in which his childhood was 
 passed, remain so little changed as to enable the visitor to 
 carry in his mind a fair picture of the old lanes and streets, 
 rambling round the old church, in the middle of the now 
 rudely paved square. 
 
 * It is interesting to remember that Isaac Watts the elder was the 
 first local trustee to Robert Thomer's munificent bequest, which is now 
 the grandest of all the Southampton charities, and has made the name 
 of Thomer in that town a household word. 
 
In the Old House in French Street. 11 
 
 ^The house iu which Watts was born, in French Street, is 
 still standing, and seems to give the assurance of being 
 much the same, although it has so far yielded to the 
 indignities of time that one side of it is a public- 
 house and the other a marine store. It must have been a 
 plain but roomy, substantial building, standing back with 
 its garden behind it, full of lofty rooms and rambling nooks 
 and passages. There he first saw the light, there he passed 
 his play days of childhood ; there the dreamy, studious boy 
 accumulated the first spoils of knowledge ; reti;rning 
 thither after his academical course was closed, there he 
 wrote his first, and even a considerable number of his 
 hymns ; and thither, a celebrated man, he often came to 
 visit his parents, even when he was an old man. A 
 fragrant memory of early piety and matured holiness still 
 lingers over the old place, and consecrates it as one of our 
 English shrines.* 
 
 In his childhood circumstances happened likely to pro- 
 duce some effect upon his mind. The memory of the 
 terrible plag-ue of 1665, in which between one and two 
 "tliousand persons were swept away, was still fresh in 
 Southampton for one hundred and fifty years after. The 
 annalists of the town tell us it did not recover from the 
 state of decay into which it fell from that dreadful visita- 
 tion. The shops were all closed, all who could fled from the 
 town, and the streets were overgrown with grass. When 
 Watts was six years old the great comet flamed over 
 England, with which were associated in many minds such 
 
 ♦ The soil of Southampton neems to have been favourable to the pro- 
 duction of the lyrical faculty, althoupfh it is not probable that many of 
 those whose hearts have been stirred by the holy strains of Watts have 
 been acquainted with the melodies of one of the most national of 
 English song-writers, the laureate of sailors, also a townsman of South- 
 ampton, Thomas Dibden. 
 
12 
 
 Birth and Childhood. 
 
 dreadful portents, and it no doubt lent a colour to many 
 of his after most imaginative conceptions. It was an object 
 of singularly marvellous splendoiirT) Several years after he 
 seems to have put the memory of the impressions it produced 
 upon him into the couplets in which he alters Young's de- 
 scription, and the words sufficiently show how the surprising 
 spectacle had excited his youthful fancy : 
 
 Who stretched the comet to prodigious size, 
 And poured his flaming train o'er half the skies ? 
 Is 't at Thy wrath the heavenly monster glares 
 O'er the pale nations, to announce Thy wars ? 
 
 Tlie life of Watts had very little in it at any time which 
 related to the history of the period in which he lived, yet 
 it is impossible not to notice that these first years of his 
 life at Southampton were among the most exciting and 
 memorable of the country's history. What England was 
 Lord Macau lay has well described in perhaps one of the 
 most charming chapters of his history — the State of England 
 at the death of Charles II. It was the time of England's 
 Reign of Terror, and circumstances were happening, the 
 conversations upon which must have produced a vivid 
 impression upon the mind of a youth of lively sensibility. 
 The execution of Algernon Sidney and Lofd AVilliam 
 Eiissell, the trial of Eichard Baxter, the rising of Mon- 
 mouth, the tremendous descent of Jefferies in the Bloody 
 Assize of the West, the trial of the bishop?, the flight of 
 James, the landing of William at Torbay, and his progress 
 to London ; these were circumstances such as England had 
 never seen before, such as England can never see again, 
 and they all crowded fast upon each other in the years of 
 Watts' boyhood and early youth. 
 
 [ The period of the youth of Watts calls up to the mind 
 a singularly contradictory range of associations ; it was a 
 
Englancl in the Time of the Last Stuarts. 
 
 "w ild, wicked, and frivolous time, and yet there were meu 
 living then whose names have adorned, and will ever adorn 
 the literature of our laud. Watts was fourteen years of 
 age when -TrJig "Rnnyjin finished his eventful course. 
 Samuel Weiiley, the father of John and Charles, was just 
 leaving his academy at Stoke Newington and the Dissenters, 
 by whom he had been educated) Henry More, the singular 
 mystic, preceded Bunyan by one year to the grave ; Ealph 
 Cud worth was accumulating liis immense mass of nebulous 
 scholarship ; South was i)reaching his celebrated sermons, 
 in which coarseness so frequently kibes the heels " of 
 wisdom; Eobert Boyle was, with intense ardour, prosecuting 
 his observ^ations and studies in natural histoiy and science, 
 and blending with equal ardour with them his devotions 
 to revealed religion and Divine truth ; Barrow was pursuing 
 his ponderous lucubrations ; Newt on was expounding the 
 system of the universe, and Locjifi the system of the 
 the mind ; Howe was indulging in his seraphic ardours ; 
 Dryden was drawing to the close of an inglorious life, and 
 writing some of the pieces which have best served his 
 fame ; John Evelyn, the model of an English gentleman, 
 was studying his trees at Wootton, or penning his enter- 
 taining diary at Sayn Court; Samuel Pepys, garrulous 
 and silly, was writing a history without knowing it, as 
 the Boswell or the Paul Pry of the court and the town ; 
 Lely was flattering a meretricious taste by his paintings, 
 and Christopher Wren preparing his plans for rebuilding 
 London. 
 
 The persecutions to which the Nonconformists through 
 tills period were exposed of course affected society in 
 Southampton ; the avenues to prosperity and peace seemed 
 to lie only in conformity to the Church of England. It 
 was then tliat, in consetiuence of his great and promising 
 
14 
 
 Birth and Childhood. 
 
 attainments, his diligence and high character, an oiler 
 was made to Watts by Dr. John Speed, a physician of the 
 town, on the behalf of several others, to send him to one 
 of the universities, and very handsomely defray all his 
 >/ expenses there. He did not hesitate for a second, but 
 respectfully and firmly replied that he was determined to 
 take up his lot amongst the Dissenters. Two of his early 
 friends, in every way incomparably his inferiors, conformed, 
 and attained to archiepiscopal dignities. Yet. in spite 
 of all that he afterwards wrote on the relation of the civil 
 magistrate to religion, there would seem to have been 
 little in his faith, feeling, or practice which might not 
 easily have found a home in the Establishment but for the 
 persecuting spirit of the time. It was the same year that 
 in his slight, curious autobiographical memoranda,* he 
 mentions concisely how he " fell under considerable con- 
 victions of sin ; " in the year following, his entry runs on, 
 / " and was led to trust in Christ, I hope." In the same 
 I year, 1689, he mentions that he had a great and dangerous 
 sickness ; and all these events of his life, which look so 
 brief and cold to us as we put them down on paper, were 
 great and crucial events to him, settling the foundations 
 of his character, probably leading him away from the pur- 
 suits of scholarship as a mere charm and recreation of 
 cultivated taste, to regard it as the important means by 
 which an entrance might be obtained to everlasting truths. 
 These events would add to those motives which had deter- 
 mined him to renounce the idea of university training, 
 and to seek an entrance into the ministry through the 
 humbler portal of a Dissenting academy. 
 
 * See Appendix. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 HE neighbourhood of London, to which Isaac Watts 
 removed from Southampton forthe purpose of complet- 
 ing his studies, and preparing for the work of the ministry, 
 1^ was Stoke Newrngton, and in that neighbourhood he was 
 destined to pass the greater part of his life. It was pro- 
 bably even then pervaded, as for a long time before and 
 ever since, by an atmosphere of mild but consistent Non- 
 conformity ; the academy in which he studied was 
 / beneath the superintendence of the Rer. Thomas Rowe, 
 I the pastor of the Independent Churcli assembling in 
 ', Girdlers' Hall, in the City. It was probably one of the 
 most considerable of the time, and appears to have 
 succeeded to one also well known upon the same spot, 
 of which the principal was the Rev. Charles Morton. 
 Here studied the celebrated Daniel Defoe, also originally 
 intended for the Nonconformist pulpit, as he .says in one 
 of his reviews : " It is not often I trouble you with any 
 of my divinity ; the pulpit is none of my office. It was 
 my disaster first to be set apart for, and then to be set 
 apart from, the honour of that sacred employ." The 
 academy had a good reputation, and the effort which old 
 Samuel Wesley had made to sully its fair fame only 
 reflected his own dishonour, and left it untarnished. 
 
16 
 
 1)1 the Academy at Stoke Newington. 
 
 Charles Morton was one of those obscure but remark- 
 able men in which our country at that time was so rich. 
 He was descended from a singularly distinguished family 
 — that of Cardinal Morton, Thomas Morton, Bishop of 
 Durham, and many other distinguished men. He took 
 his degree of m.a. at Wadham College, Oxford, and 
 became, and continued until the Act of Uniformity, rector 
 of Blisland, in Cornwall ; after preaching for a short time 
 at St. Ives he removed to London, and shortly after opened 
 an academy on Newington Green. Defoe pronounces the 
 highest encomiums upon him and his method as a tutor ; 
 and Samuel Wesley, in the midst of his bitterness and 
 ungracious flippancy — for he had been maintained on the 
 foundation under the idea of entering the Nonconformist 
 ministry — ceases from his abuse to honour the memory of 
 his master ; he, however, after having trained several men 
 who became eminent in their day, teased by continued per- 
 secution, passed over to America ; there his fame had 
 preceded him ; there he became pastor of a church in 
 Charlestown, and Vice-president of Harvard University.* 
 
 Shortly after the departure of Mr. Morton for America, 
 the academy to which Watts was consigned was founded 
 by the eminently learned Theophilus Gale, m.a., the 
 author of that large medley of scholarship " The Court of 
 the Gentiles." He also had been deprived of considerable 
 Church preferments. To his charge the eccentric Philip 
 Lord Wharton committed the tutorship of his sons ; with 
 them he travelled on the Continent, adding to the stores of 
 his mental wealth, and contracting a friendship with the 
 learned Bochart. He arrived in the metropolis on his 
 return to see the city in the flames of the terrible confla- 
 gration, but to learn that the manuscripts he had left in 
 * Walter Wilson's " Life of Defoe," vol. i. pp. 26, 27. 
 
His Tutor, TJwmas Rowe. 
 
 17 
 
 the care of a friend were all saved, while the house in 
 which they had been preserved was destroyed. Hia mind 
 was so largely stored with every kind of learning that his 
 friends entreated him to settle as a professor of theology, 
 which he did at Stoke Newington, and there he continued 
 till he died in 1678, at the early age of forty-nine. He 
 left his personal estate for the education of young men for 
 the ministry ; his library, with the exception of his philo- 
 sophical books, to Harvard College. Beneath a tutor so 
 distinguished the interests of the two academies had pro- 
 bably merged into one. The successor of Mr. Gale was 
 one of his own students, Thomas Rowe, whom we have 
 already mentioned. He was the son of the Rev. John 
 Rowe, M.A., ejected from Westminster Abbey, and who was 
 called to preach the thanksgiving sermon before the Parlia- 
 ment on the occasion of the destruction of the Spanish 
 fleet, October 8th, 1656. Thomas Rowe very early entered 
 upon the work of the ministry. At the age of twenty-one 
 he succeeded his father as pastor of Girdlers' Hall in 
 Basinghall Street. 
 
 Isaac Watts came to the academy of Stoke Newington 
 in the year 1690; he was then in his sixteenth year. 
 " Such he was," says Dr. Johnson, " as every Christiau 
 Church would rejoice to have adopted." 
 
 There was no doubt a rare congeniality of spirit between 
 the tutor and his illustrious pupil ; the native gentleness of 
 the latter found nothing perhaps in tlie former to give to it 
 either sharpness or force ; indeed, the name of Thomas 
 Rowe would be lost but for the fame of Watts. The pupil 
 was nearer to manhood than was implied in his years ; he 
 was a well-informed and riclily cultivated scholar when he 
 left his father's liouse, and his modest bearing was such as 
 even a tutor might entrust with the refjponsibilities of 
 
18 In the Academy at Stohe Neioington. 
 
 /friendship. Friendsliip soon matured lietween them; the 
 . tutor testified that lie never on any occasion had to give 
 his pupil a reproof. His academical exercises show with 
 what diligence he was applying himself to the work of pre- 
 paration for the work of his future life. A sweet and 
 cheerful gravity pervaded his manners and his studies, and 
 it may be boldly said that in the great universities of that 
 time there were very few who wrought with so much vigour 
 I or to so much purpose. His Latin essays written at this 
 , \ period " show," says Dr. Johnson, " a degree of knowledge 
 both philosophical and theological, such as very few attain 
 by a mucli longer course of study." This verdict of John- 
 son is only just. One method adopted liy Watts in his 
 studies he has commended to others in his " Improvement 
 of the Mind," and it has probably been often successfully 
 adopted. It was thg)plan of abridging the works of the 
 more eminent writers in the various departments of study. 
 Thus he printed the material more indelibly on his 
 memory ; at the same time, by recasting the thoughts or the 
 information in his own mind, he was so compelled to analyze 
 and digest that he made the whole matter more entirely 
 his own mental property. To this practice he alludes when 
 he says : " Other things also of the like nature may be use- 
 fully practised with regard to the authors wliich you read — 
 viz., If the method of a book be irregular, reduce it into 
 form by a little analysis of your own, or by hints in the 
 margin ; if those things are heaped together which should 
 be separated, you may wisely distinguish and divide them ; 
 if several things relating to the same subject are scattered 
 up and down separately through the treatise, you may 
 bring them all to one view by references ; or if the matter 
 of a book be really valuable and deserving, you may throw 
 it into a better method, reduce it to a more logical scheme, 
 
Methods of Studij. 
 
 1!) 
 
 or abridge it into a lesser form. All these practices will 
 have a tendency both to advance your skill in logic and 
 method, to improve your judgment in general, and to give 
 you a fuller survey of that subject in particular. Wlien 
 you have finished the treatise with all your observations 
 upon it, recollect and determine what real improvements 
 you have made by reading that author."*] 
 
 
 There was another plan which reveals the careful 
 student, and to which Dr. Gibbons refers in his life : 
 " There was another method also which the doctor adopted, 
 it may be in the time of liis preparatory studies, though of 
 tliis we are not able to furnish positive evidence, but of 
 wliich there is the fullest proof in his further progress 
 of life, namely, that of interleaving the works of autliors, 
 and inserting in the blank pages additions from otlier 
 writers on the same subject. I have now by me, the gift 
 of his brother Mr. Enoch Watts, the ' Westminster Greek 
 Grammar ' thus interleaved by the doctor, with all he 
 thouglit proper to collect from Dr. Busby's and Ma*. Teed's 
 ' Greek Grammars,' engi-afted by him into the supple- 
 mental leaves ; and I have besides in my possession a 
 present from the doctor himself, a printed discooirse by a 
 considerable writer, on a controverted point in divinity, 
 interleaved in the same manner, and much enlarged by 
 insertions in tlie doctor's own hand." Certainly from 
 hints sucli as these no writer could seem by his own 
 careful diligence to be more admiral)Iy prepared to write 
 to and counsel young men and others concerning tlie 
 improvement of the mind. 
 
 Most of the biogxaphers of Watts have referred to liis 
 fellow-students. Several of tliem were interesting men. 
 
 * " Tlip Improvement of the Mind," chap. iv. of " Books and 
 Reading." 
 
20 In the Academy at Stoke, Newingfon. 
 
 " The first genius in the academy," to adopt Watts' own 
 descriptive designation, was Mr. Josiah Hart; but very 
 speedily after his removal from Mr. Eowe he conformed, 
 and became chaplain to John Hampden, Esq., the member 
 for Buckinghamshire. Presently after he became chaplain 
 to his grace the Duke of Bolton, Lord Lieutenant of 
 Ireland. Such offices furnished very easy opportunities 
 for advancement in the Church. Before long he became 
 Bishop of Kilmoye and Ardagh ; and in 1742 he was 
 translated to the archbishopric of Tuam, with which was 
 united the bishopric of Enaghdoen, with liberty to retain 
 his foriner see of Ardagh ; yet he retained friendly rela- 
 tionships with his old fello\v-student, and in the " Lyrics " 
 occurs a free translation of ^n epigram of Martial to 
 Cirinus, which seems to intinjate that he was not want- 
 ing himself in poetic inspiration : 
 
 So smooth your numbers, friend, your verse so sweet. 
 
 So shai-p the jest, and yet the turn so peat, 
 
 That with her Mai-tial, Rome would place Cirine, 
 
 Rome would prefer your sense and tlfought to mine. 
 
 Yet modest you decline the public stage, 
 
 To fix youi- friend alone amidst th' applauding ag«. 
 
 Fifty years after the period of their life as fellow- 
 students we find the Archbishop writing to Watts, " God 
 grant we may be useful while we live, and may run clear 
 and with unclouded minds till we come to the very 
 dregs ! I send you my visitation charge to my clergy of 
 Tuam. I submit it to your judgment. Your old friend 
 and aifectionate servant, Josiah Tuam." If in some part 
 singularly expressed, it gives a not unpleasing idea of the 
 writer's character. 
 
 Another fellow-student was Mr. J ohn Hughes ; but he 
 also, though dedicated to, and educated for, the Dissenting 
 ministry, upon leaving the academy soon conformed to 
 
His Fellow Students. 
 
 21 
 
 the Establishment ; he cultivated the lighter studies 
 of music, poetry, and painting. The Lord Chancellor 
 Cowper, in 1717, appointed him secretary to the com- 
 missions of the peace ; and after the resignation of the 
 Chancellor he was still continued in the same office. He 
 became a contributor to the " Tatler," " Spectator," and 
 " Guardian," and he attained to the friendship of some of 
 the most distinguished men of the age. Addison admired 
 him as a poet, Pope held him in veneration for his good- 
 ness, and Bishop Hoadley honoured him as a friend. 
 
 Others of the fellow-students continued stedfast to the 
 principles of their Dissenting Alma Mater, and became in 
 their way also useful and remarkable men ; among these 
 was Mr. Samuel Say, the feliow-townsman of Watts, and 
 one year his junior. After a useful course of ministra- 
 tions he succeeded Dr. Calamy at Westminster, and con- 
 tinued there until his death. Through life he was on 
 intimate friendly terms with his fellow-townsman. Little 
 as we know of him, sufficient is known to give to us the 
 picture of a thoroughly accomplished man, even with 
 considerable claims to be regarded as a man of genius ; 
 indeed it strikes us, in reviewing the intercourse of these 
 young men with each other, and their recommendations 
 of each other, that there was a thoroughness about 
 their attainments ; and that while they were faithful to 
 severer studies they were not indisposed to those graceful 
 exercises of the mind and fancy which have generally, 
 but we believe unjustly, been regarded as incompatible 
 with the severity of the Puritan character. To this 
 indulgence, no doubt, the taste of the tutor, Mr. Rowe, 
 was favourable. We know that Watts was accomplished 
 in several departments of taste, although all the exercises 
 which have come down to us from his college-days are 
 
22 
 
 //( the Academy at Stole Ncwingion. 
 
 quite of the severer chamcter — critical, metaphysical, and 
 theological — but his conscience was probably of that 
 tender order ■which would esteem it an unfaithfulness to 
 the object for which he was placed in the academy to turn 
 aside to pursuits of a lighter and less sacred description. 
 Another fellow-student of Isaac Watts was Daniel Neal, 
 celebrated as the author of'' The History of the Puritans;" 
 he proved in an eminent degree his call to the work of 
 the ministiy, and after some time spent in travel settled 
 as a pastor in the metropolis. 
 
 ^It is usual in our day, with the Dissenting academies, 
 
 to receive no one as student for the ministry who has 
 not previously qualified himself by membership with the 
 church which commends him. Tlie practice appears to 
 have been more liberal in Watts' day. He was never a 
 member of the church at Southampton, Init in the third 
 year of his residence with Mr. Rowe he united himself 
 with the church of his tutor, as he enters it in his 
 memoranda, " I was admitted to Mr. T. Eowe's church 
 December, 1693." This church also, like so many of the 
 Independent churches in the city, had a very honourable 
 ancestry — as we have previously said, it then held its 
 meetings in Girdlers' Hall, Basingliall Street ; after the 
 death of Mr. Kowe it removed to Haberdashers' Hall, but 
 the church itself appears to have originated with the 
 eminent William Strong, jr..\., still held in honour by 
 the lovers of old Puritan literature for his folio on the 
 (Covenants. He was a fellow of Katlierine Hall, Cam- 
 bridge, and rector of More Crichel, in Dorsetshire. This 
 living during the Civil Wars he was compelled by the 
 Cavaliers to relinquish, and, coming to London, he became 
 minister of the church assembling in Westminster Abbey, 
 and subsequently in the House of Lords. It is singular 
 
Tlie Young Scholar. 
 
 23 
 
 that thus both the ministers of the congregation in 
 Girdlers' Hall were originally pastors of the churcli in 
 Westminster Abbey. Mr. Strong died in 1654, and was 
 buried in the Abbey church, but upon the restoration his 
 remains had, with those of Cromwell, Blake, and Pym, 
 the honour of exhumation. Still, in the church when 
 Watts became a member of it, lingered some of the old 
 elements wliich first composed it; perhaps the most con- 
 spicuous of these was Major-General Goffe, the well-known 
 name of one of the judges of Charles i. 
 
 Such was the church with which Watts held his first 
 communion, and from which he was only transferred to 
 become the pastor of that over which he presided for the 
 remainder of his life. It need hardly be said that what- 
 ever interest attached to its memory in connection with 
 the circumstances which we have recited, his name confers 
 upon it the most permanent human interest. The union 
 must have strengthened that intimacy we have already 
 pointed out between himself and his tutor, pastor, and 
 friend. It is not probable that even at this period Mr. 
 liowe had the large scholarship and keen insight into tlie 
 beauties of the most famous classics possessed by liis 
 pupil, if we may form a judgment from the Pindaric ode 
 to Mr. Pinhorne, but a quiet mind will often marshal ideas 
 into order, and give a military usefulness in commanding 
 materials it could not recruit. Watts was probably never, 
 at any period of his life, wanting in the accoutrements of 
 discipline ; but this was the service chiefly rendered at 
 the academy, this and the more earnest entrance upon 
 philosophical and theological studies. We are sure also 
 that he and his tutor well harmonized in their sense of 
 the duty and the dignity of moral independence ; Watts 
 had already shown himself to be possessed of this by his 
 
24 
 
 In the Academy at Stoke Newington. 
 
 entrance into the academy.^ In his lines " To the innch 
 honoured Mr. Thomas Rowe, the director of my youthful 
 studies," he says : 
 
 I hate these shackles of the mind 
 
 Forged by the haughty wise ; 
 Souls were not born to be confined, 
 And led, like Samson, blind and bound ; — 
 But when his native strength he found 
 
 He well avenged his eyes. 
 I love thy gentle influence, Rowe, 
 Thy gentle influence like the sun, 
 Only dissolves the frozen snow, 
 Then bids our thoughts like rivers flow. 
 And choose the channels where they run. 
 
 And here we may say farewell to the tutor ; he lived just 
 long enough to see his scholar' settled in the ministry ; but 
 for his companion pupils he occupied a solitary home ; he 
 was never married, and in 1705, riding through the city on 
 horseback, he was seized with a fit, fell from his horse, and 
 instantly died. He was one of those men of whom the 
 world makes little mention, and finds little recorded ; he 
 was a comparatively young man. We have dwelt upon 
 the furniture of his mind, the attractiveness of his 
 manners, the docility and beauty of his disposition ; to 
 these it may be added that he was also probably possessed 
 of an engaging manner in the pulpit, as he retained what 
 was then considered a large congregation to the time of 
 his death. 
 
 While referring to the Dissenting academies of those 
 days, it may be interesting to notice that from one of 
 them in Gloucester, beneath the tutorship of the Eev. 
 Samuel Jones, two eminent men received their first train- 
 ing for the ministry of the Church of England, although 
 intended for the Nonconformist communion — Samuel 
 Butler, the distinguished author of the " Analogy," and 
 
A Letter to Watts from Thomas Seeker. 25 
 
 Bishop of Durham ; and Thomas Seeker, Bishop of Oxford, 
 and afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury. The Arch- 
 bishop probably found one of his earliest patrons in Dr. 
 Watts, by whom, as the following letter testifies, he Avas 
 introduced to the academy. The biographers of the Arch- 
 bishop, Dr. Porteus and Dr. Stinton, pass over the Arch- 
 bishop's first studies, as conducted by "one Mr. Jones, 
 who kept an academy at Gloucester ; " but the follow- 
 ing letter from Seeker, written when about the age of 
 eighteen to Dr. Watts, gives a very admirable idea of the 
 manner in which he directed the work of study in the 
 academy : 
 
 "Gloucestee: 18<A, 1711. 
 
 "Rev. Sie, 
 
 " Before I give you an account of the stat€ of o\ir 
 academy, and those other things you desired me, please to 
 accept of my hearty thanks for that service you have done 
 me, both in advising me to prosecute my studies in such 
 an extraordinary place of education, and in procuring me 
 admittance into it. I wish my improvements may be 
 answerable to the advantages I enjoy ; but, however that 
 may happen, your kindness has fixed me in a place where 
 I may be verj' happy, and spend my time to good purpose, 
 and where, if I do not, the fault will be all my own. I 
 am sensible how difficult it is to give a character of any 
 person or thing, because the most probable guesses we 
 make very often prove false ones. But, since you are 
 pleased to desire it, I think myself obliged to give you the 
 best and most impartial accoxmt of matters I can. 
 
 " Mr. Jones, then, I take to be a man of real piety, 
 great learning, and an agreeable temper ; one who is 
 very diligent in instructing all under his care, very well 
 
26 III the Acadcvuj at Stoke Newington. 
 
 (qualified to give iustnictions, aud whose well-managed 
 familiarity will always make him respected. He is very 
 strict in keeping good order, and will effectually preserve 
 his pupils from negligence and immorality. And accord- 
 ingly, I believe, there are not many academies freer in 
 general from those vices than we are. In particular my 
 hedfellow, Mr. Scott,* is one of unfeigned religion, and a 
 diligent searcher after truth. His genteel carriage and 
 agreeable disposition gain liim the esteem of every one. 
 Mr. Griffith is more than ordinary serious and grave, and 
 improves more in everything than one could expect from 
 a man who seems to be not nmch under forty ; particularly 
 in Greek and Hebrew he has made a great progress. Mr. 
 Francis and Mr. Watkins are diligent in study and truly 
 religious. The elder Mr. Jones, having had a better edu- 
 cation than they, will in all probability make a greater 
 scholar ; and his brother is one of quick parts. Our logic, 
 which we had read once over, is so contrived as to com- 
 prehend all Hereboord, and far the greater part of Mr. 
 Locke's Essay, and the Art of Thinking. What Mr. Jones 
 dictated to us was but short, containing a clear and brief 
 account of tlie matter, references to the places where it 
 was more fully treated of, and remarks on, or explications 
 of the authors cited, when need recjuired. At our next 
 lecture we gave an account both of wliat the author 
 quoted and our tutor said, who commonly then gave us a 
 larger explication of it, and so proceeded to the next 
 
 * Afterwards, says Dr. Gibbons, Dr. Daniel Scott. He was a very 
 learned and amiable man. Aiter he had studied under Mr. Jones he 
 removed to Utrecht for further education ; there he took the degree of 
 doctor of laws. In the year 17-11 he published a new version of St. 
 Matthew's Gospel, with critical notes, and an examination of Dr. Mills' 
 various readings. He published, also, in the year 1745, an " Appendix 
 to H. Stephens' Greek Lexicon," in two volumes. 
 
Letter from Tlwmas SecJxcr. 
 
 27 
 
 thing ill order. He took care, as far as possible, that we 
 understood the sense as well as remembered the words 
 of what we had read, and that we should not suffer our- 
 selves to be cheated with obscure terms which had no 
 meaning. Though he be no great admirer of the old logic, 
 yet he has taken a great deal of pains both in explaining 
 and correcting Hereboord, and has for the most part made 
 him intelligible, or shown that he is not so. The two 
 Mr. Joneses, Mr. Francis, Mr. Watkins, Mr. Sheldon, and 
 two more gentlemen, are to begin Jewish Antiquities in 
 a short time. I was designed for one of their number, but 
 rather chose to read logic once more ; both because I was 
 utterly unacquainted with it when I came to this place, 
 and ])ecause the others having all, except Mr. Francis, 
 been at other academies, will be obliged to make more 
 haste than those in a lower class, and consequently cannot 
 have so good or large accounts of anything, nor so much 
 time to study every head. We shall have gone through 
 our course in about four years' time, which I believe 
 that nobody that once knows Mr. Jones will think too 
 long. 
 
 " I began to learu Hebrew as soon as I came hither, and 
 find myself able now to construe and give some grammati- 
 cal account of about twenty verses in the easier parts of 
 the Bible, after less than an hour's preparation. We read 
 every day two verses apiece in the Hebrew Bible, which 
 we turn into Greek (no one knowing which his verses 
 shall be, though at first it was otherwise). And this, with 
 logic, is our morning's work. Mr. Jones also began about 
 three months ago some critical lectures, in order to the 
 exposition you advised him to. The principal things con- 
 tained in them are about the antiquity of the Hebrew lan- 
 guage, letters, vowels, the iucorruptiou of the Scriptures, 
 
28 III the Academy at Stoke Newington. 
 
 ancient divisions of the Bible, an account of the Tahmul, 
 Masora, and Cabala. We are at present upon the Septua- 
 gint, and shall proceed after that to the Targumim, and other 
 versions, etc. Every part is managed with abundance of 
 perspicuity, and seldom any material thing is omitted that 
 other authors have said upon the point, though very fre- 
 (juently we have useful additions of things wliich are not 
 to be found in them. We have scarce been upon anything 
 yet but Mr. Jones has had those writers wliich are most 
 valued on that head, to wliich he always refers us. Tliis is 
 wliat we first set about in the afternoon, which being 
 finished we read a chapter in the Greek Testament, and 
 after that mathematics. We have gone through all that is 
 commonly taught of algebra and proportion, with the first 
 six books of Euclid, which is all Mr. Jones designs for the 
 gentlemen I mentioned above, but he intends to read some- 
 tliing more to the class that comes after them. 
 
 " This is our daily employment, which in the morning 
 takes up about two hours, and something more in the after- 
 noon. Only on Wednesdays, in the morning, we read 
 Dionysius's Periegesis, on which we have notes, mostly 
 geographical, but with some criticisms intetmixed ; and in 
 the afternoon we have no lecture at all. So on Saturday, 
 in the afternoon, we have only a Thesis, which none b\it 
 they who have done with logic have any concern in. We 
 are also just beginning to read Isocrates and Terence, each 
 twice a week. On the latter our tutor will give us some 
 notes which he received in a college from Perizonius. 
 
 " We are obliged to rise at five of the clock every morning, 
 and to speak Latin always, except when below stairs 
 amongst the family. The people where we live are very 
 civil, and the greatest inconvenience we suffer is, that we 
 fill the house rather too much, being sixteen in number, 
 
Letter from Tliomas Seeker. 
 
 29 
 
 besides Mr. Joues. But I suppose the increase of his 
 academy will oblige hini to move next spring. We pass 
 our time very agreeably betwixt study and conversation 
 with our tutor, who is always ready to discourse freely of 
 anytliing that is useful, and allows us either then or at 
 lecture aU imaginable liberty of making objections against 
 his opinion, and prosecuting them as far as we can. In 
 this and everything else he shows himself so much a gen- 
 tleman, and manifests so great an affection and tenderness 
 for his pupils as cannot but command respect and love. 
 I almost forgot to njention our tutor's library, which is 
 composed for the most part of foreign books, which seem 
 to be very well chosen, and are every day of great advan- 
 tage to us. 
 
 "Thus I have endeavoured, sir, to give you an account 
 of all that I thought material or observable amongst us. 
 As for n^y own part, I apply myself with what diligence I 
 can to everything which is the subject of our lectures, 
 without preferring one subject before another; because I 
 see nothing we are engaged in but what is either necessary 
 or extremely useful for one who would thoroughly under- 
 stand those things which most concern him, or be able to 
 explain them well to others. I hope I have not spent my 
 time, since I came to this place, without some small im- 
 provement, both in human knowledge and that which is 
 far better, and I earnestly desire tlie benefit of your prayers 
 that God would be pleased to lit me better for His service, 
 both in this world and the next. This, if you please to 
 afford me, and your advice with relation to study, or what- 
 ever else you think convenient, nmst needs be extremely 
 useful, as well as agreeable, and shall be thankfully received 
 by your most obliged humble servant, 
 
 "Thomas Secker." 
 
30 
 
 7/1 the Academy at Stoke Newington. 
 
 Seeker's first coiniiiuiiion was with a Dissenting chureh 
 — the Rev. Timothy Jollie's — and he preached his first ser- 
 mon in a Dissenting meeting-house at Bolsover, in Derby- 
 shire. He retained his feelings of affectionate indebtedness 
 to his early friend to the close of Watts' life. 
 
 His term of study closed at Stoke Newington, Watts, 
 
 still little more than a youth, returned for some time to 
 his father's house at Southampton. Worshi]>])ing with 
 the congregation there, under the ministry of the Rev. 
 Nathaniel Robinson, he felt that the psalmody was far 
 beneath the beauty and dignity of a Christian service. He 
 was requested to produce sometliing better, and the follow- 
 ing Sal)bath the service was concluded with what is now 
 tlie first hymn of the first book^ and a stirring hymn it is — 
 as an ascription of praise or worship, and as a confession of 
 faith it is remarkably comprehensive and complete. 
 
 Behold the g^lories of the Lamb 
 Amidst His Father's throne; 
 
 Prepare new honours for His name, 
 And songs before unknown. 
 
 Let elders worship at His feet. 
 
 The church adore around, 
 With vials full of odours sweet, 
 
 And harps of sweeter sound. 
 
 Those are the prayers of the saints. 
 And these the hymns they raise; 
 
 Jesus is kind to our complaints, 
 He loves to hear our praise. 
 
 Eternal Father, who shall look 
 
 Into Thy secret will ? 
 Who but the Son shall take the book. 
 
 And open every seal ? 
 
 He shall fulfil Thy great decrees. 
 
 The Son deserves it well ; 
 Lo ! in His hand the sovereigTi keys 
 
 Of heaven, and death, and hell. 
 
Tlie Origin of the First Hymn. 
 
 31 
 
 No-w to the Lamb that once was slain, 
 
 Be endless blessings paid ; 
 Salvation, glory, joy, remain 
 
 For ever on Thy head. 
 
 Thou hast redeemed oiir souls with blood, 
 
 Hast .set the prisoners free ; 
 Hast made us kings and priests to God, 
 
 And we shall reign with Thee. 
 
 The worlds of nature and of grace 
 
 Are put beneath Thy power ; 
 Then shorten these delaying days. 
 
 And bring the promised hour. 
 
 I ' This i.s the tradition of the origin of the first hjTnn. It 
 was received with great alacrity and joy. It was indeed 
 " a new song." The young poet was entreated to produce 
 another, and another. The series extended from Sahhath to 
 Sabbath, until almost a volume was formed, although their 
 publication was long delayed. This was the interesting 
 result of his return to Southampton. 
 
CHAPTEE III. 
 
 Jit ihit Hartcpp Jfamilw. 
 
 RETURNING from Southampton, Isaac Watts entered 
 the family of Sir John Hartopp, the first of those 
 two influential friends whose names will always be asso- 
 ciated with his own ; it was October 15th, 1696, he being 
 [ then twenty-two years of age, when he went to reside 
 with him. Within the memory of some of the old inha- 
 tants of Stoke Newington there stood on the north 
 side of Church Street tlie remains of a red brick house, 
 with large casement windows ; once they were all 
 handsomely painted, and bore the arms of Fleetwood, 
 Hartopp, and Cook. But no one of these later gene- 
 rations saw that old mansion in all its original greatness. 
 In later years it came to be divided into houses, and parts 
 of it drifted down from the abode of statesmen to the 
 boarding-school for young ladies. Still it retained even to 
 its close, traditionary relics and reminiscences of the old 
 days of its pride and importance. On the ceilings of its 
 principal rooms were the remains of the arms of the Lord 
 General Fleetwood ; and in the upper part there was a 
 little door concealed by hangings, through which the per- 
 secuted Nonconformist passed into a place of safety and 
 concealment, in the days of Charles ii. The old house 
 
The Old House at Stoke Newington. 
 
 33 
 
 was built towards tlie close of the reign of Elizabeth, so 
 that even at the period when it comes before our readers 
 it was ancient. It was purchased by Charles Fleetwood, 
 Lord General of the army of the Commonwealth, and under 
 CromweU one of the Council of State. It is quite un- 
 necessary here to dweU upon liis transient importance and 
 power ; he was one of the last of those remarkable men in 
 that singular interregnum of our history, and the very last 
 after the resignation of Richard Cromwell who held some 
 of the shadows of the departed substance of gTeatness. 
 He spent the remainder of his days in the mansion of 
 Stoke Newington before his final departure for Bunhill 
 Fields. To this place, in time succeeded Sir John Hartopp, 
 by his wife Elizabeth Fleetwood, a grand-daughter of the 
 General ; and to this old red brick building, with its secret 
 chambers and armorial casements and ceilings, Isaac Watts 
 came as a tutor in the family. 
 
 Sir John Hartopp was not a mere city knight, and in- 
 deed city knighthoods meant much more in those days 
 than now. He was of an old Leicestershire family of 
 Dall>y Parva, in the register books of which place the name 
 is written Hartrupte. The family was able to trace a very 
 interesting history back to the time of Richard ii. ; tlie 
 baronetcy dated from the time of James I., and the family 
 received considerable honours from Charles I., and, what 
 is more to the purpose of the present memoir, it was in his 
 house that Richard Baxter planned, if he did not partly 
 write, " The Saint's Everlasting Rest." Sir John Hartopp, 
 I the friend of Watts, was born at the commencement of the 
 Civil Wars. In his early youth the whole of his neigh- 
 Ijourhood was alive with marchings and counter-marchinjis. 
 Buckminster was the place of the family residence, and the 
 steeple of the parish church was used as a watch-tower for 
 
 D 
 
34 
 
 In the Hartopp Family. 
 
 reconnoitring. The house was alive and perpetually on 
 the guard against the incursions of the Cavaliers. Sir 
 Edward Hartopp, the first baronet, died at the commence- 
 ment of the I'rotectorate of Cromwell, and M'as buried at 
 Buckminster ; his son, the father of Sir John, died a short 
 time previous to the Eestoration, and about this time we 
 find the family removed to London and settled at Stoke 
 Newington. Sir John became an eminent Nonconformist ; 
 as he cast in his lot among the Independents, he was a 
 member of the Church of Dr. Owen, with whom he main- 
 tained a very close and intimate friendship ; and there is 
 in the library of the New College, in St. John's Wood, a 
 volume of the sermons of Owen, very carefully written 
 down after hearing them, copied, probably for use in the 
 family, in Sir John's handwriting. Many of Dr. Owen's 
 manuscripts came into his possession upon his decease, and 
 were contributed by him to the complete collection of the 
 Doctor's sermons. 
 
 ( Sir John Hartopp was an ardent and active patriot. He 
 was three times chosen representative for his native county 
 of Leicestershire. In 1671 he was high sheriff, and he 
 afterwards distinguished himself by his earnest advocacy 
 of the Bill of Exclusion to bar the Duke of York's succes- 
 sion to the throne. He became the subject of much per- 
 secution, and paid in fines apparently the larger portion of 
 £7,000. He died in 1722, when the affairs of the nation 
 had long, through the active exertions of such men as he 
 was, settled themselves into comparative tranquillity and 
 prosperity. Watts preached in his memory his sermon " On 
 the Happiness of Separate Spirits made Perfect," and he 
 dwells at some length upon certain personal characteristics, 
 from whicli we gather that Sir John was an accomplished 
 man, with a taste for universal learning, and the pur- 
 
Sir John Hartopp. 
 
 35 
 
 suit of knowledge iu various forms — mathematics in liis 
 younger days, and astronomy in his old age ; keeping alive 
 his early knowledge of Greek for an intelligent acquaint- 
 ance with the New Testament, and so late in life as at 
 the age of fifty entering upon the study of Hebrew. His 
 1 house became the refuge of the oppressed, wliile Ijy some 
 j happy disposition of Providence he himself was saved 
 from those more severe and painful persecutions to which 
 so many were not only exposed lait subjected. His ardent 
 attachment to Dr. Owen assures il.? of the temper and 
 character of his religious convictions, and altogether he 
 shines out before us as one of those beautiful and luminous 
 examples and illustrations of the mefi to whom our country 
 owes so much. So far as we can gather from what is left 
 on record of him, he appears to have been a true Christian 
 gentleman, a fine harmonious combiflatiou of characteristics 
 blending in him the severity of high principle with a 
 gentle and tenderly affectionate ilature. 
 
 Sir J ohn Hartopp, as we have seeb, became by marriage 
 connected with the family of Cromwell ; he mamed Eliza- 
 beth, one of the daughters of the Lord General Fleetwood, 
 and his sister married a son of the old general — thus there 
 was a double connection. Wlien Fleetwood's liouse was 
 first l)uilt in the village of Stoke Newington it must have 
 been a stately mansion. In his day it was probably 
 divided, and had all the cliaracteristics of the old mansions 
 of the earlier part of the seventeenth century. Hither tlie 
 General retired after the Restoration, and here, singularly 
 enough, he was permitted to pass his days in tranquil 
 ob.scurity. He died while Watts was studying at the 
 adjoining academy. Watts no doubt knew tlie old Ironside, 
 for he was on terms of close intimacy with his son. Smith 
 Fleetwood. Such were some of the collateral connections 
 
o6 In the Hartop}) Family. 
 
 of tlie Hartopp family. And there was another, Sir 
 Nathaniel Gould, to whom Watts inscribes a poem, who 
 married Frances, the daughter of Sir John and Lady 
 Hartoj)p. Such was • the circle in which it appears he 
 moved to and fro with a pleasant and indulged affability. 
 All of these people were members of the church over 
 which Dr. Owen had presided, and of which Watts was 
 hereafter, and shortly, to l)e minister. It was no doulit 
 owing to the intimacy he sustained with all these eminent 
 persons, that he by-and-bye received the invitation to 
 become their pastor, in which relation he preached a 
 funeral sermon, as we have seen, for Sir John, so also for 
 Lady Hartopp, and Lady Gould, of whom he remarks, "I 
 would copy a line from that most beautifid elegy of David, 
 and apply it here with more justice than the Psalmist could 
 to Saul and Jonathan, ' Lovely and pleasant were they in 
 their lives, and in their death they were not divided,' 
 silent were they and retired from the world, and un- 
 known except to their intimate friends ; humble they were 
 and averse to piiblic show and noise, nor will I disturb 
 their gTaves by making them the subject of public praise." 
 
 It was a house full of daughters and two sons. Two 
 had already gone to the family vault, and one — born the 
 year of Watts' entrance into the family — was soon to 
 follow. But there were nine daughters in the household ; 
 of these two had died before the days of Watts' residence, 
 seven survived ; these were Helen, and Mary, and Martha, 
 and Elizabeth, and a second Anne, and Bridget, and 
 Dorothy, and Frances. Was Watts their tutor ? It was a 
 dangerous neighbourhood for a young man, amidst all those 
 bright glances and radiant young faces in the Puritan house- 
 hold; perhaps the danger had been greater had there been 
 fewer of them. Fancy indulges herself in picturing the life 
 
The Old Cedar Tree. 
 
 37 
 
 of the young student there. As we \vcI\q seen, Frances mar- 
 ried Sir Nathaniel Gould, and died in 1711, six days after 
 her mother, Lady Hartopp. The other six daughters all 
 lived and died unmarried in the family home. How solitary, 
 one thinks, the last of that bright circle must have felt, 
 dying there in 1764, sixty-two years after Watts first took 
 up his abode among them. 
 
 Isaac Watts entered the family as the tutor of the future 
 baronet, and many of those pieces which he afterwards 
 gave to the world were the productions of this time, many 
 of his "Miscellaneous Thoughts," tlie chief portions of his 
 " Logic," and probably much of liis " Improvement of tlie 
 Mind." We have said already he furnishes, like John Calvin 
 . and some others, an instance of a singular prematurity of 
 ^intelligence, not however interfering, as is so frequently 
 the case, with future eminence, usefulness, and advance- 
 ment. 
 
 Here, tlien, was for sonie time Watts' home. He 
 studied hard and diligently, drawing forth and putting into 
 shape the results of previous years of scholarship. Beliind 
 the house there were extensive gardens and remarkably fine 
 trees, and especially a noble cedar, said to have been 
 planted by General Fleetwood, concerning whicli liobinson 
 tells a singular story : That long years ago a scythe had l)een 
 hung up in the fork of the tree, and was left there un- 
 noticed and untouched until years after it was discovered, 
 the body of the tree having completely overgrown it and 
 enclosed the blade so fast that it could not be removed. 
 " And," says Robinson, " it is at this day to be seen, the 
 point of the blade on the one side, and the end on tlie 
 other." * 
 
 * " History and Antiqmties of Stoke Newington." By William 
 Robinson, ll.d., f.s.a. 
 
38 
 
 In the Hartop}) Family. 
 
 The young man to whom Watts was tutor died at the 
 age of thirty-tive. He had succeeded liis father in the 
 baronetcy. Watts had given to him a nohle training. 
 Upon the publication of his " Logic " it was dedicated to 
 him, and the writer reminds him that it had been prepared 
 for him to assist his early studies. Some of the most 
 animating verses in the "Lyrics" are addressed to him, 
 and many otlier scholastic pieces also were prepared for 
 his pupil wliile residing at Stoke Newington. Amidst the 
 shades of its ti'ees were written many of those essays so 
 pleasing to read now, his " Miscellaneous Thoughts " anu 
 " Juvenile Kelics." Here the young man was indeed 
 training himself as well as teaching his pupil, when we 
 remember that many, if not most, of his hymns had already 
 been written at Southampton, and that his "Institutes of 
 Logic" and his whole method of thought were matured and 
 written here ; tnily he appears to have been an industrious 
 athlete. Neither egotism nor egoism seems to shadow his 
 studies by any morbid self-consciousness, or any wondering 
 dreams as to what his future destiny might be. He appears 
 to have been one to whom faith and duty were sufficient. 
 He had foimd his Saviour, and he believed ; he had his 
 work to do, and he wrought at it like a living conscience. 
 By-and-by he left the old liouse which had yet a singular 
 history. His pupil was very wealthy, and he appears to 
 have given during his life, and to have left upon his death 
 a maintenance, with the family mansion, to his six maiden 
 sisters. There they lived, and there tliey died ; and it is 
 remarkable, as has been already said, that one of them died 
 in 1764, aged eighty-one, ninety years, as the church 
 register shows, after the death of a young sister in 1674, 
 the year in which Watts was born ; this, we may be sure, 
 U'as throughout his life one of the houses he would fre- 
 
Tlic Last of the Family. 39 
 
 quently revisit, and renew his impressions of youthful days 
 amidst its elm and cedar shades. Gradually all the mem- 
 bers of the family dropped away, eacli in turn gathered 
 one by one, till one and all were re-united in the vaults 
 of Stoke Newington Church. But we are stepping on too 
 fast for our life of Watts, whose more obvious and active 
 career was all before him yet. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 pastor jof It IConiroit C^urtlj. 
 
 flTTATTS ])reached his first sermon on his birthday, July 
 '-T T 17th, 1698 ; he was then twenty-four years of age. He 
 ; probably mingled with his duties as tutor those of chaplain 
 to the excellent family in which he resided. The ice once 
 broken, he began to preach constant!^ Sir John Hartopp 
 and his family were members of the church of Dr. 
 Chauncy, in Mark Lane ; and it was, no doubt, greatly 
 in consequence of this friendship that Watts was invited 
 to become the assistant of the doctor. 
 
 It is curious to compare the dearth of chapels and 
 preachers in the City in the present day with the many 
 remarkable for their importance at the time when Watts 
 became a pastor. Still a few places stand out, dating from 
 that time ; but, for the most part, all have gone, leaving 
 only the memories of certain men of remarkable attain- 
 ments, wit, and eloquence behind them. To the dis- 
 tinguished circle of ministers, and to the church which had 
 known, before him, men so eminent, Watts, all but un- 
 known, brought a name which was to give to them a 
 crowning reputation. His qualities as a preacher all 
 accounts represent as rather solid than shining. His ser- 
 mons were beautiful in their clear harmonious symmetry of 
 
Watts' Modesty. 41 
 
 powers, rather than startKng. Surely never a man who 
 poured into his verse so much rich brilliancy of expression 
 — sometimes, it must be admitted, with questionable rhe- 
 torical afflatus and pomp of utterance — preserved through 
 all that we know of his public teaching so quiet and 
 equable a flow of language and ideas, so instructive, while 
 so entirely removed from all that can unduly agitate the 
 spirit. In Jeremy Taylor we wonder that the poet seems 
 to abandon every ambitious attempt when he writes verse, 
 while his sermons possess a gorgeous and overwhelming- 
 splendour of diction and imagery. In Watts, on the otlier 
 hand, it is equally surprising that so sprightly and splendid 
 a fancy, so rich a command over sacred verses and images, 
 should express itself with such calmness and modesty in 
 words intended for the pulpit ; but this was probably of a 
 Apiece with his whole character. His hymns are often 
 raptures and ecstasies, but he reserved these for his most 
 ^private life, for his own heart, for his closet and study, 
 f There was nothing in his character bustling, prominent, or 
 Vobtrusive. In an evening conversation he would shrink as 
 j far as possible from taking any prominent part, and would 
 I never in ordinary company lead it. In the home circle, 
 among close and well-known friends, he shed around him- 
 self a genial atmosphere; but he was too essentially a 
 student and a book-man to be in any high sense a popular 
 preacher. Eminent and eminently honoured, his greatness 
 was not of that order which easily finds itself at home in 
 multitudes. His person was not striking, although we can 
 conceive it to have been very impressive ; and his mode of 
 setting forth all things upon which he wrote or spoke was 
 so purely thoughtfid, demanded so intimate a sympathy 
 with pensive and meditative moods, and required so close 
 an acquaintance with higli and abstract thoughts, that it is 
 
42 
 
 Pastor of a London Church. 
 
 not to be wondered at that his fame as a preacher and 
 schohxr was rather reserved for the intimate circle than for 
 more extended, not to say vulgar, spheres. 
 
 The City of London at present conveys no idea of what 
 it was then ; and what it was very materially affects our 
 estimate of the position of Watts as one of its Noncon- 
 formist ministers. The City of London was the chief bul- 
 wark of English freedom. Happily all the needs and occa- 
 sions for what it was in those days have long since passed, 
 and England itself has greatly become what London was 
 then. The City of that date calls up the idea of some such 
 spots as the great medisBval cities, the burgher strongholds 
 of the middle ages. Not many years before it had been 
 the refuge of the five members whom Charles I. sought 
 to attach for high treason. It had been committed to the 
 cause of Puritanism, Protestantism, and William ; some of 
 its chief men had become martyrs to the cause of civil and 
 religious liberty. The governments of Charles ll. and 
 James il. scarcely permitted to active minds and public 
 men a middle way. Nonconformity was imposed by the 
 exactions of tyranny upon spiritually minded men. Hence, 
 leaving the fanes and structures then very pleasantly stand- 
 ing in many a retired close, surrounded by pleasant trees, 
 sequestered places in the midst of the graves of many gener- 
 ations, such persons were compelled to assemble for worship 
 where they best could, in some old guild hall or place of 
 trade, some loft over offices and warehouses.* Most of the 
 congregations we now should consider small. No company 
 composed of faithful souls meeting for Divine service 
 
 * The interested reader consulting that singular monument of 
 patient and painstaking industry, " The History and Antiquities of 
 Dissenting Churohes and Meeting-Houses in London, Westminster, and 
 Southwark," by Walter Wilson, will probably feel astonishment, not less 
 at tlieir number than at the singular places in which tliey assembled. 
 
Puritan Reminiscences. 
 
 43 
 
 beneath the blessing of Him who said, "Where two or 
 three are gathered together in My name, there am I in 
 the midst of them," * can be held contemptible ; but their 
 congregations were largely composed of persons who 
 had tigured prominently in the great actions of the imme- 
 diately preceding years, officers and soldiers of that great 
 army which had overawed the world by their fame, persons 
 to whom Nonconformity was no mere negation, but the 
 profession of all that was dearest to human freedom or to 
 human hopes, men of substance and position, the most 
 eminent merchants, to whose sense religious and civil 
 liberty were so closely related that it was impossible to do 
 injustice to the one without aiming at the heart of the 
 other, and who knew that to iiijure either was to hurt the 
 lesser, but still eminent ijiterests of trade and commerce, 
 and industry, and national prosperity. Nonconformity in 
 the City of London has grown in representative wealth and 
 importance ; but it may be safely affirmed that it could not 
 show such congregations of noble men as those which 
 thronged its contemptible meeting-houses in "Watts' day. 
 
 Keferring back to those times, entering one of the 
 chapels during the time of service, we should, perhaps, be 
 astonished and chilled by the want of animation and 
 ardour, if these are to ba tested by the apparent excitement. 
 Indeed, to our taste, the service must have appeared very 
 formal and frigid ; not merely in the fact that no instru- 
 mental music of any kind would have been tolerated, no 
 response or chant, but, in many congregations, there was no 
 singing at all. To the stricter Puritan sensibility this would 
 have been merely intolerable. We have instances of 
 ministers who were made uncomfortable in their churches, 
 and compelled to relinquish them, because they desiied to 
 
 ♦ Matt, xviii. 20. 
 
44 
 
 Pastor of a London Church. 
 
 introduce some religious melody ; in other instances it 
 was the minister who disapproved such extravagant piety 
 in his people. The Society of Friends was not alone in its 
 renunciation of all the adornments and flights of religious 
 song. Even where singing was indulged, it was Patrick's 
 or the Scotch version, or some such literal translation of 
 ;the words of Scripture. Paraphrases and more expanded 
 I religious sentiments had never been heard of, and were 
 j regarded, when first introduced, as seditious and dangerous 
 i innovations, disturbing the purity of so reasonable a ser- 
 vice, which derived all its life and interest from its most 
 perfect conformity to a spiritual order ; the simple voice of 
 the minister in prayer, and in preaching, meandering in 
 many instances through roads of uncommon length. We 
 have instances on record of a prayer itself taking the 
 entire length of that time we now ordinarily allot to a 
 public service. This state of things in the congregation 
 must have greatly influenced the religious life of the times 
 i| where it existed at all. It became cold, remote, and 
 ~ abstract ; not that there were wanting instances, both of 
 ' ministers and congregations, who maintained, in the midst 
 of so much lifelessness, a high spiritual state and intercourse. 
 ^ The Jioiiconformists throughout the country were, in the 
 latter part of the seventeenth century, for the most part 
 men disposed to social quiet. They had now recovered in 
 some measure a state of religious tranquillity, and they were 
 rather interested quietly to preserve what they possessed, 
 than to attempt any occupation of new ground, either in 
 I principle or in practice. They made few efforts to correct 
 the vices of men, or to convert them from tlieir life of sin. 
 The round of Nonconformist duty and piety was a quiet, 
 staid, and respectable service; nothing, we suppose, could 
 be more unlike the satires so often pronounced upon it. 
 
Tlie Nonconformists of Old London. 
 
 45" 
 
 Most of its ministers were men of considerable scholarly 
 attainments, their minds fed by the rich and strengthening 
 ' food to be found in some of the oldest fathers and the 
 earliest reformers ; at the same time they were accustomed 
 to abstractions and questions, which at once enlarged and 
 strengthened the understanding. They had no acquaint- 
 ance with our large varieties of nature and language ; but 
 they were keen observers of human nature, and they sub- 
 mitted their knowledge to the test and use of daily life. 
 As to their people, in many instances, no doubt, they were 
 humble, perhaps even of obscure rank, but this was not 
 always the case. Nonconformity in those times included 
 others than those we should even call the respectable 
 middle classes ; it represented an order of political opinion 
 quite as much as religious doctrine and practice, not only 
 as we have seen in London, but in many districts of the 
 country. Some of the highest and oldest families formed 
 ' the staff and stay of congregations. It was a respectable 
 I but cold piety, in many instances with assured tendencies 
 {towards Socinianism and Unitarianism. The Noncon- 
 formity into which Watts came, and with which during 
 the whole of his life he mingled, is quite removed from 
 that Nonconformity of Methodism and Eevivalism which 
 became the great religious movement of the last century. 
 It was a Nonconformity educated, solid, rooted in certain 
 principles and assurances, inclining too exclusively to a 
 life of thought ; the religion of intelligent multitudes who 
 could not conform, especially to what the Church of Eng- 
 land was, in that coarse and intolerant time, when her nets 
 gathered fish of every sort, among them some chiefly 
 remarkable for their rapacity and impurity. 
 
 It was over one of these old City churclies, probably the 
 most famous of them, that the youthful Isaac Watts was 
 
46 
 
 Pastor of a London CJmrck. 
 
 called to preside as the pastor. The congregation or 
 church contained a number of eminent persons ; its pastors 
 liad been eminent men ; here a few years before ministered 
 Joseph Caryl. From the pulpit of this place probably 
 were poured forth those prelections on the Book of Job, 
 assuredly in more than one sense a monument to the 
 memory of Patience ! Vast and mammoth-like, a mega- 
 therium of books, the most huge commentary ever 
 written, but a structure of learning, with eloquence and 
 evangelical truth, if large in bulk almost equal in worth. 
 Over this church, more recently, had presided a greater 
 man in the person of the mighty John Owen, the friend of 
 Cromwell, and, during the Protectorate, Vice-Chancellor of 
 Oxford. The place of meeting was in Mark Lane, and in 
 the congregation there were present some whose character 
 and lives might a little daunt any preacher, much more a 
 very youthful one. There were many in that congrega- 
 tion able to carry the memory back through the days of 
 England's fiery trials, through the years of war and of 
 persecution, and the times when the City was alive in its 
 own defence. They had heard the cry, " To your tents, 0 
 Israel ! " when, in an ill-omened hour, Charles I. came to 
 the City ; they had seen the Thames alive with barge and 
 boat as the members were escorted back to Westminster ; 
 some had served in the camp with the Ironsides, and some 
 had seen Sir Harry Vane hailed to the scaffold ; there 
 were officers of the old Commonwealth army, members of 
 the old Long Parliament, strong merchants and magis- 
 trates who had stood up for the liberties of the City and of 
 England ; there, in that congregation, scattered over the 
 place were clustering remnants of the immediate members 
 and descendants of Cromwell's family, none more remark- 
 able than that most singular woman, Mrs. Bendish, 
 
Memhers of the Church in Mark Lane. 47 
 
 Bridget Ireton, the grand-daughter of Cromwell, of whom 
 all contemporaries spoke as bearing just the same relation 
 to her grandfather in character that Elizabeth bore to 
 Henry vin. — a woman with a most remarkable life ; there 
 was Charles Fleetwood, her mother's second husband ; 
 there was Charles Desboroxigh, the brother-in-law to 
 Oliver Cromwell ; there was that fine old English gentle- 
 man Sir John Hartopp, and Lady Hartopp, who was a 
 daughter of Charles Fleetwood, and thus allied to Mrs. 
 Bendish ; there was Lady Vere Wilkinson, and Lady 
 Haversham, a daughter of the Earl of Anglesey, and the 
 wife of John Thompson Earl of Haversham; and there, 
 last as we mention them, but far from least in importance 
 in tlie life of Watts, Sir Thomas and Lady Abney. 
 
 As we have said already, the Independent churches of 
 the City were in that day gTeatly composed of such 
 characters as these. Look into any one, and you will see 
 such persons of rank and influence, although probably a 
 kind of Cromwell clannishness gave distinctness and 
 importance to the little church in Mark Lane ; there was a 
 respectability and dignity about those churches in general 
 which we should in these days Init little appreciate. 
 They were snug little spiritual corporations, held together 
 by several bonds whicli have ceased to Ije distincti^'e now ; 
 a strong faith in certain great first principles in religion ; a 
 strong faith also in certain political principles, quite essen- 
 tial to the freedom of their faith and their religious liib 
 and its usages. Nor can we conceal from ourselves that 
 there was also a conservative spirit of an aristocratic 
 flavour; there was nothing in the communion wlii(]i 
 savoured of our modern more heterogeneous assemblies ; 
 the members were usually persons of strong character, 
 considerable culture, and thought. Their idea of liberty 
 
48 
 
 Pastor of a London Church. 
 
 M'as no more cut out after the modern type than was 
 their theology ; indeed both were ideal. If the Harringtons 
 and Sidneys dreamed their republics, not upon the wild 
 democratic inclusiveness of complete suffrage, the pro- 
 clamation of the sanctity of ignorance, and the wisdom of 
 vice, but upon the models of classical times, — these for 
 the most part idealized the republic of the saints, and 
 formed their conceptions of church life and political free- 
 dom upon the unattainable standard of the college of the 
 apostles, and the traditions of the community of the 
 saints. Yet it is very easy to perceive hoM', ensconcing 
 themselves in religious life as in a comfortable arm-chair, 
 while perfectly faithful themselves, they became the 
 parents of that large declension of such churches to 
 Arianism and the cognate Socinian ideas which in the 
 later periods of his life vexed the spirit of Watts, and 
 led his thoughtful philosophic nature into an arena of 
 mild, but not the less earnest conliict. 
 f Watts, accepting the charge of the church, was ordained 
 over it March 8th, 1702, the day on which King William 
 died. The young minister's immediate predecessor was 
 Dr. Isaac Chauncy, who, like most of his coadjutors in the 
 ministry of that period, was a gentleman of good and 
 ancient family ; originally coming over with the Con- 
 queror, settled at Yardley, Berkshire, in the time of 
 Elizabeth, and by the drift of circumstances conducted to 
 considerable eminence among the Puritans and Noncon- 
 formists. The father of Isaac Chauncy had been professor 
 of Greek in the University of Cambridge, and vicar of 
 Ware, in Herti'ordshire. He took up his testimony for 
 Nonconformity when the " Book of Sports " was published, 
 commanding him to desist from preaching on the Sabbath 
 afternoon, that the people of his parish might indulge 
 
A Youthful Pastor. 
 
 49 
 
 / 
 
 themselves in profane amusements ; lie fell beneath the 
 vengeance of Archbishop Laud, and was twice cited before 
 the Court of High Commission ; he made a recantation, 
 which he afterwards so regretted and bewailed that he 
 threw up everything and withdrew to New England. His 
 son Isaac held the living of Woodborough, in Wiltshire, 
 from whence he was ejected, and after ministering a short 
 time in Andover came to London, intending to practise as 
 a physician, when the church in Mark Lane called him to 
 become its minister ; but he was not popular as a preacher, 
 however eminent in other qualifications. 
 
 The congregation had exhibited signs of decline when 
 "Watts was called in, probably as one on whom the eyes 
 of leading Nonconformists were fixed, especially as the 
 friend of Sir John Hartopp. Although so young, his 
 knowledge of mathematics, of the classics, of Church his- 
 tory, of theological science, especially his piety, must have, 
 made him already well known in Nonconfoimist circles. 
 This knowledge extended back to the early part of 1G98, 
 so that for nearly two years he must have been the 
 preacher, and it may be presumed very considerably the 
 pastor of the church before, upon the resignation of iJr. 
 Chauncy, lie succeeded him in his office : the members of 
 this distinguished church must have invited him with 
 their eyes completely open to all that he was as a preacher 
 and as a man. But he gave no indications of ability to 
 enforce by his bodily powers the manifestations of his 
 genius — his health appeared to be constantly failing. For 
 some months before his ordination he had been laid aside 
 > from preaching, and in search of health had, by the advice 
 of physicians, visited Bath. And then again we find 
 him for some time resting at home at his father's house, 
 now, no doubt, a comfortable residence, a flourishing 
 
 E 
 
50 
 
 Pastor of a London Church. 
 
 scliool, and released from all the terrors -wiiicli had 
 shadowed it in his infancy. And from thence again by 
 physicians we find him sent to Tunbridge Wells, so that 
 he says, " I was detained from study and preaching five 
 months by my weakness, except one very short discourse 
 at Southampton in extreme necessity." He Avas of a 
 slight and most fragile frame throughout his life. His 
 works constitute an amazing monument of industry. But 
 during the years he had been tutor in Sir John Har- 
 topji's family he must have performed these duties in a 
 spirit of remarkable conscientiousness, for he prepared 
 some of the works which afterwards delighted and in- 
 structed the world, as the necessary means of the course 
 he was pursuing in the education of the young man, his 
 pupil. Very remarkably this is the case with his " System 
 of Logic," which when it was published many years after 
 was adopted and continued to be until recently the text-book 
 for the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge ; this appears 
 also to have been the case with his " Scheme of Ontology." 
 He refers to many of his writings published at a much 
 later j^eriod of his life, as for the most part the productions 
 of these his earlier years. We shall have occasion to speak 
 of these again ; at present it is sufficient to refer to this 
 persistency of mental labour and assiduous industry as not 
 only the sufficient cause for the illness which suspended 
 him from labour, but the foundation of future years of 
 painful infirmity which accompanied him through life. 
 
 There must have been much about him not only to 
 command respect but to enchain affection. Long hesitating 
 as to whether he should accept the proffered pastorate, he 
 had not long entered upon the real responsibilities of his 
 office before he was again seized with a painful and 
 alarming illness; almost immediately he was compelled 
 
Ill the Minorics. 
 
 51 
 
 again, in July, 1702, to renew his rest in Southampton, 
 and then returning to London he mentions, in the memo- 
 randa we have already quoted, that he was " seized with 
 violent gaundise and colic three weeks after my return to 
 London, and had a very slow recovery, eight or nine weeks' 
 illness. From September 8th, or thereabouts, to November 
 ' 27th or 28th. This year, viz., 1702, by slow degrees 
 removed from Newington to Thomas Hollis's, in the 
 Minories." 
 
 During a period of about six years Watts appears to 
 have resided in the family of Sir John Hartopp ; in the 
 paragraph above quoted he refers to his removal to the 
 house of Mr. HoUis, in the Minories. The names of the 
 places associated with the ministrations or the residence 
 of Watts and his fellow ministers in the City, sound to 
 our ears now strange and singularly unromantic and un- 
 interesting ; but what they are now we must not for a 
 moment suppose they resembled tlien. Even the Minories 
 — now the last place in which one could wish to reside — 
 lay, at that time, open and fresh towards the pleasant 
 fields of the east end of London, a rather distinguished 
 neighbourhood beneath the shadows of the Tower, and 
 j)leasantly refreshed by the breath from tlie waters of the 
 then really silvery Thames, whose banks were alive with 
 tlie songs of watermen. The Minories or Minoresses — so 
 called from the nuns of the Order of St. Clair — had once 
 been the region of noble residences ; here had been the 
 residence of Sir Philip Sidney, here his body lay in state. 
 The spot was, and is, full of interesting memories. Tlie 
 family of the Hollis's was from Sheffield, in Yorkshire, 
 and liaving founded churches in Doncaster and Eotherhain, 
 removing to London, the father of Watts' friend became 
 one of the most helpful representatives of Nonconformity 
 
52 
 
 Pastor of a London Chnrch. 
 
 in the City, immediately connected with the church 
 assembling in Pinuers' Hall, beneath the pastorate of Dr. 
 Jeremiah Hunt. To this place, in consequence of the 
 narrow and dilapidated state of the building in Mark Lane, 
 Watts and his people were compelled to remove in the 
 year 1704. Pinners' Hall had for years been used by 
 Nonconformists, and in their turns J5axter, Owen, Bates, 
 Manton, and Howe had all preached in it to crowded 
 congregations, hence the reason, most likely, of the friend- 
 ship of the minister and Mr. Hollis. 
 
 . ' We have few particulars of Watts in his pastoral work. 
 
 ' From the first days of his pastorate his health was a 
 frequent source of interruption to his activity. Tlie hymns 
 and poems frequently expressing the experience of pain, 
 weakness, and weariness are no fancies ; they express a 
 very devout spirit of resignation, with regret, as he ex- 
 
 j presses it, that "many other souls are favoured with a more 
 easy habitation, and he hoped with a better partner, accom- 
 modated with engines which have more health and vigour;" 
 but he instantly recovers his spirits to exclaim, " Shall I 
 repine then, while I survey whole nations and millions and 
 millions of mankind that have not a thousand's part of 
 my blessings ? " He was laid aside by sickness for five 
 months soon after he became assistant to Dr. Chauncy, 
 1G98 ; he was the subject of another illness soon after 
 ( his settlement in the pastoral charge in 1701 ; a violent 
 fever seized him in 1712, his constitution was shattered by 
 it, his nerves weakened and unstrung, and he prevented 
 fr(jm returning to liis public work until October, 1716 ; we 
 find from his own record that he was confined by illness in 
 1 1729 ; and many other occasions might be discovered of 
 these sharp bodily afflictions. Life around him was usually 
 beautiful and serene ; he seems to have possessed a very 
 
A Letter to an Afflicted Friend. 
 
 large revenue of love, but he unq^uestionably j)ossessed. tins 
 " thorn in the flesh," nor can we doubt that such ex- 
 periences to such a faith as his, gave personal meaning to 
 his hymns. He sung very often as one stretched on a 
 rack, and not the least of his pains must have been that 
 his incessantly active nature, his constant design and desire 
 to carry out some purpose or to pursue some task found 
 itself checked and arrested. Dr. Gibbons quotes a para- 
 graph from a very beautiful letter to a friend, a minister, 
 in affliction, through which there runs a vein of true 
 spiritual friendship, and a pathos which his own experience 
 of trials would very naturally inspire : " It is my hearty 
 desire for you that your faith may ride out the storms of 
 temptation, and the anchor of your hope may hold, being- 
 fixed within the veil. There sits Jesus our Forerunner, 
 I who sailed over this rough sea before us, and has given us 
 ',a chart, even His Word, where the shelves and rocks, tlie 
 fierce currents and dangers are well described, and He is 
 our Pilot, and will conduct us to the shores of happiness. 
 I am persuaded that in tlie future state we shall take a 
 sweet review of those scenes of Providence whicli have 
 been involved in the tliickest darkness, and trace those 
 footsteps of God when He walked -with us througli tlie 
 deepest waters. This will be a surprising delight, to survey 
 the manifold harmony of clashing dispensations, and to 
 have those perplexing riddles laid open to the eyes of our 
 souls, and read tlie full meaning of them in set characters 
 of wisdom and grace." 
 
 It is not extraordinary, therefore, that even so early as 
 :1703 the church relieved Watts by choosing a co-pastor, 
 |Mr. Samuel Price, a native of Wales, but a student from 
 iAttercliff, in Yorkshire. As it was necessary to have a 
 co-pastor, he was chosen upon tlie express desire and 
 
oi 
 
 Pastor of a London Church. 
 
 earnest recoiumeudatioii of "Watts ; but many years appear 
 to have passed between the choice of the church and his 
 ordination as joint pastor, for Watts' autobiographic 
 memoranda says : " June, 1703, Mr. Samuel Price was 
 chosen by the church to assist me ; " but he was not 
 ordained to the office of co-pastor until 1713. Tliis 
 vehitionship continued until it was dissolved by deatli. 
 They were colleagues consideral)ly upwards of forty years, 
 and Price succeeded his beloved and amiable friend, whom 
 lie survived about seven years ; he died in 1756, having 
 been connected with the church lifty-three years. Watts 
 meutions him in liis will as his faithful friend and com- 
 })anion in the ministry, aiid leaves some little legacy, " as 
 ordy a small testimony of his great affection for him, on 
 account of his services of love during the many harmonious 
 years of their fellowship in the work of the Gospel." 
 Watts several times, in the course of the prefaces and 
 dedications to his published works, refers affectionately to 
 his colleague ; and his colleague wlien he died expressed a 
 wish that he might be buried as near as possible to his 
 lionoured friend. It may be incidentally mentioned that 
 he was uncle to the celebrated Dr. Eichard Price. 
 
 Although his companion in the ministry neither as a 
 preacher nor man of letters ai)proached the eminence of 
 Watts, it would seem that he was in everj' way acceptable 
 as a preacher and a pastor, "judicious, and useful, and 
 eminent in hi.s gift of prayer," says Gibbons. Certainly, 
 tire old place in Mark Lane became too small, for, after 
 a temporary sojourn in Pinner's Hall, in 1708 the con- 
 ureuation removed from Mark Lane* to Duke Street, 
 St. Mary Axe. 
 
 It had been the site of one of the most celebrated metro- 
 
 * Originally Mart Lane. 
 
A71 Old London Suhurh. 
 
 55 
 
 politan ecclesiastical establishments previous to the Eefor- 
 mation, the Priory of the Holy Trinity, the founder of 
 which was Matilda, Queen of Henry i. ; it became a huge 
 establishment and enormously wealthy, the richest convent 
 in England, some have said ; rich in lands and ornaments, 
 and incomparably surpassing all the other priories in the 
 same county. The prior was always an alderman of 
 London, although, if he happened to be exceedingly pious, 
 he appointed a substitute to enact temporal matters ; and 
 on solemn days this clerical alderman rode through the 
 city with the other aldermen, but arrayed in his monastic 
 habit. On the dissolution of the monasteries this became 
 one of the earliest .spoils, and it was given by Henry viii. 
 to Sir Thomas Audley, the Speaker of the House of Com- 
 mons, and afterwards Lord Chancellor. On the site of the 
 old priory he erected a splendid mansion, in which he resided 
 until his death in 1544. His daughter and sole heiress, 
 Margaret, married Thomas, Duke of Norfolk, so the estate 
 descended to the Howard family, and became the Duke's 
 place ; he lost his head ; passing to his eldest son, he sold 
 it in 1592 to the mayor, corporation, and citizens of London. 
 This is a singular piece of history, which Wilson, in his 
 " History of Dissenting Churches," has gathered from 
 Strype, Maitland, and Pennant. 
 
 In the time of Watts tlie neighbourhood had scarcely 
 fallen from its high estate. Time had been since the period 
 of the lieformation when Sir Prancis Walsingham, Sir 
 Thomas Wyatt, and the Earl of Northumberland had their 
 houses here ; and Bury Street derived its name from the 
 abbots of Bury, who also liad a residence on this spot. 
 Since the time of Cromwell, however, the region had 
 become a kind of Juden Strasse. The Jews, who now form 
 its principal inhabitants, then first settled there. The spot 
 
56 
 
 Pastor of a London Church. 
 
 oil which the chapel was built was part of a garden, 
 althougli renioved from public observation, a necessity laid 
 upon the Nonconformists of that time, who were compelled 
 to retreat into obscure recesses to escape the vigilance of 
 prowling informers. Tlie building has now entirely passed 
 away, but we very well remember it, one of the old square 
 substantial buildings Avitli its galleries, exactly an ideal 
 conventicle of those times, one of tliose in whicli the Non- 
 conformists seemed to teach tliat tliere was no beauty in 
 architecture whicli they jjarticularly desiied. The rich 
 furniture and attainments of the ministers' minds contrast- 
 ing singularly with the plain and altogether uiioniamented 
 and even barn-like simplicity of the scene of their ministra- 
 tions : almost the only buUdings which now retain the 
 entirely unornamented architecture of the Puritan times 
 are those of the members of the Society of Friends. Such 
 was the building opened in Bury Street, October 3rd, 1708 ; 
 it is also interesting to notice tliat it was erected at the 
 costly sum of £650 ! In the present year of the publica- 
 tion of this volume a building has been erected in the City 
 of London for the same order of communicants as those in 
 Bury Street, at a cost of £55,000. The two sums are very 
 suggestive of a comparison and contrast between the Non- 
 conformists of the time of Watts and of to-day. 
 
CHAPTEE V. 
 
 first pitbHtatrott as a Satreb |)o{t. 
 
 / rpHE fact tliat the first work puhlislied by Watts was 
 ^-J- the " Sacred Lyiics " may justify this early estimate 
 of liis character as a sacred jjoet. It is probable, nay it is 
 certain, that the time bestowed by Watts upon poetry was 
 very sliglit and insignificant compared with that which he 
 devoted to the graver pursuits of life, and the various 
 studies connected with philosophy, theology, preaching, and 
 education. He first, however, appeared in print as the 
 author of the " Hora? Lyrics," the Lyrical Poems : and Dr. 
 Johnson judges that they entitled him to an honourable 
 ,place amongst our p:nglish poets'1 Watts himself thought 
 j very modestly of his claims in mis way, and .speaks con- 
 I cerning his own compositions in the humblest language. 
 - " I make no pretences," he says, " to the name of a poet, or 
 a polite writer in an age wherein so many superior souls 
 shine in their works through the nation." In many of his 
 hymns he unquestionably deserves the highest honour : but 
 for the most part it is not in the lyrics we are to seek, 
 as we certainly shall not find, the noblest illustrations of 
 his poetical genius ; nor, perhaps, is it probable that we 
 should turn to them with much interest or expectation but 
 that they are the production of Dr. Watts, and that he was 
 
58 
 
 First Publication as a Sacred Poet. 
 
 the author of those liyinns so dear to the Church of Christ, 
 and the " Divine and Moral Songs for Children." In all 
 our judgments and criticisms upon "Watts as a poet, two 
 things must be borne in mind : first, as we have seen above, 
 tliat he not only disclaimed the character himself, but 
 proved his sincerity by regarding it only as the recreation 
 of grave and serious studies, and the very natural occupa- 
 tion of a man of fine taste and largely cultivated sensi- 
 bility ; and next, we must remember that tlie poetry of the 
 age in wliicli he lived was artificial, formed for the most 
 part upon classical models, whose rules were very greatly 
 inapplicable to English verse. The sweetest and most 
 perfect poet in any near approach to those times was Oliver 
 Goldsmith, and he was the writer least imbued with 
 classical lore, and the one who left all classical rules and 
 allusions furthest behind him, content to express himself 
 in simple and pleasing English. Jolmson was a poet, and 
 Joseph Addison, but although so much more ambitious and 
 devoted to the pursuit, they neither of them have produced 
 sentiments or expressions wliich charm us more than those 
 we find in tlie productions of Watts. Thomas Gray was a 
 poet, but only in two or three instances did the simplicity 
 and purity of the English language, and the simple metre, 
 succeed in winning him from the trammels of classical 
 formularies. Indeed there was something ludicrous in the 
 poetry of the time ; and the gxeat genius of Pope, which 
 really was equal to anything in verse, seemed almost to 
 struggle in vain against the pedantic rules he imposed 
 upon liimself. It was the age of fantastic ornament and of 
 formal symmetry, of artificial gardening, of trimmed yews, 
 when even Nature herself in her trees, hedgerows, and 
 fiower-beds was made to look ridiculous. A sort of tulip- 
 mania, a false admiration in colour and in form, took 
 
Watts and Bishoj) Ken. 
 
 59 
 
 possession not merely of the speculators in the market, hut 
 of the devotees of the fine arts. Years passed on before 
 English poetry liberated itseK from these false trammels, 
 and the first great English writer who subsequently gave 
 freedom and freshness, a combination of sublimity and 
 simplicity to English verse, was William Cowper. 
 
 We must separate and distinguish between Watts as 
 a poet, the author of the " Lyrics," and Watts as a 
 ! hyinuologist, and the author of those pieces which, as they 
 ^have been, so we trust they will continue to be, a precious 
 legacy of the Church, and the expression of its deepest, 
 'jhighest, and tenderest emotions. In a letter to the " Gentle- 
 man's Magazine," when his judgment was appealed to for a 
 poetical decision, he said, " Though I have sported with 
 rhyme as an amusement in younger life, and published 
 some religious composures to assist the worship of God, 
 ' yet I never set myself up among the numerous competi- 
 tors for a poet of the age, much less have I presumed to 
 become their judge." There is a writer of one or two 
 immortal hymns in our language wlio sometimes suggests 
 a comparison witli Dr. Watts. Watts was capable of 
 poetry. He was not only a poet in Ms hymns, but a poetic 
 nature often broke through the turgid pindarics he adopted 
 as the vehicle of his expressions. But Ken was no 
 poet at all, and yet, unlike Watts, who disclaimed the 
 character, this was Ken's one vanity. A writer in tlie 
 " Quarterly Eeview," which may be accepted here as an 
 uiiexceptional)le umpire, says, " If there was any vanity 
 iu tlie good man's heart, it would seem to have been on 
 the subject of his poetical skill. He expresses, indeed, a 
 belief that his verses are open to the assaults of criticism, 
 ])ut lie must have thought sometlring of them, for he left 
 them fur publication, and they fill four thick volumes. 
 
60 Firat Publication as a Sacj'ed Pod. 
 
 Tlic contrast is strange between the clear, free, harmonious 
 flow of his prose, and the barbarous, cramped, pedantic 
 hmguage, the harsh dissonance, the extravagant conceits, 
 which disfigure the great mass of his verses. Mr. Anderson 
 has tried the ingenious experiment of reducing some 
 I)assages from metre to prose, and no doubt they gain 
 considerably ! But there is no getting over the fact that 
 tliese four volumes are altogether a mistake." * Such a 
 criticism as this can never be j^ronounced on Watts, but it 
 is yet true that some of the vices of Ken disfigure tl>e 
 pages of the " Horaj Lyrica}," and they are traceable to tlie 
 same cause — the forsaking simplicity and nature, and 
 following artificial models and straining after affected 
 diction. 
 
 [He was essentially a liymn writer, and among the lyi-ics 
 the most beautiful and effective pieces are those which 
 either are hymns or approach nearest to that order of 
 composition. The modern reader will be impatient of the 
 frequent apostrophe, and, although "personification, that 
 is, the transformation of the qualities of the mind, and 
 abstract ideas, and general notions into living embodi- 
 ments," has ever been regarded as one of the noblest 
 exercises and proofs of the poetic faculty, we suppose 
 few will be disposed to regard Watts' excursions in this 
 way with favour.! He possessed this power in an eminent 
 degree : instantalieously, apparently, a sentiment became 
 an image, and the image pointed to a tender and pathetic 
 treatment. His elegy on the death of William ill. has 
 often been cited as a fine piece of elegiac personification ; 
 should it seem extravagant to the reader, it would scarcely 
 seem so to Lord Macaulay ; and it must be remembered 
 that Dr. Watts was one who regarded himself and tlie 
 
 Quarterly Review," vol. Ixxxix. pp. 303, 304. 
 
Elegy on William III. 
 
 61 
 
 nation as profoundly indebted, snrely not unnaturally, 
 for freedom and prosperity to the arms and government 
 of the deceased king. He was young when he wrote 
 these verses. William, as we have said, died the day on 
 which Watts was ordained to the work of the ministry, 
 1702. The verses present a picture of the illustrious 
 hero lying in state, surrounded by the weeping arts and 
 graces of society. Dr. Gibbons, not inappropriately, speaks 
 of the piece as " the largest constellation of personifica- 
 tions occurring amongst the Doctor's Odes : " 
 
 Preserve, O venerable pile, 
 Inviolate thy sacred trust,; 
 To thy cold arms the Briti.sh isle, 
 Weeping, commits her richest dust. 
 
 Rest his dear sword beneath his head ; 
 Round him his faithful aims shall .stand : 
 Fix his bright ensigiis on his bed, 
 The guards and honours of our land. 
 
 High o'er the grave Religion set 
 
 In solemn g-uise ; p)'onounce the ground 
 
 Sacred, to bar unhallowed feet. 
 
 And plant her guardian virtues round. 
 
 Fair Lihcrfy, in sables di'cst. 
 Write his loved name upon his urn ; 
 William, the scourge of tyrants past. 
 And awe of princes yet unborn. 
 
 Sweet Pence, his sacred relics keep. 
 With olives blooming round her head, 
 And stretch her wings across the deep 
 To bless the nations with the shade. 
 
 Stand on the pile, immortal Fame, 
 Broad stars adorn thy brightest robe; 
 Thy thousand voices sound his name 
 In silver accents round the globe. 
 
G2 
 
 Ftrd Puhlication as a Sacred Pod. 
 
 Flattcrij sluiU faint beneath the sound, 
 While hoary Truth inspires the song-; 
 Eiivij grow pale, and bite the ground, 
 And Slander gnaw her forky tongue. 
 
 Night and the grave, remove your gloom ; 
 Darkness becomes the TOlgar dead ; 
 But gloiy bids the royal tomb 
 Disdain the horrors of a shade. 
 
 Glory with all her lamps shall bum. 
 And watch the warrior's sleeping clay, 
 TiU the last trumpet rouse his urn. 
 To aid the triumphs of the day. 
 
 But he had a simpler manner, and even in his stronger 
 expressions rose to the majesty of simple strength, as in 
 the following : 
 
 Launching into Eternity. 
 
 It was a brave attempt ! advent' rous he, 
 
 Who in the first ship broke the unknown sea : 
 
 And leaving his dear native shores behind. 
 
 Trusted his life to the licentious wind. 
 
 I see the surging brine : the tempest raves : 
 
 He on the pine-plank rides across the waves. 
 
 Exulting on the edge of thousand gaping graves : 
 
 He steers the winged boat, and shifts the sails, 
 
 Conquers the flood, and manages the gales. 
 
 Such is the soul that leaves this mortal land. 
 
 Fearless when the great Master gives command. 
 
 Death is the stonn : she smiles to hear it roar. 
 
 And bids the tempest waft her from the shore : 
 
 Tlien with a skilful helm she sweeps the seas, 
 
 And manages the raging storm with ease : 
 
 (Her faith can govern death) she spreads her wings 
 
 Wide to the wind, and as she sails she sings, 
 
 And loses by degrees the sight of mortal things. 
 
 As the shores lessen, so her joys arise. 
 
 The waves roll gentler, and the tempest dies, 
 
 Now vast eternity fills all her sight, 
 
 She Hoats on the broad deep with infinite delight, 
 
 The seas for ever cahn, the skies for ever bright. 
 
Watts' Love of Nature. 
 
 63 
 
 The weight and grandeur of his thoughts, the radiance 
 of his perception, the far-reaching, remote grandeur of the 
 objects of his verse, must always be taken into account, 
 pondered, and allowed an adequate influence over tlie 
 reader's mind, whenever attempts are made to estimate 
 what he was as a sacred poet. Not the less was his mind 
 in ready accord with objects of Nature. He had seen, 
 probably, little of Nature in her more grand and exciting 
 moods. Men like him, born to London life, and only 
 occasionally escaping thence to some near and quiet 
 watering-place, saw little of those ample pages Avliich, 
 in our own or other lands, are now unrolled to almost 
 every designing eye. But his verses abundantly show 
 with what perfect sympathy every object touched him, 
 how all the smaller or greater things of Nature impressed 
 the subtle sense within him, and awoke the mystery aiul 
 ^ the awe. The following lines, not composed as a liynni, 
 but included in his " ]\Iiscellaneous Thoughts," have always 
 seemed to us very cogently to illustrate this : 
 
 My God, I love, and I adore ; 
 
 But souLs that love would know Thee more. 
 
 Wilt Thou for ever hide, and stand 
 
 Behind the labours of Thy hand ? 
 
 Thy hand unseen su.stains the poles 
 
 On which this huge creation rolls : 
 
 The starry arch proclaims Thy power, 
 
 Thy pencU glows in every flower ; 
 
 In thousand shapes and colours rise 
 
 Thy painted wonders to our eyes; 
 
 "While beasts and birds, with labouring throats, 
 
 Teach us a God in thousand notes, 
 
 The meanest pin in Nature's frame 
 
 Marks out some letter of Thy name. 
 
 Where sense can reach, or fancy rove, 
 
 From hill to hill, from field to grove', 
 
First Publication as a Sacred Poet. 
 
 Across the waves, around the sky, 
 There's not a spot, or deep or high, 
 Where the Creator has not trod, 
 And left the footstep of a God. 
 
 And in the same strain, witli what strength and majesty 
 he sweeps every chord of Nature in his sublime version of 
 the 148th Psahii : 
 
 Loud hallehijahs to the Lord. 
 
 The strong nervousness of his expression, the passionate 
 personification (always the mark of a great poet) with 
 Avhich his verses abound, sometimes, l)ut more especially 
 in his lyrics, give the appearance of intlaiiou to his ex- 
 pressions. But when attempting to describe adequate 
 themes, they only fitly represent the subject, as in the 
 following fine description of the glory of God in the 
 clouds : 
 
 Thy hand, how wide it spreads the sky ! 
 
 How glorious to behold ! 
 Tinged with a blue of heavenly dye. 
 
 And starred with sparkling gold. 
 
 There Thou can.st bid the globes of light 
 
 Their endless circles run ; 
 Where the pale planet rules the night, 
 
 And day obeys the sun. 
 
 The noisy winds stand ready there 
 
 Thy orders to obey; 
 With sounding wings they sweep the air. 
 
 To make Thy chai'iot way. 
 
 There like a trumpet loud and strong, 
 
 Thy thunder shakes our coast ; 
 While the red lightnings wave along, 
 
 The banners of Thy host. 
 
 On the thin air, without a prop, 
 
 Hang fruitful showers around ; 
 At Thy command they sink, and drop 
 
 Their fatness to the ground. 
 
Frequent Ferxour of Expression. 
 
 65 
 
 Strong exception lias been taken to Watts' verse, on the 
 score of its frequent, almost passionate, expression of 
 Divine love ; in this he frequently writes like Madame 
 Guyon, or like some of those old monastic spirits who 
 / passed their days in cloisters ; and Watts' life was almost 
 ' as cloisteral as that of a monk. Unlike his amiable friend, 
 Philip Doddridge, he was never diverted from any of 
 the solemn pursuits of his life by the claims of human 
 passion or affection, although there are not wanting verses 
 which, perhaps, show that he had not been altogether 
 insensiljle to female charms : 
 
 Virgins, ■who roll yoiir artful eyes, 
 And shoot delicious danger thence ; 
 Swiftly the lovely lightning flies, 
 And melts our reason down to sense. 
 
 But perhaps his poem " Few Happy IVIatches," reveals 
 some reason why his timid spirit refused to seek its 
 happiness in matrimonial chains, and so he turned to the 
 higher affections, singing — 
 
 Life is a pain without Thy love ; 
 
 Who can ever bear to be 
 
 Cursed with immortality. 
 
 Among the stars, but far from Thee ? 
 
 But the author of many of these hymns must often have 
 been wafted away with a true mystic ecstasy. The 
 warmth of this rapture has been objected to ; the ob- 
 jection lies, also, against the works of most of the gTcat 
 mystics. 
 
 My God, the spring of all my joys, 
 
 is one of countless illustrations — 
 
 My God, my life, my love, 
 To Thee, to Thee, I call. 
 
 or — 
 
 Dearest of all the names above. 
 
 F 
 
C6 
 
 First Publication as a Sacred Pod. 
 
 In such as these, if the reader feels unable to rise to 
 them amidst the delights of family joys — wife, and 
 children, and society — let him remember how Watts lived, 
 his solitary nights, in a family where, no doubt, his pre- 
 sence was a charm and blessing, but in which he must 
 have been to himself, comparatively, lonely as a monk, 
 feeding his mind with thoughts until they became passions 
 and ecstasies to him, and even found their vent in such 
 words as the following : 
 
 His charm shall make my numbers flow, 
 
 And hold the falling floods ; 
 While silence sits on every bough, 
 
 And bends the listening woods. 
 
 I'll carve our passion on the bark; 
 
 And every wounded tree 
 Shall drop and bear some mystic mark 
 
 That Jesus died for me. 
 
 The swains shall wonder when they read, 
 
 Inscribed on aU the grove, 
 That Heaven itself came down and bled 
 
 To win a mortal's love. 
 
 To this same order of sacred personification also belong 
 those verses, which are certainly remarkable, and when 
 properly apprehended among the most tenderly anti- 
 thetical in our language, on the Death of Moses : 
 
 Sweet was the journey to the sky 
 
 The wondrous prophet tried ; 
 "Climb up the moimt," said God, "and die;" 
 
 The prophet climbed and died. 
 
 Softly his fainting head he lay 
 
 Upon his Maker's breast ; 
 His Maker kissed his soul away, 
 
 And laid his flesh to rest. 
 
TJie Stoke Newington Side of Life. 
 
 67 
 
 In God's own arms he left the breath 
 
 That God's own Spiiit gave ; 
 His was the noblest road to death, 
 
 And his the sweetest grave. 
 
 And while remarking upon the poet, we may notice that 
 many of liis pieces reflect that quiet scholarly spirit of 
 the age, in which not only Watts, but so many other 
 writers delighted to indulge ; that Seneca-like musing and 
 moralizing, that contented dreaming beneath umbrageous 
 woods and by the side of purling streams. It has been 
 said tliat Samuel Rogers, in his " Human Life," portrays tlie 
 Twickenliam side of existence. The Stoke Newington side 
 was very much like it, certainly wholly unlike the stir and 
 heat of the vivid passions, the painful introspections, and 
 diseased musings, which have forced their way into 
 modern poetry. If Watts described or dealt with these it 
 was not in his verse, although many of his prose writings 
 seem to reveal that he was not ignorant of them ; such 
 is his often quoted piece : 
 
 Teue Riches. 
 
 I am not concerned to know 
 WTiat, to-morrow, fate will do : 
 'Ti.s enough that I can say, 
 I've possessed myself to-day : 
 Then, if haply midjiight death 
 Seize my flesh, and stop my breath, 
 Yet to-morrow I shall be 
 Heir to the best part of me. 
 
 Glittering stones, and golden things, 
 Wealth and honours that have wiugs, 
 Ever fluttering to be gone, 
 I could never call my own : 
 Riches that the world bestows, 
 She can take, and I can lose ; 
 
'"ir.st ruhlication as a Sccral Pod. 
 
 But the treasures that are mine 
 Lie afar beyond her line. 
 When I view my spacious soul, 
 And survey myself a whole, 
 And enjoy myself alone, 
 I'm a kingdom of my own. 
 
 I've a mighty part within 
 That the world hath never seen, 
 Rich as Eden's happy ground, 
 And with choicer plenty crowned. 
 Here on all the shining boughs 
 Knowledge fair and useful grows ; 
 On the same young flow'ry tree 
 All the seasons you may see ; 
 Notions in the bloom of light, 
 Just disclosing to the sight; 
 Here are thoughts of larger growth, 
 Rip'niiig into solid truth ; 
 Fruits refined, of noble taste ; 
 Seraphs feed on such repast. 
 Here, in a green and shady g^o\ e. 
 Streams of pleasure mix with love : 
 There, beneath the smiling skies. 
 Hills of contemplation rise ; 
 Now, upon some sliiniug top, 
 Angels light, and call me up ; 
 I rejoice to raise my feet. 
 Both rejoice when there we meet. 
 
 Tlicre are endless beauties more 
 Earth hath no resemblance for ; 
 Nothing like them round the polo, 
 Nothing can describe the soul. 
 'Tis a region liaM unknown. 
 That has treasures of its own, 
 More remote from public view 
 Than the bowels of Peru ; 
 Broader 'tis, and brighter far. 
 Than the golden Indies are ; 
 Ships that trace the watery stage 
 Cannot coast it in an age ; 
 Harts, or horses, strong and fleet, 
 Had they wings to help their feet, 
 
Satiric Verses. 
 
 Could not run it half-way o'er 
 In ten thousand days or more. 
 
 Yet the silly wand'ring mind, 
 • Loath to be too much confined, 
 Roves and takes her daily tours, 
 Coasting round the narrow shores — 
 Narrow shores of flesh and sense, 
 Picking shells and pebbles thence : 
 Or she sits at Fancy's door. 
 Calling shapes and shadows to her; 
 Foreign visits stiU receiving. 
 And to herself a stranger living. 
 Never, never would she buy 
 Indian dust, or Tyrian dye ; 
 Never trade abroad for more, 
 If she saw her native store : 
 If her inward worth were known, 
 She might ever live alone. 
 
 Nor, much in the same vein, was he indisposed occasionally 
 for a gentle kind of satire, as in the following vigorous 
 paraphrase, which some readers may perhaps be surprised 
 to find falling from the pen of Watts. " When I meet 
 with persons," he says, "of a worldly character, they 
 bring to my mind some scraps of Horace : " 
 
 "Nos numems sumus, et fruges consumere nati, 
 Alcinoique juventus 
 Cui pulchrum fuit in mcdios dormire dies," etc. 
 
 Pakaphease. 
 There are a number of us creep 
 Into this world, to eat and sleep ; 
 And know no reason why they're bom. 
 But merely to consume the com, 
 Devour the cattle, fowl, and fish. 
 And leave behind an empty dish. 
 The crows and ravens do the same, 
 Unlucky birds of hateful name ; 
 Ravens or crows might fill their places. 
 And swallow com and carcases. 
 
70 First Publication as a Sacred Poet. 
 
 Then if their tombstone, -vrhon they die, 
 Beii't taught to flatter and to lie, 
 There's nothing better will be said, 
 Than that " They've eat up all their bread, 
 Drank up their drink, and gone to bed." 
 
 Ami the following verses are surely very pleasing to tlie 
 discontented and unquiet : 
 
 'Tis a dull circle that we tread, 
 Just from the window to the bed. 
 To rise to see, and to be seen, 
 Gaze on the world awhile, and then 
 We yawn, and stretch to sleep again. 
 But Fancy, that uneasy guest. 
 Still holds a longing in our breast : 
 She finds or frames vexations still, 
 Herself the greatest plague we feel. 
 We take g^eat pleasure in our pain, 
 And make a mountain of a grain, 
 Assume the load, and pant and sweat 
 Beneath th" imaginary weight. 
 With our dear selves we live at strife, 
 Wliile the most constant scenes of life 
 From peevish humours are not free ; 
 Still we affect variety : 
 Rather than pass an easy day. 
 We fret and chide the hours away. 
 Grow weary of this circling sun. 
 And vex that he should ever nin 
 The same old track ; and still, and still 
 Rise red behind yon eastern hill. 
 And chide the moon that darts her liglit 
 Througli the same casement every night. 
 
 We shift our chambers and our homes. 
 To dwell where trouble never comes : 
 Sylvia has left the city crowd. 
 Against the court exclaims aloud. 
 Flies to the woods ; a liei-mit saint ! 
 She loathes her patches, pins and paint, 
 Dear diamonds from her neck are torn ; 
 But humour, that eternal thom, 
 
Elevated Translation of Classical Sentiment. 71 
 
 Sticks in her heart : she's hurried still, 
 'Twixt her wild passions and her will : 
 Haunted and hagged where'er she roves. 
 By purling streams, and silent groves, 
 Or with her furies, or her loves. 
 
 Then our native land we hate. 
 Too cold, too windy, or too wet ; 
 Change the thick climate, and repair 
 To France or Italy for air. 
 
 Happy the soul that virtue shows 
 To fix the place of her repose. 
 Needless to move ; for she can dwell 
 In her old grandsire's hall as well. 
 Virtue that never loves to roam, 
 But sweetly hides herself at home. 
 And easy on a native throne 
 Of humble turf sits gently down. 
 
 Without claiming then fur Watts a pre-eminent place 
 among those who are called poets, these citations will be 
 sufficient to show that however he might disclaim the 
 dignity, he deserved the designation. And there are poets 
 whose eminence is in general more unquestioned, who 
 deserve it less. He was unjust to himself in this par- 
 ticular ; verse and rliyme fell from him easily, happily, 
 naturally. Perhaps he succeeded least when he most am- 
 bitiously attempted ; but he had a remarkable and pleasant 
 power of instantly translating some sentiment which 
 crossed his mind from the classics into English verse, as 
 in those well-known lines, — 
 
 Seize upon truth where'er 'tis foond. 
 On Christian, or on heathen ground. 
 Amongst your friends, amongst your foes. 
 The flower's divine where'er it grows. 
 Neglect the prickle and assume the rose. 
 
 In wliich he elevates the sentiment of Virgil, — 
 
 " Fas est ab hoste doceri." 
 
72 First PMication as a Sacred Pod. 
 
 Referring to his translations, it has been very justly said 
 that he seldom translates or imitates a heathen poet hut 
 he either makes him a Christian in thek end, or shows his 
 deficiency in not being one. He consistently maintained 
 throughout his writings, as a poet, the determination 
 expressed in the lines — 
 
 Thy name, Almighty Sire, and Thine, 
 Jesus, where His full glories shine, 
 Shall consecrate my lays.* 
 
 His familiar method of remembering the signs of the 
 Zodiac is an illustration of the rapid and neat way in 
 which he could bind up knowledge in a verse : 
 
 The ram, the bull, the heavenly twins, 
 And next the crab the lion shines. 
 
 The virgin and the scales ; 
 The archer, scorpion, and th^ goat. 
 The man that holds the water-pot, 
 
 The fish with glittering tails. 
 
 And his receipt for the orderly conduct of Divine worship, 
 for sustaining a mental effort in prayer, is useful, beautiful, 
 and perfect : 
 
 Call upon God, adore, confess, 
 ; Petition, plead, and then declare 
 
 V You are the Lord's, give thanks and bless, 
 
 And let Amen confirm the prayer. 
 
 The devout purpose which ruled and governed the whole 
 life of Watts is of course manifest in his poems. Such as 
 he is, he is always a sacred poet ; he never forgets that his 
 life has been consecrated and set apart to religious teach- 
 ing and to the promulgation of useful knowledge ; his 
 moralities are recreation, never mere dreams; and if he 
 never attempts the great flights of poetry in epic or 
 dramatic writing, we may remember that in this, as in his 
 
 * " Ode to Mr. Pinhome." Translated by Dr. Gibbons. 
 
Verse-malcing the Accident of Ms Life. 
 
 73 
 
 yet more sacred pieces, he was a lyrist, and reserved all 
 his greater efforts for his work in the ministry, seeking 
 thus to make more sweet and serviceable the whole service 
 of the House of God. 
 
 Throughout these remarks we have left it to he inferred 
 that the verse-making, great as was the fame it procured 
 tlie author, was regarded by him merely as the accident of 
 his work ; at the same time his nature seems to have been 
 truly in sympathy with all those impulses derived from 
 external scenery, calciilated to stir a poetic sensibility. 
 We fancy his modest nature would almost have assented, 
 without a rejoinder, even to some of the very severe 
 criticisms which modern fastidiousftess has pronounced 
 upon him ; but Dr. Gibbons assures us how swiftly and 
 instantly his spirit cauglit every impression of natviral 
 scenery and life ; how he delighted in the rural verdure, 
 or the waving harvest-field, or the resounding grove ; how 
 his nature was awed almost equally by the wonderful and 
 subtle labours of the industrious bee, or the sun walking- 
 through the heavens in the gi'eatness of his strength. In 
 his lyrics, classical forms, perhaps, rather hampered than 
 aided him ; he was fascinated by the majestic roll of tlie 
 Pindaric Greek ; but from this faidt the best of his hynnis 
 are entirely free. 
 
 We have dwelt thus at length upon some of tlie 
 characteristics of Watts' verse, feeling that criticism upon 
 it is far from exha;isted ; and that, amid.st its various 
 representatives in our language, in spite of that modern 
 contempt which is creeping even into the circles of those 
 who profess to hold his faith and follow in his footsteps, 
 he still deserves to retain a place in the history of English 
 poetry. We have referred rather to those more striking 
 and obvious marks of his genius ; but we must still 
 
74 
 
 First Puhlicatio7i as a Sacred Poet. 
 
 prefer him in his more quiet and subdued strains of 
 devotion, those peaceful, pensive lines with which his 
 works abound. It is equally certain that he wrote a 
 number of verses and lines perfectly indefensible on the 
 score of good taste : this is the more remarkable, because 
 his taste does seem to have been cultivated to the highest 
 pitch of excellence ; and his mind was remarkable, not 
 merely for the plenitude of its ideas, but for the easy 
 elegance with which he ordinarily gave expression to them. 
 However this may be, their bad taste and strange conceits 
 have not greatly repressed the reverence with which we 
 regard the works of George Herbert or of Henry Vaughan ; 
 nor does the frequent turgidity of Milton much interfere 
 with the admiration and awe with which we read most of 
 his poems. 
 
I 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Jlisibsna in tfy %hm^ Jfamilg. 
 
 IT was at that period of Watts' life, when he felt in a very 
 especial manner his loneliness, and fever and iniirmity 
 were reducing him to a painful sense of abiding weakness, 
 that Sir Thomas and Lady Abney invited him to spend a 
 week with them at their magnificent house of Theobalds, in 
 Hertfordshire. He accepted the invitation, and the hosts 
 and their guest seemed to have been so mutually pleased 
 with each other that Watts continued in the family until 
 his death, a period of tlyity-six years. Watts must have 
 then Ijeen about thirty-eight years of age. Johnson re- 
 marks upon this friendship that " it was a state in which 
 the notions of patronage and dependence were overpowered 
 by the perception of reciprocal benefits ; it deserves a par- 
 ticular memorial ;" and he refers to Dr. Gibbons' interesting 
 account, which is, indeed, one of the most pleasant pieces 
 of his biography, and compels the wish that he had more 
 frequently Itroken the monotony of the book by pages so 
 pleasing. The event was one of those kind providences 
 which those who watch the lives of eminent men, who have 
 served their generation and the cause of God, will not fail 
 to perceive. Think of the solitary student, the shrinking, 
 sensitive man, the modest and fearful spirit who could not 
 
76 Residence in the Abney Family. 
 
 coniniand service, and recoiled from giving trouLle, how 
 fearfully life might have dragged along through a few^ years 
 of languor and pain, unequal to much service, unable to 
 gather round him any, or hut few, of the comforts of life, 
 suddenly transferred to all the affluent comforts of this 
 magnificent abode, to its rooms, capacious and luxurious, 
 the abode of order, and harmony, and holiness, not only a 
 pious household, but entirely after the type favoured by 
 tlie thoughtful guest. There were the rich rural scenes, 
 the delightful garden, the spreading lawn, and the fragrant 
 and emlwwered recess, all wooing the body back to health 
 and the heart to peace ; and although a few years after his 
 entrance into the household Sir Thomas Abney dies, yet 
 the guest cannot be permitted to depart. The same affec- 
 tion and respect are continued by Lady Abney and her 
 daughter. Lady Abney was the sister <Df the chief friend 
 of AVatts' younger days, Thomas Gunston ; her wealth was 
 very great, and, says Gil)bons, " her generosity and munifi- 
 cence in full proportion." There must have been a 
 pleasant fellowship and community of tastes, certainly a 
 fitting harmony of character, reminding us of Robert Boyle 
 with his sister Lady Eanelagh, or William Cowper with 
 Mary Unwin ; such relationships are very beautiful in 
 [ theu" serene, unselfish character. Beneath the roof of Lady 
 
 Abney Watts died. Within two months of his departure 
 to Bunhill Fields, she was taken to her resting-place in 
 the vaults of Stoke Newington Church. But the family 
 in which Dr. Watts was for more than half his life an 
 honoured guest merits some more particular mention. 
 
 Sir Thomas Abney was descended from an ancient and 
 respectable family in Derbyshire. His father was James 
 Abney, Esq., of Wilsley, whose ancestors had enjoyed that 
 estate upwards of five hundred years. The sou came to 
 
Sir Thomas Abney. 
 
 77 
 
 the City of London, and appears to have passed through 
 the honours of Alderman, Sheriff, and Lord Mayor. For 
 the services he rendered to King William he received the 
 honour of knighthood, and was chosen chief magistrate 
 some years before his turn. He appears to have had in 
 those troublesome times great influence in the City, though 
 holding at that time a strong opinion adverse to the Stuarts. 
 He was chosen in 1701 to represent it in Parliament ; 
 he was a director of the Bank, and president of St. Thomas' 
 Hospital ; and when, upon the death of the exiled James, 
 the King of France, Louis xiv., caused the Pretender to 
 be proclaimed at St. Germains King of Great Britain, and 
 by the recall of the Earl of Macclesfield war seemed to 
 be unavoidable. Sir Thomas Abney, in the Court of Com- 
 mon Council, proposed, in opposition to the majority of his 
 brethren on the bench, an address to William ill., declar- 
 ing that they would support liim against France and the 
 Pretender : it was carried and transmitted to the King, 
 who was then on the Continent. It is impossible now to 
 estimate the vigour this imparted to the King's affairs — it 
 was the note whicli roused the nation. It was said that 
 this act of Sir Thomas Abney served the cause of the King 
 more than if he had raised for him a million of money. 
 
 It is a singular circumstance that although Watts re- 
 ceived such marks of favour from the Aljney family. Sir 
 Thomas and Lady Al)ney do not appear to liave, in the fii st 
 days of their acquaintance, belonged to the church of whicli 
 Watts was pastor. Sir Thomas was a member of that 
 church during the pastorate of Mr. Caryl, whose daughter 
 was his first wife. After Mr. Caryl's death he united 
 himself with the church of which John Howe was the 
 minister. Nonconformists were at that time, as they 
 have been frequently since, Lord Mayors of the City, 
 
78 
 
 Residence in the AhuTj Family. 
 
 usually coinj)lyiiig by occasional conformity so far as 
 to attend one part of the Sunday at clmrch, the other 
 at their own place of worship. When Sir Humphrey 
 Edwin, who was a member of Pinners' Hall congregation, 
 was Mayor, he very unwisely caused tlie regalia of the City 
 to be carried to his meeting-house, and it created a velie- 
 ment storm. 
 
 But it is remarkable that ]\Ir. Milner, usually very 
 accurate, in liis life of Dr. Watts quotes a paragraph 
 from " The Shortest Way witli the Dissenters," speaking 
 of it as a piece of High Church vituperation, apparently 
 unaware that this was the very production of Defoe, tlie 
 satire for wliich he was put in the pillory ; Mr. Milner, 
 misled Ijy the heartiness of the composition, like many of 
 Defoe's day, came to the conclusion that it was the work 
 of an enemy to those whose interests the pamphlet was 
 intended to serve. The paragraph points immediately to 
 Sir Thomas and his friend Watts, as the reader will 
 perceive by the designations italicized : " But a lady, 
 Queen Anne, now sits on the throne, who though sprung 
 from that blood wdiich ye and your forefathers spilt before 
 the palace-gates, puts on a temper of forgiveness, and, in 
 compassion to your consciences, is not willing that you 
 should lose tlie hopes of heaven by purchasing here on 
 earth. . She would have no more Sir Humphreys tempt 
 the justice of Cod, by falling from his true worship and 
 giving ear to the cat-calls and back-pipes at St. I'aul's ; 
 would have your Sir Thomas's keep to their primitive 
 text, and not venture damnation to play at long spoon and 
 custard for a transitory twelvemonth ; and would have 
 your Sir Tom sing psalms at Highgate HiU, and split 
 texts of Scripture loith his diminutive figure of a chaplain, 
 without running the hazard of qualifying himself to be 
 
The Old ffoitse at TJiedbalds. 
 
 79 
 
 called a handsome man for riding on horseback before the 
 City trainbands." 
 
 It may be noticed now how much the interest of King 
 William and the Hanover succession to the throne of 
 England were served by the Protestant dissenters of the 
 City of London, and by no one more than by Sir Thomas 
 Abney. He lived to a good old age, dying at his house 
 at Theobalds in the year 1722. Nor can we wonder that 
 his friend should pay a high tribute to his memory in a 
 funeral sermon, and seek to give it a more durable place 
 in a sketch in his " Miscellaneous Thoughts." 
 
 Theobalds was a fine old palace, and has been celebrated 
 in the verses of poets and the pages of novelists, and the 
 memoirs of liistorians ; but no Ijiography of Watts gives any 
 specific account of the magnificent old building in which lie 
 spent the greater number of the years of his life. It was 
 las much Watts' home as if it had been his own property ; 
 and he was in the habit of saying his jjoetical contribu- 
 jtions would have been much more numerous had he, in his 
 early life, been privileged with the means of retirement 
 among such shades and gardens, and ample grounds. 
 Theobalds was, and had been, everytliing that could excite 
 the memory, or stir or soothe and lull the imagination. 
 Situated a little more than a mile from Chesliunt, in Hert- 
 fordshire, and within an easy ride from the metropolis, on 
 the borders of Enfield Chase, it possessed a very remark- 
 able history; it had been the favourite residence of the 
 mighty Cecil, Lord Burleigh ; to this place he fled ^\•ith 
 eagerness to enjoy his short intervals of leisure ; amidst its 
 shades he planned and plotted schemes in which the whole 
 future of England's history was interested ; he laid out 
 immense sums of money upon the grand pile, and kept up 
 great state with extraordinary magnificence, while he might 
 
80 
 
 Residence in the Abncy Family. 
 
 be seen ambling aloug iipon a mule through the groves of 
 his magnificent domains, overlooking his vv^orkmen or the 
 parties of pleasure he had gathered around him. Here, at 
 this old house. Queen Elizabeth had repeatedly rested in 
 the course of her great progresses. Here, when Burleigh 
 and his mistress had both passed away, came James I., and 
 held his masques, written by Ben Jonson, and enjoyed his 
 pleasures. It was in his reign that it was given up by the 
 Earl of Salisbury to Queen Anne of ] )enmai'k, amidst such 
 strange pageantries of most intemperate folly that Sir Johu 
 Harington writes, contrasting the days of James I. with 
 what he remembered of the same place in the days of 
 (Jueen Elizabeth, " I never did see such lack of good order, 
 discreticm, and sobriety, as I have now done." 
 
 In Watts' day there was living in the neighbouring 
 villas^e of Cheshunt that remarkable man, also a member of 
 Watts' church, liichard Cromwell, although, somewhat to 
 shroud himself in obscurity, he usually went by the name 
 of Mr. Clarke. An eminent novelist * has woven into his 
 fiction very naturally one of the most striking incidents of 
 his story from tlie casual meeting of his hero and the son 
 of the I'rotector on this very spot, when Cromwell becariie 
 his host and entertainer. Bichard Cromwell died probably 
 Ijefore Watts became a constant resident at Tlieobalds ; and 
 indeed Cromwell removed from Cheshunt some time before 
 his death. 
 
 Cheshunt churchyard once contained a number of in- 
 scriptions upon the tombs from the pen of the poet ; most 
 of them have probably long been obliterated, but two or 
 three have been snatched from oblivion ; an inscription for 
 the tomb of Thomas Pickard, Esq., citizen of London, who 
 died suddeidy, probably a member of Watts' church : 
 
 * Lord Lytton, in " Devereux." 
 
Verselets on Tombs and Sun Dials. 
 
 81 
 
 A soul prepared needs no delays, 
 The summons comes, the saint obeys ; 
 Swift was his flight and short the road, 
 He closed his eyes and saw his God. 
 His flesh rests here tUl Jesus come 
 And claims the treasure from the tomb. 
 
 Another epitaph : 
 
 Beneath this stone Death's prisoner lies. 
 That stone shall move, the prisoner rise 
 When Jesus with Almighty word 
 Calls His dead saints to meet their Lord. 
 
 The followiug lines were not long since in existence, 
 written upon a ceUing dial at a western window of 
 Theobalds : 
 
 Little sun upon the ceiling 
 Ever moving, ever stealing 
 Moments, minutes, hours away ; 
 May no shade forbid thy shining 
 While the heavenly sun declining 
 Calls us to improve the day. 
 
 There was anotlier, indeed there appear to have been 
 several ; it was tlie taste of the times to line the avenues 
 with these moralities in verse : 
 
 Thus steal the silent hours away, 
 The sun thus ha.stes to reach tlie sea. 
 And men to mingle with their clay. 
 Thus light and shade divide the year, 
 TliuH till tlie last great day appear 
 And shut the starry theatre. 
 
 If we are able to discriminate Watts in his various 
 abodes here and at Stoke Newington, certainly it is not his 
 ])iograplicrs we have to tliank for it. They have jumbled 
 up his residences in a very heterogeneous fashion, and 
 leave us very mucli in doubt whether their descrip- 
 tions of his rooms apply to his earlier or later abode, 
 
 G 
 
82 
 
 Residence in the Ahney Family. 
 
 Assuredly lie lived in a mansion large enough for him. 
 One of the smallest of mortals, he had one of the largest 
 homes. "We can readily believe that good Sir Thomas 
 was very well pleased from such a pile to deliver up a suite 
 of apartments to such a guest. His own rooms were a kind 
 of true literary hermitage, adorned with paintings from his 
 own pencil, and his collection of portraits of eminent per- 
 sons he had known, or great contemporaries he admired ; 
 at the entrance of his study on the outside were the fine 
 lines from the first hook of Horace's satires, in which he 
 denoimces the faithless friend : " He who reviles his absent 
 friend, who does not defend him while another defames 
 him, who aims at the gToundless jeers of people, and the 
 reputation of a wit, who can feign things not seen, who 
 cannot keep secrets, he is the rancorous man." The 
 spaces within, where there were no shelves, were filled up 
 with prints of distinguished friends, or eminent persons. 
 Of course, there was a spacious old Elizabethan fire- 
 place, panelled on either side, and in each panel an in- 
 scription from the beloved Horace. On the one side : 
 
 Locus est pluribus umbris. 
 
 And on the other : 
 
 Quis me dolomm propria dignabitor umbra. 
 
 There we are permitted to fancy him. Such were his 
 haunts among those pleasant and sequestered shades, 
 and such was his home. His rooms well arranged and 
 tasteful, as one biographer has depicted them. The 
 lute and the telescope on the same table with the Bible, 
 a treatise on logic in one hand, and hymns and spiritual 
 songs in the other. Few wTiters in our languase seem to 
 suggest a finer illustration of the mingled powers of 
 faith and reason. 
 
Sleepless Nights. 
 
 83 
 
 AVith so small a family what a silent household it 
 must have seemed, sustained in its grand and memorable 
 stateliness. There passed what we may believe to have 
 been the happiest years of Watts' life, amidst scenes 
 inviting to rest, and with little to disturb the equanimity 
 of his quiet spirit, receiving and reflecting its ovm peace, 
 
 \peace not to be disturbed even by much bodily restlessness 
 and pain. Those numerous allusions in his hymns to 
 the wakeful hours of night were not mere poetic fancies, 
 " the comforts of my nights " were not unneeded ; for 
 many years he knew little of sleep, except such as could 
 be obtained by medicine ; intense mental application, work- 
 ing upon a weak and nervous constitution, brought about 
 the consequences of insomnia, or sleeplessness ; yet his 
 mind seems to have been too calm, too equally balanced, 
 
 i and too completely under the control of highest principles, 
 
 tver to know such agitations as shake to tlieir centre some 
 oetic natures. Even public agitations did not disturb 
 5iim much. Almost the severest trial he knew was tlie 
 vehement and intolerant persecution he sustained from the 
 tongue and pen of Thomas Bradbury ; but to him we may 
 refer in subsequent pages. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Jiimns. 
 
 So early as tlie year 1700 Watts' brother, Mr Enocli 
 Watts, wrote a letter to liim from Soutliampton, urging 
 upon him the publication of his hymns. It sets not only 
 the mind of the writer as a member of the Doctor's family 
 in a favourable light, as well as it expresses the probable 
 general feeling of desire for some hymns suitable for 
 Divine service. We quote it here : 
 
 "Southampton: March, 1700. 
 
 " Dear Brother, — 
 
 " In your last you discovered an inclination to 
 oblige the world by showing it your hymns in print, and 
 I heartily wish, as well for the satisfaction of the public 
 as myself, that you were something more than inclinalile 
 tlun-eunto. I have frequently importuned you to it before 
 now, and your invention has often furnished you with 
 some modest reply to the contrary, as if what I urge was 
 only the effect of a rash and inconsiderate fondness to a 
 l)rother; but you wiU have other thoughts of the matter 
 when I first assure you that that affection, which is in- 
 separable from our near relationship, would have had in 
 me a very different oj)eration, for instead of pressing you to 
 
Interesting Letter from Unoch W atts. 
 
 85 
 
 publish, I should Avitli my last efforts have endeavoured 
 the- concealment of them, if my best judgment did not 
 direct me to believe it highly conducing to a general 
 benefit, without the least particular disadvantage to your- 
 self. Tliis latter I need not have mentioned, for I am 
 very confident whoever has the happiness of reading your 
 hymns (unless he be either sot or atheist) will have a very 
 favourable opinion of their author ; so that, at the same 
 time you contribute to the universal advantage, you will 
 procure the esteem of men the most judicious and sensible. 
 In the second place, you may please to consider how very 
 mean the performers in this kind of poetry appear in the 
 pieces already extant. Some ancient ones I have seen 
 in my time, who flourished in Hopkins and Sternhold's 
 reign ; but Mason now reduces this kind of ■writing to a 
 sort of yawning indifferency, and honest Barton cliimes us 
 asleep. There is, therefore, a gi-eat need of a pen, vigorous 
 and lively as yours, to quicken and revive the dying 
 devotion of the age, to which notliing can afford such 
 assistance as poetry, contrived on purpose to elevate us 
 even aljove ourselves. To wliat may we impute the pre- 
 valency of the songs, filled with tlie fabulous divinity of 
 tlie ancient fathers, on our passions ? Is it, think you, 
 only owing to a natural propensity in us to be in love 
 with fable, and averse to trutli in her native plainness ? I 
 presume it may partly be ascril)ed to this, tliat as romance 
 lias more need of artifice than truth to set it off, so it 
 generally has such an abundance more, that it seldom fails 
 of affecting us by making new and agreeable impressions. 
 Yours now is the old truth, stripped of its ragged orna- 
 ments, and appears, if we may say so, younger by ages, 
 in a new and fashionable dress, which is commonly 
 tempting. 
 
Hymm. 
 
 "And as for those modern gentlemen who have lately 
 exhibited their version of the Psalms, all of them I have 
 not seen I confess, and, perhaps, it would not be worth 
 while to do it unless I had a mind to play the critic, which 
 you know is not my talent, but those I have read confess 
 to me a vast difference to yours, though they are done by 
 persons of no mean credit. Di'. Patrick most certainly 
 has the report of a very learned man, and, they say, under- 
 stands the Hebrew extremely well, which, indeed, capaci- 
 tates him for a translator, but he is thereby never the more 
 enabled to versify. Tate and Brady still keep near the 
 same pace. I know not what sober beast they ride (one 
 that will be content to cany double), but I am sure it is no 
 Pegasus : there is in them a mighty deficiency of that life 
 and soul which is necessary to raise our fancies and kindle 
 and fire our passions, and something or other they have to 
 allege against the rest of adventurers; but I have been 
 persuaded a great while since, that were David to speak 
 English, he would choose 1x) make use of your style. If 
 what I have said seems to have no weight with you, yet 
 you cannot be ignorant what a load of scandal lies on the 
 ])issenters, only for their imagined aversion to poetry. 
 You remember what Dr. Speed says : 
 
 So far hath schism prevailed they hate to see 
 Our lines and words in coupling's to agree, 
 It looks too like abhorred conformity : 
 A hymn so soft, so smooth, so neatly drest, 
 Savours of human learning and the beast. 
 
 And, perhaps, it has been thought there were some grounds 
 for his aspersion from the admired poems of Ben. Keach, 
 John Bunyan, etc., all flat and dull as they are ; nay, I am 
 much out if the latter has not formerly made much more 
 ravishing music with his hammer and brass kettle. 
 
Their First Publication. 
 
 87 
 
 "Now when you are exposed to the public view these 
 calumnies will immediately vanish, which, methinks, 
 should be a motive not the least considerable. And now 
 we are talking of music, I have a crotchet in my brain, 
 which makes me imagine, that as chords and discords 
 equally please heavy-eared people, so the best divine poems 
 will no more inspire the rude and illiterate than the 
 meanest rhymes, which may in some measure give you 
 satisfaction, in that fear you discover, ne in rude vulgus 
 cadant, and you must allow them to be tasteless to many 
 people, tolerable to some, but to those few who know 
 their beauties, to be very pleasant and desirable ; and, 
 lastly, if I do not speak reason, I will at present take my 
 leave of you, and only desire you to hear what your 
 ingenious acquaintance in London say to the point, for I 
 doubt not you have many solicitors there, whose judgments 
 are much more solid than mine. I pray God Almighty 
 have you in His good keeping, and desire you to believe 
 me, my dear brother, 
 
 " Your most affectionate kinsman and friend, 
 
 " Enoch Watts." 
 
 But notwithstanding tliis and other solicitations, the first 
 1 edition was not published until 1707. The copyright of 
 the hymns was sold to Mr. Lawrence, the publisher, for 
 £10 ; about half a century before the same sum was given 
 to Milton for his " Paradise Lost ;" the volume instantly 
 obtained a very large acceptance, and he then directed his 
 , attention to his version of the Psalms ; this was only com- 
 ' pleted by him during the painful and distressing illness 
 from which he suffered about 1712 and the following 
 years, but the Psalms were not published until the year 
 \ 1719. 
 
88 Hymns. 
 
 I " Dr. Watts," says James Montgomery, in liis introduc- 
 tion to tlie " Christian Psalmfst," " may almost be called 
 the inventor of hymns in our language, for he so far 
 departed from all precedent that few of his compositions 
 resemble those of his forerunners, while he so far estab- 
 lished a precedent to all his successors that none have 
 departed from it otherwise than according to the peculiar 
 turn of mind in the writer, and tlie style of expressing 
 Christian truths employed by the denomination to which 
 he belonged." And, again, he says, " We come to the 
 greatest name among hymn-writers, for we hesitate not to 
 give that praise to Dr. Isaac Watts, since it has pleased God 
 to confer upon him, though one of the least of the poets of 
 this country, more glory than upon the greatest either of 
 that or of any other, by making his ' Divine Songs ' a more 
 abundant and universal blessing than the verses of any 
 uninspired penman that ever lived. In his ' Psalms and 
 Hymns' (for they must be classed together) he has 
 embraced a compass and variety of subjects which in- 
 clude and illustrate every truth of revelation, throw light 
 upon every secret movement of the human heart, whether 
 of sin, nature, or grace, and describe every kind of trial, 
 temptation, conflict, doubt, fear, and grief, as well as the 
 faith, hope, charity, the love, joy, peace, labour, and 
 patience of the Christian in all stages of his course on 
 earth, together with the terrors of the Lord, the glories of 
 the Kedeemer, and the comforts of the Holy Spirit, to 
 urge, allure, and strengthen him by the way. There is in 
 the pages of this evangelist a word in season for every one 
 who needs it, in whatever circumstances he may require 
 counsel, consolation, reproof, or instruction. We say this 
 without reserve of the materials of his hymns ; had their 
 execution only been correspondent with the preciousness 
 
Testimony of James Montgomery. 89 
 
 of these, we should have had a Christian Psalmist in 
 England next (and that only in date, not in dignity) to 
 the ' Sweet Singer of Israel.' Nor is tliis so bold a word 
 as it may seem. Dr. Watts' hymns are full of 'the 
 glorious Gospel of the blessed God;' his themes, there- 
 fore, are much more illustrious than those of the son of 
 Jesse, who only knew ' the power and glory ' of Jehovah 
 as he had ' seen them in the sanctuary,' which was but the 
 shadow of the New Testament Church, as the face of 
 Moses holding communion with God was brighter than 
 the veil he cast over it when conversing with his 
 countrymen." 
 
 i His attention was very early awakened to the import- 
 - ! ance and necessity for some improvement in this depart- 
 
 (ment of Divine service. Our readers will remember that 
 after he had closed his academical studies at Stoke 
 Newington, before he entered on the ministry, he returned 
 liome and lived during the years 1695 and 1696 in the 
 old house with his father; he devoted those years, the 
 ' ' twenty-first and twenty-second of his life, to systematic 
 reading, meditation, and prayer ; and during tliose years he 
 y j/ appears to have composed the greater number of his hymns. 
 Thus, if they are among the first effusions of his poet's 
 pen, they are among the best, and in this circumstance 
 they resemble the first and chief volume of one of liis 
 successors in tlie art of sacred poetry in our own day, 
 John Keble, whose " Christian Year " was the produc- 
 tion of liis earliest manhood, and all whose subsequent 
 efforts in verse seem to be a vain striving to overtake the 
 
 ) Ijeauty and harmony of his first performances. Many of 
 
 ' Watts' later hymns are very noble and beautiful, but the 
 greater number appear to have been composed in those 
 early Southampton days. Dr. Gibbons says, " Mr. John 
 
90 
 
 Hymns. 
 
 Morgan, a minister of very respectable character now 
 living at Eonisey, Hants, lias sent me the following in- 
 formation : ' The occasion of the Doctor's hymns was 
 this, as I had the account from his worthy fellow-labourer 
 and colleague, the Eev. Mr. Price, in whose family I 
 dwelt above fifty years ago. The hymns which were sung 
 at the Dissenting meeting at Southampton were so little 
 to the gust of Mr. Watts, that he could not forbear com- 
 plaining of them to his father. The father bid him try 
 what he could do to mend the matte]-. He did, and had 
 such success in his first essay that a second hymn was 
 earnestly desired of him, and then a third, and fourth, etc., 
 till in process of time there was such a immber of them as 
 to make up a volume.' " 
 / It is remarkable that in England the power of the 
 ' popular hymn was so late in discovering itself. It does 
 not appear to have been known here in the old Eoman 
 Catholic days as assuredly it was in other countries, 
 while in Germany the Reformation was born and brought 
 forth amidst the chanting of noble and triumphant hymns. 
 It appears to be impossible to realise the services of the 
 Church without the hymn. Canon Liddon, curiously ana- 
 lyzing the texts of several of the Pauline Epistles, seems to 
 demonstrate that those " faithful sayings " quoted by the 
 apostle as the embodiment of the belief of the Church, 
 were apostolic hymns sung in the Redeemer's honour. 
 And certainly the early Church expressed its faith and 
 its best aspirations in hymns. Of this we have many and 
 very beautiful illustrations ; as we descend from that time 
 along the line of the ages, the great Divine truths united 
 themselves to experiences and hopes in the hearts of 
 many, and as we read the great hymns of the Church we 
 behold her travelling along as beneath a series of triumphal 
 
The Succession of Christian Hymnology. 91 
 
 arches reared out of the service of sacred song, expressing 
 the emotion of multitudes of spirits. For the history of 
 holy hymns is really the history of the Church. Our 
 sacred books carry us back, indeed, to the airs of Pales- 
 tine ; the voices of the soul strong, intuitional, and clear, 
 rising from the sands of Arabia ; from the tabernacle in 
 Shiloh, from the forests of Lebanon, from Moses and David, 
 from Asaph to the sons of Korah, from the majestic 
 antiphones of the temple ; the murmur of captives by 
 Babylonish streams ; and then rich and strong the raptures 
 of the apostles, touched from the altar flame of heaven,, 
 they were not less than sacred hymns ; and from their 
 times what gushes and wails of sacred song come sounding 
 to us, clear and shrill, over the roar of persecuting multi- 
 tudes, or from desert caves or the lonely Churches of the 
 catacombs ! The rich hymns of the early Fathers are still 
 amongst the most treasured legacies of the Church. Chris- 
 tian hymnology is the treasure-house into which all the 
 best devotions of the men " of whom the world was not 
 worthy," exiled kings, bishops, confessors, and seers, and 
 souls of lowlier state, have been poured, giving to us in 
 some instances the doxology of a life-time, and associat- 
 ing through all ages the martyr's or the musician's name 
 with that one particular chord. We have no collection 
 yet, at all such as we desire to see, in which the varied 
 tones of human hearts through all times are collected ; the 
 surges of old cathedral aisles ; low, thrilling tones of old 
 monks ; thunder-peals of the wild, old, rugged people ; 
 chants of the ancient martyrs at the stake ; the glorious 
 and wonderful hymns of the Greek Church ; the treasuries 
 of Latin hynms, and even many of the more popular of the 
 great vernacular German chants. For the hymns of the 
 Cliurch are the lamps of the Churcli ; they are the myriad 
 
92 
 
 Hymns. 
 
 lights which stream through the darkness of the dark 
 centuries, and they furnish the freslier beam of the new 
 iUumination, lighting the shrines and altars and chaj^ls 
 of modern times. What is a hymn ? St. Ano^n^ tipp. has, 
 in a well-known passage, defined a hymn to have neces- 
 sarily a threefold function. It must be praise ; it must 
 be praise to God ; it must be praise in the form of song. 
 These limitations, essential as they seem, would perhaps 
 curtail many of our selections. We should then have to 
 exclude much of that meditative devotion with which our 
 best books abound ; much also of that too painful and 
 curious self-anatomy which many of our best hymn- 
 writers permit their strains to exhibit. Yet we are very 
 far from thinking that to be the test of sacred song which 
 Augustine has supplied, and with which a very able writer 
 in the " Quarterly Eeview," in an' article on hymnology, 
 has quoted with approbation.* This test, applied to the 
 great hymnals and hymnologists of the Church of the 
 middle ages, would, we apprehend, be quite a failure. It 
 is true that praise, and praise to God^ and praise to God 
 through Christ, in the form of song, should be the gi-and 
 criterion for the structure of sacred verses for the use of 
 congregations ; but to Avhat extent should these be mixed 
 with the strains of simple devotion, the dwelling of the 
 spirit upon the perfections of the Almighty ; and with 
 confession, the laying bare of the heart — its wants and its 
 woes — in no morbid tone or strain, before the Divine and 
 searching eye ? Our impression surely is that hymns 
 should represent all that the spirit desires to express in- 
 its moods of praise and prayer. By a more earnest 
 appeal to the senses, the soul is opened ; and it has been 
 well said that so closely and mystically knit together are 
 
 * " Quarterly Review," No. 222, April, 1862. Art. Hymnology. 
 
WJiat is a Hymn ? 
 
 93 
 
 our higher and lower natures, that to neglect the one is 
 to neglect the other. In prayer — the long, earnest, ex- 
 temporaneous prayer — the spirit becomes abstracted, and, 
 perhaps, even in the highest states, in the most subduing 
 states of ecstacy, there are few of the congregation who 
 rise as the preacher rises, or rest as he rests. The hymn, 
 in its throbbings and tremulous and pendulous vibrations, 
 breaks through the monotony and ennici the body imposes 
 on the soul, and, therefore, we are quite away from that 
 increasing number in our more immediate midst who are 
 indisposed to avail themselves of the bursts of sensuous 
 song. We remember that it is not long since grave 
 exception was taken by some among us to the singing — 
 
 There is a land of pure delight, 
 
 on the ground that it contains no recognition of, or praise 
 to, the Eedeemer. But, surely, as long as beautiful sights 
 and beautiful sounds, the solemn gloom and glory of the 
 everlasting hills, and the endlessness of the pure sky are 
 to be apprehended by men, so long it must be not only a 
 desirable, but an imperative thing, that they should all be 
 transferred to the keys of the Christian organ and of 
 Christian speech. We are not unaware of the danger 
 of the defence of aesthetic beauty, to spiritual Chris- 
 tianity, but a wise and balanced nature will know how 
 far to advance and when to stop, and we quite believe 
 tliat our doxologies, and thanksgivings, and moments 
 of Christian fervour should lay under contribution 
 every faculty of the soul, and that each facidty may 
 be moved by a Divine affection, speak to the heart's 
 inner chambers, and relate them to the most consecrated 
 heights. 
 
 For song being a natural expression of inflamed emotion, 
 
94 
 
 Hymns. 
 
 mau must become an unnatural creature if he disdain to 
 sing, and tliose who cannot themselves sing do not there- 
 fore always the less delight in the happy jubilant expres- 
 sions attained by otliers ; for man, happily, can enjoy that 
 to which he cannot attain, and in this consists one of the 
 great moving powers of his soul. Unconverted people 
 sing. They have airs and melodies wafted from the ground 
 of the nature in which they live and have their being ; 
 and when they learn and feel their heritage of salvation 
 and immortality, the joy in God through Jesus Christ 
 demands its ajopropriate expression in suitable elevated 
 strains and tones. And Christians feel their unity, not so 
 much in reading or in preaching as in those great expres- 
 sions which rise above the colder forms of the understand- 
 ing, and touch each other at the centre of some great 
 affection of faith or hope. It is, we must think, to 
 Protestantism that the Church is indebted for the ample 
 and sweeping robes of spiritual melody. Papists indig- 
 nantly deny this. Cardinal Wiseman has told us in a 
 well-known article, that Protestantism is essentially 
 undevotional. Our devotional practices and services 
 might be improved and increased ; but for the multitudes 
 of its hymnologists, and the multitude of their songs, 
 and for the fulness and the fervour of those same songs 
 Protestantism seems to leave Western and Eastern 
 Churches far behind. Although some of our spiritual airs 
 and aspirations need the hallowing touch of time before 
 they can receive the consecration of affection which crowns 
 the words of Basil, and the hymns of Ambrose, and the 
 chants of Gregory. 
 
 Thus, the history of the hymn, and of hymns from the 
 earliest ages, their originals, their writers, their associa- 
 tions, would form one of the most charming chapters of 
 
The History of Hymns. 
 
 95 
 
 Church history. To read how the great hymns grew, what 
 study of Church history can be more delightfully enter- 
 taining ? Down the long line of the ages the hymns pass 
 on, and they, more than the creeds of councils and the 
 clangour of warriors, seem to shape the spandrels from 
 whence leap up the gi'eat arches of the Church. The great 
 Church hymns, by these greatly its unity of faith is 
 proclaimed. In what simple incidents many of the chords 
 arose. That is a very sweet, solemn, pathetic line in our 
 wonderful Burial Service, " In the midst of life we are in 
 death " — in fact, it seems to be the adaptation of the first 
 line of the rare old Latin hymn, the " Media Vita," com- 
 posed by Notker Balbulus, born of a noble family of Zurich. 
 He attained to great eminence at St. Gall by his learning 
 and skill in music and poetry, and his knowledge of the 
 Holy Scriptures. No one ever saw him, say the old stories 
 of him, but he was reading, writing, or praying. The 
 faint sound of a mill-wheel near his abbey, moved him to 
 compose a beautiful air to some pious verses, and looking 
 down into a deep gulf, and the danger incurred by some 
 labourer in building a bridge over the abyss, suggested the 
 celebrated hymn, the " Media Vita." What a singular and 
 interesting history there is in the hynm, " Jerusalem, jiiy 
 happy home." Through what generations of variations 
 it has passed ! 
 
 The history of hymns, from the earliest to the latest 
 times, furnishes one of the most interesting cliapters in 
 the history of the Church. In the hymn the spirit seems 
 to bound into a higher life, and expressions which are 
 scarcely admitted in cold conversation, which almost 
 seem like exaggerations in an essay, or inflated even in 
 a sermon, are felt to be a sweet, fitting, and natural 
 utterance ; in some happy moment a nature gifted by 
 
Hymns. 
 
 genius, siibdued by sorrow, but lifted up to a region of 
 serene vision and glowing consolation, found itself caught 
 and compelled to utter an experience which to itself was 
 not always abiding, but which often became afterwards 
 an exceeding joy to it to remember, and which the Church 
 at large retained as the expression of what it believed, and 
 desired yet more fervently to believe through all subse- 
 quent ages. Thus the great hymns gTew, and the Church 
 has never been without them. Thus many of the portions 
 of the Common Prayer Book of the Church of England 
 and many of its collects are " the golden fruit in a network 
 of silver;" and we in the present day are singing hymns 
 of the holy men of old, who were moved by the Divine 
 Spirit to utter forth the words of prayer and praise. In 
 his Life of Dr. Watts, Dr. Johnson has many remarks 
 which have been the subjects of criticism and exception, 
 but in none are his remarks more open to exception than 
 when he says that " his religious poetry is unsatisfactory." 
 " The paucity of its topics," he continues, " forces perpetual 
 repetition, and the sanctity of the matter rejects the orna- 
 ments of figurative diction ; it is sufficient for Watts to 
 have done better than others what no man has done well." 
 If this is kindly said, still it is not true ; perhaps Johnson 
 was confining his observation, which he ought not to have 
 done, to sacred poetry as belonging to that order repre- 
 sented by Milton or Phineas Fletcher ; and yet this could 
 scarcely be the case ; and if he referred to his productions 
 as a hynm-writer, then, through the long ages past, men 
 innumerable had done well, as many a noble Latin and 
 Gei'man hymn abundantly shows. In the first ages of the 
 Church, the whole city of Milan was alive with hymns, 
 and Augustine tells us how his soul was moved by the 
 power of sacred psalms ; the passage is well worth remem- 
 
Augustine and Luther on Hymns. 97 
 
 beriiig. " The hymns and songs of the Chm-ch," he says, 
 " move my soul intensely ; by the truth distilled by them 
 into my heart the flame of piety was kindled, and my tears 
 flowed for joy. The practice of singing had been of no long 
 standing in Milan, it began about the year when Justinian 
 persecuted Ambrose ; the pious people, watched in the 
 chui-ch, prepared to die with their pastor ; there my mother 
 sustained an eminent part in watching and praying ; then 
 hymns and psalms, after the manner of the East, were 
 sung, with a view of preserving the peoj^le from weariness ; 
 and thence the custom has spread through Christian 
 Churches." Johnson was a pious man, the truth as it is 
 in Jesus was held by him very heartily, but we are com- 
 pelled to believe that, with all his amazing knowledge, he 
 had not seen the innumerable hymns which through the 
 successive ages had rained down their beautiful influences 
 on the Church. 
 
 ^Xuther, as is well known, ushered in his great Re- 
 formation with a voice of joy and singing. There is 
 ' a pretty little anecdote telling how one day he stood at 
 t his window and heard a blind beggar sing. It was some- 
 thing about the grace of God, and it l)rought tears into Jiis 
 eyes, and then the good thought rushed into his soul, and 
 it wrought its results there. " If / could only make 
 , gospel songs which would spread of themselves among the 
 people." And he did so. The songs were fashioned, and 
 flew abroad like singing birds — "like a lark singing 
 towards heaven's gate," says one writer ; " the song shot 
 upward, and poured far and wide over the fields and 
 villages ; and though the snare of the fowler sometimes 
 captured the preacher, and military mobs dispersed the 
 congregation — like the little minstrel among the clouds, 
 too happy to be silenced, too airy to be caught, and too 
 
 H 
 
98 
 
 Hymns. 
 
 high to dread man's artillery — the little song filled all tlie 
 air with New Testament music, with words such as 
 ' Jesus,' ' Believe and be saved,' ' Gospel/ ' Grace,' ' Come 
 unto ]\Ie,' ' Worthy is the Lamb that was slain,' and 
 thus they became the passwords and watchwords of the 
 Church." * 
 
 Watts has been styled the Marot of England ; he must 
 receive far higher praise than could be implied by this 
 designation ; but there are resemblances between the two. 
 Clement Marot was the favourite poet of Francis I. of 
 France ; Bayle ascribes to him the invention of modern 
 metrical psalmody. He was a free and even profane 
 Avriter, but Vatable, the Hebrew professor, suggested to 
 him the translation of the Psalms into French verse. He 
 did so, or rather he translated fifty-two Psalms " from the 
 Hebrew into French rhyme." They quite took the taste of 
 Paris ; they found universal reception, and became favourites 
 with Francis I., who sent a copy to Charles v. Most of 
 the pieces were set and sung to the tunes of the gay ballads 
 of that day. They were quite the favourites of the court 
 of Henry ii. and Catherine de Medicis, especially they 
 became the favourites of the Huguenot party ; Marot, it 
 is said, had himself belonged to the party of the Eefor- 
 mation. Ere long, however, the dangerous tendency of 
 the pieces was perceived by the Sorbonne, the book was 
 denounced ; Marot fled to Turin, where he closed in poverty 
 a life which had passed in singular vicissitudes, but which 
 only just before had been sunned in the rays of the courtly 
 magnificence of Paris in that splendid time. Marot's small 
 collection was completed by Theodore Beza, and the pieces 
 continued long in use among the Eeformed Churches ; 
 some, we believe, are, with many additions, still sung. 
 
 * " British and Foreign Evangelical Review," 1865. 
 
English Hyninology . 99 
 
 Our chief concern at present is with our own country, 
 l)ut the other reforming peoples of Europe appear to have 
 preceded us in tliis holy art, although some indications 
 are given of the existence of a very hearty and earnest 
 religious song ; in the Zurich Letters, published by the 
 Parker Society, we find, even so early as 1560, the follow- 
 ing letter from Bishop Jewel to Peter MartjT ; he says : 
 " Religion is now somewhat more established than it Avas ; 
 the people are everywhere exceedingly inclined to the 
 better part ; the practice of joining in church music has 
 very much conduced to this ; for as soon as they had 
 commenced singing in public in one little church in 
 London, immediately, not only the churches in the neigh- 
 bourhood, but even the towns far distant, began to vie 
 with each other in practice. You may sometimes see at 
 St. Paul's Cross, after the service, 6,000 persons, old and 
 young, of both sexes, all singing together and praising 
 God. This sadly annoys the mass priests and the devil, 
 for they perceive that by this means the sacred discourses 
 sink more deeply into the minds of men, and that 
 their kingdom is weakened and shaken at almost every 
 note." 
 
 As time went along in our country, there appeared a 
 race of poets of the highest order; we need .scarcely 
 mention such names as Quarles, Vaiighan, Herbert, 
 Jeremy Taylor, Richard Baxter, John Norris, Tliomas 
 Ken, and with these names we certainly ought to include 
 John Milton, who attempted a version of several of the 
 Psalms, one of which is a great favourite with us to this 
 day. Poets not remarkable for sanctity, like John Dryden, 
 were compelled to the service of sacred song, as in tlie 
 instance of his fine hymn. 
 
 Creator, Spirit, by whose aid. 
 
100 
 
 Hymiis. 
 
 liicliard Baxter leaves a beautiful testimony as to the 
 power of sacred hymns over himself ; he says, " For myself 
 I confess that harmony and melody are the pleasure and 
 elevation of my soul ; I have made psalms of praise in the 
 holy assembly the chief deliglitful exercise of my religion 
 and my life, and have helped to bear down all the objections 
 Avhich I have heard against church music and against 
 the 149th and 150th Psalms. It was not the least com- 
 fort I had in the converse with my late dear wife, that our 
 first in the morning and last at night was a psalm of praise, 
 till the hearing of others iuterrujjted it. Let those that 
 savour not melody leave others to their different appetites, 
 and be content to be so far strangers to their delights." 
 
 With all this it is singular that an amazing prejudice 
 existed until the time of Watts against the indulgence of 
 congregational psalmody. Jpsiah Conder simply expressed 
 the fact, when he says, " Watts was the first who succeeded 
 in overcoming the prejudice which opposed the introduction 
 of hymns into our public worship." It is quite remark- 
 able that the prejudice against congregational singing 
 Avas quite as great with many of our English Churches as 
 amongst the Papists themselves ; among the Presbyterians 
 especially, this prejudice obtained a considerable hold 
 and lingered long. " No English Luther," says Conder, 
 " had risen to breathe the living spirit of evangelical 
 de\'otion into heart-stirring verse adapted to the minds and 
 feelings' of the people. Are we to suppose the want was 
 not felt, or was there anything iu the aristocratic genius 
 of the Presbyterian polity that forbade or repressed the free 
 expression of devotion in the songs of the sanctuary ? " * 
 
 It was about the time that Isaac Watts came to Lon- 
 don that some of the assemblies of the saints were shaken 
 
 * " Tlae Poet of the Sunctuarj-," etc. By Josiab Conder. 1857. 
 
Psalmless Churches. 
 
 101 
 
 by the innovation of singing. Tlie Baptists appear to 
 have been most indisposed to the doubtful practice ; and 
 in the church of the weU-known Benjamin Keacli, of 
 Southwark, the pastoral ancestor of Charles Spurgeou, 
 when the pastor, after long argument and effort, established 
 singing, a minority withdrew and " took refuge in a song- 
 less sanctuary," in which the melody within the heart 
 might be in no danger of disturbance from the pertur- 
 bations of song. * The Society of Friends was not 
 alone in regrarding with distaste all the exercises of song 
 in tlie house of the Lord. Those who are interested in 
 the curious literature of that time may easily discover 
 pamphlets and lectures which show " great searchings of 
 heart " upon the question " whether Christ, as Mediator 
 of the New Covenant, hath commanded His churches under 
 the Gospel in all their assemblies to sing the Psalms of 
 David, as translated into metre and musical rhyme, with 
 tunable and conjoined voices of aU the people together, as 
 a Church ordinance, or any other song or hymn that are 
 so composed to be sung in rhyme by a prelimited and set 
 form of words ? " The dispute was mainly confined to the 
 Baptist churches. But in 1708 one of the Eastcheap lec- 
 tures, in a discourse by Thomas lieynolds, replied to the 
 " objections of singing." A few years before tlie contro- 
 / versy had run strong and liigh. Isaac Marlow very 
 j angrily maintained the ordinary songless usage, in the year 
 \ 1696, in his "Truth Soberly Defined" and in the "Con- 
 troversies of Singing Brought to an End." Benjamin 
 Keach seems to have been the first to lead on in this sus- 
 picious diversion by the publication of his " Breach lie- 
 paired in God's Worship ; or. Singing of Psalms, Hymns, 
 
 • "The Psalter and the Hymn Book.'' Three Lectures by James 
 Hamilton. 
 
102 
 
 Hymns. 
 
 and Spiritual Suiigs, proved to be an Holy Ordiuance of 
 Jesus Christ." This appeared in 1G91 * The controversy 
 is forgotten now, except by those who explore the more 
 curious nooks and corners of Church history. Among the 
 followers of Christ the Quakers are the only people who ' 
 have consistently maintained their first profession, a pro- 
 fession, however, in which they do not imitate their founder, 
 George Fox, of whom we especially read that he sometimes 
 led liis services with sinoina'. 
 
 It was into this state of things that Isaac Watts was 
 introduced. " I almost think," says Alexander Knox, 
 " that he was providentially appointed to furnish the 
 revived movement of associated piety, which Divine Wis- 
 dom foresaw would take place in England in the 18th cen- 
 tury, with an unexampled stock of materials for that 
 department, which alone needed to be provided for, of their 
 joint worship. Examine his poetry, and you will find that, 
 tliough ability to converse with God in solitude is not abso- 
 lutely overlooked, the sheet-anchor is what he calls the 
 .sanctuary. In particular in the Psalms you will find him 
 generally applying to Christian assemblies what Davitl 
 ■said of the Temple services, as if public ordinances occu- 
 pied the same supreme place in tlie inward and spiritual as 
 in tlie outward and carnal dispensation." This judgment 
 of Knox is curiou.sly involved, and its latter portion seems 
 to contradict its former. Acquaintance with Watts' 
 hymns will show that Knox was tpiite wrong, that Watts 
 by uo means overlooked the inward and the spiritual ; but 
 his object seems to have been to provide a congregational, 
 joint, and united service. And for this it does seem as if 
 he in an especial manner was raised up by the providence 
 of God ; and this becomes more evident as we notice how 
 
 * See Crosbie's " History of the Eng-lisli Bai)ti.sts " (1740), vol. iii. 
 
A Singular Criticism in the " Quarterly." 103 
 
 it is from his day, and apparently very greatly from the 
 method he created that the popular hymnology of our 
 country, which is now surely — may we not dare to say ? — 
 the noblest, of any church or of any nation in the world, 
 dates its true original. 
 
 We have claimed for Watts already a far higher rank 
 than is implied by the Marot of England, but it is certain 
 that exception will be taken to our judgment when we 
 say that no other writer of this order approaches near to 
 him in the elevation, not merely of expression, but of sen- 
 timent ; the very grandeur, the majesty of his epithets, the 
 inflamed utterances may be to some more quiet natures a 
 ground of exception. To them they seem sometimes to be 
 open to the charge of inflation. Yet every order and 
 variety of expression, from the loud swelling jubilant 
 rapture to the softest and sweetest strains of tenderness, 
 find fitting utterance in them. 
 
 The efforts he made to create a sacred congregational 
 psalmody exposed him, as we know, in his own times to 
 obloquy, singular as it seems, even to contempt, and this 
 contempt has been renewed in our own day. In a paper, 
 understood to be from the pen of John Keble, in the 
 " Quarterly Eeview," it is said, " Watts was an excel- 
 lent man, a strong reasoner, of undoubted piety, and 
 perhaps — a rarer virtue — of true Christian charity ; but in 
 our opinion he laboured under irreparable deficiency for 
 the task he undertook — he was not a poet ! He had a great 
 command of Scriptural language, and an extraordinary 
 facility of versification ; but his piety may induce us to 
 make excuses for his poetry — his poetry vnll do little to 
 excite dormant piety." The writer then goes on to remark 
 upon the rude, homely, and unequal strains of Watts, there 
 follows something like a history of psalmody in England, 
 
104 
 
 Hymns. 
 
 Imt not another word about our author.* George Mac- 
 (lonald, the novelist, has condescended to sneer at Watts 
 and to travesty his verses, while another writer in a fierce 
 attack upon evangelicalism — the predominance of which 
 in Watts' verses we presume to be the spring of the hatred 
 they often inspire — informs us that " most of Dr. Watts' 
 hymns are doggerel ; " and after quoting some passages he 
 considers to deserve this appellation — and which some of 
 them do — he closes by saying, " These may possibly be 
 poetry, but if they are, it is extremely plain that ' Paradise 
 Lost ' and ' In Memoriam ' are not poetry." Thus by 
 many it has come to be settled that Watts must take a 
 very low place in English literature, if, indeed, he can be 
 considered in any sense worthy of a place at all. Let us 
 see how the case stands. The man who has no sympathy 
 with Nature is not to be expected to find beauty or melody 
 in the poetry of Burns or Wordsworth. Men who have no 
 S}Tnpathy with evangelical truth can scarcely be expected 
 to have nmch admiration for Watts ; yet the gifted 
 nobleman, who was the Meca^nas of the past age, was 
 not an indifferent critic, and when called on to cite 
 the most perfect verse in the language he immediately 
 instanced 
 
 There fihall I bathe my weary soul 
 
 In seas of heavenly rest, 
 And not a wave of trouble roll 
 
 Across my peaceful breast. 
 
 A friend Avho, to his other attainments adds those of 
 scholar and a critic, suggests how interesting it would be 
 to analyze the verses of Watts, for the purpose of noting 
 how often he evidently thought in foreign languages, and 
 especially the Latin, with which he was so familiar ; and 
 
 * " Quarterly Review," vol. xxxviii. Art. Psalmody. 
 
Thinking in Latin. 
 
 105 
 
 hence we have lines which, while to some readers they 
 appear to be doggerel, are indeed illustrations that he was 
 using words in their real etymological sense, and thus 
 imparting to his verse a singular beauty ; thus : 
 
 How decent and how wise, 
 How glorious to behold, 
 Beyond the pomp that charms the eyes 
 And rites adorned with gold. 
 
 Thus, again, of God : 
 
 He sits on no precarious throne, 
 Nor borrows leave to be. 
 
 And thus again : 
 
 Let every creature rise and bring 
 Peculiar honours to our King. 
 
 Every poet is to be judged by what he is on the average. 
 Homer has been said to nod ; Milton is frequently very tur- 
 gid,and innumerable passages sink quite below theusualsus- 
 tained magnificence of the poem ; in Shakespeare tliere are 
 lines, conceits, and redundances which all good taste would 
 wish away. The reader who judged of Keble's capacity for 
 poetry by his version of the Psalms, or many of his later 
 pieces, would not form a very lofty estimate of his powers. 
 And there are many more expressions and passages than 
 we shall care to count among the psalms and hymns of 
 Watts which are wholly indefensiljle by any standard of 
 good taste, good sense, or good theology. Upon these, 
 critics, like those to whom we have referred, have pounced, 
 these they have quoted, and to the crowds of passages 
 sublime or pathetic, strong or tender, they have most 
 adroitly closed their eyes or their ears. 
 
 Watts has suffered in many ways. Accused by one 
 
106 
 
 Hymns. 
 
 jclass of critics of bad taste, and sneered at for the absence 
 of poetic gifts by another chiss, his tlieology has been 
 called in ([uestion as leaning towards heresy. How this 
 
 I charge could ever have been made by any man who had read 
 for himself Watts' hymns passes all onr conception. But 
 the Unitarians, with a mendacity singularly their own, 
 have in many instances taken his hymns and garbled them 
 
 I to suit their own theology. The Unitarians are clever at 
 
 \ taking possession of other people's property, their churches, 
 itheir endowments, their books, their great names, and, in 
 iWatts' instance, their hymns. We have even seen the 
 Te Deum adapted to a Unitarian service. The Unitarians 
 are regarded as an exceedingly moral people, and it has 
 often been supposed that what they lack in doctrine they 
 make up in duty, but it is quite true that they are 
 singularly di.shonest ; and the most eminent Unitarian 
 minister in England in our day, the Eev. James Martineau, 
 does not hesitate to charge such dishonesty upon his com- 
 munity ; he shows how the term Unitarian has to be kept 
 out of sight in order that certain property may be obtained. 
 He says, " How could an organization with a doctrinal 
 name upon its face, the Unitarian Association, go into 
 court and plead our right to our chapels, on the ground of 
 their doctrinal neutrality ? Accordingly, another associ- 
 ation had to be got up specially for the purpose, the Pres- 
 byterian Association, in order to evade the inconsistency ; 
 and I know it to have been the opinion of the two 
 founders of the Unitarian Association that they committed 
 a disastrous mistake in giving a doctrinal name to the 
 society." And he says to Mr. Macdonald, to whom he is! 
 writing, " Upon what ground can you claim a rightful 
 succession, as you have so nobly done, to Matthew Henry 
 and the founders of Crook Street, if you place the essence 
 
Watts as claimed l>y Unitarians. 
 
 107 
 
 of your Church in doctrines wliich he did not hold 1 " * 
 And thus Unitarians have constructed a science of equi- 
 vocations, and tread a plank of double meanings ; it 
 expunges the term Unitarian as designative of their creed, 
 and it takes the words representative of the creed of the 
 great Church through all ages, and, reversing the miracle 
 of our Lord, they use them as vessels in wliich the wine is 
 turned into water. This is the principle which has 
 governed in Unitarian hymn-books. The selection of 
 many of the hymns from Watts, even his sacramental 
 hymns, have in several instances not been permitted to 
 pass unmutilated ; and then, putting the top stone upon 
 the column of injustice, the further indignity, amoimting 
 to insolence, of claiming him as a Unitarian. 
 
 It is a curious thing to find a Avriter in the " Wesleyan 
 Magazine" for 1831 boasting that none of the Wesleyan 
 hymns have ever been used for the purpose of Unitarian 
 or Socinian worship, while Watts' have been thus fre- 
 quently employed. The writer admits that in such 
 instances they have been altered, but says that " Charles 
 Wesley's hymns are made of too unbending materials ever 
 to be adapted to Socinian worship." He was quite mis- 
 taken in the fact, they have often been " bent " for this pur- 
 pose ; but it is the very peculiarity of Watts that he rises to 
 the pre-existent and uncreated realms of majesty, of which 
 our Lord speaks as " the glory T had with Thee before the 
 world was." It would be interesting to know how any 
 Socinian or Unitarian could " bend" that magnificent hymn. 
 
 Ere the blue heavens were stretched abroad, 
 From everlasting was the Word : 
 With God He was; the Word was God, 
 And must divinely be adored. 
 
 * '• Letter to Rev. S. F. Macdonald," by James Martiueau, 1859. 
 
108 
 
 Hymns. 
 
 By His O'wn power were all things made ; 
 By Him supported all things stand; 
 He is the whole creation's Head, 
 And angels fly at His command. 
 
 Ere sin was bom or Satan fell, 
 He led the host of morning stars : 
 Thy generations who can tell, 
 Or count the number of Thy years ? 
 
 But lo ! He leaves those heav'nly forms, 
 The Word descends and dwells in clay, 
 That He may hold converse with worms. 
 Dressed in such feeble flesh as they. 
 
 Mortals with joy beheld His face. 
 
 The Eternal Father's only Son ; 
 
 How full of truth ! how full of grace ! 
 
 When through His eyes the Godhead shone. 
 
 Archangels leave their high abode 
 To learn new myst'ries here, and tell 
 The loves of our descending God, 
 The glories of Immanuel. 
 
 But, indeed, the sum of the matter is that the theology 
 — the evangelical theology of Watts' hymns — is the chief 
 reason of the exception taken to the poetry. He is in a 
 very eminent sense the poet of the Atonement ; he saw the 
 infinite meanings in that great expression " the blood of 
 Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth iis from all sin." We have 
 heard some quote and speak of what they have called that 
 dreadful verse ! — 
 
 Blood hath a voice to pierce the skies. 
 Revenge the blood of Abel cries ; 
 But the dear stream, when Christ was slain, 
 Speaks peace as loud from every vein ! 
 
 He saw infinite attributes in the Incarnation of Jesus 
 Christ, God manifested in the flesh, and he saw infinite 
 
Watts the Poet of the Atonement. 
 
 109 
 
 consequences involved in the sacrifice of Christ. It "was 
 all to him " the wisdom of God in a mystery," it was all 
 the great power of God. Thus we have called him the 
 evangelical poet, the poet of the Atonement. Hence 
 those who have a distaste for his doctrine will dislike liis 
 verse. 
 
 It was the nature of Watts' theology that it entered 
 more into the heavenly places, the timeless, and tlie un- 
 conditioned purposes of the Infinite and Eternal Mind. He 
 was a student, a real and a hard student, and the specula- 
 tions of his intellect whenever he betook himself to verse, 
 presented themselves to his mind suffused in the glowing 
 but ineffable lights of eternity ; he seemed to be fond of 
 revolving eternal truths. We hope not to be misunder- 
 stood if we speak of him as a mystic. Although in his 
 prose writings so little of the mystic appears, in his hymns 
 he is perpetually moving amidst the adumbrations of 
 uncreated mind. What an illustration of this is in that 
 extraordinary hymn. 
 
 Lord we are blind, wc mortals blind. 
 
 Much of the mystic spirit which pervades his ver.se is 
 perceptible in the fine paradox in the following expressions 
 of the last verse : 
 
 The Lord of Glory builds His scat 
 Of gems unsuffer;il)ly Viright ; 
 And lays beneatli Ili.s sacred feet 
 Substantial beams of gloomy uiglit ! 
 
 It is quite vain work to argue with those who take ex- 
 ception to these expressions. If they are not felt they will 
 not be seen. If we say Watts was a mystic, the expres- 
 sion will astonish some of our readers. The hard abstract 
 lines of cold creeds, and bodies of theology, suddenly in his 
 
110 Hymns. 
 
 verse flaslieel out radiant aud visible as planets in southern 
 lieavens ; and his words expressing truths which seem cold 
 
 111 the creed of Calvin or the rigid framework of the con- 
 fessions and catechisms of Puritanism, became like wings 
 of ardent tire, tipped with seraphic light. There was even 
 an oriental splendour about his expressions. He Avas 
 mighty in the Scriptures, and we believe it will not be 
 possible to find a verse or phrase which is not justified by 
 Scriptural expression. His verse — the verse of the man 
 who has been claimed as a Unitarian — was incessantly 
 struggling up to express in glowing metre those sublime 
 rtights of thought which have always been at once the pre- 
 vailing glory and gloom of what is called the Calvinistic 
 theology. We note this in such pieces as 
 
 What equal honoiirs shall we bring 
 To Thee, O Lord, our God, the Lamb ? 
 Since all the notes that angels sing 
 Are far inferior to Thy name. 
 
 Or, 
 
 When I survey the wondrous cross 
 On which the Prince of Glory died, 
 My richest gain I count but loss. 
 And pour contempt on all my pride. 
 
 Or, 
 
 Up to the fields where angels lie, 
 
 And living waters gently roll, 
 
 Fain would my thoughts leap out and fly, 
 
 But sin hangs heavy on my soul. 
 
 Thy wondrous blood, dear dying Christ, 
 Can make this load of guilt remove, 
 And Thou canst bear me where Thou flyest, 
 On Thy kind wings, celestial Dove ! 
 
 Or, 
 
 Descend from heaven, immortal Dove, 
 Stoop down and take us on Thy wings, 
 And mount and bear us far above 
 The reach of these inferior things. 
 
Hymns of Praise to God. Ill 
 Or the hymn commencing 
 
 Oh the delights I the heavenly joys I 
 
 Or that, 
 
 Xow to the Lord a noble song I 
 
 [ Watts, we have said, has suffered in many ways. Xo 
 hymns, we will be bound to say, in our language have 
 suffered so much from garbling and mangling ; many of 
 
 ~ \ them have passed through a perfect martp'dom of 
 maltreatment. Dr. Kennedy, of Shrewsbury, in his 
 " Hymnologia Christiana," will not admit " When I 
 can read my title clear " to be a hymn, because ijt is 
 gravely wrong in doctrine ; and " There is a land of pui'e 
 delight " is not admitted, because it is seriously faulty in 
 style. But if an impartial reader should desire to sum up 
 the great merits of Watts, it will perhaps be found that 
 there is no doctrine of the great Christian creed and no 
 great Christian emotion which does not find happy and 
 frequently most faultless expression. His hymns of 
 
 - Praise to God, are frequently among the most noble in our 
 
 I language ; for instance : 
 
 Sing to the Lord who huUt the skies, 
 The Lord that reared this stately frame ; 
 Let all the nation sound His praise, 
 And lands unknown repeat His name. 
 
 He formed the seas, He formed the hills, 
 Made every drop, and every du.st, 
 Nature and time, with all her wheels, 
 And pushed them into motion first. 
 
 Now from His high imperial throne 
 He looks far down upon the spheres ; 
 He bids the shining orbs roll on, 
 And round He turns the hasty years. 
 
 Thus shall this moving engine last 
 Till all His saints are gathered in, 
 Then for the tnunpefs dreadful blast, 
 To shake it all to dust again! 
 
112 
 
 Hymns. 
 
 Tet, when the sound shall tear the skies, 
 And lightning bum the globe below, 
 Saints, yoti may lift your joyful eyes. 
 There's a new heaven and earth for you. 
 
 He was fond of singing the v.ncreatcd glories of the Son 
 of God, His oflicial and mediatorial Majesty, as in that 
 complete and glowing hymn, 
 
 Join all the glorious names. 
 
 Or, 
 
 Go worship at Immanucl's feet. 
 
 He had to vindicate liimself during his life for the use of 
 doxologies, or hymns of imiise to the Holy Spirit, as in 
 
 Eternal Spirit, we confess 
 
 And smg the wonders of Thy grace. 
 
 Or the invocation, 
 
 Come, Holy Spirit, heavenly Dove ! 
 
 There is an intense and immediate objectiveness about 
 - Watts' hymns ; praise, like a clear and glowing firmament, 
 encompasses them all, and the objects of adoration revolve, 
 I like the firmamental liglits, clear and distinct to the 
 I vision ; they are often interior and meditative, but they 
 ' never indicate a merely morbid introspection ; they seem 
 ' to glow in the light of the objects of their adoration : 
 again and again we are impressed by their reverent 
 ^ effulgence. They are not the ' singular rapture over the 
 I worshipper's own state of feeling, they are not even 
 \ rapture so mucli on account of what is seen; they are 
 7^ praise and honour to the objects themselves, and they 
 have indeed to \)q perverted before they can express any 
 other sentiments than those they originally utter. 
 
 Few writers more affectingly set forth the death of 
 \ Christ : 
 
Their Ardent Devotion. 
 
 113 
 
 He dies ! the Friend of sinners dies ! 
 Lo I Salem's daughters weep around; 
 A solemn darkness veils the skies, 
 A sudden trembling shakes the ground. 
 
 Break off your tears, ye saints, and tell 
 How high our great Deliverer reigns ; 
 Sing how He spoiled the hosts of hell, 
 And led the monster Death in chains. 
 
 Say, "Live for ever, wondrous King! 
 Bom to redeem and strong to save;" 
 Then ask the monster, "Where's thy sting?" 
 And " Where's thy victory, boasting grave ? " 
 
 The hymn, indeed, contains some weak lines, but the first 
 and tlie three last verses have even great dramatic vigour 
 and strength. 
 
 But hymns are not always to shine with splendid 
 lights, they are to soothe and comfort; hence such word.s 
 as — 
 
 Come hither, all ye weary souls. 
 
 We remember a venerable minister eighty-eight years 
 of age, wlio filled a conspicuous place in the Cliurcli ol' lii.s 
 day ; while he was dying his daughter said to him : 
 
 Jesus can make a dying bed 
 As soft as downy pillows arc, 
 While on His breast I lean mij head, 
 And breathe my life out sweetly there. 
 
 The old man listened as well as he could to the verse, 
 then turned his head on the pillow, repeated the words 
 " m7j head," and so died. Perhaps some critic would 
 remark that the versification is slightly inaccordant or 
 defective, l)ut its tenderness has propitiated many a dying 
 pang. 
 
 Devotion is the eminent attribute of these hymns,— 
 ardent, inflamed rapture of holiness. Well has it been 
 
 I 
 
114 
 
 Hymns. 
 
 said " to elevate to poetic altitudes ;" every truth in 
 Cliristian experience and revealed religion needs the 
 strength and sweep of an aquiline pinion ;" and this is 
 "what Isaac Watts has done ; he has taken almost every 
 topic which exercises the understanding and the heart of 
 the believer, and has not only given to it a devotional 
 aspect, but has wedded it to immortal numbers ; and 
 whilst there is little to which he has not shown himself 
 e(iual, tliere is nothing he has done for mere effect. Rapt, 
 yet adoring, sometimes up among the thunder-clouds, yet 
 most reverential in his highest range, tlie "good matter" is 
 in a song, and the sweet singer is upborne as on the wings 
 of eagles ; but even from that triumphal car, and when 
 nearest the home of the Seraphim, we are comforted to 
 find descending lowly lamentations and confessions of 
 sin— new nnisic, no doubt, but the words with which we 
 have been long familiar in the house of our pilgrimage. 
 
 Religion never was designed 
 To make our pleasures less. 
 
 Tliou art the sea of love 
 
 Wliore all my pleasures roll, 
 The circle where my passions move. 
 
 And centre of my soul. 
 
 To Thee my spirits fly 
 
 With infinite desire, 
 And yet how far from Thee I lie I 
 
 Dear Jesus, raise me higher. 
 
 I cannot bear Thy absence, Lord, 
 My life expires if Thou depart ; 
 Be thou, my heart, still near my God, 
 And Hiou, my God, be near my heart. 
 
 Such are the streams of devotion on which we are borne 
 in the A'erses of Watts. 
 
Patriotic Hymns. 115 
 
 / Some of his hymns are like collects, the compact, corn- 
 el forting little vmtchvjords and creeds of the Church — 
 
 Finn as the earth Thy Gospel stands. 
 
 Or- 
 
 Our God, how firm His promise stands. 
 
 ) Sometimes ^ve have a fine hold trumpet-lihe tone of Faith : 
 
 Begin, my tongiie, some heavenly theme, 
 
 And speak some boundless thing; 
 The mighty works, or mightier name 
 
 Of our eternal King. 
 
 His very word of grace is strong 
 
 As that which built the skies ; 
 The Voice that rolls the stars along 
 
 Speaks all the promises. 
 
 He said, " Let the wide heaven be spread," 
 
 And heaven was stretched abroad : 
 " Abra'm, I'll be thy God," He .said, 
 
 And He uas Abra'm's God. 
 
 ^ How well lie lias expressed the deptJis of contrition in his 
 version of the 51st Psalm, what plaintive compassion — 
 
 O Thou that hcar'st when sinners cry I 
 
 And equally well he lias depicted the h apjnm ss and 
 serenity of "a heart .sprinkled from an evil conscience :" 
 
 0 happy soul that lives on high I 
 
 Or— 
 
 Lord, how secure and blest are they 
 Who feel the joys of pardoned sin. 
 
 I Tlien how vigorously his notes rouse and stir to the 
 activities of the Christia: 
 
 Are we the soldiers of the cross, 
 The followers of the Lamb P 
 
 Or— 
 
 Stand up, my soul, shake off thy fears I 
 
 t The patriotic lyrics and hymns of Watts have sounded. 
 
IIG Hjjmns. 
 
 how iu his day they throbbed, with that pulse of prayer 
 for our country : 
 
 Shine, mig'hty God ! on Britain shine 
 
 With beams of heavenly grace; 
 Reveal Thy power througli all our coasts, 
 
 And show Thy smiling face. 
 
 Amidst our isle, exalted high. 
 
 Do Thou our glory stand ; 
 And, like a waU of guardian fire, 
 
 Surround the favoured land. 
 
 And when the Americans hehl their great " Thanksgiving 
 Day," Watts' hymn, always sung to the venerable old 
 tune of St. Martin's, was, as Mrs. Stowe tells us, tlie 
 national hymn of the Puritans.* 
 
 Let children hear the mighty deeds 
 
 Which God performed of old, 
 Which in our younger years we saw. 
 
 And which our fathers told. 
 
 Our lips shall tell them to our sons, 
 
 And they again to theirs. 
 That generations yet unborn 
 
 May teach them to their heirs. 
 
 The extent to which the verses of Watts entered into 
 all the incidents of the social life of the United States 
 is well illustrated in the " Pearl of Orr's Island : " in a 
 very striking and pathetic manner the following stanzas 
 often interlace the conversations of tliat charming story : 
 
 Our God, our help in ages past. 
 Our hope for years to come, 
 I Our shelter from the stormy blast, 
 
 iAnd our eternal home. 
 Under the shadow of Thy throne 
 
 Thy saints have dwelt secure : 
 Sufficient is Thine arm alone, 
 And our defence is sure. 
 
 * " Old Town Folk," chap. iii. 
 
A Strong Exjmsiions of Personal Faith. 117 
 
 Before the hills in order stood, 
 
 Or earth received her- frame, 
 From everlasting Thou art God, 
 
 To endless years the same. 
 Thy word commands our flesh to dust — 
 
 "Return, ye sons of men;" 
 All nations rose from earth at first. 
 
 And tiu-n to earth again. 
 
 A thousand ages in Thy sight 
 
 .Are Kke an evening gone ; 
 Short as the watch that ends the night 
 
 Before the rising sun. 
 
 The busy tribes of flesh and blood, 
 
 With all their lives and cares. 
 Are carried downwards by the flood, 
 
 And lost in following years. 
 
 Time, like an ever-rolling stream, 
 
 Bears all its sons away ; 
 They fly, forgotten, as a dream 
 
 Dies at the opening day. 
 
 Like flowery fields the nations stand. 
 
 Pleased with the morning light : 
 The flowers beneath the mower's hand 
 
 Lie withering ere 'tis night. 
 
 Our God, our help in ages past, 
 
 Our hope for years to come, 
 Be Thou our guard while troubles last. 
 
 And our eternal home. 
 
 And we are reminded that this grand hymn, wliicli we 
 have heard sung in barns and meeting-houses, in kirks 
 and cathedrals, also comes with tender pathos in one of 
 the affecting scenes of Charlotte Brontii. 
 
 What grand expressions ol personal faith abound among 
 these verses, what a radiant casting back of the blunted 
 arrows of doubt and unbelief ! 
 
 Questions and doubts are heard no more ; 
 Let Christ and joy be all our theme ; 
 His Spirit seals His Gospel sure. 
 To every soul that trusts in IIi:n. 
 
118 
 
 Hymns. 
 
 Learning' and wit may cease their strife, 
 When miracles with glory shine : 
 
 The Voice that calls the dead to life • 
 Must be almighty and Divine. 
 
 What faith iu the ISaviutirs (/loriom rmwrection a'lul 
 second advent ! — 
 
 With joy we tell this seof&ig age, 
 He that was dead hath left His tomb ; 
 He lives above their utmost rage, 
 jVud we are waiting till He come. 
 
 Sahbath songs, songs for the social service at the close 
 of the day, sougs for every variety of Christian ordinance, 
 songs especially for the Lord's Supper, songs of grief as the 
 soul realises the death of the Redeemer, songs of rapture 
 as the salvation becomes apprehensible — 
 
 Salvation! O the joyful sound! 
 
 Or— 
 
 Plunged in a gulf of dark despair. 
 
 The first Elegies in our language are among Watts' 
 hymns. When early manhood has been smitten down 
 in its green prime, how hnely swells aloft that grand elegy 
 with its trium]:)hant close, the paraphrase of the text, " He 
 weakened my strength iutlie way. He shortened my days : " 
 
 It is the Lord our Saviour's hand 
 Weakens our strength amidst the race : 
 Disease and death at His command 
 Arrest us and cut short our days. 
 
 Spare us, O Lord, aloud we pray, 
 Nor let our sun go down at noon ; 
 Thy years are one eternal day. 
 And must Thy cluldren die so soon ? 
 
 Yet in the midst of death and grief, 
 This thought our sorrow shall assuage, 
 " Our Father and our Saviour live ; 
 Christ is the same through every age." 
 
Elegiac Hymns. 
 
 119 
 
 Before Thy face Thy church shall Hve, 
 And on Thy throne Thy children reign : 
 This dying world shall they survive, 
 And the dead saints be raised again. 
 
 And when some form more than ordinarily venerable 
 or beautiful, holy or beloved, has been lowered into its 
 resting-place, while they laid wreaths of camellias and 
 evergreens on the coffin, uprose that wonderful elegy : 
 
 Hear what the Voice from heaven proclaims 
 
 For all the pious dead I 
 Sweet is the savour of their names, 
 
 And soft their sleeping bed. 
 
 And how often, in similar circumstances, that other 
 sweet requiem : 
 
 Why do we mourn departing friends ? 
 
 Amidst trembling prayers, in tlie darkened room, in 
 the presence of some sweet slirouded and coffined form, 
 the memory of some soft sealed face and foldefl hands, and 
 spirit lor ever at rest, has rose the hymn into pensive 
 rapture : 
 
 Are we not tending upward too, 
 
 As fast as time can move ? 
 Nor would we wish the hours more slow 
 
 To keep us from our love. 
 
 Contrasting the evanescence of man, not merely with 
 the eternity of God, but with the eternity of Christ, and 
 the promised prevalence of His salvation everywhere, who 
 lias not seen large meetings leap into hearty fervour at the 
 announcement of that n(jljle prophecy : 
 
 Jesus shall reign where'er the sun 
 Does his successive journeys run. 
 
 \ 
 
 Who has more triumphantly followed the spirit of tlie 
 
1:^0 
 
 Hymns. 
 
 believer into its glorious home and rest ? Watts had a 
 singularly l)old and majestic manner in striking iii.-tbe 
 very;^_firsi. _ words of a hymn the key-note of the whole 
 piece ; indeed there was usually a singular fitness and force 
 in the first line. 
 
 Give me the wings of faith to rise 
 
 Within the veil, and see 
 The saints above ; how great their joys, 
 
 How vast their glories be ! 
 
 Some critics have objected to what seems to us the sweet 
 natural pathos of that verse : 
 
 How we should scorn the clothes of flesh, 
 
 These fetters and this load. 
 And long for evening to undress, 
 
 That we may rest with God. 
 
 Or that fine piece : 
 
 Absent from flesh I O blissful thought ! 
 
 And the following verses, not so often (quoted, or so well 
 known : 
 
 And is this heaven ? and am I there ? 
 How short the road ! how swift the flight ! 
 I am all life, all eye, all ear ; 
 Jesus is here my soul's delight. 
 
 Is this the heavenly Friend who hung 
 In blood and anguish on the tree. 
 Whom Paul proclaimed and David sung, 
 Who died for them, who died for me ? 
 
 Creator-God, eternal light, 
 ' Fountain of good, tremendous power. 
 
 Oceans of wonders, blissful sight ! 
 Beauty and love unknown before. 
 
 Thy grace, Thy nature, all unknown 
 In yon dark region whence I came, 
 Where languid glimpses from Thy throne 
 And feeble -whispers teach Thy name. 
 
Splendour of Ids Funereal Hymns. 
 
 121 
 
 I'm in a world where all is new, 
 Myself, my God ; O blest amaze ! 
 Not my best hopes or wishes knew 
 To form a shadow of His grace. 
 
 Fixed on my God, my heart, adore ; 
 My restless thoughts, forbear to rove ; 
 Ye meaner passions, stir no more ; 
 But all my powers be joy and love. 
 
 And one of the most touching of his funeral- pieces is 
 that magnificent funeral march for some departed saint, 
 and worthy of the grand air to wliich it has often been 
 sung — Handel's Dead March in " Saul :" 
 
 UnveU thy bosom, faithful tomb I 
 Take this new treasure to thy tmst, 
 And give these sacred relics room 
 Awhile to slumber in the dust. 
 
 Nor pain, nor grief, nor anxious fear 
 Invade thy bounds : no mortal woes 
 Can reach the forms which slumber here, 
 And angels watch their soft repose. 
 
 So Jesus slept! God's dying Son 
 Passed through the grave and blessed the bed : 
 Rest here, dear saint, till from His throne 
 The morning break and pierce the shade ! 
 
 Break from His throne, illustrious mom ! 
 Attend, O earth, HLs sovereign word ; 
 Restore thy trust — a glorious form 
 Called to ascend and meet the Lord. i 
 
 A judicious and compendious arrangement in order of 
 tlie hynms of Watts, would thus show that every form 
 of expression apparently necessary for pul)lic service 
 finds some adequate representation : worsliip, confession, 
 prayer, expression of faith ; and those churches wliich for 
 nearly a century had no other volume to assist tliem in 
 their public devotions, do not deserve so much pity as 
 
122 
 
 Hymns. 
 
 lias very frec|uently been exi)ressed. for them. Soon 
 after their publication they came to be used outside of 
 the communion for which they were designed. Ralph 
 Erskine, of Dunfermline, drew a great number of the 
 verses into his most remarkable volumes of divine 
 drollery, sometimes in a most remarkable manner debas- 
 ing the metre. Should the reader care to see an instance 
 of this he may find it in " Scripture Songs," Book III., 
 Song III. ; but there are many other instances. 
 
 Admirers of Wesley are fond of citing against Watts the 
 well-known saying attributed to him, that he would have 
 given all he had written for the credit of being the author 
 of Charles Wesley's hymn, " Come, 0 thou Traveller xm- 
 known." It has been truly said, his excessive modesty often 
 gloomed his greatness ; Gibbons makes some such remark ; 
 it, at any rate, kept all power and disposition to self-asser- 
 tion in the shade ; but it is no reason why his admirers 
 now should imitate, with reference to himself, that virtue, 
 and be indifferent to his great powers as a sacred poet. 
 ' No hymn- writer has suffered so much from mutilation 
 as Watts. Sometimes the attempts at improvement have 
 been ludicrous. We remember a specimen of many : 
 
 The little ants, for one poor grain 
 Exert thcmnclves and strive. 
 
 Instead of — 
 
 Labour and tug and strive. 
 
 But such emendations are innocent when compared with 
 those in which the entire doctrine of the hymn has been 
 expelled.* Lord Selborne (Sir Koundell Palmer) has said, 
 
 * For illustrations of this, see " A Letter to the Rev. Mr. 
 
 or a Gnat destroying the Little Arian Foxes among the Vines," and 
 part of the " Remains of Dr. Watts' Clear'd from the Leaves and Rags 
 of Arianii^m." 
 
Ohliffations of the Wcslcys to Watts. 123 
 
 " Watts altered some of Charles Wesley's hynans, much to 
 his brother John's discontent, as he testifies in the preface 
 to his Hymn Book." We have very little hesitation in 
 assuring his lordship that he is mistaken, and that he 
 wiU find no instance in which Watts altered, however 
 slightly, Wesley's hymns. In two or three instances he 
 altered and appropriated from Tate and Brady and Patrick, 
 and acknowledged the extent of his alterations in notes, a 
 courtesy never extended to liimself. 
 
 Before Jehovah's awful thione, 
 
 is Watts altered, and admirably altered, by two words in 
 the first line, but the entire hymn was appropriated ; but 
 indeed it was impossible that AVatts could alter Wesley. 
 AVatts' work was all done, and had long been done, before 
 Wesley appeared. Literary plagiarism we believe to be a 
 much less common sin tlian many suppose. Alinds on the 
 same plane of thought and feeling are likely to discover 
 the same images, and to indidge in the same expres- 
 sions. Certainly Mr. Milner, in his " Life of Watts," is 
 wrong when he says (page 276) that Watts' well-known 
 lines : 
 
 The opening heavcn.s around me shine 
 With beams of sacred bliss, 
 
 were probably suggested to Watts by Gray's — 
 
 The meanest flow'ret of the vale, 
 The simplest note that swells tlio gale, 
 The common sun, the air, the skies, 
 To him are opening paradise. 
 
 Watts' lines were published nine years before Gray 
 was born ! 
 
 Comparing the two great liynui-writers, Isaac Watts 
 
124 
 
 Hymns. 
 
 and Charles Wesley, an adequate sense may be arrived at, 
 if the very important distinctions are noticed between the 
 work proposed in the verses of the two admirable men. It 
 is our conviction that while Watts has, in the stricter 
 term of the word poet, included in himself Charles Wesley, 
 the purpose of Wesley's verse was especially to describe 
 frames, feelings, and experiences, to set these to a sweet 
 strain of popular melody, such as might rouse the thou- 
 sands for whom they were intended. Nothing is more 
 remarkable than the contrasted sense Watts and the 
 Wesleys entertained of their performances. The ]3reface 
 published to the Wesleyan Hynm Book, in 1779, is one 
 of the most extravagant efforts of conceit in our language ; 
 it is somewhat wonderful that the good taste of the 
 Wesleyan Conference does not omit it from the editions 
 now in the course of circulation. " Here," it says, " is no 
 doggerel, no botches, nothing put in to patch up the 
 rhyme, no feeble expletives ; here is nothing tinged or 
 bombast, or low and creeping ; here are no cant expres- 
 sions, no w^ords without meaning ; those who impute this 
 to us know not what they say." " Here are," it continues, 
 " the purity, elegance, and strength of tlie English lan- 
 guage, and the utmost simplicity and plainness suited to 
 every capacity." It goes on to assert that " in tlie follow- 
 ing hymns is to be found the true spirit of poetry, such as 
 cannot be acquired by art or labour, but must be the gift 
 of nature. By labour a man may become a tolerable 
 imitation of Spenser, Shakespeare, or Milton, and may 
 heap together pretty compound epithets, such as pale- 
 eyed, meek-eyed, and the like ; but unless he be born a 
 poet he will never attain to the genuine spirit of poetry." 
 How remarkably all this is in contrast to the spirit of 
 the writer whose hymns had been before the world nearly 
 
Charles Wesley and Isaac Watts. 
 
 125 
 
 half a century before this first collected edition of the 
 Wesleys' hymns was published. John Wesley included 
 many of Watts' hymns in his own hymn book, but their 
 authorship was not acknowledged ; and many others were 
 vigorous translations from the German of Zinzendorf, Paul 
 Gerhardt, etc. ; Watts' hymn book was entirely and wholly 
 his own. 
 
 It is ungTacious work to bring into the rivalry of com- 
 parison or contrast two singers who have so sacredly served 
 the Church. Yet we will dare to say it here, in the hymns 
 of Watts there is that peculiar accent, that note of pain, 
 that majesty and melody of the deep minor chord — that 
 sounding of a deeper experience — that ineffable some- 
 ' thing which testifies to a capacity of agony, as well as to 
 the assurance of ecstasy which is the true poet's prerogative 
 and power. We would even say the very test of Watts' 
 genius and experience is that many of his pieces, and some 
 of his very highest, are unfitted for more than the select 
 experience. Wesley's are more easy, common-place, and 
 popular. Tlie hymns of Watts, however, will stand a far 
 higher test than that of the suftiajfes of large conwresa- 
 tions or ecclesiastical communities — the sighs of the 
 sick-room, the death-bed, the bereaved chamber, the 
 private closet of heart devotion. With these verses on 
 their lips refreshing their hearts, how many pilgrims have 
 approached the 
 
 Land of pure deliprlit 
 Where saiutH immortal rcig-ii. 
 
 Most of what has gone before applies to tlie hymns ; but 
 some especial reference should be made to the version of 
 the r.salms. Palmer, in his "Life of Watts," says, " Tliis is 
 generally allowed to be liis capital production in poetry, 
 
Hymns. 
 
 with wliicli, in point of iitility, none of his other pieces 
 will bear comparison." From this verdict there will be 
 many dissentients. It is certainly true that in some of 
 the pieces he rises to the highest rendering of the evan- 
 gelical sense of the Psalter. His object was to interpret 
 the Psalms of Christ ; it is not therefore very remarkable 
 that when a young minister inquired of an elder which 
 was the best commentary on the Psalms, he replied, 
 " Watts' version of them." This judgment was not so 
 singular as it seems. 
 V Watts' may be called the Messianic version of the 
 ' Psalms ; he felt tliat without this construction they 
 must be very greatly inexplical)le. Tlie unfolding this 
 idea popvilarly was an immense boon to the churches. 
 We are to remember that the Book of Psalms was the 
 great Hebrew Psalter ; it was the Book of Common Prayer 
 and Praise, and when the Christian Church arose, it still 
 continued the use of these divine airs for the expression of 
 its experiences and its faith. Jerome says : " The labourer, 
 while he holds the handle of the plough, sings Alleluia, 
 the tired reaper employs himself on tlie Psalms, and the 
 vine-dresser, while lopping the vines with his curved hook, 
 sings something out of David ; these are our ballads in 
 this part of the world ; these, to use the common ex- 
 pression, are our love songs." Chrysostom has a noble 
 panegyric upon the use of the Psalms in the service of 
 the Church. " If we keep vigil in the Church, David 
 comes first, last, and midst. If early in the morning, 
 David is first, last, and midst." Again, lie goes on to 
 declare how, "in the funeral solemnities for the. dead, 
 or when the girl sits at home spinning, and not in cities 
 alone, and not alone in churches, but in the forum and 
 in tlie wilderness, and even in the uninhabitable desert, 
 
Messianic Version of the Psalms. 
 
 127 
 
 David excites to the praises of God." And this has 
 continued true ever since. 
 
 The case being so, why was it that, alike in Hebrew and 
 in Christian days, the Book of Psalms has had such a 
 sovereign power over holy souls ? The personality of 
 David has even obscured the higher personality and the 
 Messianic symmetry ; it is forgotten that in the Hebrew 
 language David signifies the beloved, the darling, the chosen 
 one, and that many of the Psalms, regarded as personal to 
 Iiim, are rather to be apprehended in the same manner 
 in which his name occurs in Isaiah and Jeremiali and 
 Ezekiel, in which we have " the key of David," " David, a 
 leader and commander to the people," in " tlie sure mercies 
 of David," terms the fulness of which is lost sirfit of bv 
 their being associated with the Hebrew prince, rather 
 than with Him who is the infinitely beloved of God and 
 man. Thus in numerous Psalms to wliicli the prefix is 
 given, " A Psalm of, or by, David," a stricter reading 
 would be, "A Psalm to, or for, David;" in some instances 
 this sense comes out with great force, and thus they 
 illu.strate that text in Ezekiel, penned hundreds of years 
 after David's death, " I will set one shepherd over them, 
 and he shall feed them, even my servant David {i.e. the 
 Beloved). He shall feed them and be their shepherd." 
 What a different fulness of meaning is given to such 
 innumeral)le passages as those in the 12.3rd Psalm, " For 
 thy servant David's sake turn not away the face of thine 
 anointed;" "The Lord hath sworn unto David, Of the 
 fruit of thy body will I set upon thy throne :" if we sub- 
 stitute the Beloved one for David in many such passages, 
 and what a rich meaning is unfolded ! David was perhaps 
 the author of all these ; but in that wonderful spirit of 
 the Hebrew playing upon words, just as he rose from his 
 
128 
 
 Hymm. 
 
 own occupation to exclaim, " The Lord is my slicplierd," 
 so lie rose from his own name, transforming it into a 
 Divine synonym, searching for its origin and filling it ont 
 with divine and elevated ideas * This was the spirit in 
 which Watts in his version restored the Psalms to Christ, 
 and removed them from the lower and more contracted 
 circle of human personality to the suffering and reigning 
 Messiah. ]\Iost readers were thankful for the noble re- 
 storation of the evangelical regalia to their rightful owner ; 
 and only here and there one or two, like the indecent and 
 insolent Bradbury, took exception to the performance as 
 " robbing them of their book of Praise," as that rash and 
 vehement man, referring to the version of Watts, said, 
 " David is no longer suffered to l)e our Psalmist." 
 
 This, then, is the spirit in which Watts translated the 
 Psalms, to the Christian sense preserving, as we have said, 
 the Messianic idea throughout, as in that stirring call to 
 Christian service : 
 
 Arise, 0 King of Grace, arise 
 
 And enter to Thy rest ! 
 Lo ! Tliy cliurch waits with longing eyes 
 
 Thus to be owned and blest. 
 
 Enter with all Thy glorious train, 
 
 Thy Spirit and Thy word ; 
 All that the Ark did once contain 
 
 Could not such grace afford. 
 
 The aim of Watts in his Book of Psalms was to translate 
 the Old Testament phraseology into a New Testament 
 ilanguage and experience. James Hamilton has illustrated 
 this by an anecdote which it can scarcely be impertinent 
 
 • See this idea illustrated in " An Essay on the Book of Psalms," by 
 Mary Anne Schimmclpenninck, 1825, and " An Essay on the Literature 
 of the Book of Psalms," in the " Preachers' Lantern," vol. ii. p. 558. 
 
Booh of Psalms Restored to Christ. 
 
 129 
 
 to quote here ; he says : " I cannot tell it accurately, but I 
 have heard of a godly couple whose child was sick and at 
 the point of death. It was unusual to pray together ex- 
 cept at the hours of ' exercise ;' however, in her distress, 
 the motlier prevailed on her husband to kneel down at 
 the bedside and offer a word of prayer. The good man's 
 prayers were cliiefly taken from the best of liturgies, the 
 book of Psalms ; and after a long and reverential introduc- 
 tion from the 90th and elsewhere, he proceeded, ' Lord, turn 
 again the captivity of Zion ; then shall our mouth be 
 filled with laughter and our tongue with singing.' And as he 
 was proceeding, 'turn again our captivity,' the poor agonized 
 mother interrupted him : ' Eh, man, you are aye drawn 
 out for thae Jews, but it's our bairn that's deein',' at the 
 same time clasping her hands and crying, ' Lord, help us ; 
 oh, give us back our darling, if it be Thy holy will ; and if 
 he is to be taken, oh take him to Thyself ! ' And fond as 
 I am," continues James Hamilton, " of scriptural phrases 
 in prayer, I am fonder still of reality. It is a striking 
 fact that the prayers addressed to Christ in tlie Gospels 
 are hardly one of them in Old Testament language ; just as 
 New Testament songs embed in a language of their own 
 Old Testament phrases ; " and, as we may add, just as the 
 woman and her husband had the same purpose in their 
 prayers. 
 
 And it is in this way Watts seems to apologize for liis 
 attempts when he says, in his intrody£tion to his version 
 of the Psalms : 
 
 »i HEBREW MELODIES CIIRISTIAXIZEn. 
 
 "Put since I believe that any Divine sentence, or 
 Christian verse, agreeable to Scripture, may be sung, 
 
 K 
 
130 
 
 Hymns. 
 
 though it be composed by men uninspired, I have not 
 been so curious and exact in striving everywhere to express 
 the ancient sense and meaning of David, but have rather 
 expressed myself as I may suppose David vi^ould have 
 done, had he lived in the days of Christianity; and by 
 this means, perhaps, I have sometimes hit upon the true 
 intent of the Spirit of God in those verses farther and 
 clearer than David himself could ever discover, as St. 
 Peter encourages me to hope (1 Peter i. 11, 13) where he 
 acknowledges that the ancient prophets, who foretold of 
 the grace that should come to iis, were, in some measure, 
 ignorant of this great salvation ; for though they testified 
 of the sufferings of Christ and His glory, yet they were 
 forced to search and inquire after the meaning of what 
 they spake or wrote. I In several other places I hope my 
 reader will find a natural exposition of many a dark and 
 doubtful text, and some new beauties and connections of 
 thought discovered in the Jewish poet, though not in the 
 language of a Jew. In all places I have kept my grand 
 design in view, and that is to teach my author to speak 
 like a Christian. For why should I now address God my 
 Saviour in a song, with burnt sacrifices of fatlings, and 
 with the fat of rams ? Why sliould I pray to be sprinkled 
 with hyssop, or recur to the blood of bullocks and goats ? 
 "Why should I l)ind my sacrifice with cords to the horns of 
 an altar, or sing the praises of God to high-sounding 
 cymbals, when the Gospel has shown me a nobler atone- 
 ment for sin, and appointed a purer and more spiritual 
 worship ? Why must I join with David in his legal or 
 prophetic language to curse my enemies, when my Saviour 
 in His sermons has taught me to love and bless them ? 
 Why may not a Christian omit aU those passages of the 
 Jewish psalu)ist that tend to fill the miud with over- 
 
Spirit of the Hehiriv Psahns. 
 
 wlieliuing sorrows, despairing thoughts, or bitter personal 
 resentments, none of which are well suited to the spirit of 
 Christianity, which is a dispensation of hope and joy 
 and love ? AVliat need is there that I should wrap up the 
 shining honours of my Eedeemer in the dark and shadowy 
 language of a religion that is now for ever abolished, 
 especially when Christians are so vehemently warned in 
 the Epistles of St. Paul against a Judaizing spirit in their 
 worship as well as doctrine ? And what fault can there be 
 in enlarging a little on the more useful subjects in the 
 style of the Gospel, where the psalm gives any occasion, 
 since the whole religion of the Jews is censured often in 
 the New Testament as a defective and imperfect thing { '' 
 And, again, he says on the — 
 
 SPIRIT OF THE HEBREW PSALMS. 
 
 "Moses, Deborah, and the princes of Israel; David, 
 Asaph, Habakkuk, and all the saints under the Jewisli 
 state, sung their own joys and victories, their own hopes, 
 and fears, and deliverances, as I hinted before ; and why 
 must we, under the Gospel, sing notliing else but the joys, 
 hopes, and fears of Asapli and David ? Why must 
 Christians be forbid all other melody but what arises from 
 the victories and deliverances of the Jews ? David would 
 have thought it very hard to be confined to tlie words of 
 Moses, and sung nothing else on all his rejoicing days but 
 the drowning of Pliaraoli of the fifteenth of Exodus. He 
 might have supposed it a little unreasonable, when he had 
 peculiar occasions of mournful music, if he had been forced 
 to keep close to Moses' prayer in the ninetieth Psalm, 
 and always have sung over the shortness of human life, 
 especially if he were not permitted the liberty of a para- 
 phrase ; and yet the special concerns of David and Moses 
 
Hymiis. 
 
 were much more akin to each other than ours are to either 
 of them, and yet they were both of the same religion ; but 
 ours is very dilferent. It is true that David has left us a 
 richer variety of holy songs than all that went before him ; 
 but, rich as it is, it is still far short of the glorious things 
 that we Christians have to sing before the Lord ; we and 
 our churches have our special affairs as well as they. Now, 
 if by a little turn of their words, or by the change of a 
 short sentence, we may express our own meditations, joys, 
 and desires in the verse of those ancient psalmists, why 
 should we be forbidden this sweet privilege ? Why should 
 we, under the Christian dispensation, be tied up to forms 
 moi'e than the Jews themselves were, and such as are 
 much more impro])er for our age and state too ? Let us 
 remember that the very power of singing was given to 
 human nature chiefly for this purpose, that our own warmest 
 alfections of soul might break out into natural or divine 
 I melody, and that the tongue of the worshipper might 
 express his own heart." 
 
 The following well expresses his modest estimate of 
 his work : " I must confess I have never yet seen any 
 version or paraphrase of the Psalms, in their own Jewish 
 sense, so perfect as to discourage all further attempts. 
 But whoever undertakes the noble work, let him bring 
 i with him a soul devoted to piety, an exalted genius, and 
 withal a studious application ; for David's harp abhors a 
 protane finger and disdains to answer to an unskilful or a 
 careless touch. A meaner pen may imitate at a distance ; 
 but a complete translation or a just paraphrase demands 
 a rich treasury of diction, an exalted fancy, a quick taste 
 of devout passion, together with judgment, strict and 
 severe, to retrench every luxuriant line, and to maintain 
 a religious sovereignty over the whole work. Thus the 
 
The Modesty of Watts. 
 
 133 
 
 psalmist of Israel might arise in Great Britain in all 
 his Hebrew glory, and entertain tlie more knowing and 
 polite Christians of our age. But still I am bold to main- 
 tain the general principle on which my present work is 
 founded ; and that is, that if the brightest genius on earth, 
 or an angel from heaven, should translate David and keep 
 close to the sense and style of the inspired author, we 
 should only obtain thereby a bright or heavenly copy of 
 the devotions of the Jewish king ; but it could never make 
 the fittest psalm-book for a Christian people. It was not 
 \ my design to exalt myself to the rank and glory of poets, 
 ^ but I was ambitious to be a servant to the Churches and a 
 helper to the joy of the meanest Christian. Though there 
 are many gone before me who have taught the Hebrew 
 1 psalmist to speak English, yet I think I may assume this 
 pleasure of being the first who hath brought down the 
 - royal author into the common affairs of the Christian life, 
 'and led the Psalmist of Israel into the Church of Christ, 
 > without anything of a Jew about him. And whensoever 
 j there shall appear any paraphrase of the Book of Psalms 
 ) that retains more of the savour of David's piety, or dis- 
 ^ ^ covers more of the style and spirit of the Gospel, with a 
 1 superior dignity of verse, and yet the lines as easy and 
 flowin" and the sense and language as level to the lowest 
 /capacity, I shall congratulate the world, and consent to 
 .say, Let this attempt of mine be buried in silence. " 
 
 This chapter must not be closed without some sliglit 
 reference to the wonderful history and anecdote con- 
 nected with tliese hymns ; verses fi'om them have been 
 murmured from innumerable death-beds, have shone out 
 as memorial lines on innumerable tombstones, and have 
 j)roved, in how many instances, to be tlie converting word, 
 the power of God unto salvation. When the great orator 
 
134 
 
 H}jmm. 
 
 and statesman of the Uniteil States, Daniel Webster, lay 
 dying, almost the last words which fell from those eloquent 
 lips which had so often moved in the Senate with thrillin"- 
 and overwhelming power, were those words of Watts' 
 nist Psalm; and he repeated them again and again: 
 
 Sho-w pity, Lord: O Lord, forgive; 
 Let a repenting rebel live ; 
 Are not Thy mercies large and free ? 
 Maj' not a sinner tnist in Tliee ': 
 
 And the gi-avestone of the great shoemaker, scholar, lin- 
 guist, and missionary, William Carey, in Bengal, contains 
 lieside the name and date only that final confession of 
 faith : 
 
 A gniKy, weak, and helpless ■svomi, 
 On Thy kind anus I fall. 
 
 The late heautiful and beloved AVilliam Bunting used to 
 tell a story of a poor blind woman, in Liverpool, brought 
 to a sense of sin and salvation at a Wesleyan service held 
 in connection with the national fast upon the first visit of 
 cholera to this country. Her impressions liad been stirred 
 by Watts' liymn— the 224tli of the Wesleyan Selection — 
 I'll praise my Maker while I've breath." The next 
 morning she called on the liev. li. McOwen, and asked 
 if he could procure for her t'ne book in which was tlie 
 hymn with those lines, also Watts', 
 
 The Lord pours eyesight on the blind, 
 Tlie Lord supports the sinking mind. 
 
 It also was in the Wesleyan Hymn Book, which Mr. 
 McOwen placed in her hands. Her memory was soon 
 stored with the hymns which she delighted in repeating. 
 By her talent in shampooing she earned a respectable 
 livelihood. For this purpose she attended on the old 
 
Anecdotes. 
 
 Earl of Derby, the grandfather to the present Earl. She 
 repeated one of her hymns to him. Tlie old Earl liked 
 it, and encouraged her to i-epeat more. But one day, when 
 repeating the hymn of Charles Wesley, " All ye that pass 
 by," she came to the words : 
 
 The Lord in the day of His anger did lay 
 
 Tour sins on the Lamb, and He bore them away, 
 
 he said, " Stop, Mrs. Brass, don't yow tliink it should be — 
 
 "The Lord in the day of His mercy did lay •• " 
 
 She did not think his criticism valid; but it showed .she 
 was not repeating her verses to inattentive ears, and other 
 indications showed that the blind woman was made a 
 blessing to the dying nobleman. But such anecdotes 
 might be multiplied and extended to many pages. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE friends of Watts, at almost any period of his life, 
 form an interesting and very memorable circle, a very 
 striking portrait gallery. Amongst tliem are some well- 
 known names, and some, comparatively unknown now, 
 famous then. We have said, about a mile from Theobalds, 
 within the parish of Cheshunt, lived Richard Cromwell. 
 He was a member of Watts' church, although he removed . 
 from Cheshunt some short time after Watts' settlement. 
 
 But a more remarkable person than Richard Cromwell 
 was Cromwell's niece, the granddaughter of the great 
 Protector, Mrs. Bendisii, in whom it was said the 
 very Protector himself lived agTvin. Her husband w^as 
 Thomas Bendish, Esq., a descendant of Sir Thomas 
 Bendish, Baronet, ambassador from Charles i. to the 
 Court of Turkey. He died in 1707, but she survived 
 him till 1728, removing, however, in the latter years of 
 her life, to Yarmouth. She was a piece of astonishing 
 eccentricity. She had a great admiration for Owen as 
 a theologian and Watts as a poet; and very early in 
 his life Watts addressed to her his poem against tears. 
 
Mrs. Bridget Bendish. 
 
 137 
 
 She was a member of liis church. Her admiration for 
 her grandfather was extraordinary, and no one was 
 permitted in her presence to express a doubt concerning 
 his legitimate sovereignty or essential greatness. What 
 she might have been as a man is beyond all power to 
 speculate ; as a woman she certainly inherited much of 
 her grandfather's dreamy, musing, moody, and ruggedly 
 imperative character. Her character and her connections 
 both alike commanded for her great respect, but slie was 
 an oddity. She was fond of night walks, even on lonely 
 roads. She would not suffer a servant to attend her, 
 saying God was a sufficient guard, and she would have no 
 other. Visiting at the houses of friends, she wouLl 
 usually set off at about one in the morning in her chaise, 
 or on horseback, chanting as she went one of Watts' 
 hymns in a key, it is said, more loud than sweet. There 
 are pictures of her, word paintings, which bring her before 
 our eyes in the oddest light. Capable of comporting her- 
 self with dignity in the best society, she disdained no 
 menial employment, and very cheerfully turned her hand 
 to the pitch-fork or the spade among her labourers and 
 workmen, working herself with a right ready and forcible 
 good will, from the early morning to declining day, in an 
 attire as mean as the meanest of those with whom she was 
 toiling, giving no account, say some records, of either her 
 character or even her sex. It is a curious thing to find 
 the youthful Isaac Watts talking to this strong-minded 
 creature like a patriarch in his lines addressed to her in 
 1699, in which occurs the fine verse : 
 
 If 'tis a rugged path you go, 
 
 And thousand foes your steps surround, 
 
 Tread the thorns down, charge through the foe ; 
 
 The hardest fight is highest crowned. 
 
138 
 
 A Circle of Friends. 
 
 We could have liked a j^ortrait of her from the pen of 
 Watts, or a record of some of his conversations with her 
 or with her uncle, hut it does not appear to have been in 
 his way either to sketch the portraits of his friends or 
 to violate private confidences or conferences by putting 
 them on paper. Her son was another of Watts' inti- 
 mates, and with him the family of Bendisli became 
 extinct. He died at Yarmouth, unmarried, in the year 
 1753. 
 
 Among the ministerial friends of Watts stands the 
 almost forgotten name of John Shower, a very beautiful 
 and eminent man in his day, a man of large learning and 
 extensive travel. He had ministered for some time to an 
 English congregation at Rotterdam, and, returning to 
 England, he passed through the periods of trouble afflict- 
 ing the communion to which he belonged. Watts was on 
 terms of close intimacy with him, and they must have 
 been congenial in their lives of elevated and profoimdly 
 cultured piety. 
 
 And there were men around Watts in the ministry 
 with whom he had great congeniality of sentiment. 
 Eminent among these was Samuel Eosewell, the son 
 of Thomas Rosewell, celebrated for his trial for high trea- 
 son and unjust condemnation before the impious Jefferies. 
 Watts gives an interesting account of his visit to him on 
 his death-bed in one of his sermons preached at Bury 
 Street. " Come, my friends," says he, " come into the 
 chamber of a dying Christian ; come, approach his pillow, 
 and hear his holy language : ' I am going up to heaven, 
 and I long to be gone, to be where my Saviour is. — Wliy 
 are His chariot- wheels so long in coming ? — I hope I am 
 a sincere Christian, but the meanest and the most unworthy. 
 — I know I am a great sinner, but did not Christ come to 
 
Smmiel Bose^rel!. 
 
 159 
 
 save the chief of sinners ? — I have trusted in Him, and I 
 have stroncr consolation. — I love God, I love Christ. — I de- 
 sire to love Him more, to be more like Him, and to serve 
 Him in heaven without sin. — Dear brother, I shall see you 
 at the right hand of Christ. — There I shall see all our 
 friends that are gone a little before (alluding to Sir T. 
 Abuey). — I go to my God and to your God, to my Saviour 
 and to your Saviour.' These," observes Watts, " are some 
 of the dying word.s of the Rev. Mr. S. Eosewell, Avhen, 
 with some other friends, I went to visit him two days 
 before his death, and wliicli I transcribed as soon as I came 
 home, with tlieir assistance." It was after this visit Watts 
 wrote to his friend tlie following note : 
 
 " Dear Brother Roseavell, 
 
 " Your most agreeable and divine conversation, 
 two days ago, so sweetly overpowered my spirits, and the 
 most affectionate expressions which you so plentifully 
 bestowed on me awakened in me so many pleasing sensa- 
 tions, that I seemed a borderer on the heavenly world wlien 
 I saw you on the confines of heaven and conversed with 
 you there. Yet I can hardly forbear to ask for your stay 
 on earth, and wish your service in tlie sanctuary, after you 
 have been so mucli witliin view of the glorious invisi- 
 bilities which the Gospel reveals to us. But if that hope 
 fail, yet our better expectations can never fail us. Our 
 anchor enters within the veil, where Jesus, our forerunner, 
 is gone to take our places (Heb. vi. ult.). May your 
 pains decrease, or your divine joys overpower them ! May 
 you never lose sight of the blessed world, and of Jesus, the 
 Lofd of it, till the storm is passed and you are safely 
 arrived. And may tlie same grace prepare me for the 
 
uo 
 
 A Circle of Friends. 
 
 same mansions, and give you the pleasure of welcoming to 
 those bright regions 
 
 " Your affectionate and unworthy friend and brother, 
 
 " Isaac Watts. 
 
 'Lime Street, 7fh April, 1722. 
 
 " Just going to Theobalds. 
 
 " r.S. — Our family salute you ; they are much affected, 
 I)leased, and edified with their late visit. Grace be with 
 you and all your dear relations. Amen." 
 
 And among his friends, as we have already seen, he kept 
 up a considerable intimacy with his own fellow-townsman 
 and fellow-student, Samuel Say, son of Giles Say, who 
 was ejected from the parish church of St. Michael's in 
 Southampton, and one of the first ministers of the Non- 
 conformist church of that town, and with which Watts' 
 family was connected. He was a kind of smaller Watts, 
 a man of large and varied knowledge in the classics, 
 mathematics, astronomy, and natural philosophy. For 
 forty-eight years he kept a journal of the alterations of 
 tlie weather and of liis observations of remarkable occur- 
 rences in nature. Possessed of an extraordinary genius, it 
 was veiled and shrouded by a modesty as extraordinary ; 
 but about two years before his death some of his papers 
 were committed to the press, consisting of poems and 
 essays on the " Harmony, Variety and Power of Numbers, 
 whether in Prose or Verse." He had a great admiration 
 for Milton, and translated apparently with great elegance 
 the introduction of " Paradise Lost " into Latin verse ; and 
 in the " Gentleman's Magazine," vol. xxxv., is an interesting 
 paper by him, entitled, " The Eesurrection Hlustrated by 
 
Samuel Say — Watts Catechism. 
 
 141 
 
 the Changes of the Silkworm." Watts thought highly of 
 his judgment, as the following, amoou' other letters, indi- 
 cates : 
 
 ''April nth, 1728. 
 
 " Dear Sir, 
 
 " Your letter, dated from Feb. 10th to March 5tli, 
 afforded me agreeable entertainment, and particularly your 
 notes on the 2nd Psalm, in which I think I concur in sen- 
 timent with you in every line, and thank you. The epi- 
 phonema to the 16th Psalm is also very acceptable, and, in 
 my opinion, the Psalms ought to be translated in such a 
 manner for Christian worship, in order to show the hidden 
 glories of that divine posey. I beg leave only to query 
 about the Sheol in Psalm 16, whether that plu-ase of 'not 
 seeing corruption' ought to be applied to David at all, 
 since Peter (Acts ii. 31) and Paul (Acts xiii. 36) seem to 
 exclude him. And though I will not say that your sense 
 of the soul, i.e., the life, may answer the Hebrew manner 
 of the reduplication of the same thing in other words, yet, 
 as David sometimes speaks of the soul as a thing distinct 
 from the body, and may not the soid be taken in this 
 place and Sheol signify Hades, tlie state of tlie dead ? 
 
 " I am glad my little prayer-book is acceptable to you 
 and your daughter. I perceive you have been also (among 
 many others) uneasy to have no easier and plainer cate- 
 chism for children than that of the Assembly. I had a 
 letter from Leicestershire the very same day when I 
 received yours on the same subject ; and long after this a 
 multitude of requests have I had to set my thoughts at 
 work for this purpose. I have designed it these many 
 years. I have laid out some schemes for this purpose, and 
 I would have three or four series of catocliisms, as 1 have 
 
142 
 
 A Circle of Friends. 
 
 uf prayers. I believe 1 shall do it ere long if God afford 
 health. But, dear friend, forgive me if I cannot come into 
 your scheme of ' bringing in the creed ; ' for it is, in my 
 opinion, a most imperfect and immethodical composition, 
 and deserves no great regard, unless it be put in at the end 
 of the catechism for form's sake, together with the Lord's 
 Prayer and Ten Commandments, as is done in the Assem- 
 bly's Catechism. The history of the life and death of 
 Christ is exce.ssively long in so short a' system; and tlie 
 design of the death of Christ (wliich is the glory of Chris- 
 tianity) is utterly omitted. Besides, the operations of the 
 Spirit are not named. The practical articles are all ex- 
 cluded. In short, 'tis a very mean composure, and has 
 nothing valuable — jn-cKter milk annos. My ideas of these 
 matters run in another track, v^'hich, if ever I have the 
 happiness to see you, may be matter for communication 
 between us. I am sorry I forgot to put up the coronation 
 ode in my pocket. I will count myself in debt till I have an 
 occasion to send you something more valuable along witli it. 
 Two days (ago) I published a little essay on charity schools, 
 my treatise of education growing so much longer in my 
 hands than I designed. If it were worth while to send 
 such a trifle you should have it. In the meantime I take 
 leave, and with due saluations to yourself and yours, 
 " I am your affectionate brother and servant, 
 
 "1. Watts." 
 
 William Coward is the name of one of Watts' intimate 
 friends, an oddity in his way as great as Mrs. Bendish : 
 he had been a merchant in the city ; he lived in retirement 
 at Waltonstow ; his name is well known now in Noncon- 
 formist circles as the founder of " The Coward Trust," a 
 useful fountain of benevolence for the education of young. 
 
William Coward. 
 
 143 
 
 and the assistance of poor decayed ministers. He was a 
 type of man easily realised to the imagination, dogmatical 
 and opinionated, a bundle of eccentricities. Among others, 
 it was his whim to establish a rule that the doors of his 
 house should never be opened, however pressing the emer- 
 gency, after eight o'clock at night, to any person whatever, 
 visitor or friend. The name of Hugh Farmer is still held 
 in high and deserved respect for manifold attainments, one 
 of Doddridge's most hopeful students, and who had pro- 
 bably been recommended to Mr. Coward by Doddridge, to 
 whose academy Coward was a munificent helper. Farmer 
 was the chaplain of the eccentric man, but he arrived one 
 evening at the door too late ; he found himself without 
 lodging for the night, and was compelled to betake himself 
 to the house of another, perhaps equally eminent, but 
 more courteous friend, Mr. SneU, who not only took him 
 in for that evening, but compelled him to stay with him 
 for thirty years. .Nonconformist ministers appear to have 
 possessed some singularly appreciative friends in those 
 days. William Coward, however, was, if a man of singular 
 eccentricity, one possessed of sterling virtues, and espe- 
 cially zealous in the maintenance of the more rigid articles 
 of faitli, and was constantly devising some plans of useful- 
 ness to assist both metropolitan and country ministers. 
 Watts appears to have had great influence over liim, and 
 could comb his rugged a.sperities into smoothness. Watts 
 it was to whom we are greatly indebted for the shape 
 assumed by the " Coward Trust." He devoted £20,000, 
 and by Watts' wise and most judicious advice it was left 
 in such a manner that, unlike many other trusts, it has 
 been saved from the consequence of diversion or litigation ; 
 and, largely and most respectably useful, it has furnished a 
 most helpfid hand in giving a thorough and most respect- 
 
144 
 
 A Circle of Friends. 
 
 able education to many a young minister, and helping 
 many a poor one, even to the present day. The " will " 
 of William Coward is a curiosity, and may be studied, by 
 those who have patience, on the walls of the library of the 
 New College. 
 
 Among the friends of Watts, whose names ought to 
 be mentioned, Ave must not omit that of John Shute, 
 Lord Bakhington, a person very interesting in his own 
 times. He moved in that immediate circle of which 
 Watts was a distinguished member ; he was nearly of 
 Watts' age, and his mother was a daughter of that Joseph 
 Caryl who was one of Watts' early predecessors in the 
 ministry at Mark Lane. He was a thoughtful, scholarly 
 man, as the several works he published abundantly show.* 
 His sixth and youngest son became the well-known Shute 
 Barrington, Bishop of Durham. In the memoir prefixed 
 to the three volumes of his father's works, the name of 
 Dr. Watts is never even mentioned, although the verses 
 from the lyrics, referring to the intimacy of Shute with 
 John Locke, addressed to him by Watts, are quoted. He 
 ■was a member of the Cluirch meeting at Pinners' Hall, 
 and had previously attended the ministry of Thomas 
 Bradbury ; but when that person behaved so indecently to 
 Dr. Watts, and took so turbulent a part in the discus- 
 sion witli reference to the Trinity, Lord Barrington 
 united himself with tlie Church at Pinners' Hall, 
 then beneath the ministry of Dr. Jei'emiah Hunt. It 
 seems probable that an intimacy commenced early in life 
 between Mr. Shute and Isaac Watts, perhaps before the 
 settlement of Watts in the ministry. It was in 1718 that 
 Swift writes of him, " One Mr. Shute is named for the 
 secretary to Lord Wliarton ; he is a young man, but 
 
 * Lord BaiTuigton's " Theological "Works," 3 vols. 
 
Lord Barrington. 
 
 145 
 
 reckoned the shrewdest head in England, and the person 
 in whom the Presbyterians chiefly confide; and if money 
 be necessary toward the good work (that is, the repeal 
 of the sacramental test) in Ireland, it is reckoned he can 
 command as far as £100,000 from the body of Dissenters 
 here. As to his principles, he is a truly moderate man, 
 frequenting the church and the meeting indifferently." 
 He took the name of Barrington about the time this letter 
 was written, a connection of his family, Francis Bamiig- 
 ton, Esq., of Tofts, in Essex, leaving to him his estate 
 conditionally upon his taking his name and adopting his 
 arms. The high favour in which he stood with George I. 
 exposed him to the jealousy and enmity of Sir Eobert 
 Walpole. He had an interview with the king on the first 
 day after his arrival in London, apparently in order that 
 he might decline certain offices of preferment which were 
 made him, because the Schism and Conformity Bills wei'e 
 as yet unrepealed. Upon this occasion he stated to the; 
 king the grievances beneath which Dissenters suffered, 
 although they were amongst the most hearty and faithful 
 friends of the House of Hanover. In the fifth year of this 
 reign he was created a peer. He stood very higli in the 
 friendship of the king, and it seems that it was this very 
 friendship which brought about the close of his political 
 life when, in 1723, he was expelled from the House (jf 
 Commons for his connection M'itli the Ilarbnrgh lottery. 
 This was a company formed for carrying on trade b(;tween 
 England and the king's electoral dominions, and it liiid 
 been proposed that it should be assisted by a lottery to 
 defray the expenses in deepening the Eiver Elbe near the 
 port of Harburgh ; the project had not met with the appro- 
 bation of Lord Barrington, but he received the king's 
 personal commands to continue as sub-governor of the 
 
14:6 
 
 A Circle of Friends. 
 
 conipauy, Prince Frederick being the governor. It fur- 
 nished, however, the occasion which Sir Robert Walpole 
 knew how to use for the removal from his path of a man 
 dangerous to his own unscrupulous ambition. Tlie project 
 itself was simply a means, favoured by the king, for pro- 
 moting trade between the two countries. But now, in his 
 retirement, he betook himself to pursuits of a very different 
 character, and the volumes of his theological works are 
 most interesting, and show abundantly how he brought to 
 l)ear upon the department of theology that clearness of 
 judgment which had characterized his political life, united 
 to a keen analytic power of criticism and discrimination 
 very interesting to follow through the subjects he dis- 
 cusses ; his essay " On the Dispensation of God to 
 ]\Tankind as revealed in Scripture " is especially enter- 
 taining and suggestive. 
 
 He was nephew, by his motlier, of Sir Thomas Abney, 
 and this would make his intimacy with the family in 
 which Watts resided very natural ; but at his house at 
 Tofts he kept round about him much intellectual society, 
 and sometimes even of persons widely differing in opinion 
 from himself, such persons as Antony Collins,* the well- 
 known sceptical writer of that day. The Greek Testament 
 was frequently the subject of investigation and critici.sm, 
 and on one occasion it is said Collins remarked concerning 
 the apostle Paul, " I think so well of him as a man of 
 sense and a gentleman, that if he had asserted he had 
 worked miracles himself, I would have believed him." 
 
 Lord Barrington instantly produced a passage to that 
 effect, when the disconcerted sceptic seized his hat and 
 hastily retreated from the company. Upon another occa- 
 sion his lordship inquired how it was that although he 
 
 * " Biog. Brit." Article, Barriugton. 
 
Lord Barrington. 
 
 U7 
 
 professed to have no religion himself, he was so careful 
 that his servants should attend regtJarly at church, when 
 he replied he did this to prevent them robbing and mur- 
 dering him. This amiable nobleman, moderate, wise, and 
 well informed, if we may not rather speak of him as a man 
 of extensive and varied scholarship, was such a one as 
 could well appreciate and sympathize with Isaac Watts. 
 At the old house at Tofts, or Beckets, in Berkshire, where 
 Lord Barrington died, we may be sure that Watts was a 
 frequent visitor, and it was the frequency of the intercourse 
 probably which permits us so few letters between them, 
 and of those letters none before 1718. We have already 
 quoted the high estimate he formed of Watts' " View of 
 Scripture History ;" his estimate of the " Logic " he rates so 
 higlily tliat he says, " I shall not only recommend it to 
 others, but use it as the best man\ial of its kind myself, 
 and I intend, as some have done Erasmus or a piece of 
 Cicero, to read it over once a year." The following note 
 sets every point of his friendship with Watts in a very 
 pleasing light : 
 
 "London, Juh. 11, 1718. 
 
 "Rev. Sir, 
 
 "I cannot dispense with myself from taking the 
 first opportunity I liave of acknowledging your great 
 favoiir in assisting me so readily to offer up the praise due 
 to Almighty God for His signal mercies vouchsafed me 
 on three several occasions, and of assuring you that it 
 was with the utmost concern I understood that I must 
 not flatter myself with the hopes of your being with us in 
 this last. But how very obliging are you, who would give 
 yourself the trouble to let me know that, though you 
 could not give me the advantage of your company at 
 
148 
 
 A Circle of Friends. 
 
 Hatton Garden, yet I should :iot wn,nt your assistance at 
 a distance, where you would address such petitions to 
 heaven to meet ours as tend to render me one of the best 
 and happiest men alive. This they will influence to me 
 in some measure, both by their prevalency at the throne 
 of grace, and by instructing me in the most agreeable 
 manner what I should aspire to. Whilst I read your 
 letter, I found my blood fired with the greatest ambition 
 to be what you wish me. I will, therefore, carefully 
 preserve it, where it shall be least liable to accidents, and 
 where it will be always most in my view. There, as I 
 shall see what I ought to be, by keeping it always before 
 me, I shall not only have the pleasure of observing the 
 masterly strokes of the character you wish me, but, I hope, 
 come in time to bear some resemblance to it. Whilst you 
 were praying for us, we did not forget you ; nor shall 
 I cease to beseech Almighty God to make you a bright 
 example of passive virtue, till He shall see fit to restore 
 you to that eminent degree of acceptableness and service 
 you have once enjoyed. 
 
 " I am, sir, your most obliged humble servant, 
 
 "Bakmngton. 
 
 " My wife is very much obliged by your civility. She has 
 desired a copy of your letter, which, she says, wiU be as 
 useful to her as it has been entertaining, if it be not her 
 own fault. Both our humble services attend the good 
 family where you are. I am sorry my lady's cold is like 
 to deprive us of their company on Wednesday." 
 
 Yet another of the circle of friends, whose names occiir 
 to the mind when we think of Watts, is the saintly James 
 Hervey. One of Watts' biographers speaks of " the 
 
James Hervey. 
 
 149 
 
 bloated effusions of Hervey which are now justly dis- 
 carded, then not only tolerated, but admired." It is an 
 unjust judgment; James Hamilton was much more fair 
 and faithful when he says of him that " he had a mind of 
 uncommon gorgeousness, his thoughts are marched to a 
 stately music, and were arrayed in the richest superla- 
 tives;" and he speaks of Hervey's "Theron and Aspasia" 
 as "one of our finest prose poems." James Hervey deserves 
 that his name should be mentioned with gi-eat affection 
 and respect. His life was perpetually stretched upon a 
 rack of infirmity and weakness. There is even a kind of 
 pathetic drollery in watching him at Weston Favell living 
 his bachelor's life, and. Mobile stiiTing the saucepan which 
 held the gruel constituting his modest meal, turning aside 
 to derive some new fancy, fact, or image from the micro- 
 scope on his study table. As a writer, he indulged him- 
 self too freely in colour, but many of his works are very 
 pleasing ; he was not only passionately fond of natural 
 scenery, but in an equal degree delighted in the dis- 
 coveries of natural history ; his copious description of 
 the human frame is one of the most seductive disserta- 
 tions on anatomy and physiology in our language ; 
 and those subjects, not remarkable for being invested 
 with the charms of fancy, certaiidy do in his descrip- 
 tions appear to be invested by the fascinations of poetry. 
 He was a friend of both Doddridge and Watts. He lived 
 ever in the neiglibourhood of the grave, but his little 
 church of Weston Favell was filled with a loving con- 
 gregation. It was a small flock, for it was a small 
 church : but the humble villagers felt a large amount of 
 affectionate regard for their feeble and yet famous friend. 
 Into his church he speedily introduced, after their publica- 
 tion. Dr. Watts' Hymns. So he tells Watts : 
 
150 
 
 A Circle of Friends. 
 
 " To tell you, worthy Doctor, that your works have 
 loug heen my deliglit aud study, the favourite pattern 
 by which I would form my conduct and model my 
 style, would be only to echo back in the faintest ac- 
 ceuts what sounds in the general voice of the nation. 
 Among other of your edifying compositions, I have 
 reason to thank you for your ' Sacred Songs,' which I 
 have introduced into the service of my church ; so that 
 in the solemnities of the Sabbath, and in a lecture on 
 the week-day, your music lights up the incense of our 
 praise, and furnishes our devotions with harmony. Our 
 excellent friend, Dr. Doddridge, informs me of the in- 
 firm condition of your health, for which reason I humbly 
 beseech the Father of spirits and the God of our life to 
 renew your strength as the eagle's, and to recruit a lamp 
 that has shone with distinguished lustre in His sanctuary ; 
 or, if this may not consist with the counsels of unerring 
 wisdom, to make all your bed in your languishing, softly 
 to untie the cords of animal existence, to enable your 
 dislodging soul to pass triumphantly through the valley of 
 death, leaning on your beloved Jesus, and rejoicing in the 
 greatness of His salvation. You have a multitude of 
 names to bear on your breast and mention with your lips, 
 when you approach the throne of grace in the beneficent 
 exercise of intercession ; but none, I am sure, has more 
 need of such an interest in your supplications than, dear 
 sir, your obliged and humble and affectionate servant, 
 
 "James Hervey." 
 
 There could not be a very long intimacy between these 
 two, or much knowledge of each other ; they were both 
 hermits, following, in the midst of much weakness, the calls 
 of duty and the pursuits of a cultivated taste. The letter 
 
Philip Doddridge. 
 
 151 
 
 we have just quoted was written the year before Watts 
 died ; Hervey lived ten years longer, but died at the age 
 of forty-seven. He forms one of a cluster of men sin- 
 gularly interesting to contemplate. With Doddridge, 
 from their vicinity in the same county, he was on terms 
 of the clo.sest intimacy. He was a large scholar, a poet by 
 natural temperament, and an intense lover of natural 
 description. His works, once so famous, are almost for- 
 gotten, and have fallen into quite an undeserved neglect, 
 partly arising, it may be, from the unfavourable estimate 
 formed of them by those who have not read them, or who 
 may have fixed their impressions from the scanning his 
 " Contemplation of the Starry Heavens," or his " Reflec- 
 tions in a Flower Garden," or his " Descant on Creation." 
 His portrait should be suspended in the gallery of those 
 we are noticing as one, who, if not among Watts' most 
 intimate friends, yet revered and loved him much. 
 
 But there is one name "vvith which that of Watts is 
 constantly united ; it is the name of one whose nature in 
 a marked and special manner seemed fitted to produce a 
 perfect harmony and accord, it is the name of Philip 
 Doddridge. At Avhat period the friendship commenced 
 cannot be very exactly ascertained. Probably, had the 
 life of Doddridge been spared to pen the biography of his 
 venerable friend, the present biographer might haA'e felt 
 his work a superfluity of naughtiness ; but, considerable as 
 the distance was between tlie ages of the friends. Watts 
 preceded his younger brother by only a short time to tlie 
 grave. Like Watts, his name is especially associated with 
 the hymnology of England ; nor is there a collection of 
 sacred songs which does not contain some strains from 
 the pair of sweet singers. Doddridge is indeed rather 
 known by a few pieces, very sweet and helpful, but 
 
152 
 
 A Circle of Friends. 
 
 limited in the range of their emotions, and never attempt- 
 ing the lofty and dazzling flight of Watts' nobler pieces. 
 
 Doddridge's life is full of interest; it has yet to be 
 written, for there was a variety of incidents in his story 
 which scarcely appears in the biography of Kippis, or the 
 admirable memoir of Job Orton. All things considered, it 
 was a wonderful life : its activity was amazing, the variety 
 of his literary acquirements and spoils was prodigious ; 
 one woiUd say he had much more of the poet's tempera- 
 ment than Watts ; he was impulsive, passionate, affec- 
 tionate, yet we certainly miss in him tliat indefinable 
 something which constitutes the poet, and which some- 
 thing. Watts assuredly possessed. 
 
 In some particulars both • in his ancestry and earlier 
 career Doddridge resembled Watts ; Philip, like Isaac, 
 was the child (he was the twentieth) of a mother whom 
 persecution had drifted to our shores ; at his birth his 
 mother seemed so near to death that no attention was 
 given to the almost lifeless little castaway, the infant, and 
 the world almost lost l*hilip the moment he Avas bom. 
 
 If Watts probably received his first lessons in biblical 
 knowledge from his grandmother by the fireside of the old 
 house in French Street, the Dutch tiles in the chimney 
 constituting an illuminated and illustrated Bible, from 
 which Doddridsice's mother first initiated her own son into 
 Bil)le lore, have become a famous tradition. Like Isaac, 
 Philip made so much progress in scholarship, that he had 
 the offer of a training in either University if he would 
 enter the Established Church ; it was made generously by 
 the Duchess of Bedford. Philip, like Isaac, declined the 
 temptation, and so he found his alma mater beneath the 
 more modest and obscure roof of a Dissenting academy 
 at Kibworth, in Leicestershire. 
 
Affecting Letter from Watts to Doddridge. 153 
 
 Doddridge was born iu the year when Watts first 
 became the co-pastor of Dr. Chauncy, and he died in 1751, 
 scarcely two years after the venerable friend whom he so 
 much honoured and loved. Thus, when Watts died, 
 Doddridge was on his way to the tomb, dying by the slow 
 process of consumption. Great as was the difference in 
 point of age, it is affecting to read the following letter 
 from Watts to Doddridge — indeed, it simply expresses the 
 truth they were " both going out of the world." 
 
 " Stoke Newington, Oct. 18, 174C, Saturday. 
 
 "Dear Sir, 
 
 " My much esteemed friend and brotlier, 
 
 " It was some trouble to me that you even fancied I had 
 taken anything ill at your hands ; it was only my own 
 great indisposition and weakness which prevented the 
 freedom and pleasure of conversation ; and I am so low 
 yet that I can neither study nor preach, nor have I any 
 hope of better days in this world ; but, blessed be God, we 
 are moving onwards, I hope, to a state infinitely better. 
 I should be glad of more Divine assistance from the 
 Spirit of Consolation, to make me go cheerfully through 
 the remaining days of my life. I am very sorry to find, 
 by reports from friends, tliat you have met with so many 
 vexations in these latter months of life ; and yet I cannot 
 find that your sentiments are altered, nor should your 
 orthodoxy or charity be called in question. 1 shall take it 
 a pleasv;re to have another letter from you, informing me 
 that things are much easier, botli with you and in the 
 west country. As we are both going out of the world, we 
 may commit each other to the care of our common Lord, 
 who is, we hope, ours iu an unchangeable covenant. I am 
 
15-4 
 
 A Circle of Friends. 
 
 glad to hear Mrs. Doddridge has her health better ; and I 
 heartily pray for your prosperity, peace, and success in 
 your daily labours. 
 
 " I am yours affectionately, in our common Lord, 
 
 " I. Watts. 
 
 " F.S. — I rejoice to hear so well of Mr. Ashworth : I 
 hope my lady and I have set him up with commentators, 
 for which he has given us both thanks. I trust I shall 
 shortly see your third volume of the ' Family Expositor.' " 
 
 \ Watts' life was iiniform ; we can scarcely point to a 
 period and say tlie man woke into life and being then and 
 there ; but Doddridge reached his period of interior life 
 and lal)our when he became pastor and tutor at Northamp- 
 ton, and it would almost seem as if disappointment in 
 love made a man of him. 
 
 The work accomplished by Doddridge in the academy of 
 which he was tutor was enormous, and it exhibits the 
 thoroughness of the training in the small unostentatious 
 academy where the Dissenting ministers of that day 
 gathered their stores of knowledge, and received their 
 education for the ministry. 
 
 And he was great as a preacher — the peasants of the 
 neighbourhood thought so — his usefulness among them 
 was eminent ; and Akenside, the poet, thought so. The 
 variety of his correspondence is an amazing characteristic 
 too ; various, not only as to the personages with whom he 
 corresponded, but the subjects upon which he corresponded 
 with them. Like Watts, his sweet and gentle nature 
 charmed the most obdurate — he had not even a Bradbury 
 to ruffle the equanimity of his spirit — even the rough and 
 savage Warburton became kind to him ; he reviewed the 
 
Watts suggests the "Rise and Progress of Religion.'^ 155 
 
 " Divine Legation," in the " Works of the Learned," a 
 review of that daj'- ; and it was to the English Bishop who 
 quarrelled with everybody, the gentle Nonconformist was 
 indebted for obtaining that easy passage in the sailing 
 vessel, in which the captain gave up his cabin to liim, that 
 he might journey to the warm airs of Lisbon to lay aside 
 his labours and to die. Doddridge is known by many of 
 his works. His "Family Expositor" a long time held a 
 place in the family and in the study ; but a far more 
 extensive fame has followed the authorship of " The Rise 
 and Progress of Eeligion in the Soul." This work, as its 
 dedication to Dr. Watts shows, owes also its existence to 
 him ; two letters exhibit, on either side, the sentiments 
 these admirable men entertain for each other ; the first 
 is the dedication to which reference has been made : 
 
 " Rev. and dear Sir, 
 
 "With the most affectionate gratitude and re- 
 spect I beg leave to present you a book, which owes its 
 existence to your request, its copiousness to your plan, 
 and much of its perspicuity to your review, and to the 
 use I made of your remarks on that part of it which 
 your health and leisure would permit you to examine. 
 I address it to you, not to beg your patronage to it, for 
 of that I am already well assured, and much less from 
 any ambition of attempting your character, for which, if 
 I were more equal to the subject, I should think this a 
 very improper place, but chiefly from a secret deliglit 
 which I find in the thought of being known to those 
 whom this may reach as one whom you have honoured, 
 not only with your friendship, but with so much of your 
 esteem and approbation too, as must substantially appear 
 
15G 
 
 A Circle of Friends. 
 
 in your committing a work to me, which you had your- 
 self projected, as one of the most considerable services 
 of your life. 
 
 " I have long thought the love of popular applause a 
 meanness which a philosophy far inferior to that of our 
 Divine Master, might have us to conquer. But to be 
 esteemed by eminently great and good men, to whom we 
 are intimately known, appears to me not only one of 
 the most solid attestations of some real worth, but, next 
 to the approbation of God and our own consciences, one 
 of its most valuable rewards. It will, I doubt not, be 
 found so in that world to which spirits like yours are 
 tending, and for wdiich, through Divine grace, you have 
 ()l»tained so uncommon a degree of ripeness. And per- 
 mit me, sir, while I write this, to refresh myself with the 
 hope that when that union of hearts which has so long 
 suljsisted between us shall arrive to its full maturity and 
 endearment there, it will be matter of mutual delight to 
 recollect that you have assigned me, and that I have, in 
 some degree, executed a task which may, perhaps, under 
 the blessing of God, awaken and improve religious senti- 
 ments in the minds of those we leave behind us, and of 
 others that may arise after us in this vain, transitory, and 
 ensnaring world. 
 
 " Such is the improvement you have made of capaci- 
 ties for service that I am fully persuaded heaven has re- 
 ceived very few in these latter ages who have done so much 
 to serve its interests here below ; few who have laboured 
 in this best of causes with equal zeal and success ; and 
 therefore I cannot but join with all who wish well to the 
 Christian interest among us, in acknowledging the good- 
 ness of Providence to you, and to the Church of Christ, 
 in prolonging a life, at once so valuable and so tender, to 
 
Letter of Dedication from Doddridge to Watts. 157 
 
 such an advanced period. With them, sir, I rejoice that 
 God has given you to possess in so extraordinary a degree, 
 not only the consciousness of intending great benefit to the 
 world, but the satisfaction of having effected it, and seeing 
 such an harvest already springing up, I hope, as an earnest 
 of a more copious increase from thence. With multitudes 
 more I bless God that you are not in the evening of so 
 afflicted and so laborious a day rendered entirely incapable 
 of serving the puljlic from the press and from the pulpit, 
 and that, amidst the pain your active spirit feels when 
 these pleasing services suffer long interruption from bodily 
 weakness, it may be so singularly refreshed by reflecting 
 on that sphere of extensive usefulness in which by your 
 writings you continually move. 
 
 " I congratulate you, dear sir, while you are in a mul- 
 titude of families and schools of the lower class, conde- 
 scending to the humble yet important work of forming 
 infant minds to the first rudiments of religious knowledge 
 and devout impressions, by your various catechisms and 
 divine songs, you are also daily reading lectures of logic 
 and other useful branches of philosophy to studious youth; 
 and this not only in private academies but in the most 
 public and celebrated seats of learning, not merely in 
 Scotland, and in our American colonies, where for some 
 peculiar considerations it might be most naturally ex- 
 pected, but, through the amiable candour of some excellent 
 men and accomplished tutors, in our English universities 
 too. I congratulate you that you are teaching no doubt 
 hundreds of ministers and private Clnristians by your 
 sermons, and other theological tracts, so happily calcu- 
 lated to diffuse through their minds that light of know- 
 ledge, and through their hearts that fervour of piety, which 
 God has been pleased to enkindle in your own. But 
 
158 
 
 A Circle oj Friends. 
 
 above all I congratulate you that by your sacred poetry, 
 especially by your psalms and your hymns, you are lead- 
 ing the worship, and, I trust also, animating the devotions 
 of myriads in our public assemblies every Sabbath, and 
 in their families and closets every day. This, sir, at 
 least so far as it relates to the service of the sanctuary, is 
 an unparalleled favour by which God hath been pleased 
 to distinguish you, I may boldly say it, beyond any of 
 His servants now upon earth. Well may it be esteemed 
 a glorious equivalent, and, indeed, much more than an 
 equivalent, lor all those views of ecclesiastical pre- 
 ferment to which such talents, learning, virtues, and 
 interests might have entitled you in an estal)lishment ; and 
 I doubt not but you joyfully accept it as such. , 
 
 " Nor is it easy to conceive in what circumstances you 
 could, on any supposition, have been easier and happier 
 than in that pious and truly honourable family in which, 
 as I verily believe in special indulgence both to you and 
 to it. Providence has been pleased to appoint that you 
 should spend so considerable a part of your life. It is 
 my earnest prayer that all the remainder of it may be 
 serene, useful, and pleasant. And as, to my certain know- 
 ledge, your compositions have been the singular comfort 
 of many excellent Christians — some of them numbered 
 among my dearest friends — on their dying beds, for I have 
 heard stanzas of them repeated from the lips of several 
 who were doubtless in a few hours to begin the ' Song 
 of Moses and the Lamb,' so I hope and trust that, when 
 God shall call you to that salvation, for which your faith 
 and patience have so long been waiting. He will shed 
 around you the choicest beams of His favour, and gladden 
 your heart Avitli consolations, like those which you have 
 been the happy instrument of administering to others. 
 
Letter of Dedication from Doddridge to Watts. 159 
 
 In the meantime, sir, be assured that I am not a little 
 animated in the various labours to which Providence has 
 called me, by reflecting that I have such a contemporary, 
 and especially such a friend, whose single presence would 
 be to me as that of a cloud of witnesses here below to 
 awaken my alacrity in the race which is set before me. 
 And I am persixaded that, while I say this, I speak the 
 sentiment of many of my brethren, even of various de- 
 nominations, a consideration which I hope will do some- 
 thing towards reconciling a heart so generous as yours, to 
 a delay of that exceeding and eternal weight of glory 
 which is now so nearly approaching. Yes, my honoured 
 friend, you will, I liope, cheerfully endure a little longer 
 continuance in life amidst all its infirmities from an 
 assurance that, while God is pleased to maintain the 
 exercise of your reason, it is hardly possible you sliould 
 live in vain to the world or yourself. Every day and 
 every trial is brightening your crown, and rendering you 
 still more and more meet for an inheritance among the 
 saints in light. Every word which you drop from the 
 pulpit has now surely its peculiar weight. The eyes of 
 many are on tlieir ascending prophet, eagerly intent that 
 they may catch, if not his mantle, at least some divine 
 sentence from his lips, which may long guide their ways, 
 and warm their hearts. This solicitude your friends bring 
 in tho.se happy moments wlien they are favoured with 
 your converse in private, and, when you are retired from 
 them, your prayers, I doubt not, largely contribute towards 
 guarding your country, watering the Church, and blessing 
 the world. Long may they continue to answer tliese great 
 ends. And permit me, sir, to conclude with expressing 
 my cheerful confidence that in these best moments you 
 are often particularly mindful of one, who so highly 
 
IGO 
 
 A Circle of Friends. 
 
 esteems, so greatly needs, and so warmly returns that 
 remembrance as, 
 
 " lleverend Sir, your most affectionate brother, 
 
 " And obliged humble servant, 
 
 " Philip Doddridge. 
 
 " NOETHAMPTON, Bec. 13, 1744." 
 
 This dedication, of which Dr. Watts said, " It is the 
 only thing in that book I can hardly permit myself to 
 approve," may be appropriately followed by a letter to 
 ]Mr. David Longueville, minister to the English church 
 at Amsterdam, who had written to Dr. Watts asking his 
 advice with reference to the translation of the works of 
 Doddridge into the Dutch tongue j to this Watts replies : 
 
 " Rev. Sir, 
 
 " It is a very agreeable emplo}Tnent to which you 
 call me, and a very sensible honour you put upon me, 
 when you desire me to give you my sentiments of that 
 reverend and learned writer, Dr. Doddridge, to be prefixed 
 to a translation of any of his works into the Dutch tongue. 
 I have well known him for many years ; I have enjoyed a 
 constant intimacy and friendship with him ever since the 
 providence of God called him to be a professor of human 
 science, and a teacher of sacred theology to young men 
 among us, who are trained up for the ministry of the 
 Go.spel. I have no need to give you a large account of 
 his knowledge in the sciences, in which I confess him to 
 be greatly my superior; and as to the doctrines of divinity 
 and the Gospel of Christ, I know not of any man of greater 
 skill than himself, and hardly sufficient to be his second. 
 As he hath a most exact ac(iuaintance with the things of 
 
Letter from Watts to Amsterdam. 161 
 
 God and our holy religion, so far as we are let into the 
 knowledge of them by the light of nature and the reve- 
 lations of Scripture, so he hath a most happy manner of 
 teaching those who are younger. He hath a most skilful 
 and condescending way of instruction, nor is there any 
 person of my acquaintance with whom I am more entirely 
 agreed in all the sentiments of the doctrine of Christ. He 
 is a most hearty believer of the gTeat articles and im- 
 portant principles of the Eeformed Church, a most affec- 
 tionate preacher and pathetic writer on the practical points 
 of religion, and, in one word, since I am now advanced in 
 age beyond my seventieth year, if there were any man to 
 whom Providence would permit me to commit a second 
 part of my life and usefulness in the Church of Christ, 
 Dr. Doddridge shoidd be the man. If you have read that 
 e.xcellent performance of his, ' The Rise and Progress of 
 Religion in the Soul,' etc., you will be of my mind; his 
 dedication to me is the only thing in that book I could 
 hardly permit myself to approve. Besides all this, he 
 possesses a spirit of so much charity, love, and goodness 
 towards his fellow Christians, who may fall into some 
 lesser differences of opinion, as becomes a follower of the 
 blessed Jesus, his INIaster and mine. In the practical pai t 
 of his labours and ministry, he hath sufficiently shown 
 himself most happily furnished with aU proper gifts and 
 talents to lead persons of all ranks and ages into serious 
 piety and strict religion. I esteem it a considerable 
 honour which the Providence of God hath done me, when 
 it makes use of me as an in.strument in His hands to pro- 
 mote the usefulness of tliis great man in any part of the 
 world ; and it is my hearty prayer that our Lord Jesus, the 
 Head of the Church, may bless all his labours with most 
 glorious success, either read or heard, in my native lan- 
 
 11 
 
11)2 
 
 A Circle of Fricnih. 
 
 iiWiV^ii or in any other tonj^uc. I aiii, I'everend sir, witli 
 much sincerity your faitliful humble servant, and afi'ec- 
 tiunate brother in the Gospel of our common Lord, 
 
 " Isaac Watts." 
 
 " The Iiise and Progress of Religion in the Soul " is still 
 the best book of its kind; l)ut, without doing any dishonour 
 to its great merits, it may be said that it is built up 
 too much upon a frame-work like that of Seupoli and 
 A'Kempis, and we have known readers to whom it has 
 rather been a message of desjjair than of mercy. Salvation 
 and spiritual happiness seem to be rather in the attainment 
 of some subjective condition, than in the finished work of 
 (Christ ; the soul seems to be invited rather to brood over, 
 or look in upon itself, than to look outward and upward to 
 Christ. Still it has been rendered into all the leading lan- 
 guages in Europe. But it is in his hymns that the influence 
 of Doddridge most resembles that of his friend. His hynnis 
 have been spoken of as a kind of spiritual amber : but that 
 tei'm, appropriate as it is, is rather descripti\'e of hynms in 
 general ; are they not all pieces of secreted spiritual elec- 
 tiicity, rare and rich in spiritual emotion ? And many of 
 Doddridge's have an ineffable beauty. Logan, the Scotch 
 poet, has the doulitful reputation of the authorship of 
 several very sweet hymns: we say doubtful, because the 
 authorship turns ratlier ominously towards the more likely 
 genius of Michael Bruce ; but, in any case, the famous 
 hymn, so sanctified in almost every Scotch household, as it 
 rises to the old tune of IVIartyrdom — 
 
 O God of Bethel, by wliose liiiiul, 
 
 ought not to be regarded as his. It may not be unin- 
 teresting to notice together the variations in the two 
 liynms : 
 
Logan and Doddridge. 
 
 163 
 
 Logan. 
 
 O God of Bethel 1 by Wliose hand 
 
 Thy people still are fed; 
 Who through this weary pilgrim- 
 age 
 
 Hast all our fathers led; 
 
 Our vows, our prayers, we now 
 present 
 
 Before Thy throne of grace. 
 God of our fathers I be the God 
 Of their succeeding race. 
 
 Through each perplexing path of 
 life, 
 
 Our wandering footsteps guide : 
 Give us each day our daily bread, 
 And raiment fit provide. 
 
 O spread Thy covering vsdngs 
 around, 
 
 Till all our wanderings cease. 
 And at our Father's loved abode 
 Our .souls aiTive in peace. 
 
 Such blessings from Thy gracious 
 hand, 
 
 Our humble prayers implore; 
 And Thou .shalt be our chosen God 
 And portion ever more. 
 
 Doddridge. 
 
 0 God of Jacob, by Whose hand 
 
 Thine Israel still is fed. 
 Who through this weary pilgrim- 
 age 
 
 Hast all our fathers led; 
 
 To Thee our humble vows we 
 raise. 
 
 To Thee address our prayer, 
 And in Thy kind and faithful 
 breast 
 Deposit all our care. 
 
 If Thou through each perplexing 
 path, 
 
 WUt be our constant g^de : 
 If Thou wilt daily bread supply. 
 And raiment will provide ; 
 
 If Tliou wUt spread Thy .shield 
 around, i 
 
 TiU these our wanderings cease. 
 And at our Father's loved abode 
 
 Our souls arrive in peace ; 
 
 To Thee, as to our covenant-God, 
 We'U our whole selves resign ; 
 And count that not our tenth 
 alone. 
 
 But all we have is Tliine. 
 
 It is not generally known that Doddridge pursued for 
 many years the practice of Watts — perhaps he derived it 
 from him — of writing a hymn after each or many of his 
 sermons, so that the volume of his hymns is a tolerably 
 large one, numbering three hundred and forty-seven. 
 Many of them have great evangelical tenderness and 
 beauty ; we do not remember that they ever depart from 
 a good and correct taste ; they never soar up to "Watts' 
 daring heights, but they are often very sweet and excpiisite ; 
 they are like the notes of a nightingale in the depths of 
 
1G4 
 
 A Circle of Fricnth. 
 
 evening shades, or sometimes like dove-like wings flashing 
 near to the earth, but in the bright sunshine, " wings tipped 
 with silver, or feathers of yellow gold." And, perhaps, we 
 appreciate rather more the frequent ecstasy of his hymns 
 in the memory of the fact that the story of his own life 
 shows him not to have been incapable of human passion. 
 
 To Doddridge we are indebted for a pleasing illustration 
 of the early reception of Watts' sacred verses ; Southey has 
 quoted it in his life of Watts ; the incident shows that the 
 hymns, in spite of the sneers of Bradbury, were hailed 
 with much deliglit, as supplying a very great want, not 
 only in public but domestic service. The letter from 
 Doddridge is dated 1731. 
 
 "Till heaven is enriched by your removal thither, I 
 hope, sir, to find in you a counsellor and a friend, if God 
 should continue my life, and I cannot but admire the good- 
 ness of Providence in honouring me with the friendship of 
 such a person. I can truly say your name was in the 
 number of those wliich were dearest to me long before I 
 ever saw you. Yet, since I have known you, I cannot but 
 find something of a more tender pleasure in the thought 
 of your successful various services in the advancement of 
 the best causes, that of real, vital, practical Christianity. 
 What happened under my observation a few days ago gave 
 me joy with regard to you, which is yet so warm in my 
 mind that I hope, sir, you will pardon my relating the 
 occasion of it. On Wednesday last I was preaching in a 
 barn to a pretty large assembly of plain country people at 
 a village a few miles off. After a sermon from Hebrews 
 vi. 12, we sang one of your hymns (which, if I remember 
 right, was the 140tli of tlie second book). And in that 
 part of the worship I had the satisfaction to observe tears 
 in the eyes of several of the auditory, and after the service 
 
Anecdote recited hy Doddridge. 
 
 1G5 
 
 was over, some of them told me that tliey were not able to 
 sing, so deeply were their minds affected with it, and the 
 clerk in particular told me he could hardly utter the words 
 of it * These were most of them poor people who work for 
 their living. On the mention of your mime, I found they 
 liad read several of your books with gi'eat delight, and that 
 your h}Tnns and psalms were almost their daily entertain- 
 ments. And when one of the company said, ' What if 
 Dr. Watts should come down to Northampton ? ' another 
 replied, with a remarkable warmth, ' The very sight of 
 him would be like an ordinance to me ! ' I mention the 
 
 * Dr. Southey, remarking on this incident, says : " The hymn, 
 indeed, was likely to have this effect upon an assembly whose minds 
 were under the immediate impression produced by a pathetic preacher." 
 They were those well-known words : 
 
 Give mc the wings of faith to rise 
 
 Within the veU, and see 
 The saints above, how great their joys, 
 
 How bright their glories be. 
 
 Once they were mourning here below, 
 
 And wet their couch with tears. 
 They wrestled hard, as we do now. 
 
 With sins, and doubts, and fears. 
 
 I ask them whence their victory came ; 
 
 They with united breath 
 Ascribe their conquest to the Lamb, 
 
 '^rheir triumph to His death. 
 
 They marked the footsteps that He trod. 
 
 His zeal inspired their breast ; 
 And, following their Incarnate God, 
 
 Possess the promised rest. 
 
 Our glorious Leader claims our praise 
 
 For His own pattern given. 
 While the long cloud of witncssea 
 
 Show the same path to heaven. 
 
1G6 
 
 A Circle of Friends. 
 
 tiling just as it "was, and am persuaded it is l)ut a familiar, 
 natural specimen of what often occurs amongst a multi- 
 tude of Christians who never saw your face. Nor do I 
 by any means intend it as a compliment to a genius 
 capable of entertaining by the same compositions the 
 gi'eatest and the meanest of mankind, but to remind you, 
 dear sir (with all the deference and humility due to a 
 superior character), how much yon owe to Him Avho has 
 honoured you as the instrument of such extensive service. 
 Had Providence cast my lot near you, I should joyfully 
 have embraced the most frequent opportunities of im- 
 proving my understanding and warming my heart by 
 conversing with you, Avhich would surely have been greatly 
 for my advantage as a tutor, a minister, and a Christian. 
 As it is, I will omit none which may fall in my way ; and 
 when I regret that T can enjoy no more of you here, will 
 comfort myself with the thoughts of that blessed state 
 where I hope for ever to dwell with you, and to join with 
 you in sweeter and sublimer songs than you have taught 
 the Church below." 
 
 One of the most notable persons who crossed the life of 
 Dr. Doddridge was Colonel James- Gardiner : the stern 
 soldier loved the gentle Doctor, and not less did tlie gentle 
 spirit of the Doctor attach itself finnly to the stern soldier. 
 Another instance of the singular hinges on which friend- 
 ships are suspended. Doddridge wrote his life, and it 
 created no little sensation, especially in those circles to 
 which Colonel Gardiner belonged. One of the last letters 
 of the Countess of Hertford to Dr. Watts refers so distinctly 
 to this book and to the character of Doddridge, that it may 
 appropriately find a place here : 
 
Letter f rom the Countess of Hertford to Watts. Iii7 
 
 " Peecy Lodge, Xov. 15, 1747. 
 
 " Eeveeend Sir, 
 
 " The last time I troubled you with a letter was to 
 return you thanks for your work on the "Glory of Christ," a 
 subject which can never be exhausted, or ever thought of 
 without calling for all the praise which our hearts are 
 capable of in our present imperfect state. My gratitude 
 t(j you is again awakened by the obligation I am under 
 (and, indeed, the whole Christian Church) to you for giving 
 Dr. Doddridge the plan, and engaging him to write his 
 excellent book of " The Eise and Progress of Eeligion in 
 the Soul." I have read it with the utmost attention and 
 pleasure, and, I would hope, with some advantage to my- 
 self, unless I should be so unhappy as to find the impression 
 it has made on my heart wear off like the morning dew 
 which passeth away, which God in His mercy avert. If 
 you have a correspondence with him, I could wish you 
 would convey my thanks to liim, and the assurance that I 
 shall frequently remember liim in my liumble (though weak) 
 address to the throne of Almighty Grace (and wliicli I know 
 myself unworthy to look up to any otherwise than through 
 the merits and sufferings of our blessed .Saviour), tliat he 
 may go on to spread the knowledge and practice of his 
 doctrine, and that he may add numbers to the Church, and 
 finally hear those blessed words, ' "Well done, thou good and 
 faithful servant, enter thou into thy Master's joy.' 
 
 "I cannot help mentioning to you the manner of this 
 book falling into my hands, as I think there was something 
 providential in it. About four months ago my poor lord 
 had so totally lost his appetite that his physician thouglit 
 it necessary for liim to go to Bath. I was not a moment in 
 doubt whether I should attend him there, because I knew 
 
IGS 
 
 A Circle of Friends. 
 
 it was my duty, and, besides, I could not have Leen easy to 
 be absent when I hoped my care might be of some use. 
 Yet I undertook the journey with a weight upon my spirits, 
 and a reluctance which is not to be described, though I 
 concealed it from him. Since the great aflliction with 
 which it pleased Almighty God to visit me by the death 
 of a most valuable and only son, I found myself happiest 
 in almost an entire retreat from the world, and being of a 
 sudden called into a place where I remembered to have 
 seen the utmost of its hurry and vanity exerted, temfied 
 niy imagination to the last degree, and I shed tears every 
 time I was alone at the thought of what I expected to 
 encounter; yet this dreaded change has, by the goodness 
 of God, proved one of the happiest periods in my life, and 
 I can look back upon no part of it with greater thankful- 
 ness and satisfaction. I had the comfort to see my Loi'd 
 Hertford recovering his health by the use of those waters 
 as fast as I could hope for. I found it was no longer 
 necessary, as formerly, to avoid giving offence, to be always 
 or frequently in company ; I enjoyed the conversation of 
 two worthy old friends, whom I did not expect to meet 
 there, and had an opportunity of renewing my acquaintance 
 with Lady Huntingdon, and admiring that truly Christian 
 sj)irit which seems to animate the wliole course of her life; 
 and, as I seldom went out, I read a great deal, and Frederick, 
 the bookseller, used to send the new books which he received 
 on the waggon nights, of wliicli I kept what I chose, and 
 sent back the rest. One night he sent me an account of 
 some remarkable passages relating to the life of Colonel 
 Gardiner; as I had known this gentleman in his uncon- 
 verted state, and often heard with admiration the sudden 
 and thorough change of his conduct for many years, it gave 
 me curiosity to read a book which seemed to promise me 
 
Letter from the Coxintcss of Hertford to Watts. 169 
 
 some information upon that subject. I was so touclied with 
 the account given of it that I could not help speaking of it 
 to almost everybody I saw; among others, the Dowager 
 Lady Hyndford came to make me a visit in the morning, 
 and as I knew she was of his country, and had lived much 
 in it, I began to talk to her of the book, and happened to 
 name the author. Upon which she said she would believe 
 whatever he wrote, for he was a truly good man, and had 
 wrote upon the ' Eise and Progress of Eeligion in the Soul' 
 in a manner which she was sure would please me. Slie 
 gave me the title in writing, and I bought the book the day 
 before I left Bath. I have now been at home three weeks, 
 and liave already had the pleasure to engage several otliers 
 to read it, who, I hope, will think of it as I do. I would 
 not wish to trouble you to write to me yourself, but a letter 
 from your amanuensis to let me know how you enjoy your 
 health, and whether you are still carrying on some work of 
 your pen to the glory of our gi-eat Master, would be a veiy 
 sincere pleasure to me. Let me beg to be remembered in 
 your prayers, for I am every day more sensible of the im- 
 perfection of my own, and yet, I hope, my heart is sincere 
 in its desires, that it may be brought to a perfect conformity 
 and submission to the will of my heavenly Pather. My 
 Lord Hertford always mentions you with regard, and Avill 
 be glad of your acceptance of the assurance of his friend- 
 sliip. 
 
 " I am, with an affectionate esteem. Sir, 
 
 " Your most faithful and obliged humble servant, 
 
 " F. Hertford." 
 
 It is impossible not to feel that, viewed from many 
 aspects, Philip Doddridge must have been Watts' most 
 
170 
 
 A Circle of Friends. 
 
 congenial friend. Tlie largest portion of Watts' work was 
 done before they knew each other, but friendships founded 
 in sympathy ripen very rapidly, and the difference of years 
 is very slightly felt where there is a great and happy con- 
 geniality of hearts. Watts was not a glowing correspond- 
 ent, but none of his letters are so tender as those to 
 I )oddridge, to whom he writes as his " dear and valuable 
 friend," and always his " affectionate brother and fellow 
 servant," and the lettei's warm greatly as the correspond- 
 ence increases. Doddridge always looked up to, and spoke 
 of, Watts in terms of extraordinary reverence and affection; 
 in their work they were very similar ; Doddridge's nature 
 was smaller than his friend's, but in its measure it was 
 very harmonious and perfect. Watts had a fine meta- 
 physical sagacity, and the keenness with which he analyzed 
 never interfered for a moment with the clearness of visions 
 by which he stepped from the discrete to the concrete, and 
 from parts to the whole ; hence, notwithstanding his fair 
 and catholic nature, he appears to have been much more 
 absolutely dogmatic than Doddridge, and it was perhaps 
 the defect of this great man's teaching that from the fatal 
 facility which brought him into contact with every class and 
 shade of opinion, the lines of his more absolute creed were 
 not fixed with sufficient distinctness : but from liis tutorship 
 there passed forth a variety of men who all delighted to 
 confess their obligations to Doddridge, — Hugh Farmer, 
 Andrew Kippis, Job Orton, Benjamin Fawcett, and, if not 
 the most scholarly, that beautiful and well-known teacher, 
 who realized perhaps beyond any his tutor's spirit and his 
 tutor's peculiar power, Eisdon Darracott. Such was Dod- 
 dridge, without some notice and knowledge of whom a 
 review of the life and times, the friends and labours of 
 Watts would be incomplete. 
 
Philij} Doddridge. 
 
 171 
 
 One hundred and twenty years have passed away since 
 Philip Doddridge died, but his name and many of his 
 works are still as sweet and fragrant as ever. His " Life 
 of Colonel Gardiner" is stiU. one of the most interesting 
 of religious biographies ; his " Family Expositor " still 
 holds its place in the family ; his theological lectures are 
 still an invaluable curriculum ; his coiTespondence is fvdl 
 of entertainment and interest ; his hymns are still sung 
 in all our churches, and that to wliich we have referred, 
 which ought assuretUy to be spoken of as his, " 0 God 
 of Bethel," sounded the other day down the aisles of 
 Westminster, as the body of Li\ingstone was lowered 
 into the grave. Doddridge's body, of course, was denied a 
 resting-place at Lisbon by the civil and ecclesiastical 
 authorities, but it was permitted to repose in the burying- 
 gi-ound of the English Factory. The great earthquake, 
 which occuired shortly after, left his grave undisturbed, 
 and it is a spot of holy gi-ound unto this day.* 
 
 * See an admirable and interesting .summary of Dodcliidgc's Life and 
 Character,— " Plulip Doddridge : " " North British Review." 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 NE of the most considerable of Watts' correspondents 
 
 \J and apparently intimate friends, was Frances, Countess 
 of Hertford, afterwards Duchess of Somerset. This lady was 
 the daughter of the Honourable Mr. Thynne, brother to 
 Lord Weymouth ; she married Algernon, Earl of Hertford, 
 son of Charles Seymour, Duke of Somerset, who succeeded 
 to the honours and estates of his father on December 
 2nd, 1748, i.e. about a week after tlie death of Dr. Watts. 
 Tlie Countess appears to have been a woman of great 
 piety, amiability, and accomplishments. Thomson, in his 
 " Seasons," addresses her : 
 
 " O Hertford, fitted or to shine in courts 
 
 With unaffected grace, or walk the plain 
 With innocence and meditation joined 
 In soft assemblage, listen to my song, 
 Which thy own season paints ; when Nature all 
 Is blooming, and benevolent like thee." 
 
 A collection of select letters, published by Mr. Hull, in 
 two volumes, includes eleven written by the Duchess, and 
 
Tlic Countess of Hertford. 
 
 173 
 
 they have been well characterized as exhibiting rectitude of 
 heart, delicacy of sentiment, and a truly classic ease and 
 elegance of style ; tinged with an air of melancholy, occa- 
 sioned by the loss of her only son. Lord Beauchamp, to 
 whom she so frequently refers in her letters to Dr. Watts. 
 His death at Bologna, in 1744, cast a settled gloom over 
 her mind, for he was a youth who seemed to give e\'idences 
 of superiority and worth of character calculated to confer 
 honour on the exalted station to which he was destined, 
 had his life been spared. Her letters all breathe the spirit 
 of unaffected simple piety and resignation ; and from the 
 time of her husband's elevation to the dukedom, her life 
 was subjected to the experience of intense troubles, first, in 
 the death of her own son, and very shortly after, in 1750, 
 the death of the Duke, her husband ; and it is with refer- 
 ence to these occasions of grief that she writes to Lady 
 Luxbrough, September 9th, 1750: "You are very obliging 
 in the concern you express for the scenes of sorrow I have 
 passed through. I have indeed suffered deeply, liut, when 
 I consider it is the will of God, who never chastises His 
 poor creatures but for their good, and reflect 'at the same 
 time how unworthy I was of these blessings, which I now 
 lament the loss of, I lay my hand upon my mouth, and dare 
 not repine, but hope I can with truth appeal to Him in 
 the following words : ' Such sorrow is sent that none may 
 oppose His holy will. Let me sigh and offer up all my 
 sighs to Him ! Let me mourn, and in the meantime bless 
 His name in the midst of my sorrow.' " 
 
 She did not herseK long survive, only till July 7tli, 
 1754, leaving an only daughter, who subsequently became 
 Duchess of Northumberland. The Countess herself was 
 the great and intimate friend likewise of Mrs. Eowe ; and 
 when this lady died, to the Countess and to Dr. Watts she 
 
174 The Conitc-^s of Hertford and 3frs. Rowe. 
 
 left tliose confidential letters to wliith refei-ence may be 
 made in subsequent pages of the present volume. How far 
 she di-ew the Doctor from his retreat, how often he visited 
 the lady at her various houses, we have no means of know- 
 ing ; the friendship continued certainly from 1729 to the 
 close of Watts' life, and it was probably commenced some 
 time before this date, for the terms of the first letters are 
 those of warm friendship. In 1731 she refers to her chil- 
 dren, especially to the son, wlio was to be in after years a 
 source of such gi'ief to the mother's heart, and she says, 
 "My young people send their services to you; I assure you 
 my little boy has grown a great proficient in your 'Songs 
 for Children,' and sings them with great pleasure." The 
 lady herself secretly ciiltivated the reci'eation of verse, and 
 sometimes forwarded her fancies in this Avay to the Doctor, 
 hut she says, " I beg the favour of you not to give any 
 copy of the enclosed verses, for I Avould wish my exclu- 
 sions of this kind to be a secret from everybody but you, 
 and a friend or two more, who know that I do not aim at 
 the character of a genius by any attempt of this nature, 
 but am led to them merely to amuse a leisure hour, and 
 speak the sentiments of my heart." She wrote, however, 
 an elegy on Mrs. Kowe, which called forth an epigram from 
 the Doctor, which was publislied in his posthumous volume 
 of Miscellanies, " Hemnants of Time, employed in I'rose 
 and A'erse " : 
 
 Struck with a sig-lxt of Pliilomela's uni, 
 Eust'bia weeps and calls the Muse to niouni ; 
 TVliile from her lips the tuneful sorrows fell, 
 The groves confess a rising Philomel. 
 
 Writing from the Hermitage on St. Leonard's Hill, slie 
 says : " I return you thanks for the ejjigram you were so 
 good as to send me, and should think myself very happy if 
 
Correspondence of the Countess. 
 
 175 
 
 anything of mine could deserve to show the joy I should 
 feel in being able to imitate IMrs. Eowe in the smallest 
 instance. I have only two meditations of hers, which she 
 gave me with the strongest injunctions not to let anybody 
 see them, lest they should be thought too rajaturous ; but as 
 I conchide she would not have included you among those 
 from whom she meant they should be concealed, I will 
 have them copied if you desire it." There are in her letters 
 very pleasing indications of an amial)le mind and heart ; 
 she writes to him of the books which have met her in the 
 course of her reading, and her remarks are characterized by 
 a quiet wisdom and judgment : " My Lord and Betty (the 
 future Duchess of Northuml:)erland) are in London, so that 
 my son and his governor are my only companions at present; 
 but we pass our time agreeably enough between reading, 
 walking, and such other amusements as this place in which 
 we are and the season of the year afford us ; we have been 
 lately reading 'Leonidas,'* in -which I think there are many 
 fine thoughts; but I hear the town are much divided in 
 their sentiments about it, since one part are for preferring 
 it to Milton, and others for levelling it to the lowest rank 
 of poetry. I confess neither of these appear to me a just 
 representation of it. If you have read it, I shall be glad to 
 know your thoughts of it." In another letter she remarks 
 upon the poet Pope : " I think everybody must wish a muse 
 like Mr. Pope's were more inclined to exert itself on Divine 
 and good-natured sul)jects; but I am afraid satire is his 
 highest talent, for I tliiiik his 'Universal Prayer' is by no 
 means equal to some other of liis works, and I tliink his 
 tenth stanza : 
 
 * Glover's " Leonidas," a poem scarcely ever road or ref(Ti'ed to now, 
 but which created considerable interest on its pubUcatiou, and for some 
 time held a conspicuous place in Engli.-ih poetiy. 
 
17G Tlie Coimfc-^s of Hertford and Jlfrs. Howe. 
 
 Toach mc to feel another's woo, 
 
 To hide the faults I see ; 
 That mercy I to others show, 
 
 That mercy show to me : 
 
 an instance hnw 1)1 ind the wisest men may be to the errors 
 of their own hearts, for he certainly did not mean to impre- 
 cate such a proportion of vengeance on himself as he is too 
 apt to load those with whom he dislikes ; nor would he wish 
 to have his own failings exposed to the eye of the world 
 with all the invective and ridicule with which he piiblishes 
 those of his fellow creatures." The following is one of the 
 most interesting and favourable letters from the many which 
 Dr. Gibbons has preserved of the correspondence extending 
 over so many years : 
 
 ''Jan. 17, 1739. 
 
 " SlE, 
 
 " I am truly sorry to find you complain of any decay, 
 but I am sure if you have any it must be bodily, and has 
 no other effect than that which both ]\Ir. Waller* and your- 
 seK have so happily described as letting in light upon the 
 soul. I never read anything in life that pleased me better 
 than your meditations on Eevelation x.. and I hope I shall 
 not only delight in reading the words, but lay the substance 
 
 * Mr. Waller's lines, to which her ladyship refers, are at the conclu- 
 sion of his Divine Poems : 
 
 The soul's dark cottage, battered and decayed, 
 
 Lets in new light through chinks that time has made : 
 
 Stronger by weakness wiser men become, 
 
 As they draw near to their etenial home : 
 
 Leaving the old, both worlds at once they view. 
 
 That stand upon the tlireshold of the new. 
 
 The verses of Dr. Watts which her ladyship intends is the poem in his 
 " Horse Lyricae," entitled " A Sight of Heaven in Sickness." 
 
Correspoiulence vnth ilic Countess of Hertford. 177 
 
 of it to my heart, to which end allow me to Leg. your 
 prayers as an assistance. 
 
 "My lord's state of suffering — for he is again confined to 
 his bed by the gout — gives me little opportunity and less 
 inclination to lose much time in the gay amusements whicli 
 are apt to divert other people from the tlioughts of their 
 dissolution ; but I am not sure that a life of care and 
 anxiety has not as bad an effect by fixing the nund too 
 attentively on the present gloom, which obscures every 
 cheerful ray whicli would otherwise enliven one's spirits. 
 I wish I had anything to send more worth your reading 
 tlian the following verses, but I have so little leisure that, 
 I can scarce get time to write letters to the few friends 1 
 correspond with. These lines were written one morning in 
 October as I was sitting in a bow-window in my chamber 
 at St. Leonard's Hill, which looks on a little gTove in4lie 
 garden, and beyond was an extensive view of tlie forest : 
 
 How lately was yon insset grove 
 
 The seat of hannony and love ! 
 
 How beauteous all the sylvan scene ! 
 
 The flowers how gay, the trees how green ! 
 
 But now it no such charms can boast, 
 
 Its music gone, its verdure lost ; 
 
 The changing leaves fall fast away, 
 
 And all its pride is in decay ; 
 
 Where blossoms deckt the pointed thorn 
 
 Now hangs the wintry drop forloni ; 
 
 No longer from the fragrant bu.^h 
 
 Odours exhale, nor roses blush. 
 
 Along the late enamelled mead 
 
 No golden cowslip lifts its head, 
 
 Scarce can the grass its spires sustain, 
 
 C'liiUcd by the frost, or drenched with rain. 
 
 Alas ! just thus with life it fares. 
 
 Our youth like smiling spring appears, 
 
 Allied to joy, unbroke with cares; 
 
 But swiftly fly tliose cheerful hours. 
 
 Like falling leaves, or fading flowers ; 
 
178 llic Coioifi'ss of Jlcrl/ord and Mrs. Eoire. 
 
 Wo (quickly hasten to decdiue, 
 And ev'ry sprightly joy resign : 
 Then bo our heart prepared to leave 
 Those joys, nor at their absence grieve; 
 Siiblimer pleasures let us prove, 
 And fix our thoughts on those above, 
 By the brig-ht eye of sacred truth 
 Review the dangers of our youth, 
 Think how by tm-ns wild passions raged. 
 By calm reflection now assuaged, 
 And bless the gentle ev'ning hour. 
 When reason best exerts its power, 
 And diives those tyrants from our breast. 
 Whose empire they too long possest : 
 
 Devotion comes with grace divine, 
 Ai'ound thejn heavenly gloi-ies shine. 
 While ev'iy gloom their rays dispel. 
 And banish the deceits of heU ; 
 Ambition now no more aspires. 
 
 Contentment mod' rates our desires, 
 
 Prom envy free we can behold 
 
 Another's honours, or his gold. 
 
 Nor jealousy our rest alarms, 
 
 No longer slaves to mortal charms. 
 
 With prudence, patience comes along, 
 
 Wlio smiles beneath oppressive wrong : 
 
 If then such peaceful hoav'nly guests 
 
 Age introduces to our breasts. 
 
 Can we his soft approaches fear, 
 
 Or heave a sigh, or di'op a tear. 
 
 Because our outward forms decay. 
 
 And time our vigour steals away ? 
 
 Should we regret our short-lived bloom. 
 
 Which, could it last us to the tomb, 
 
 Must quickly there to dust consume ? 
 
 If thus life's progress we survey. 
 
 View what it gives, what takes away. 
 
 We shall with thankful hearts declare, 
 
 It leaves us all that's worth om' care. 
 
 " I am iiiipoitiined by a very valual)le old woman, who is 
 declining apace, to beg your prayers. She took me from 
 my nurse, and if I have any good in me I owe it to her. 
 
Letters from Lady Llertford. 
 
 179 
 
 She was trusted by my mother with the care both of my 
 sister and myself, and has lived with me ever since. But 
 now, though past seventy, she cannot meet death without 
 terror, and yet I believe I may venture to answer that slie 
 has always lived under the strictest sense of religion ; but 
 lowness of spirit, joined to many bodily infirmities, will shed 
 darkness on the most cheerful minds, and hers never was of 
 that cast. I fear she has very few months, if weeks, to 
 come on earth, and a notice that you will gTant her request 
 would make her, I believe, pass them with some comfort. 
 I am forced to take another page to assure you of my lord's 
 compliments, and those of my young people ; the two latter 
 are very well. I have no other view in sending the above 
 verses but to prove that my confidence in your friendship 
 lias received no alteration from the length of time which 
 has passed since I had an opportunity of assuring you in 
 person with how true a regard 
 
 " I am. Sir, 
 
 "Your most faithful liumble servant, 
 
 " F. Hektford." 
 
 It is pleasant in these letters to notice the indications of 
 a quiet and retreating spirit. Upon Iier return, after a con- 
 siderable absence, to the family seat near Marlborough, she 
 says : " I have the pleasure of finding my garden extremely 
 improved in the two years I have been alxsent from it, 
 some little alterations I had ordered are completed; the 
 trees which I left small ones are grown to form an agree- 
 able shade, and I have reason to l)less God for the pleasant- 
 ness of the place which is allotted me to pass many of my 
 retired hours in ; may I make use of them to fit me for my 
 last, and that I may do so, allow me to Ijcg tlie continuation 
 
180 The Countess of Hertford and Mrs. Rov^e. 
 
 of your prayers." She several times refers to her " dear old 
 nurse," the " very valuable old woman " mentioned in the 
 lengthy letter quoted above : " Your good prayers for poor 
 liothery have met with unexpected success, she is so much 
 recovered that I begin to think she will get entirely well, 
 and if she does I think nothing of that kind has since I 
 can reniendjer looked more like a miraculous operation of 
 the healing power of the Almighty. I hope the same Divine 
 mercy will long preserve you a blessing to the age, and tliat 
 you will find your strengtli return with the warm weather." 
 This was written from Windsor Forest ; the next month she 
 writes from Marlborough : " My poor old woman has got 
 hither, contrary to her own and all our expectations ; she 
 has the deepest gratitude for your goodness to her, and begs 
 you will accept her thanks ; she is still very weak, and I 
 fancy will hardly get over the autumn." 
 
 This lady's letters exhilnt a vein of intelligence and 
 interesting reading in pleasant contrast to the frivolity of 
 most of the courtly ladies of that age. " I have just had 
 the oddest pamphlet sent me I ever saw in my life, called 
 ' Amusemens Philosophiques sur le Language des Betes.' 
 It was l)urnt by the hands of the common executioner at 
 Paris, and the priest who wrote it banished till he made a 
 formal retraction of it, and yet I think it very plain by the 
 style that the man was either in jest or crazed. It is by no 
 means wanting of wit, but extremely far from a system of 
 probability." Again, in another letter : " I have forgotten 
 whether in any of my later letters I ever named to you a 
 little book newly translated from the Italian, by the same 
 Mrs. Carter who has a copy of verses printed in the be- 
 ginning of Mrs. Howe's works, occasioned by her death. 
 The book she lias now translated is Sir Isaac Newton's 
 ' Doctrine of Light and Colours made easy for the Ladies.' 
 
Letters frovi Lady Hertford. 
 
 181 
 
 My daughter and I have both read it with great pleasure, 
 and flatter ourselves that we at least understand some parts 
 of it." It would he interesting to know who was the lady 
 referred to in the following letter — it was probably Mrs. 
 Elizabeth Carter; the work of the Doctor's to which so 
 marked a reference is made was undoubtedly his discourses 
 " On the World to Come," Mdiich had only just been pub- 
 lished, a copy of which he Iiad forwarded to her, and which 
 had been .acknowledged two or three weeks before in a letter 
 from liis " faithfully affectionate servant, F. Hertford." 
 
 " Maelboeough, July 30, 1739. 
 
 " Sir, 
 
 " I would much sooner have written to you to thank 
 you for the favour of your last letter, had I enjoyed more 
 leisure ; but I have had a friend with me this last mouth 
 who has engrossed a good many of those hours which I 
 used to employ in writing to my corre.spondents. She 
 is a A'ery pious and religious, as well as agreeable woman, 
 and has seen enough of the world in her younger years to 
 teach her to value its enjoyments and fear its vexations 
 no more than they deserve, l)y which happy knowledge 
 she has brought her mind and s])irits to the most perfect 
 state of calmness I ever saw ; and lier conversation seems 
 to impart the bles.sing to all wlio partake of her discourse. 
 ]>y this you will judge that I have passed my time very 
 much to my satisfaction while she was with me ; and, 
 though I have not written to you, you have shared my 
 time with her, for almost all the hours I passed alone I 
 have employed in reading your works, which for ever 
 represent to my imagination the idea of a ladder or 
 flight of steps, since every volume seems to rise a step 
 nearer the language of heaven, and there is a visible pro- 
 
182 The Coimicss of Hertford and Mrs. Howe. 
 
 gression toward that better country through every page ; 
 so that, though all breathe piety aud just reason, the last 
 seems to crown the whole, till you shall again publish 
 something to enlighten a dark and obstinate age, for I must 
 believe that the manner in wliich you treat Divine subjects 
 is more likely to reform and work upon the affections of 
 your readers than that of any other Avriter now living. I 
 hope God will in mercy to many thousands, myself in par- 
 ticular, prolong your life many years. I own this does not 
 seem a kind wish to you, but 1 think you will be content 
 to bear the infirmities of flesh some years longer to be an 
 instrument in tlie hands of God toward the sah'ation of 
 your weak and distressed brethren. The joys of heaven 
 cannot fade, but will be as glorious millions of ages to 
 come as they are now, and what a moment will the longest 
 life appear when it comes to be compared with eternity ! " 
 
 Upon the death of Mrs. Eowe, as she had left her medi- 
 tations for the hands of Dr. Watts, when he proposed to 
 publish the volume with his preface, he also ^ ery naturally 
 proposed to dedicate it to their friend the Countess. Witli 
 e.>:traordinary modesty, however, she shrunk from this. 
 She writes : " The sincere esteem I have for you makes it 
 very difficult for me to oppose anything you desire, aud it 
 is doubly so in an instance where I might have an oppor- 
 tunity of indulging so justifiable a pride as I should feel in 
 letting the public see this fresh mark of your partiality to 
 me, but as I am apprehensive that the envy such a dis- 
 tinction would raise against me might draw some vexation 
 with it, I ho])e you will have the goodness to change the 
 dedication into a letter to a friend, without giving me any 
 such appellation." In another letter, with characteristic 
 modesty, she says: " I can, with the strictest truth, affirm 
 that I do not know any distinction upon earth that I could 
 
Watts Edits the Remains of JTrs. Eoirc. 
 
 183 
 
 feel a truer pleasure in receiving were I deserving of it, hut 
 as I am forced to see how much I fall below the idea 
 which the benevolence of your nature has formed of me, 
 it teaches me to humble myself by that very incident 
 which might administer a laudable pride to a more woi'thy 
 person. If I am constrained to acknowledge this morti- 
 fying truth, you may believe there are many people in the 
 world Avho look upon me with more impartial eyes than 
 self-love will allow me to do ; and others, wlio perhaps think 
 I enjoy more of this world's goods than I either merit or 
 than falls to the common lot, look at me with envious and 
 malignant views, and are glad of every opportunity to 
 debase me or those who they believe entertain a favourable 
 opinion of me. I would hope that I have never done any- 
 thing, wilfully I am sure I have not, to raise any such 
 sentiments in the breast of the meanest ])erson upon earth, 
 ljut yet experience has convinced me that I have not been 
 liappy enough to escape them. For these reasons, sir, I 
 must deny myself the pleasure and the pride T should have 
 in so public a mark of your friendship and candour, and 
 beg that if you will design me the honour of joining any 
 address to me with those valuable remains of Mts. Kowe, 
 that you will either retrench the favourable expressions 
 you intended to insert, or else give me no other title at 
 the top of it than that of a friend of yours and hers, an 
 appellation which, in the sincerity of my soul, I am 
 prouder of than I could be of the most pompous name 
 that human grandeur can lay claim to." 
 
 She shrunk from all observation, and in another letter 
 says, " I will trespass so far on your good nature as to beg 
 you will leave out whatever will imply my attempting to 
 write poetry; but if there be any among the tilings you 
 have of mine which you think worth placing among yours 
 
184 Thr Coint/ess of JLiiford and Mrs. Row. 
 
 1 shall liave just cause to be pleased at seeing tliein come 
 abroad in such eoni])auy, if you M'ill liave the goodness to 
 conceal niy name, either under that of Eusebia or A Friend, 
 a title which I shall think myself happy to deserve." 
 This letter enables us to identify four poetical pieces, en- 
 titled "A Eural Meditation," "A Penitential Thought," 
 " A ]\Iidniglit Hynni," and the "Dying Christian's Hope," 
 inserted in A^'atts' Miscellanies, and attrilmted to Eusebia, 
 as the com])ositious of the Countess. It may not ])e un- 
 pleasant to the reader to have i)rought before him some of 
 tliese verses, which will show that the modesty of the 
 Countess need not have ))een dictated by tlie i)overty of 
 her expression : 
 
 A EURAL MEDITATION. 
 
 Here in the tuneful groves and flow'ry fields, 
 Nature a thousand various beauties yields : 
 The daisy and tall cowslip we behold 
 Arrayed in snowy white, or freckled gold. 
 Tlie verdant prospeet cherishes our sight, 
 Affording joy vmmixed, and calm delig'ht 
 The forest-walk, and venerable shade, 
 Wide-spreading lawns, bright rills, and silent glade, 
 With a religious awe our souls inspire, 
 And to the heav'ns our raptured thoughts aspire, 
 To Him who sits in majesty on high, 
 Who turned the starry arches of the sky ; 
 Wliose word ordained the silver Thames to flow, 
 Raised all the hills, and laid the valleys low ; 
 Who taught the nightingale in sliades to sing. 
 And bade the skylark warble on the wing ; 
 Makes the young steer obedient till the land. 
 And lowing heifers own the milker's hand ; 
 Calms the rough sea, and stills the raging wind. 
 And niles the passions of the human mind. 
 
 Tliis correspondence sets in a very Ijeautifid light the 
 character of this amiable and excellent lady, no doubt one 
 
Watts and Mrs. Rov:e. 
 
 185 
 
 of Watts' attached friends, and intercourse with whom, 
 through tlie long period of twenty years, must have been 
 to hiui a frequent source of rest and enjoyment. When 
 their intimacy commenced she was in immediate attend- 
 ance on the Queen Caroline, wife of George i. In those 
 days the attempts which subsequently were made by the 
 Countess of Huntingdon to create a feeling of piety and 
 purity in the neiglibourhood of the court had not been 
 commenced, the manners of the great were not favourable 
 to goodness and virtue, and the general spirit of the time 
 brings out into strong relief the character of this gentle 
 and noble lady ; seldom apparently free from illness, her 
 thoughts usually move round those loftiest sources of con- 
 solation in which the highest or tlie humblest equally find 
 tlie surest and most abiding alleviation and repose. 
 
 In 1737 Watts sustained a loss in the innermost and 
 most intimate circle of his acquaintance by the death of 
 Mrs. Eowe. His early relations with this lady have 
 round them some traditions of a tender mystery ; it is 
 generally supposed that upon liis side at one time his 
 feelings for Miss Singer, her maiden name, were sometliing 
 more than those of mere friendsliip. The charms of the 
 lady appear to have been considerable, and procured her 
 previous to man'iage many admirers, among others Prior, 
 the poet, who sought the lady's hand in vain, and in his 
 poem on "Love and Friendship" expresses liimself after 
 tlie most approved fashion of the disconsolate Werthers of 
 tliat day, informing her that — 
 
 He dies in woe, that thou mayst live in peaoc. 
 
 It would seem that Watts' attacliment was some time 
 talked aliout extensively, for Young refers to it in one of 
 his satires : 
 
ISG The Countess of Hertford and Mrs. Roive. 
 
 What angels would those be, who thus excel 
 
 In theologies, could they sew as well ! 
 
 Yet why should not the fair her text j)ur8ue ? 
 
 Can she more decently the Doctor woo ? 
 
 Isaac, a brother of the canting strain. 
 
 When he has knocked at his own skuU in vain, 
 
 To beauteous Marcia often will repair, 
 
 With a dark text to light it at the fair. 
 
 Oh how his pious soul exults to find 
 
 Such love for holy men in womankind! 
 
 Charmed with her learning, with what rapture he 
 
 Hangs on her bloom, Uke an industrious bee ; 
 
 Hums round about her, and with all his power, 
 
 Extracts sweet wisdom from so fair a flower. 
 
 More respectfully, Mrs. Barbaukl appears to allude to tlie 
 circumstance when addressing Mrs. Howe, she says : 
 
 Thynne, Carteret, Blackmore, Orrery approved, 
 And Prior praised, and noble Hertford loved. 
 Seraphic Ken, and tuneful Watts were thine, 
 And virtue's noblest champions fiUed the line. 
 
 But there is no reason, beyond the idle chatter of the 
 town, to suppose that there Avas more than ardent friend- 
 ship between the two ; AVatts was not a man ever likely to 
 have been refused in marriage, and the talk appears only to 
 have originated from the fact that people in general suppose 
 that there can l)e no community of taste, and intellectual 
 intercourse, and liigh and even ardent friendship between 
 opposite sexes without its pointing to marriage. That it 
 was not so in this instance appears certain, not only from 
 the very high regard Mrs. Rowe always entertained for 
 AVatts, but from the terms of the letter addressed to him 
 to be delivered after her death ; we would rather suppose it 
 possible, although we do not assert it, that Elizabeth Singer 
 might have been not indisposed to a relationship the idea 
 of which was not encouraged by the Doctor, and which he 
 
Mrs. Elizabeth Eowe. 
 
 187 
 
 deferred to the calmer communion of intimate friendship 
 and high esteem. The proofs that this was the case are 
 not very clear if the circumstance is probable. However it 
 might be, it never interfered with their friendship which 
 continued not only unbroken to death, but beyond death. 
 
 Mrs. Eowe was a lady quite famous in her own time ; to 
 an elevated piety she united in her style of composition 
 many of the faults of tlie age in which she lived ; her 
 works were tinctured by an ardent mode of expression 
 little in harmony witli tlie more frigid expressions of our 
 own day. For Dr. AVatts she entertained the highest 
 esteem. She died suddenly, but in her cabinet were found 
 letters for two or three of the friends who held the highest 
 place in her affections, especially for the Countess of Hert- 
 ford and Dr. Watts ; the letter to the Doctor was accom- 
 panied by the manuscript of her "Devout Exercises," wliich 
 she requested him to publish after a complete and thorough 
 revision. A portion of his correspondence \vith the Countess 
 upon tliis we have already quoted ; the volume is dedicated 
 to the Countess as Mrs. Rowe's intimate friend, and Watts, 
 whose mind and heart were now in a state of quiet and 
 lioly calm, dispassionately reviews the merits of her various 
 works ; he does not altogether vindicate her ardent style, 
 on the other liand, he is far from severely reprehending it ; 
 he remarks how in former years even gi-ave divines had 
 expressed the fervours of devout love to the Saviour much 
 in the style of the Song of Solomon, and says, " I must 
 confess that several of my compositions in verse written in 
 younger life were led by those examples unwarily into this 
 track." Indeed, many of his hymns, especially those which 
 are paraphrases of the Song of Solomon, are quite as ardent 
 as anything we meet witli in the writings of Mrs. Rowe. 
 The love of Christ is a principle, but we should be sorry to 
 
188 Tlie. Counters of Hertford and Mrs. Bowe. 
 
 think that in the heart of the lielievei'it may not glow with 
 all the fervour and force of a great passion; the language 
 of the Apostle Paul shows us that it may, but his language 
 is not coloured by the singular ecstasy of the Oriental 
 mind ; it is fervid, but the line is very distinctly marked 
 lietween the expressions of a merely human passion, which, 
 however pure upon the heart which utters them, may by 
 hearts less holy and elevated seem to be almost the utter- 
 ance of license, and even to colder though not less holy 
 natures may seem to border on profanity. There are 
 Claistians still Avho delight in tliis doubtful method of 
 expressing and setting forth the holiest affections. Watts 
 in all his religioiis works had at all tiiues the ardent and 
 fervent words of a poetic and imaginative nature, but he 
 considerably pruned both thought and speech as the years 
 ])assed in study and seclusion brought a riper Avisdom ; he 
 did not repress the ardours of the heart, but he gave to 
 their expression a chastened and colder form ; he was not 
 satisfied indeed by light without love, but he clothed that 
 love with a more sacred reticence. Mrs. Howe's writings 
 have all an exceedingly uureticent character, but she lived 
 apparently a holy life, realizing very greatly the ardours 
 which gushed so glowingly from her pen, and it says much 
 for all that she was in herself, that tlirough so many long 
 years she retained a close and intimate friendship with a 
 judgment so wisely balanced, and a nature so simple and 
 domestic, as that which evidently shines in the character 
 of the Countess of Hertford. 
 
CHAPTEE X. 
 
 THERE was living in London couteniporary with Watts 
 one of those ungentle, unbeautiful spirits, from whose 
 malignant jealousy few men of eminence entirely escape ; 
 he appears to have been to Watts what Alexander th(; 
 coppersmith was to Paul, he did him much evil and sought 
 to do more. Piradbury was one of the most vehement and 
 virulent spirits of the times, he was infected with tlie 
 prevalent spirit of railing long before he began to cast 
 about his Shimei and Eabsliakeli pleasantries upon Watts; 
 he was well known for his capabilities in tliis w ay, and in 
 1715 Daniel Defoe reproved him in a pamphlet entitled, 
 " A Friendly J^pistle by way of lieproof, from one of the 
 people called Quakers to Thomas Bradbury, a dealer in 
 many words." The following ])aragraph illustrates the 
 character of the man the pamphlet is intended to repre- 
 sent : " Men, especially, Thomas, preaching men, as thou 
 art, ought much ratlier to move their people and their 
 brethren to forbear and forgive one another, than to move 
 and excite them to severities, and to executing revenge 
 upon one another, lest the day come when that which they 
 call justice may be deemed injustice. I counsel thee, there- 
 fore, that thou forbear to excite thy sons of Belial to do 
 
190 
 
 Shimei Brndhirj/. 
 
 wicked!}', but rather that tliou preach to tlieni that they 
 repent, I'or tlie Kingdom of Heaven is at hand ; which I 
 meekly advertise thee is the proper duty of thy employment, 
 whereas the other is the work of darkness and tendeth to 
 blood." 
 
 Again, he says : " I must lead thee by the hand, not 
 by the nose, Thomas— others have done thee that office 
 already — that thou mayst be convinced, yea, even con- 
 founded, for those whom thou liast, with so great confi- 
 dence, taken on thee to reconnnend as good men, and men 
 fearing God. I do thee justice, Thomas, and tlierefore 
 observe in thy behalf that thy modesty would not permit 
 thee to say, ' They were men hating covetousness.' " * 
 
 Bradbury was one of those men who, pursuing politics 
 in the pulpit with vehement and intolerant pertinacity, 
 degrade tlie standard of the minister of the Gospel ; he 
 was even charged with desiring the blood of the ministers 
 of Queen Anne in the pamphlets of the day, especially in 
 " Burnet and Bradbury; or, the Confederacy of the Press 
 and the Pulpit for the Blood of the last Ministry ."f 
 
 A life of Watts woxild be quite incomplete which did 
 not give some account of his very eminent but now almost 
 forgotten assailant and enemy, Thomas Bradbury. Born 
 at Wakefield, in Yorkshire, he had all the characteristics 
 of a typical Yorkshireman ; he was a bold and hearty, and 
 possibly, whatever that may be worth, well-meaning man ; 
 he possessetl a considerable amount of natural genius, 
 especially for doubtful drollery and expletive. It is a 
 wonder that his name has not found a record in such 
 
 * "Daniel Defoe, His Life and Recently Discovered Writings." By 
 William Leo. 3 vols. 
 
 t See " Memoirs of tlie Life and Tunes of Daniel Defoe," etc. By 
 Walter Wilson, Esq. 
 
Items in his History. 
 
 191 
 
 histories as Macaulay's and Stanhope's, for it has a semi- 
 historical interest. He was probably the most represent- 
 ative political Nonconformist among the ministers in the 
 City of London of his day, and a well-known anecdote 
 tells that he was the first to proclaim, as he did from his 
 pulpit, the accession of George I. to the throne. It is said 
 that he was walking through Smithfield in a very pen- 
 sive and thoughtful mood on Sunday, August 1st, 1714, 
 wlien the great " Schism Bill " was about to take effect, 
 when Bishop Burnet happened to pass in his carriage ; the 
 Bishop called to his friend, and inquired into the cause of 
 his great thoughtfulness. " I am thinking," replied Brad- 
 bury, " whether I shall have the constancy and courage of 
 the noble army of martyrs whose ashes are deposited in 
 tliis place, for I most assuredly expect to see similar times 
 of violence and persecution, and that I shall be caused to 
 suffer in a like cause." 
 
 The Bisliop was himself equally zealous witii Bradbur}^ 
 for the cause of Protestantism; he told him that the Queen 
 was veiy ill, that slie was given over by her physicians, 
 who expected every hour to be her last ; and he further 
 said, that he was even then on his way to the Palace to 
 inquire the particulars, and that he would despatch a 
 messenger to Mr. Bradljury with the earliest intelligence 
 of the Queen's death, and that if he should be in the pulpit 
 when the messenger arrived, he should drop a handkerchief 
 from the gallery as a token of that event. The messenger 
 employed was Mr. John Bradbury, a brother of the 
 preacher, and one in the medical profession. The Queen 
 died while Bradbuiy was prcacliing, and the intelligence 
 was conveyed to him by the signal agreed upon ; perhaps 
 the preacher may be forgiven if his heart was filled with 
 joy ; he indeed suppressed his feelings during the sermon. 
 
192 
 
 Shimei Bradhxiry. 
 
 but ill his prayer gave thanks to CJod who had again 
 delivered the nation from the power of evil counsels, and 
 implored a Divine blessing upon his majesty King George 
 and the House of Hanover. He always gloried in being 
 the first who proclaimed King George the First. 
 
 This anecdote gives a fair idea of the character of the man ; 
 one more utterly unlike Isaac Watts it is impossible to 
 conceive ; he was a man whose learning was limited, he had 
 neither taste nor capacity for those refined subtleties either 
 of argument or imagination into which Watts was forced 
 by the necessities of controversy in his times ; also, Brad- 
 bury was a rugged, rough-and-ready speaker and thinker, 
 possessed of a dangerous prompt wit, not always free from 
 a coarse disregard of the feelings of others ; nor can we fail 
 to see that there mingled, perhaps unconsciously to him- 
 self, a considerable amount of jealousy of his more eminent 
 and illustrious brother. Before Watts had received his 
 invitation to become the co-pastor or successor of Dr. 
 iChauncy, the congregation had heard Mr. Bradbury ; it is 
 easily understood that the courtly, polished, and perhaps 
 fastidious people would scarcely appreciate an eloquence 
 like that of " liold Bradbury "—a term by which Queen 
 Anne designated him. Then, at the first signal of his 
 hostility to AVatts, one of his own most distiiiguislied 
 people. Watts' friend, Lord Barrington, forsook him ; it 
 was perhaps not likely to improve his temper, and Watts, 
 although exceedingly firm in his own convictions, as he 
 had not the strength so neither had he the disposition for 
 any vehement political action, and if he stepped aside 
 slightly to use his influence in political partisansliip, it was 
 unfortunately not to aid the particular persons espoused by 
 Bradbury. And so it was that in the sermons of this free- 
 spoken man there are handed down to us perhaps the 
 
Anecdotes. 
 
 193 
 
 most harsh and unjust words which ever assailed the min- 
 istry of Isaac Watts. It was at a later period of life, when 
 Watts was very infirm, that, at a meeting of the ministers 
 in the Redcross Street Library, he rose to propose some 
 resolution, and, with his weakly constitution and feeble 
 voice, he found considerable difficulty in making himself 
 heard, when Bradbury called out to him in the meeting, 
 " Brother Watts, shall I speak for you ? " The quiet little 
 Doctor turned to him and said, " Why, Brother Bradbury, 
 you have often spoken against me." At first he had en- 
 couraged the idea of Watts' publication of his Paraphrase 
 of the Psalms and of his Hymns, but wdien they came 
 forth, although they proved so acceptable to congregations 
 in general, lie continued to use the dull version of Dr. 
 Patrick until his dying day in liis own place. New-court 
 Chapel, and prevented their inti'oduction into the service at 
 Pinners' Hall. There, however, on one occasion the clerk 
 liajjpened unluckily to give out one of Watts' pieces ; up 
 rose Bradbury immediately, exclaiming, " Let us have none 
 of Watts' (vj)hwis." 
 
 In all this, and in other such instances, a faithful 
 biographer must see the traces of a good deal of mere 
 jealousy. It is quite an exceptional instance in tlie life of 
 Watts, and it must seem singular that so sweet and gentle 
 a nature should have suffered from the misrepresentations 
 of any, and liradljury has perhaps, even in his grave, been 
 the most aljiding enemy to Watts' reputation. It seems 
 scarcely probable that the Unitarians could have so auda- 
 ciously claimed our writer as their own, had not Bradbury 
 set them a wicked example in his sermons. One of the 
 most affecting and earnest passages in the correspondence 
 of Watts is his remonstrance with his unju.st brother 
 against unseemly attacks u})ou him, and misrepresenta- 
 
 0 
 
194 
 
 Shimei Bradhury. 
 
 tioiis of his opinions. Watts, so far as we can see, was 
 never either discourteous or unjust ; but he bitterly felt it 
 that while, by his hymns and his treatises, he was attempt- 
 ing to sliake the ground of the Arian heresy, his name was, 
 from the pulpit and the pen, covered with obloquy as 
 injuring and shaking the foundations of the most exalted 
 faith in Christ. Bradbury was not coucerued to reply 
 to arguments, but in a right-down vehement manner 
 to denounce those from whom he differed. He was no 
 metaphysician. Turning over the many volumes of his 
 sermons, we find tliem all characterized by strong evan- 
 gelical statement, a very happy arrangement of thoughts, 
 and great lucidity and apt readiness of expression. He 
 never passed beyond the sense or culture of an ordinary 
 audience ; it must also be said that he never put the bridle 
 on his wit. He was a man who could never find himself 
 in the wrong, and who must always have the last word, 
 and that word a disagreeable one. In a most extraordinary 
 manner he could write and say the most abusive and bitter 
 things, and seem quite surprised that the person to whom 
 they were addressed did not take them as expressions of 
 kindness. He tells Watts tliat he is " profane, conceited, 
 impudent, and pragmatical ; " he says : " You are mistaken 
 if you think I ever knew, and much less admired, your 
 mangling, garbling, transforming, etc., so many of your 
 Songs of Zion ; your notions about j)salmody, and your 
 satirical flourishes in which you express tliem, are fitter for 
 onewho pays no regard to inspiration, than for a Gospel 
 minister, as I may hereafter show in a more public way." 
 And when Watts mildly demurred to this as a personal 
 reflection, he says, in reply: "Should any one take the liberty 
 of burlesquing your poetry, as you have done that of the 
 Most High God, you might call it personal reflection indeed; 
 
Some of the Stones of Shimei. 
 
 195 
 
 "vvlien I consider that most of those expressions are adopted 
 either by the New Testament or the evangelical prophets, 
 I tremble at your mowing them together, as you weie 
 resolved to make the Songs of Zion ridiculous." Again he 
 says : " Do you think that the ministers of London are to 
 stand still while you tear in pieces eight great Articles 
 of their faith ? And must every one who answers your 
 arguments be accused of personal reflections ? " Such is 
 the vein iii which this noisy man writes. Watts replies in 
 a spirit of singular meekness ; Bradbury, while indulging 
 in the coarsest invective, professes a large amount of 
 respect and honour, and Watts says : " I am always ready 
 to acknowledge whatsoever personal respect Mr. Bradbury 
 has conceived for one of so little merit as I can pretend to ; 
 but I know not how to reconcile the profession of so much 
 respect with so many and so severe censures, and witli 
 .such angry modes of expression, as you have been pleased 
 to use both in print and in writing." Vindicating himself 
 for attempting to set the Psalms of David to the service of 
 song, he says : 
 
 " You tell me that ' I rival it with David, whether 
 he or I be the sweet psalmist of Israel. I abhor tlie 
 thought; while yet, at the same time, I am fully per- 
 suaded that tlie Jewish psalm-book was never designed to 
 be the only psalter for the Christian Church ; and thoiigh 
 we may borrow many parts of the prayers of Ezra, Job, and 
 Daniel, as well as of David, yet if we take them entire as 
 they stand, and join nothing of the Gospel with them, T 
 think there are few of them will be found proper prayers 
 for a Christian Church ; and yet, I think, it would be very 
 unjust to say 'we rival it with Ezra, Job, etc' Surely 
 their prayers are not best for us, since we are commanded 
 to ask everything in the name of Christ. Now, I know no 
 
19G 
 
 Sliimei Bradbury. 
 
 reason why the glorious discoveries of the New Testament 
 should not be mingled with our songs and praises, as well 
 as with our prayers. I give solemn thanks to my Saviour, 
 Avitli all niy soul, that He hath honoiired me so far as to 
 l)ring His name and Gospel in a more evident and express 
 manner into Christian psalmody. 
 
 " And since 1 find you have been pleased to make my 
 hymns and imitations of the Psalms, together with their 
 prefaces, the object of your frequent and harsh censures, 
 give me leave to ask you whether I did not consult with 
 you while I was translating the Psalms in this manner, 
 fourteen or fifteen years ago ? Whether I was not en- 
 couraged by you in this work, even when yow fully knew 
 my design, by what I had printed, as well as by conver- 
 sation ? Did you not send me a note, under your own 
 hand, by my brother, with a request that I would form the 
 fiftieth and the hundred and twenty-second Psalms into 
 their proper old metre ? And in that note you told me 
 too that one was six lines of heroic verse, or ten syllables, 
 and the other six lines of shorter metre; by following those 
 directions precisely, I confess I committed a mistake in 
 both of them, or at least in the last ; nor had I ever 
 thought of putting in those metres, nor considered the 
 number of the lines, nor the measure of them, but by your 
 direction, and at your request. I allow, sir, with great 
 freedom, that you may have changed your opinion since, 
 and you have a right to do it without the least blame from 
 me ; but I do declare it, that at that time you were one of 
 my encouragers, and therefore your present censures should 
 be lighter and softer. 
 
 " You desire me at the end ' to remember former friend- 
 ships,' but you will give me leave to ask which of us has 
 forgot them most ; and I am well assured that I have more 
 
Letter to Bradhxiry. 
 
 197 
 
 effectually proved myself all that which you are pleased to 
 subscribe, viz., your steady, hearty, and real friend, your 
 obedient and devoted servant, 
 
 " I. Watts." 
 
 And the following letter is a very fair illustration of the 
 temjier and spirit of Watts' replies ta his censorious and 
 abusive brother : 
 
 "Luce Steeet, Nov. 1, 172-5. 
 
 "PtEVEEEXD Sir, 
 
 " On Friday night last my worthy friend and 
 neighbour, Mr. Caleb Wroe, called on me at Theobalds, 
 and desired me to convey the enclosed paper to you, with 
 his humble thaidis for the share you have given him in the 
 late legacy intrusted with you, and he intreats that you 
 would please to pay the money into the hands of this 
 messenger, that I may return it to him ; and I cannot but 
 join my unfeigned thanks with his, that you are pleased to 
 remember so valuable and pious a man in yo\ir distribu- 
 tions, whose circumstances are by no means above the 
 receipt of such charitable bequests, though his modesty 
 is so great as to prevent liim from sueing for an interest 
 in them. 
 
 " But while I am acknowledging your unexpected good- 
 ness to my friend, permit me, sir, to inquire into the 
 reason of your unexpected conduct towards myself in so 
 different a manner. It is true I live much in the country, 
 but I am not unacquainted with what passes in town. I 
 woidd now look no further backward than your letter to 
 the Board at Lime Street, about six months ago, where I 
 was jjresent. I cannot imagine, sir, what occasion I had 
 given to such sort of censures as you pass upon me there 
 among others, which you are pleased to cast upon our 
 
108 
 
 Shimei Bradhury. 
 
 worthy brethren; nor can I think how a more pious and 
 Christian return could have been made by that Board at 
 that time than to vote a silence and burial of all past 
 contests, and even of this last letter of yours, and to desire 
 your company amongst us as in times past. I had designed, 
 sir, to have never taken any further notice of this letter, if 
 I had not been abundantly informed that your conduct since 
 is of the same Ivind, and tliat you have persisted in your 
 public reflections on many of my writings in sucli a manner 
 as makes it sufficiently appear that you design reproach to 
 the man, as mucli as to show your zeal against his supposed 
 errors. The particular instances of this kind I need not 
 rehearse to you ; yourself are best acquainted with them. 
 And yet, after all this, I had been silent still ; but as I 
 acknowledge God and seek Him in all my ways, so I am 
 coiivinced it is my duty to give you a private admonition, 
 and, as a brother, I intreat you to consider whether all this 
 wrath of man can work the righteousness of God ? Let me 
 intreat you, sir, to ask yourself what degrees of passion and 
 personal resentment may join and mingle tliemselves with 
 your supposed zeal for the Gospel ? Jesus, the searcher of 
 hearts. He knows with what daily labour and study, and 
 with what constant addresses to the throne of grace, I seek 
 to support the doctrine of His Deity as well as you, and to 
 defend it in the best manner I am capable of And shall 
 I tell you also, sir, that it was your urgent request, among 
 many others, that engaged me so much further in this study 
 than I at first intended. If I am fallen into mistakes, your 
 private and friendly notice had done much more toward 
 the correction of them than public reproaches. I am not 
 conscious to myself that either my former or latter conduct 
 towards you has merited such indignities as these ; nor can 
 I think that our blessed Lord, who has given you so rich a 
 
The Meek and Quiet Sjnrit of Watts. 
 
 199 
 
 furniture of imagination, and such sprightly talents for 
 public service, will approve such employment of them in 
 the personal disgrace of your brethren that own the same 
 faith, that preach the same Saviour, and attempt to spread 
 abroad the same doctrines of salvation. 
 
 " I wish, sir, it were but possible for you to look upon 
 your own conduct, abstracted from that fondness which 
 wc all naturally bear to self, and see whether there be no 
 occasion for some humbling and penitent thoughts in the 
 sight of God. It is not the design of this writing to carry 
 on a quarrel with you. It has been my frequent prayer, 
 and it wiU be my joy, to see your temper suited to your 
 work, and to hear that you employ your studies and your 
 style for the support of truth and godliness in the spirit of 
 the Gospel, that is, in the spirit of meekness and love. 
 And I conclude with a hearty request to Heaven that your 
 wit may be all sanctified, that you may minister holy things 
 with honour and purity and great success, and you may 
 become as eminent and public an example of piety, meek- 
 ness, heavenly-mindedness, and love to all the saints, as 
 your own soul wishes and desires. Farewell, sir, and 
 forgive this freedom of your humble servant and fellow 
 labourer in the Gospel of Christ, 
 
 " I. Watts." 
 
 It is very satisfactory, however, throughout the corre- 
 spondence to feel that Watts, the only one of the two 
 names in which we now feel much interest, preserves a 
 spirit of quietness and candour ; tlie correspondence was 
 forced upon him by the noisy Bradbury, and as he com- 
 menced it so he was determined to have the last of it. 
 Watts had quietly implored him to silence, saying: "Let 
 us examine what is past, and take care for the time to come 
 
200 
 
 Shimei Bradhury. 
 
 what we write or print with regard to our brethren be 
 expressed \\\ snch language as may dare appear and be 
 read by the light of the last conflagration, and the splendour 
 of the tribunal of our returning Lord." This produced a 
 tempest of a letter, in wliicli Bradbury says : " I learn no 
 such passive obedience to an unreasonable adversary, but 
 rather the contrary ; you should have left off contention 
 before it Avas meddled with, for I doubt not to open to the 
 world your shame." 
 
 The correspondence is very lengthy ; it is not probable 
 that it will ever be reprinted ; it is not worth the patience 
 of perusal, unless to add to the esteem of the subject of 
 these memoirs. Bradbury's turbulent nature in the course 
 of it seems to be utterly ungoverned, and raves along in a 
 manner quite fatal to any respect with which a desire to 
 think well of the man might possess the reader's mind. It 
 had perhaps been better if the wave of this correspondence 
 had, like most of Watts' letters, been lost to the eye, but, 
 by some fatality, it is the only complete piece of corre- 
 spondence in our author's life published. Walter Wilson 
 remarks upon it that " the letters are of that personal 
 nature as do but little credit to the writers." This is very 
 unjust ; if Mr. Wilson had read, he must have known that 
 there is not one word in the letters of Watts which does 
 not reflect the quiet holiness of a sjiirit at perfect peace 
 with itself, only desirous of healing the heart of his anta- 
 gonist. Bradbiiry even censures him because, after his 
 attacks on Watts in print, he did not reply in print, but 
 referred to them in private letters to him ! Watts had 
 expressed his desire in seeking the truth, and says : 
 
 " I acknowledge with respect and thankfulness the kind 
 opinions you have entertained of me, and I really ' value all 
 the care you have shown not to grieve my spirit,' whensoever 
 
More Stones Tlirown. 
 
 201 
 
 I see it practised. I easily believe, indeed, that your natural 
 talent of wit is richly sufficient to have taken occasions 
 from an hundred passages in my writings to have filled 
 your pages with much severer censures. In the vivacity of 
 wit, in the copiousness of style, in readiness of Scripture 
 phrases, and other useful talents, 1 freely own yoii for my 
 superior, and will never pretend to become your rival. But 
 it is only calm and sedate argument that weighs with me 
 in matters of controversy, nor will I be displeased with any 
 man for showing me my mistakes by force of argument, 
 and in a spirit of meekness ; it is only in this manner truth 
 must be searched out, and not by wit and raillery." 
 To this came back the following : 
 
 " Your profession of ' seeking the truth ' is very popular, 
 and I do not wonder to find it so often in all your writings ; 
 but then there is such a thing as ' ever learning, and not 
 being able to come to the knowledge of the truth.' And 
 it is pity, after you liave been more than thirty years a 
 teacher of others, you are yet to learn the first principles 
 of the oracles of God. What will our hearers think of us 
 when we succeed the greatest men of our last age in 
 nothing else ljut their pulpits ? Is there no certainty in the 
 words of truth ? Was Dr. Owen's church to be taught 
 anotlier Jesus, that the Son and Holy Spirit were only two 
 powers in tlie Divine nature ? Shall the men who planted 
 and watered so happy a part of the vineyard have all their 
 labours rendered in vain ? Shall a fountain in the same 
 place send forth sweet water and bitter ? What need is 
 there of a charge ? "* 
 
 On the whole, it is well to refer to this controversy. It 
 is a painful, important item in Watts' life, and brings out 
 
 * See the whole of this in tho " Tosthumous Works of the late 
 learned and Rev. Isaac Watt.«," 1779. 
 
202 
 
 Sliimei Bradbury. 
 
 very clearly how singularly he was removed from irritahle 
 ])assions, and it sadly reveals how impossible it seems even 
 for the most gentle natures to escape tlie vcniom and the 
 vileness of the " perils of false brethren." 
 
 Bradbury unquestionably was firmly attached to evange- 
 lical truth, so far as he knew it, and his discourses in the 
 two volumes called "The Mystery of Godliness, Considered 
 in Sixty-one Sermons," are certainly interesting, suggestive, 
 and even admirable specimens of preaching ; but, we have 
 said, he was chiefly known as a political preacher. His 
 printed discourses contain few intimations of that wit which 
 was a favourite weapon with him in the pulpit, and of which 
 we have some indications in the sermon entitled " The Ass 
 and the Serpent," a comparison between the tribes of Issachar 
 and Dan in their regard for civil liberty — a sermon, like all 
 those in the volume which contains it, devoted to rousing 
 the spirit of the times in which he lived. Eegularly as the 
 fifth of November came round, he commemorated the day 
 in a sermon, and afterwards adjourned with his friends to 
 dine at a tavern, where, it is said, he always sung the 
 national song, " The lioast Beef of Old England ;" there, 
 no doubt, jest and joke passed round pretty freely, for, as 
 we have intimated, he had a sprightly wit and a copious 
 flow of eloquence. Watts gently remonstrated with him 
 for these displays, to which he replied in his vehement and 
 ])e])pery style. George Whitefield, at a later period, more 
 strongly remonstrated with him on his conduct in this 
 particular, but not apparently with nnxch effect. It is said 
 that upon the death of Queen Anne, an incident to which 
 we have already referred, he took for his text on the occa- 
 sion of her funeral sermon, "Go, see now this cursed woman 
 and bury her, for she is a king's daughter." The story is 
 exceedingl)' likely, for he belonged to a race of men not 
 
Bradhury's Cliarader. 
 
 203 
 
 indisposed to misuse Scripture after that unbecoming 
 fashion; and we may surely say, notwithstanding the 
 ominous shadows which brooded over the closing years 
 of a reign commenced with so much promise, the anec- 
 dote, even the possibility that it may be true, testifies 
 to the cruel coarseness, the low profane jocularity, and 
 ungi'ateful injustice of the man. He was a hearty poli- 
 tician, to whom all refinements of speech or sentiment 
 were unknown, and, right or wrong, he plunged on in 
 a reckless kind of fashion. He adopted as his motto, 
 Pro Christo et patriu, For Christ and my country. 
 Charity may be permitted to hope that he, at any rate, 
 thought the motto did not unworthily represent the 
 man, if sometimes in his conduct he seems somewhat un- 
 worthily to represent the motto. And while "Watts was 
 pursuing his studies in scholarly seclusion, never knowing 
 the haj^piness of robust health, and, although a firm Non- 
 conformist, on good terms with bishops and ministers of 
 the Church of England, and ministers and members of 
 many communions of Christians, Bradbury mi.xed with 
 freedom with the moving ])arties in the City, and was e^"er 
 ready to lift up liis voice loudly aljout all the jxjlitical 
 circumstances of tlie passing hours. Thus the two men, 
 altliough ministers of the same order, within a very short 
 distance of each other, were in tlieir sympathies wide apart ; 
 they desired, indeed, the same great ends, but the roads they 
 took to their attainment were widely different. It is still 
 singular and unaccountable, but for the personal motives 
 we have assigned above, that Bradbury should have ex- 
 pressed himself with so much bitterness and liostility con- 
 cerning his old friend, whose principles, neither in religion 
 nor politics, could ever have been at any very great remove 
 fi'om his own ; but so it is, that amidst the multitude of 
 
20i 
 
 Shimei Bradhury. 
 
 I'rieiuls that liououred and esteemed Watts highly for his 
 work's sake, we find Bradbury standing aside like a very 
 Shimei pouring upon him his perpetually reiterated torrent 
 of contempt, obloquy, and scorn, and no motive appears but 
 the dangerous one which influences three-fourths of all the 
 evil and hatred in the world, jealousy of a rank for Avhicli 
 he was unfit, and genius to which he could not attain. On 
 tlie whole, it may be said of Bradbury, in the language of 
 an old English poet, he was " like a pair of snuffers, he 
 snips the filth in other men, and retains it in himself ; " it 
 could not be said of him " the snuffers were of pure gold." 
 As Archbishop Abbott says of Jonah, in his sermons on 
 the prophet : " Some drams and grains of gold appear in 
 him and his action, but dross is there by pounds ; little 
 wine, but store of water ; some wheat, but chaff enough." 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 TAKE the life of almost any man who has stood in any 
 relation to the thought and intelligence of his times, 
 in any period of English history, and it is interesting to 
 regard him by the light of the events flowing on around 
 him. Watts was almost a literary solitary ; he cannot be 
 refen-ed to as greatly influencing the times in which he 
 lived, but an outline of his life is incomplete if we give no 
 reference to the events of his time. From the last years 
 of the reign of Charles ll. to the closing years of George il. 
 constitutes the era of Watts. Every age seems eminently 
 important to its actors — sometimes even to spectators — and 
 yet that age stands out with singular distinctness. How 
 different the times of Watts' birth and those of his death : 
 the infant in the arms of a weeping mother, beneath the bars 
 of the dungeon of the imprisoned Nonconformist, and the 
 old man, that same infant, passing away, witli the great 
 Methodist movement rising into activity over the whole 
 nation. A little room, scarcely tolerated in Southampton, 
 where a few persecuted Nonconformists assembled togethei', 
 and large chapels, capable of holding thousands, rising 
 
20G 
 
 His Times. 
 
 amidst the far-off wastes of Northern Yorkshire and 
 Western Cornwall, and a sudden burst of religious vitality 
 finding vent in hymns and meetings over the whole 
 country. 
 
 If the change in the aspect of religious life was remark- 
 al )le, not less remarkable was tlie change, or rather perhaps 
 we ought to say the changes, which had been brought 
 aljout in the political. Tlie period of Watts' childhood 
 was the most ominous, unhappy, and unsettled in Englisli 
 story ; men knew not what to e.xpect, they knew not 
 whither tliey were drifting. Those were the days of the 
 great Monmouth Rebellion and Jeffreys' " Bloody Assize ; " 
 tlie days of the execution of Algernon Sidney and Lord 
 William Russell, the days of Titus Oates. The mind of 
 England was full of plots, and the fear and the shadow of 
 plots, succeeded by internal discords, and a disunited front 
 to possible external foes. Well has it been said, " It was 
 liigh time that James should go ; it was time that William 
 should come." 
 
 The closing years of Watts' life Mr. Hallam ventures 
 to speak of, and Earl Stanhope confirms the verdict, as 
 nationally the happiest period of all England's history, a 
 brief period during which plenty and comfort seemed 
 everywhere to abound. We do not refer to tlie moral state 
 of the people ; that appears to have been low enough, but 
 the nation had reached, and the people were experiencing, 
 the blessedness of a lull of peace after that gxeat storm 
 which had shaken every timber of the national vessel. 
 The period of George 1 1, appears to be that ideal time 
 iupon which many look back under the designations of 
 r Happy England " and " Merry England." Between these 
 two periods how many intervening chapters occur ! and it 
 is not a little distressing to a biographer that it seems 
 
" The Kentish Petitmi."— David Polhill 207 
 
 impossible to lay the hand upon scarcely a letter of tlie 
 many multitudes of letters which Watts -must have 
 written, and many, one cannot but think, illustrating some 
 of the circumstances and the characters of tlie times, and 
 his interest in them.* 
 
 Thus, for instance, he was an intimate friend of that 
 David Polhill who was one of the foremost men in the 
 affair of the great " Kentish Petition," a circumstance 
 which shines brightly among the gallant actions of those 
 who, with daring intrepidity, supported William III. It 
 was at a time when pusillanimity and fear of France would 
 have been fatal. The House of Commons, rent by faction, 
 was very slow in vindicating the king ; five Kentish gen- 
 tlemen, magistrates, interpreting the opinion of their county, 
 signed as deputies a petition calling upon the House to lay 
 aside their own personal differences, to attend better to 
 public affairs, and especially to vote sufficient supplies to 
 sustain the king and his allies. It was a daring step ; the 
 five gentlemen who bore the petition to the House all pre- 
 sented themselves as responsible for it ; the House instantly 
 voted that it was scandalous, infamous, and seditious, cal- 
 culated to destroy the constitution of Parliament, and to 
 subvert the established government of tlie realm. The five 
 gentlemen, of whom David Polhill was one, were, amidst 
 the acclamations of the nation, committed to prison, and 
 there for some time they continued. Tlie \w.n of Defoe 
 sprang into eloquence on their hehalf, and when they 
 were liberated, as they were shortly, one of tliose demon- 
 strations — not of the mob — but of the strong middle 
 classes of England, greeted them on Blackheath on their 
 way home, bells clanging, bonfires burning, and Kent 
 
 * See an interesting table of "Memorable Affairs in my Life and 
 Coincidents," in Watts' writing, in Appendix to this volume. 
 
208 
 
 His Times. 
 
 altogether iu sucli a state as it had not been in since the 
 Eestoration- of Charles ii. 
 ^ 1703 — one wonders if Watts went down into the City on 
 the 3lst of July that year, to see one whom he must very 
 well have known, who, as we have seen, studied some years 
 before Watts was there, at the Dissenting Academy in 
 Stoke Newington — Daniel Defoe, standing in the pillory; 
 for Defoe's great and even intimate friend, William lii, was 
 dead, and the men who had long winced beneath his wit, 
 and had longed for the time of their reprisals, fancied the 
 time had come at last ; but, indeed, the sentence which 
 was intended for punishment turned into a painful kind of 
 triumph. It cannot be a pleasant position for the head 
 and the hands to be fixtures in that fashion for an hour ; 
 but if the sentence has to be borne, then it is pleasant to 
 iind the rude machine adorned with flowers and garlands, 
 and the odium of the punishment transferred from the 
 sufl'erer to his judges. However, they ruined Defoe. 
 
 This was the year in which, as Watts mentions in his 
 slight autobiographic memoranda, occurred t he gre at_&tQi'in, 
 one of the most fearful England has ever known. Whole 
 buildings were hurled down, two hundred and fifty thou- 
 sand timber trees torn up by the roots, S])ires beaten from 
 tlie churches, and the lead from the roofs of more than one 
 hundred churches rolled up like scrolls. Eight thousand 
 ^ persons perished by drowning ; the Severn overflowed its 
 : banks, and fifteen thousand sheep besides other cattle 
 '; ])erished ; eight hundred dwelling-houses, four hundred 
 windmills, and barns without number, were thrown down. 
 Some people were killed in their beds, among others 
 \ Dr. Kidder, Bishop of Bath and Wells, and his wife. The 
 jdamage done in London amounted to about a million of 
 ('pounds sterling, iu Bristol to £150,000. The damage on 
 
Tlie Close of Queen Aniie's Eeiyn. 
 
 209 
 
 tlie sea was still more considerable, many sliips of the royal 
 navy were cast away, and innumerable merchant vessels. 
 Imagination quite fails to realize the horrors of that 
 tremendous night ; it was as one has said of it, " As if the 
 destroying angel hurried by shrouded in his very gloomiest 
 apparel." 
 
 And side by side with such great national calamities 
 went our great national rejoicings. This was the moment 
 in our history when the genius of Marlborough was rising, 
 and the victories of Blenheim and Eamillies were taking- 
 place, holding in check, beyond any question, the audacity 
 of LoiHS XIV., and exliibiting the power and influence of 
 England in the foreign affairs of Europe in a manner 
 never so remarkably exhibited before. 
 
 Such were " the times that went over him." Watts lived 
 through all those curious transactions round the Court of 
 Queen Arjie ; lived also through the great Sacheverell riot.s 
 — and a curious time that was for Dissenters, as he benrs 
 testimony again in his little outline of coincidences witli 
 his autobiographical memoranda. " ]\Iarch 1st, 1710. The 
 mob rose and pulled down the pews and galleries of six 
 meeting-houses, that is, Mr. Burgess, Mr. Bradbury, Mr. 
 Earle, Mr. Wriglit, Mr. Hamilton, and Mr. Charles Taylor, 
 but were dispersed by tlie guards under Captain Horsey, 
 at one or two in the morning." He passed through all 
 that excitement of pu])liG fctiling arising from the introduc- 
 tion of tlie " Schism Bill," which, beyond aiiytliing, covered 
 with gloom the last days of the reign of Queen Anne. 
 When she ascended the throne. Watts wrote a lyric in 
 honour of her happy accession; there was no inconsistency 
 in his expressing almost a burst of gladness and joy at her 
 decease. The " Schism Bill " was worthy of the very 
 worst days of the Stuarts ; it was intended to crush all 
 
 1' 
 
210 
 
 His Times. 
 
 Noucoiifoniiist schools, and all Dissenting academies; any 
 Nonconforniist teacher was to he imprisoned three months, 
 every schoolmaster was to receive the sacrament and take 
 the oaths, and if afterwards guilty of being present at a 
 conventicle, to be incapacitated and imprisoned. Earl Stan- 
 hope, in his (piiet, very interesting, and, on the whole, 
 impartial history, speaks of " this tyrannical act," and well 
 remarks: "It is singular that some of the most plain and 
 simple notions, such as that of religious toleration, should 
 be the slowest and most difficult to be impressed u])on the 
 human mind."* It is interesting to notice that this mea- 
 sure was greatly the creation of Lord Bolingbroke, a man 
 who, while " he thought it," as Earl Stanhope says, " neces- 
 sary to crush Dissenters," was himself altogether indepen- 
 dent and incapable of any religious faith or conviction. 
 Infidelity has never found its interests on the side of true 
 freedom, but only of lawlessness and licentiousness, to 
 ■\\^hich it is ever fond of applying the glorious term. In 
 the midst of the panic created by this measure the Queen 
 died, died on the very day the Schism Act was to have 
 taken effect, and George I. succeeded to the English throne. 
 He commenced his reign with . a noble declaration of liberty 
 of conscience. At his first appearing in council he said, " I 
 take this occasion to express to you my firu) purpose to do 
 all tliat is in my power for the supporting and maintaining 
 the Churches of England and Scotland as they are by law 
 established, which I am of opinion may be effectually done 
 A\ itlK)\it the least impairing the toleration allowed by law 
 to her Protestant Dissenters, so agi-eeable to Christian 
 charity." 
 
 Watts lived through that great agitation which consigned 
 
 * See " History of Euglaud," by Earl Stanhope, vol. i. chap. 1. 
 
Watts' Reasonable Antipathy to the Papacy. 
 
 211 
 
 Francis Atterbury, the Bishop of Eochester, first to the 
 Tower, and then to exile, for his comjDlicity with the Pre- 
 tender, and attempts to bring back the Stuarts. Atterbury 
 was sworn by many oaths to maintain the Protestant suc- 
 cession, but his guilt was soon manifest beyond any doubt, 
 even to the most lenient and doubtful mind. It was 
 greatly to men of "Watts' order of religious conviction that 
 the reigning family owed the stability of its power ; and 
 when the fury of the clergy, especially the High Church 
 clergy, was excited by the arrest of the Bishop, one of their 
 own order, and attempts even made to set him forth in the 
 light of a martyr, it is interesting to notice that it was 
 Bishop Gibson, the friend and correspondent of Watts, who 
 allayed the storm.* 
 
 The intense antipathy to Rome and the Papacy, so mani- 
 fest in the writings of Watts, and in the wild passions of 
 the times, was not without a cause, and a cause which 
 would make itself especially felt in the City of Loudon. 
 Wlien Watts was ordamed over the church in Mark Lane, 
 only fifteen years had elapsed since the Eevocation of 
 the Edict of ISTantes ; that dreadful act of persecution had 
 poured over many parts of England and of America tlie 
 noble refugees of freedom and Protestantism ; multitudes 
 found their way to the neighl)Ourhood of London ; not far 
 from the neighbourhood of Watts' church, there sprung up 
 a Protestant French colony. They did no harm to this 
 nation by their exile hither, — they brought character, and 
 piety, and invention, and wit; where they rested they 
 reared the unadorned and humble temples of tlieir sim})le 
 
 * Lord Maoaulay say.s : " There was considerable excitement, but it 
 ■was allayf-d by a temperate and artful letter to the clergy, the work, in 
 all probability, of Ei.shop Gibson, who stood high in the favour of 
 Walpole, and shortly after became minister for ecclesiastical affairs." 
 
212 
 
 His Times. 
 
 Protestant service. Possessed themselves of the hymns of 
 Clement Marot, they probably suggested a psalmody, 
 sweeter and more elevated than our churches at that time 
 
 I possessed — but in many instances their sufferings in the 
 course of their expatriation had been dreadful. From year 
 
 ! to year they still escaped to our shores, and found their 
 to London ; the people and their pastors were aided by 
 the government of William and Mary, and by the succeed- 
 ing governments. It was not possible but that the dread 
 of honest and quiet thinkers, and the more turbulent 
 passions of the people, should be awakened against that 
 fearful system which seemed so recklessly to strike at all 
 national happiness and prosperity ; and in England the 
 Papacy had its agents almost ubicpiitous, crafty, cunning, 
 powerful, cruel, and remorseless ; it was no time for the 
 indulgence of a mere philosophical calm and dreams of 
 generous toleration. There were frequent wild outbreaks 
 of madness and wrath in heated and excited mobs, and the 
 language indulged by writers, usually so clear and wise, 
 became intense in hatred to Rome ; but let the reader 
 transfer his feelings to that time, and interpret his feelings 
 by natural fear, and he will scarcely be able to visit either 
 manifestation with very severe reprehension. 
 
 The times through wliich Watts lived were indeed very 
 remarkable, regarded from many points of view. Well 
 might the nation slmdder at the idea of any a])proacli to 
 Popery on the part of our own government; for if the villages 
 and towns of our coast opposite to France, and the neigh- 
 bourhoods of the little suburban villages of Shoreditch and 
 
 ' Spitalfields, were thronged with the refugees of persecution 
 from France, refugees of a similar persecution from Agstng 
 also, at a later period, poured into Prussia, into New Eng- 
 land, and into some parts of our own country, and especially 
 
Watts and the Saltzburgers. 
 
 213 
 
 into London. The Cliurcli of Eome did not, in those days, 
 permit many years to pass without refreshing the memory 
 of Protestants as to her power and disposition to persecute. 
 Watts interested liimself on hehalf of the poor Saltzburgers 
 (£33,000 was raised in London for their relief). Multitudes 
 settled at Ebenezer, in Georgia. The Eev. F. M. Ziegen- 
 hagen writes to Watts that " any old rag thrown away in 
 Europe is of service to them, old shoes, stockings, shirts, 
 or anything of wearing apparel from men and women, 
 grown people or chikh-en. Wherefore, dear sir, if Baron 
 Oxie's supposition be true, perhaps you might, by the bless- 
 ing of God, be the happy instrument to get here and there 
 something of old clothes for them to cover their nakedness." 
 To this application Watts appears to have responded, as 
 Mr. Ziegenhagen again replies : " The readiness you show 
 in assisting the poor Saltzburgers, nay, your well receiving 
 the mentioning them and their circumstances in my last 
 letter, gave me great satisfaction." Those of these perse- 
 cuted ones who passed over to tlie American plantations 
 appear to have settled surjirisingly, aided by England ; 
 George Whitefield bears testimony to the great blessings 
 which rested upon them. England made a parliamentary 
 grant of £10,000 to relieve their sufferings. Our readers 
 know the amazing stoiy, the mighty exodus,, the march of 
 the exiles, amounting to 20,678, in the depth of winter. 
 The pathos of that story is immortalized in one of the 
 sweetest poems of Goethe, and for us in the prose of Thomas 
 Carlyle. Prussia threw her arms open to receive them ; 
 but many perished on the march for want of food, having 
 been obliged to leave their goods behind them. The Count 
 of Warnigrode gave a substantial dinner to 900 of them ; 
 the Duke of Brunswick liberally entertained others ; the 
 clergy of Leipsic met a number of the wanderers on their 
 
2U 
 
 His Times. 
 
 way, and led thcin into the city tlij'ough the gates, singing 
 Luther's hymn as they passed in. The Revocation of the 
 Edict of Nantes, to which we have referred, liappened a 
 short time before Watts connnenced his ministry; this rous- 
 ing event happened when it was drawing towards its close. 
 
 As we turn over some of the hymns of Watts, and some 
 pages of his and other writings of the day, it seems as if 
 the denunciations of Eome were wanting in good taste, and 
 jf tender charitableness of feeling. The sentiments Watts 
 I expressed and indulged in never appear to go beyond the 
 bounds of propriety ; his sentiments towards Rome are 
 shared by John Milton, who wrote while the valleys 
 of Piedmont were Haming with burning villages, and 
 covered with the bodies of the slaughtered saints of God. 
 I In those years Rome had the power to get up every now 
 ! and then some such startling spectacle to astonish Europe 
 and mankind. Papists are still surprised that such enter- 
 tainments were not taken in good part, and that, on the 
 contrary, fervid expressions of indignation were uttered, 
 and loud prayers put up that God would save England from 
 the dominancy of Rome again in the politics of our nation. 
 Men like Watts judged such expressions to l)e neither 
 unnatural, unholy, nor v;nwise : they had not reached that 
 stoical calm which contemplates either the insolent out- 
 rage and persecution of a hierarchy trampling under foot 
 the holiest rights of men, or the groans of protracted 
 suffering, with indifference ; they lived in the neighbour- 
 hood of danger, and did not affect a calmness of feeling 
 as they beheld, even in their own neighbourhood, infi- 
 delity and priestism working together, as they so often 
 work, forging fetters for a nation. 
 
 In several pages of this volume glances have been given 
 at the aspects of the age and its manners' so far as they 
 
Some Literary Cliaradcristics. 
 
 215 
 
 affected, or were affected by, the subject of this memoir. 
 A large portion of that time may be spoken of as the most 
 dissolute age of England, and even in the later period it 
 was a rude, rough time. In those regions in which vice did 
 not al:)ound, a thick, dark night of ignorance " covered the 
 people." However we may boast of a few splendid names 
 in literature, and however some character or incident gives 
 effect and pomp to the scenery, still it is only worthy of 
 the apt description of John Foster * that " we are only 
 gazing with delight^at a fine public bonfire, while in all 
 the cottages round the people' are shivering for want of 
 fuel." It was a time along whose way romance loves to 
 loiter ; when the lanthorn lighted the sedan on the neioh- 
 hourly visit in town as well as country ; when, also, no 
 home was exempted from the housebreaker, and every 
 suburb was haunted by highwaymen. 
 
 We need not dwell at greater length on the literary 
 characteristics of the age ; incidentally we may remind 
 our readers that to Watts, in the later years of his life, 
 we owe the introduction to the world of a poem which 
 has not long ceased to be a very popular one, " The 
 Grave," by Eobert Blair, the minister of the parish of 
 Athelstanford, in Scotland. Blair sent his poem to Watts, 
 and Watts thouglit so well of it that he sent it to 
 Doddridge, and Ijoth advised its author to puhlisli it, 
 and appear to have been al)le to render him some valu- 
 able assistance in making it known. Almost forgotten 
 now, it immediately took the popular taste. It is not 
 wonderful that it did so, for it has all the gloomy magni- 
 ficence of a body lying in state ; but it is gloomy without 
 vulgarity, and has the gorgeousness of the silver shieldings 
 and splendid heraldry on the black velvet. It is short ; 
 
 * * Essay on " Popular Ignorance." 
 
His Times. 
 
 it perhaps seems to us now almost a sentimental piece 
 of commonplace ; but it instantly took possession of the 
 ])ub]ic mind, and is still included in most respectable 
 collections of English poets. It belonged to a class of 
 pieces which appear to have been great favourites with 
 ])eople in those days, and which have furnished abundant 
 materials for sermons ever since — Hervey's "Meditations 
 among the Tombs," and Young's " Night Thoughts," — 
 although the last is a very far superior piece of work, and 
 may deserve to be spoken of as one of the finest of purely 
 didactic poems. Blair, in his far-off home among tlie East 
 Lothians, had everything which to such a nature as his 
 would be likely to press home with a pensive force upon 
 tlie mind ; and the deep reality of James Hervey's nature, 
 every one at all acquainted with his biogi'aphy well knows. 
 Edward Young, it may without much indignity to charity 
 Ije believed, was a man of a very different order, in whom 
 unrealized sentiment considerably dominated the character. 
 He was a man of unquestionable genius, and he so far laid 
 his genius on the altar of religion that lie produced not 
 only the poem to which we are referring, but many others, 
 which, if not of equal eminence,, had a decided religious 
 iuHiience. But he was a constant haunter of tlie abodes of 
 fashion, a hanger-on of Courts, and not at all indisposed to 
 avail himself of every kind of help in seeking to further his 
 purposes in life. He was not below the average of men, but 
 the " other-worldliness " of his poem contrasts strangely 
 enough with the worldliness of the author ; if, when he 
 wrote of the other world, he wrote like a saint, we cannot 
 forget that, when he wrote of this, he wi'ote as a keen 
 satirist. In fact, all this belongs to the character of tlie 
 poetry of the period ; it was not real, it was stiff and 
 stilted ; it was poetry in brocade ; nothing about it looks 
 
Watts and Harvard University. 
 
 217 
 
 very real. Of course there are beautiful Hues and beautiful 
 j)assages to be quoted, but its men and women are not 
 real. The poetry of our own times, as compared with 
 those, has gained immeasurably in this, in reality, and 
 a large proportion of the things which were said and 
 admired then would be regarded as simply ridiculous now. 
 
 No reference has been made to the States of America. 
 The United States had no existence in Watts' day — 
 America was regarded then much as we regard Australia 
 now. AVatts had many friends there, and much interesting 
 correspondence exists between them ; especially interest- 
 ing it is to find in the history of Harvard University that 
 Watts' name occurs as one of. its early benefactors. 
 
CHAPTER XIT. 
 
 Return to Btoh Uctxiington. 
 
 TT would be a very difficult tlung to realize now in the 
 suburb of Stoke Kewington, the Stoke Newington of 
 Isaac Watts' day. The mighty city has absorbed it ; the 
 lanes, the fields, the woods, the old bridge, the old church, 
 and the very river have vanished. It must have been a 
 very pretty little rural village, comprised in a small cluster 
 of houses ; it may even be spoken of as a kind of sequestered 
 hermitage, amidst whose shades those who desired it might 
 find, if tlie stillness of nature could give it, perfect peace. 
 Even more than forty years after Watts' death there were 
 only one hundred and ninety-five houses ; Avithin the 
 memory of old inhabitants it was still but a village. In 
 Watts' day it was probably surrounded by trees ; a short 
 time before he took up his residence there, there were 
 seventy-seven acres of woodland in demesne, part of the 
 ancient forest of Middlesex, so justifying its name from 
 Stoke, a wood (Stoke Newington, the new little town in the 
 wood). A very pleasant retreat, the like of which we 
 should liave to look a long way from any London suburb 
 to discover now. The ancient houses have disappeared 
 
Hie Romantic Days of Stoke Newington. 219 
 
 from tlie present vicinity, and two of the last, and those in 
 which Watts passed his early and his later age, the houses 
 of Hartopp and Abney, have only just been pulled down. 
 We have noticed the history of Fleetwood's house, built in 
 the reign of Queen Elizabeth ; but tradition assigns to some 
 old houses in the village, called the " Bishop's Place," the 
 frequent visits of Henry vill., and here, on a part of these 
 premises, was born Samuel Eogers, the poet : and it is a 
 singular and noticeable thing, that as the father of the poet 
 died in 1793, and had lived the greater part of his life at 
 Stoke Newington, those who knew the poet talked with a 
 man who was the child of one who had probably not only 
 seen but talked with Isaac Watts. There is a spot in Stoke 
 Newington still called " King Henry's Walk," and when 
 the preiTuses supposed to be his retreat were taken down, 
 parts of the old wainscot were found to be ricldy gilt and 
 ornamented with paintings, although, indeed, almost 
 obliterated. 
 
 Stoke Newington, about the period wlien Watts resided 
 ' i there, was the residence and retreat of many celebrities. 
 Here, as we have seen, Defoe was educated, and for some 
 time resided ; and here, a little later, resided another whose 
 name has been a charm over childhood, Tluimas Day, the 
 author of " Sandford and Merton." Watts liad only been 
 dead two years when John Howard came to reside in the 
 ; village. The place seems especially to have been the 
 ~\ retreat of retired statesmen or merchants, but all ranks 
 jiseem to mingle memories in the little village. Queen 
 Elizabeth's Walk is founded on the tradition that in the 
 Manor House the Princess Elizabeth was concealed durin<j: 
 a part of the i;eign of Queen Mary. London suburbs were 
 wont to retain the flavour of a peculiar kind of society, and 
 not less really than Twickenham retained its literary 
 
220 
 
 Return to Stoke Ncwinriton. 
 
 eminence; not less renowned than Clapliani for its "Sect," 
 was Stoke Newington eminent as the home and haunt of 
 Nonconformist celebrities.* Tlie interest of the place, 
 however, gathers greatly round the memories of the houses 
 of the Hartopp and the Abney families, for Watts is the 
 greatest name connected with Stoke Newington, and in 
 botli these houses he found his home. 
 
 Watts' biographers have hitherto not nicely discriminated 
 the periods of his residence ; reading Southey, it luiglit be 
 supposed he had passed all his life at Stoke Newington ; 
 reading Milner, it might be supposed he not only passed 
 tlie greater part of his life, but closed his days at 
 
 > Tlieobalds. Tlie truth is, that Thomas Gunstou, the 
 ( brother of Lady Abney, purchased a house and twenty- 
 ) five acres of land with the Manor of Stoke Newington. 
 
 ^ )He pulled the house down, and commenced the erection 
 ^of a very large and elegant house on the site of the 
 old one, but he died in 1700, just before the completion 
 of the l)uilding. He was a young man, and Watts 
 was young, and between the two there a})pears to have 
 been a bond of exceedingly close and tender friendship. 
 When Thomas Gunston died he left the liouse to his sister, 
 then residing at Theobalds with her husband. Sir Thomas 
 Abney, and there Watts resided with them ; but many 
 years after, probably when time liad softened the stroke 
 which seems to have been felt very keenly, Lady Abney 
 left Theobalds and came to her house in Stoke Newington. 
 
 ' ; Watts came with the family, and in this house were passed 
 the last thirteen years of his life, and there, shortly after 
 the death of her revered friend. Lady Abney died. The 
 house then liecame the property of the eldest daughter, 
 
 * Sefi the " Clapham Sect." Sir James Stephen's Essay.s in "Ecclew- 
 astical Biography." 
 
Watts cold TJiomas (hcmton. 
 
 221 
 
 Miss Elizabeth Abney, who never married, and whose name 
 occurs as a considerable benefactor to the neighbourhood. 
 Upon her death, she directed by her will the lease and 
 estate to be sold, and after the payment of certain legacies, 
 the residue to be distributed to poor Dissenting ministers, 
 to their widows, and other objects of charity; the sale 
 realized £13,000. 
 
 This, then, was the spot associated with some of Watts' 
 earliest, happiest days, and was the scene of their quiet 
 close. His friendship with Thomas Gunston was evidently 
 founded on moral and intellectual relationship, and when 
 he died, he poured out his grief in a long elegy, published 
 in the Lyrics. It is noticeable in the poetry of Watts, and 
 of that day, that so many of the subjects are devoted to 
 the memory of friends. If a friend died, or if any other 
 circumstance happened in life, it seemed necessary to 
 embody the impressions in verse, and we need not, perhaps, 
 regard this as altogether artificial and unnatural; in Watts' 
 instance, we may be sure it was not so, although many of 
 the expressions sound extravagant ; those to which most 
 exception is taken have scarcely more of tliis characteristic 
 than some of the similar poems of Milton ; we may, for 
 instance, remember Lycidas : 
 
 Mourn, ye young gardens, ye unfini.shed gates. 
 Ye green enclosures and ye growing sweets 
 Lament ; for ye our midnight hours have known, 
 And watched us walking by the silent moon 
 In conference divine, while heavenly fire. 
 Kindling our breasts, did all our thoughts inspire 
 With joys almost immortal. 
 
 And again — 
 
 Oft have I laid the awful Calvin by, 
 And the sweet Cowley, with impatient eye 
 To see these walls, pay the sad visit here, 
 And drop the tribute of an hourly tear. 
 
222 
 
 Bdurn to Stole Ncwington. 
 
 Still I behold some melancholy scone, 
 
 With many a pensive thought and many a sigh between. 
 
 Two daj-s ag'o we took the evening air, 
 
 I and my grief. 
 
 Amidst tlu! exaggerations, liowever, which a prosaic age 
 may fancy it detects, there is no reason for including expres- 
 sions which it would certainly be impossible to appropriately 
 use now ; the poet calls upon the dusky woods and echoing 
 hills, the flowery vales overgrown with thorns, the brook 
 that runs warbling by, the lowing herd, and the moaning 
 turtle, the curling vine with its aniorcnis folds, and the 
 stately elms, tlie reverent growth of ancient years, standing 
 tall and naked to the blustering rage of tlie mad winds. 
 These are images which must have been simply natural and 
 appropriate Avlien the piece was written ; all is changed, 
 cntii'cly changed now, unless some exception be made for 
 the elms which are, or were, recently standing. The death 
 of this amiable, excellent, and promising young man stands 
 out as probably the most intense grief of Watts' life. As 
 there was a community of taste, leisure for the indulgence 
 of the pursuits of the intellect and the heart, and the 
 strong wish to gratify the instincts of a noble nature, it is 
 not wonderful that Watts poured out his feelings in so 
 lengtliy a poem. 
 
 The young man appears to have come of a high-spirited 
 family ; his father, John Gunston, liefriended many of the 
 ministers wlien they fell beneath tlie arm of persecution ; 
 and when tlie eminent Dr. Manton was imprisoned in the 
 (rate House for refusing the Oxford Oath, the Lady 
 Broughton, his keeper, placing the keys at his disposal, 
 allowed him an opportunity of visiting his friend, Mr. 
 (lunston, at Newington. Thus we have the early and 
 tender connection of Watts with this village. And not 
 
Hie Old Ahney House. 
 
 223 
 
 long since the old house was standing. An amiable and ac- 
 complished man of our time "WTites, in a letter dated May, 
 1840: "On my return to town I stopped at Stoke Newing- 
 ton, and paid a promised visit to an old friend and colleague 
 at Abney House, where he has charge of the literary 
 education of some twenty candidates for the ministry. The 
 house— that in which Dr. Watts lived for more than a 
 generation, composed his precious hymns, and at last died 
 — afforded me, in its noble antique apartments, in its still 
 rich embellishments, its surrounding groimds (said to 
 contain the bones of Oliver Cromwell), and, above all, its 
 sacred associations, more delight than I can express." * 
 
 On the spot where the house stood, with its beautiful 
 gi'ounds, gardens, and trees extending round, is now laid 
 out the Abney Park Cemetery, amongst whose forests of 
 tombs may be detected innumerable names very dear to 
 the memories of modern Nonconformists : since the closing 
 of Bunhill Fields, Abney Park Cemetery has become what 
 it was, a sort of santa croce, or campo santo of revered and 
 hallowed dust. 
 
 Though now within a short walk of the great city, it 
 seemed a sequestered village when Watts resided there. 
 The roads were probably not of the best, and there were 
 no lights upon them. The woods intervening and in the 
 neighbourhood, would furnish shelter for many social 
 annoyances, and even dangers. But it was nearer to 
 London than the more stately and palace-like abode of 
 Theobalds, and, noble as it was, it was altogether a plainer 
 habitation. Watts was probal)ly, after the death of 8ir 
 Thomas Abney, very much the modest master of both 
 abodes. Until within a short period of its dissolution the 
 house contained such memories of Watts as adorned the 
 
 • " Memorials, etc. etc. of the late W. M. Buuting." 
 
224 
 
 Rduni to Stoke Ncwington. 
 
 walls of TheoLalcls. Wc have seen that lie was a painter, 
 and the fashion at that time was to adorn the wainscoting 
 and walls and panels. There were noble rooms in the 
 mansion, and thus were they relieved, mostly by subjects 
 of a classical, mythical, and allegorical character. He 
 painted four characters of Youth and Age, Mirth and Grief, 
 for two of the parlours, " where," says Dr. Robinson, " they 
 are at this present day." To the time of its fall the man- 
 sion testified to the taste and elegance with which it was 
 fitted up, the painted room displaying costly ornaments, 
 and altogether a fine specimen of the age in which it was 
 arranged ; the mouldings gilt,, and the whole of the panels 
 and sides painted witli sul>jects from " Ovid," and on the 
 window-shutters pictorial decorations> supposed to have 
 been the production of the pencil of Watts, emblematical 
 of Death and Grief, and evidently allading to the decease 
 of Mr. Gunston. The elms, to which reference has been 
 already made, continued to excite attention to the last. 
 Planted long before the building was commenced, they con- 
 tinued to wave their widowed branches after it Lad passed 
 away. Dr. Kobinson mentions a portrait of Watts which 
 long continued in the house, an indifferent portrait of him 
 when a young man, in a blue night-gown, wig and band, 
 and three or four duplicate niezzotinto prints of him when 
 older by G. White, 1727, clerically habited, with a Bible in 
 his right hand, and under him in capitals : 
 
 ISAAC WATTS 
 
 " In Christo mea vita latet, mea gloria Christus, hunc 
 lingua, hunc calanuis celebrat nec magis, tacebit. In uno 
 Jesu omnia." 
 
 And on the upper corner " To live is Christ, to die is 
 gain." 
 
Closing Days. 
 
 Here his last days were passed ; Dr. Gibbons does not 
 mention in wliat year the family left Theobalds to return 
 V to Stoke Newington, but it must have been about thir- 
 *) teen years before his death; and during this time, although 
 his life was clouded by many pains and infirmities, he still 
 continued the active operations of his pen, and, as we shall 
 have occasion to see, the active operations of his mind, 
 employing himself especially in attempting to solve what 
 seems to many the insolvable question of the Trinity of 
 Persons in the Godhead. But as he descended towards 
 the closing years it seems that he suffered greatly from 
 some members of his own family. In a letter from the 
 i Eev. John Barker to Dr. Doddridge, written nearly two 
 ) years before Watts' death, we read : " The beliaviour of 
 Dr. Watts and the wretch Buckston towards Dr. Isaac is 
 a most marvellous, infamous, enormous wickedness ; Lady 
 ^ Aljney, with inimitable steadiness and prudence, keep^^ 
 ! our friend in peaceful ignorance, and his enemies at a 
 becoming distance, so that in the midst of the persecution 
 \ of that righteous man he lives comfortably ; and when a 
 / friend asks liim how he does, answers, 'Waiting God's 
 ] leave to die.' " * 
 
 • Doddridge's " Life and Correspondence," vol. iv. p. 520. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Movltr to Come. 
 
 " ri^HE World to Come " was for a long time one of those 
 X favourite pieces which occupied a place upon our 
 forefathers' book-shelves, and especially charmed the 
 dwellers at home in those times and places when and where 
 there were no Sabbath evening services ; it belongs to that 
 era when Christian people found their spiritual pleasure 
 and refreshment in Baxter's " Saint's Everlasting Eest," 
 to which work it bears no incousideraljle resemblance. 
 S(jutliey, in his " Life of Watts," in which, like Johnson, 
 he lays aside all his acerbity against Watts and Dissenters, 
 appears to dwell with much jileasure on this book. Pro- 
 bal)ly most of our readers are now unacfjuainted with it ; 
 and, if so, they have to learn how much tliere is in these 
 two volumes of suggestion and instruction. Watts was 
 fond of dwelling in imagination upon, and dilating with 
 his pen over, the conditions of the world to come. The 
 Avork first appeared in two volumes, although the second 
 was not piiblished until the year 1745, when Watts was 
 drawing near to the period of his own entrance into that 
 kingdom, upon whose conditions he had speculated so 
 
The World to Come. 
 
 227 
 
 largely and interestingly. Some portions of this work 
 soon found their way into other languages ; his piece 
 on " The End of Time " was translated, as a tract, into 
 most of the tongues of Europe ; an edition is now cir- 
 culating, or was a short time since, in modern Greek, on 
 tlie shores of the Levant ; and none of the prose works of 
 Watts have perhaps obtained so large an acceptance, or 
 produced, on the one hand, more serious impressions, and, 
 on the other, more quieting and comfortable consolation. 
 
 The work has the characteristic of the times in which 
 it was written- — diffuseness ; but here, if sometimes there 
 is an indulgence in those fancies and colourings of speech 
 of which we become impatient now, Ave find some of the 
 Ijest illustrations of that happy power of illumination and 
 imagination which we should expect to abound in the 
 fworks and sermons of such a poet as Watts. The poet and 
 the metaphysician meet, and mutually aid each other in 
 the attempt to enter upon the mysteries of the unseen 
 world ; his ideas, perhaps, do not differ greatly from those 
 wliicli are ordinarily entertained amongst us. Franke, the 
 well-known German pietist, was the means of the trans- 
 lation of a portion of the work in Geneva, and the trans- 
 lator said, in introducing the work, that " the preacher 
 had taken occasion of Hying with his tlioughts into tlie 
 Ijlessed mansions of the just, and had given not only a 
 very probable and beautiful idea of the glory of a future 
 life in general, but also an enumeration of tlie many sorts 
 of enjoyments and pleasures that are to be with there." 
 
 But Watts' " World to Come " is not limited to the 
 work that bears that title. His thoughts perpetually 
 hovered round that fascinating theme. He was constantly, 
 as we find in many of his pieces, engaged in attempts 
 to understand the nature of metaphysical substance. 
 
228 
 
 The World to Come. 
 
 Though from Eevelation we can only gather that " we 
 know not what we shall be," yet there are precious hints 
 from which we may obtain all that is sufficient for com- 
 ibrt and for light, especially in the Great Teacher's' \)vo- 
 mise that " where I am there shall also My servant be," 
 and the assurance of His apostle that " we shall see Him 
 as He is." 
 
 It woidd not be uninteresting to group together all 
 Watts' words from his various works illustrating his con- 
 ception of" The World to Come," his conjectures concerning 
 the mode of our immortality ; thus he presents to us — 
 
 THE BRAIN BOOK. 
 
 " We may try to illustrate this matter by the similitude 
 of the union of a human soul to a body. Suppose a 
 learned philosopher be also a skilful divine and a great 
 linguist, we may reasonably conclude that there are some 
 millions of words and phrases, if taken together with all 
 the various senses of them, which are deposited in his 
 ])rain as in a repository, by means of some correspondent 
 traces or signatures ; we may suppose also millions of 
 ideas of things, human and divine, treasured up in various 
 traces or signatures in the same brain. Nay, each organ 
 of sense may impress on the brain millions of traces 
 belonging to the particular objects of that sense ; espe- 
 cially the two senses of discipline, the eye and the ear ; the 
 pictures, the images, the colours, and the sounds, that are 
 reserved in this repository of the brain, by some corre- 
 spondent impressions or traces, are little less than infinite ; 
 now, the human soul of the philosopher, by being united 
 to this brain, tliis well-furnished repository, knows all 
 
TJtc Brain Bool:.. 
 
 229 
 
 these names, words, sounds, images, lines, figures, colours, 
 notions, and sensations. It receives all these ideas ; and 
 is, as it were, mistress of them all. The very opening of 
 the eye impresses thousands of ideas at once upon such a 
 soul united to a human brain : and what unknown millions 
 of ideas may be impressed on it, or conveyed to it in 
 successive seasons, Avhensoever she stands in need of 
 them, and that by the means of this union to the brain, 
 is beyond our capacity to think or number. Let us now con- 
 ceive the Divine Mind or Wisdom as a repository stored 
 with infinite ideas of things present, past, and future : 
 suppose a created spirit, of most extensive capacity, 
 intimately united to this Divine Mind or Wisdom : may it 
 not by this means, by Di\'ine appointment, become capable 
 of receiving so many of those ideas, and so much know- 
 ledge, as are necessary for the government and the 
 judgment of all nations 1 And this may be done two 
 \\ ays, viz., either by the immediate application of itself, 
 as it were by inquiry, to the Divine Mind, to wliich it is 
 thus united, or by the immediate actual influences and 
 impressions which the Divine Mind may make of tliese 
 ideas on the liuman soul, as fast as ever it can stand in need 
 of them for these glorious purposes. Since a human brain, 
 Avhicli is mere matter, and which contains only some 
 strokes and traces, and corporeal signatures of ideas, can 
 convey to a human soul united to it many millions of 
 ideas, as fast as it needs tliem for any purposes of liuman 
 life; how much more may the infinite God, or Divine 
 Mind or Wisdom, which hath actually all real and possible 
 ideas in it in the most perfect manner, communicate to a 
 human soul united to this Divine Wisdom, a far gi-eater 
 number of ideas than a human brain can receive ; even as 
 many as the affairs of governing and judging this world 
 
230 
 
 The World to Come. 
 
 may require. This may be represented and illustrated by 
 another similitude, thus : suppose there were a spherical 
 looking-glass or mirror vast as this earth is ; on which 
 millions of corporeal objects appeared in miniature on all 
 sides of it impressed or represented there, by a thousand 
 planetary and starry worlds surrounding this vast mirror ; 
 suppose a capacious human spirit iinited t(j this mirror, as 
 the soul is to the body : what an unknown multitude of 
 ideas would this mirror convey to that human spirit in 
 successive seasons ! Or, perhaps, this spirit might receive 
 all these ideas at once, and be conscious of the millions of 
 things represented all round tlie nurror. This mirror may 
 represent the Deity ; tlie human spirit taken in these ideas 
 successively, or conscious of them all at once, may repre- 
 sent to us the soul of Christ receiving, either in a simul- 
 taneous view, or in a successive way, unknown myriads of 
 ideas, by its union to Godhead ; though, it must be owned, 
 it can never receive all these ideas which are in the Divine 
 Mind." 
 
 And thus he endeavours to image to his mind the worlds : 
 
 EARTH, HEAVEN, AND HELL. 
 
 " I have often tried to strip death of its frightful colours, 
 and make all the terrible airs of it vanish into softness 
 and deliglit; to this end, among other rovings of thought, 
 I have sometimes illustrated to myself the whole creation 
 as one immense building, witli different apartments, all 
 under the immediate possession and government of the 
 great Creator. One sort of these mansions are little, 
 narrow, dark, damp rooms, where there is much confine- 
 ment, very little good company, and such a clog upon 
 one's natural spirits, that a man cannot think or talk with 
 
Earth, Heaven, and Hell. 
 
 231 
 
 freedom, nor exert his uuderstanding, or any of his intel- 
 lectual powers with glory or pleasure. This is the Earth 
 in which we dwell. A second sort are spacious, lightsome, 
 airy, and serene courts open to the summer sky, or at 
 least admitting all the valuable qualities of sun and air, 
 without the inconveniences; where there are thousands 
 of most delightful companions, and everything that can 
 give one pleasure, and make one capable and fit to give 
 pleasure to others. This is the Heaven we hope for. 
 A third sort of apartments are open and spacious too, 
 but under a wintry sky, with perpetual storms of hail, 
 rain, and wind, thunder, lightning, and everything that is 
 painful and offensive; and all this among millions of 
 wretched companions cursing the place, tormenting one 
 another, and each endeavouring to increase the public and 
 the universal misery. This is Hell. 
 
 "Xow what a dreadful thing it is to be driven out of one 
 of the first narrow dusky ceDs into the third sort of apart- 
 ment, where the change of the room is infinitely the worst ! 
 Xo wonder that sinners are afraid to die. But why should 
 a soul that has good hope, througli grace, of entering into 
 the serene apartment, be unwilling to leave the narrow 
 smoky prison he has dwelt in so long, and under such 
 loads of inconvenience ? Death to a good man is but 
 passing through a death entry, out of (tiie little dusk}- room 
 of his Father's house into another that is fair ami large, 
 lightsome and glorious, and divinely entertaining. Oh may 
 the rays and splendours of my heavenly apartment shoot 
 far downward, and gild the dark entry with such a cheerful 
 beam as to banish every fear, when I shall be called to 
 pass through." 
 
 He teaches and very much elaborates, as Southey says, 
 the doctrine of Milton : 
 
The WorlJ to Come. 
 
 — ^\'llat, if eartli 
 Be but tlic shadow of Heaven, and tliing-s therein 
 Each to other like, more than on earth is thought ? 
 
 Southey somewhat naturally finds an occasion for Immour 
 ill that ]\liltoii beheld in heaven a place for armies, the 
 review of bright brigades, and illustrious cohorts with keen 
 .swords and long bright spears, and so he remarks, " The 
 Heaven of Watts' imagination was coloured by his earthly 
 ])ursuits, and whether there were to be reviews of armies 
 or not there were to be sermons." " For," says Watts, 
 " not only is there the service of thanksgiving here and of 
 prayer, but siicli entertainment as lectures and sermons 
 also, and there all the worship that is paid is the estab- 
 lished worship of the whole country." But the conceptions 
 formed by Watts of the heavenly state are majestic in the 
 main. " For the . Church," he says, " on earth is but a 
 training school for the church on high, and is, as it were, 
 a tiring-room in which we are dressed in proper habit foi- 
 (nir ajitpearance and our places in that l)right assembly." 
 Thus he beholds " Boyle and Bay pursuing the philosopliy 
 in which they delighted on earth, contemplating the wisdom 
 of God in His works; and Henry More and Howe continuing 
 their metaphysical researches Avith brightened and refined 
 powers of mind." It is singular that Watts, who specu- 
 lated so keenly and clearly into the natui'e of metaphysical 
 substance, should have thus somewhat embarrassed his 
 views of the heavenly state by discriminating so much the 
 ])ursuits of a pure and perfect soul, by characteristics which 
 partake of the faulty views of an earthly understanding ; 
 but we are to remember that he wrote for useful i)urposes, 
 and we may believe that some of those excursions of the 
 fancy, while scarcely consistent even with his own meta- 
 physics, added not a little to the pleasant horizon spread 
 
A Physical Tlieory of Another Life. 233 
 
 out before the view of those readers unable or indisposed to 
 Ibllow him into more abstract and pure regions of thought. 
 Interestingly and curiously he seeks to trace the progress 
 of the soxil from the visible to the invisible world ; we 
 know this world by Space and Substance, the solution 
 of these in connection with our existence in that future 
 world to come is not less a trouble to Watts than it has 
 been to the rest of us. Space he endeavoured to annihilate, 
 Substance also, and he argues, as Isaac Taylor has argued 
 since in his " Physical Theory of Another Life," that as dis- 
 embodied spirits cannot exist everywhere, and do not pro- 
 bably exist anywhere, philosophically they may be said to 
 exist nowhere* The question then is whither does the 
 soul depart Avhen it is separated from the body ? Perhaps 
 it may be furnished with some new vehicle of a more 
 refined matter, which will remind readers of Abraham 
 Tucker's singular chapters in his "Light of Nature," on the 
 "Vehicular State ;" and it is very suggestive to find him 
 intimating that it may aljide where death finds it, not 
 clianging its place, but only its manner of thinking and 
 acting, and its mode of existence, and without removal 
 finding itself in heaven or in hell according to its own 
 consciousness, and that is, according to its own previous 
 training or education, and then lie says, " I may illustrate 
 this by two similitudes, and especially a])ply tliem to the 
 case of holy souls departing." They may remind the reader 
 of Henry Vauglian's beautiful verse : 
 
 If a star were confined in a tomb, 
 Its captive light would o'en shine there ; 
 
 But when it bui-sts it dissipates the gloom, 
 And shines through all the sphere. 
 
 • " 'Without question we must affirm that Body is the necessary 
 means of bringing Mind into relationship with space and extension, and 
 so of giving it I'lucc, vei-y plainly a disembodied spirit, or we ought 
 
234 
 
 The World to Come. 
 
 " Suppose a torch enclosed in a cell of earth, in the midst 
 of ten thousand thousand torches that shine at large in a 
 spacious amphitheatre. While it is enclosed, its beams 
 strike only on the walls of its own cell, and it has no com- 
 numion with those without. But let this cell fall down at 
 once, and the torch that moment has full conimumon with 
 all tliose ten thousands ; it shines as freely as they do, and 
 receives and gives assistance to all of them, and joins to 
 add glory to that illustrious place. 
 
 " Or su])pose a man born or brought up in a dark jirison, 
 in the midst of a fair and populous city. He lives there 
 in a close confinement ; perhaps he enjoys only tlie twink- 
 ling liglit of a lamp, with thick air and much ignorance ; 
 though he has some distant hints and reports of the 
 surrounding city and its affairs, yet he sees and knows 
 nothing immediately but what is done in his own prison, 
 till in some happy minute the walls fall down ; then he 
 finds himself at once in a large and populous town, en- 
 compassed witli a thousand blessings. With surprise he 
 beholds the king in all his glory, and holds converse with 
 the sprightly inhabitants. He can speak their language, 
 and finds his nature suited to such communicm. He 
 breathes free air, stands in the open liglit ; he shakes him- 
 self, and exults in his own liberty." 
 
 The gentle spirit of Watts trembled before hell ; he ex- 
 pressed his belief in eternal punishment in the strongest 
 and most une([uivocal terms, not because he found it 
 plainly in liis understanding, but because he found it 
 plainly declared in the New Testament, while yet, like 
 other fathers in the Church, he expresses within himself a 
 latent hope that God has some secret and mitigating 
 
 rather to say, an unembodied spirit, or sheer mind, is nowiieee." — Isaac 
 Taylor's " Thysical Theory of Another Life," chap. ii. 
 
Concerninf] the Possihilitij of Apparitions. 235 
 
 decree, and that although we neither dare preach nor 
 speculate upon it, bowing to the word, we yet may hope 
 that Infinite Love will find out a way* 
 
 Some readers will be svirprised to find that among his 
 proofs of a separate state, Watts does not hesitate, although 
 very modestly, to avow some belief in Apparitions. It 
 was the age of superstition and supernatural visitations. 
 Joseph Addison indeed was aiming at a sweejiing reform, 
 and attempting to lay all the ghosts in the country. 
 AVatts says — 
 
 COXCERXIXG THE POSSIBILITY OF APPAiaTIONS. 
 
 " At the conclusion of this chapter I cannot help taking 
 notice, though I shall but just mention it, that the multi- 
 tude of narratives, which we have heard of in all ages, of 
 the apparition of the spirits or ghosts of persons departed 
 from this life, can hardly be all delusion and falsehood. 
 Some of them have been affirmed to appear upon such great 
 and important occasions as may be equal to such an unusual 
 event ; and several of tliese accounts have been attested 
 by such witnesses of wisdom, and prudence, and sagacity, 
 under no distempers of imagination, that they may justly 
 demand a belief ; and the effects of these apparitions, in the 
 discovery of murders and things unknown, have been so 
 considerable and useful, that a fair disputant sliould hardly 
 venture to run directly counter to such a cloud of wit- 
 nesses without some good assurance on the contrary side. 
 He must be a shrewd pliilosopher indeed who, upon any 
 other hypothesis, can give a tolerable account of all the 
 narratives in Glanvil's ' Sadducisimus Triumphatus,' or 
 
 * See Preface to the second vol. of " World to Come," Octavo edition. 
 
236 
 
 The World to Come. 
 
 Baxter's ' World of Spirits and Apparitions,' etc. Tliougli 
 I will grant some of these stories have but insufficient 
 proof, yet if there be but one real apparition of a departed 
 spirit, then the point is gained that there is a separate 
 state. 
 
 " And, indeed, the Scripture itself seems to mention 
 such sort of ghosts or appearances of souls departed (Matt, 
 xiv. 26). AVhen the disci])les saw Jesus walking on the 
 water they 'thought it had been a spirit.' And (Luke 
 xxiv. 37) after His resurrection they saw Him at once 
 appearing in the midst of them, 'and they supposed they 
 had seen a spirit ;' and our Saviour doth not contradict 
 their notion, but argues with them upon the supposition of 
 the truth of it, ' a spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see 
 Me to have." And, Acts xxiii. 8, 9, the word ' spirit ' 
 seems to signify ' the apparition of a departed soul,' where 
 it is ' said, ' The Sadducees say there is no resurrection, 
 neither angel nor spirit ; ' and, verse 9, ' If a spirit or 
 an angel hath spoken to this man,' etc. A spirit here is 
 plainly distinct from an angel; and what can it mean 
 but an apparition of a human soul which has left the 
 body ? " 
 
 An acquaintance with the " World to Come " will take 
 away even now from the reader any surprise at the popu- 
 larity it once enjoyed during years when printed sermons 
 were not very abundant, and when readers received Avithout 
 questioning the doctrines and statements of such books as 
 bore the imprint of the names of eminent men. Many 
 passages are fraught with a most pleasing eloquence, and, 
 read by a serious mind, are well calculated to convey not 
 only passing, but permanent impres-sions. Shall we take 
 two or three ? 
 
All Things Preach the End of Time. 
 
 237 
 
 ALL THINGS PREACH THE END OF TIME. 
 
 " Time, hastening to its period, ■vvill furnish us with per- 
 petual new occasions of holy meditation. Do I observe 
 the declining day, and the setting sun sinking into dark- 
 ness? So declines the day of life, the hours of labour, and 
 the seasons of grace ; oh may I finish my appointed work 
 with honour ere the light is fled ! May I improve the 
 shining hours of grace ere the shadows of the evening 
 overtake me, and my time of working is no more ! Do I 
 see the moon gliding along through midnight, and ful- 
 filling her stages in the dusky sky ? This planet also is 
 measuring out my life, and bringing the number of my 
 months to their end. May I be prepared to take leave of 
 the sun and moon, and bid adieu to these visible heavens, 
 and all the twinkling glories of them ! These are all but 
 the measures of my time, and hasten me on towards 
 eternity. Am I walking in a garden, and stand still to 
 observe the slow motion of the shadow upon a dial thei'e ? 
 It passes over tlie hour lines with an imperceptible pro- 
 gress, yet it will touch the last line of daylight shortly : so 
 my hours and my moments move onward with a silent 
 pace ; but they will arrive with certainty at the last limit, 
 how heedless soever I am of their motion, and how thought- 
 less soever I may be of the improvement of time, or the end 
 of it. Does a new year commence, and the first morning 
 of it dawn upon me ? Let me remember that the last year 
 was finislied, and gone over my head, in order to make way 
 for the entrance of the present : I have one year the less to 
 travel througli tlie world, and to fulfil tlie various services 
 of a travelling state : may my diligence in duty be doubled, 
 since the number of my appointed years is diminished ! 
 
238 
 
 The World to Come. 
 
 Do I fiiid a new Lutli-day in iny survey of the calendar, 
 the day wherein I entered upon the stage of mortality, and 
 was born into this world of sins, frailties, and sorrows, in 
 order to my probation for a better state ? Blessed Lord, 
 how much have I spent already of this mortal life, this 
 season of my probation, and how little am I prepared for 
 that happier world ' How unready for my dying moment ! 
 I anx hastening hourly to the end of the life of man, which 
 began at my nativity: am I yet born of (lod? Have I 
 begun the life of a saint ? Am I prepared for tliat awful 
 day which shall determine tlie number of my months on 
 earth ? Am I fit to be liorn into the world of spirits 
 tlirough the strait gate of death ? Am I renewed in all 
 tlie powers of my nature, and made meet to enter into that 
 unseen world, where there shall be no more of these revo- 
 lutions of days and years, but one eternal day fills up all 
 the space with Divine pleasure, or one eternal night witli 
 long and deplorable distress and darkness ? When I see 
 a friend expiring, or the corpse of my neighbour conveyed 
 to the grave : alas ! their months and minutes are all deter- 
 mined, and the seasons of their trial are finished for ever ; 
 they are gone to their eternal home, and tlie estate of their 
 souls is fixed uuchangeal)ly : the angel that has sworn their 
 ' time shall be no longer ' has concluded their hopes, or has 
 finished their fears, and, according to the rules of righteous 
 judgment, has decided their misery or happiness for a long 
 immortality. Take this warning, oh my soul, and think of 
 thine own removal ' Are we standing in the churchyard, 
 paying the last honours to the relics of our friends ? What 
 a number of hillocks of death appear all round us ! What 
 are the tombstones but memorials of the inhabitants of 
 that town, to inform us of the period of all their lives, and 
 to point out the day when it was said to each of them, your 
 
All Things Preach the End of Time. 
 
 239 
 
 ' time shall be no longer.' Oh may I readily learn this 
 important lesson, that my turn is hastening too ! Such a 
 little hillock shall shortly arise for me on some unknown 
 spot of ground ; it shall cover this flesh and these bones of 
 mine in darkness, and shall hide them from the light of 
 the sun, and from the sight of man, ' till the heavens be no 
 more.' Perhaps some kind surviving friend may engrave 
 my name, with the numlier of my days, upon a plain 
 funeral stone, without ornament and below envy ; there 
 shall my tomb stand, among the rest, as a fresh monument 
 of the frailty of nature and the end of time. It is possible 
 some friendly foot may, now and then, visit the place of 
 my repose, and some tender eye may bedew the cold 
 memorial with a tear : one or another of my old acquaintance 
 may possibly attend there to learn the silent lecture of 
 mortality from my grave-stone, which my lips are now 
 j)reaching aloud to the world : and if love and sorrow 
 should reach so far, perhaps, while his soul is melting in 
 his eye-lids, and his voice scarce find an utterance, he will 
 point witb his finger and show his companion the montli 
 and day of my decease. Oh that solemn, that awful day, 
 which shall finish my aj^pointed time on earth, and put a 
 full period to all the designs of my heart and all the labours 
 of my tongue and pen. Think, oli ray soul ! tliat while 
 friends or strangers are engaged on that spot, and reading 
 the date of my departure hence, thou wilt be fixed under a 
 decisive and unchangeable sentence, rejoicing in the rewards 
 of time well improved, or suffering the long sorrows which 
 shall attend the abuse of it in an unknown world of hap- 
 piness or misery." 
 
 And we should think that many a believer has read the 
 following with sentiments of delight : 
 
240 
 
 The World to Come. 
 
 CHRIST ADMIRED AND GLORIFIED IN HIS SAINTS. 
 
 " Astonishing spectacle ! When the dark and savage 
 inhabitants of Africa, and our forefathers, the rugged and 
 warlike Britons, from the ends of the earth, shall appear 
 in that assembly, with some of tlie polite nations of Greece 
 and Kome, and each of them shall glory in having been 
 taught to renounce the gods of their ancestors, and the 
 demons which they once worshipped, and sliall rejoice in 
 Jesus the King of Israel, and in Jehovah the everlasting 
 God. The conversion of the Gentile world to Christianity is 
 a matter of glorious wonder, and sliall appear to be so in 
 that great day : that those who had been educated to be- 
 lieve in many gods, or no god at all, shoiild renounce 
 atheism and idolatry, and adore the true God only ; and 
 those who were taught to sacrifice to idols, and to atone 
 for their own sins with the blood of beasts, should trust in 
 one sacrifice, and the atoning blood of the Son of God. 
 Here shall stand a believing atheist, and there a converted 
 idolater, as monuments of the almighty power of grace. 
 There shall shine also in that assembly here and there a 
 prince and a philosoi^her, though ' not many wise, not 
 many noble, not many mighty are called.'* And they 
 shall be matter of wonder and glory : that princes, who 
 loved no control, should bow their sceptres and their 
 souls to the royalty and Godhead of the poor Man of Naza- 
 reth : that the heathen philosophers, who had been used to 
 yield only to reason, should submit their understandings to 
 Divine revelation, even when it has something above the 
 powers and discoveries of reason in it. 
 
 " Come, all ye saints of these latter ages, 'upon whom the 
 
 * 1 Cor. i. 26. 
 
The Ages of tlie Church. 
 
 241 
 
 end of the world is come,' raise your heads -with me, and 
 look far backwards, even to the beginning of time, and th e 
 (Lays of Adam ; for the believers of all ages, as well as of 
 all nations, shall appear together in that day, and acknow- 
 ledge Jesus the Saviour : according to the brighter or 
 darker discoveries of the age in which they lived. He has 
 been the common object of their faith. Ever smce He 
 was called ' the Seed of the woman,' till the time of His 
 appearance in the flesh, all the chosen of God have lived 
 upon His grace, though multitudes of them never knew 
 His name. It is true, the greater part of that illustrious 
 company on the right hand of Christ lived since the time 
 of His incarnation, for the ' great multitude which no man 
 could number ' is derived from the Gentile nations. Yet 
 tlie ancient patriarchs, with the Jewisli pi'ophets and saints, 
 shall make a splendid appearance there : ' one Imndred 
 and forty-four thousand are sealed among the tribes of 
 Israel these of old embraced the Gospel in types and 
 shadows ; but now their eyes behold Jesus Christ, the 
 substance and the truth. In the days of their flesh they 
 read His name in dark lines, and looked through the long 
 glasses of prophecy to distant ages, and a Saviour to come ; 
 and now, behold, they find complete ar^d certain salvation 
 and glory in Him. ' These all died in faith, not having 
 received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and 
 were persuaded of them, and embraced them.' They died 
 in the hope of this salvation, and they shall rise in the 
 blessed possession of it. 
 
 " Behold Abraham appearing there, the father of the faitli- 
 ful, ' who saw the day of Christ, and rejoiced to see it ;' 
 who trusted in his Son Jesus, two thousand years before 
 He was born ; his elder family, the pious Jews, surround 
 him there, and we, his younger children among the Gentiles, 
 
 \\ 
 
242 
 
 The World to Come. 
 
 shall stand with him as the followers of his faith, who trust in 
 the same Jesus almost two thousand years after lie is dead. 
 How shall we both rejoice to see this brightest day of the 
 Son of Man, and congratulate each other's faith, while our 
 eyes meet and centre in Him, and our souls triumph in 
 the sight, love, and enjoyment of Him in whom we have 
 believed ! How admirable and divinely glorious shall our 
 Lord Himself a])pear, on whom every lile is lixed with 
 unutterable delight, in whom the faith of distant countries 
 and ages is centered and reconciled, and in whom 'all the 
 nations of the earth a])pear to be blessed,' according to 
 the ancient word of promise. 
 
 " Then one shall say : ' I was a sensual sinner, drenched in 
 liquor and unclean lusts, and wicked in all the forms yf 
 lewdness and intemperance ; the grace of God my Saviour 
 ajipeared to me, and taught me to deny worldly lusts, 
 which I once thougbt I could never have parted with. I 
 loved my sins as my life, but He has persuaded and con- 
 stmined me to cut ofi' a right hand, and to pluck out u 
 right eye, and to part with my darling vices ; and behold 
 me here a monuuaent of His saving mercy.' 
 
 " ' I was envious against my neighbour,' shall another 
 say, ' anil my temper was malice and wrath ; revenge was 
 mingled with my constitution, and I thought it no iniquity; 
 but I bless the name of Christ my Eedeemer, who, in the 
 day of His grace, turned my wrath into meekness ; He 
 inclined me to love even my enemies, and to pray for them 
 tliat cursed me ; He taught me all this by His own exam- 
 ple, and He made me learn it by the sovereign influences 
 of His Spirit. I am a wonder to myself, when I think 
 wliat once I was. Amazing change, and Almighty grace !' 
 
 " Then a third shall confess : ' I was a profane wretcli, a 
 swearer, a blasphemer ; I hoped for no heaven, and I feared 
 
Varieties of Believers. 
 
 243 
 
 no hell ; but the Lord seized me in the midst of my rebel- 
 lions, and sent His arrows into my soul ; He made me feel 
 the stings of an awakened conscience, and constrained me 
 to believe there was a God and a hell, till I cried out 
 astonished, " What sliall I do to be saved ? " Then He led 
 me to partake of His oa^ti salvation, and, from a proud, 
 rebellious infidel, He has made me a penitent and a humble 
 believer, and here I stand to show forth the wonders of His 
 grace, and a boundless extent of His forgiveness.' 
 
 " A fourth shall stand up and acknowledge in that day : 
 'And I was a poor carnal, covetous creature, who made 
 til is world my god, and abundance of money was my 
 heaven ; but He cured me of this vile idolatry of gold, 
 taught me how to obtain treasures in the heavenly world, 
 and to forsake all on earth, that I might have an inherit- 
 ance there ; and, behold. He has not disappointed my hopes : 
 I am now made rich indeed, and I must for ever sing His 
 praises.' 
 
 " There shall be no doubt or dispute in that day whether 
 it was the power of our own will, or the superior power of 
 Divine grace, that wrought the blessed change, that turned 
 the lion into a lamb, a grovelling earthworm into a bird of 
 paradise, and of a covetous or malicious sinner made a meek 
 and a heavenly saint. The grace of Christ shall be so con- 
 spicuous in every glorified believer in that assembly, that, 
 with one voice, they shall all shout to the praise and glory 
 of His grace, ' Not to us, 0 Lord, not to i!s, but to Thy 
 name be all the honour !' 
 
 " Behold that noble army with palms in their hands ; 
 once they were weak warriors, yet they overcame mighty 
 enemies, and have gained the victory and the prize ; ene- 
 mies rising from earth and from hell to tempt and to 
 accuse them, but they overcame ' by the blood of the 
 
244 
 
 Tlic Wvrhl to Come. 
 
 Lamb.' What a Divine honour it shall be to our Lord 
 Jesus Clirist, ' the Captain of our salvation,' that weak 
 Christians sliould subdue their strong corruptions, and get 
 safe to heaven througli a thousand oppositions within and 
 without ! It is all owing to the grace of Christ, that grace 
 which is all-sufficient for every saint. They are made 
 ' more than conquerors through Him that has loved them.' 
 Then shall the faith and courage and patience of the 
 saints have a blessed review ; and it shall be told before 
 the whole creation what strife and wrestlings a poor believer 
 has passed through in a dark cottage, a chamber of lone 
 sickness, or perhaps in a dungeon ; how he has there com- 
 bated with ' powers of darkness,' how he has struggled 
 with huge sorrows, and has borne, and has not fainted, 
 though he has been often ' in heaviness through manifold 
 temptations.' Then shall appear the bright scene which 
 St. Peter represents as the event of sore trials (1 Peter i. 
 6, 7). ' When our faith has been tried in the fire of tribula- 
 tion, and is found more precious than gold,' it shall shine 
 to the praise, honour, and glory of the suffering saints, and 
 of Christ Himself at His appearance. 
 
 " Behold that illustrious troop of martyrs, and some among 
 them of the feebler sex and of tender age. Now, that 
 women should grow bold in faith, even in the sight of 
 torments, and children, with a manly courage, should pro- 
 fess the name of Christ in the face of angry and threaten- 
 ing rulers ; tlfJit some of these should become undaunted 
 confessors of the truth, and others triumph in fires and 
 torture, these things shall be matter of glory to Christ in 
 that day ; it was His power that gave them courage and 
 victory in martyrdom and death. Every Christian there, 
 every soldier in that triumphing army, shall ascribe his 
 conquest to the grace of his Lord, his Leader, and lay down 
 
Christ Admired, and Glorified, in His Sainis. 245 
 
 all their trophies at the feet of his Saviour, with humble 
 acknowledgments, and shouts of honour. 
 
 " Almost all the saved number were, at some part of their 
 lives, weak in faith, and yet, by the grace of Christ, they 
 held out to the end, and are crowned ; ' I was a poor 
 trembling creature,' shall one say, ' but I was confirmed 
 in my faith and holiness by the Gospel of Christ ; or, I 
 rested on a naked promise, and found support, because 
 Christ was there, and He shall have the glory of it.' ' In 
 Him are all the promises yea, and in Him amen, to the 
 glory of the Father ; ' and the Son shall share in this 
 glory ; for He died to ratify these promises, and He lives 
 to fulfil them. 
 
 " ' Oh, what an almighty arm is this,' shall the believer 
 say, ' that has borne up so many thousands of poor sink- 
 ing creatures, and lifted their heads above the waves I ' 
 The .spark of gi-ace that lived many years in a flood of 
 temptations, and was not quenched, shall then shine bright 
 to the glory of Christ, who kindled and maintained it. 
 Wlien we have been brought through all the storms and 
 tlie threatening seas, and yet the raging waves have been 
 forbid to swallow us up, we shall cry out in raptures of 
 joy and wonder : ' AVhat manner of Man is this, that the 
 winds and the seas have obeyed him ? ' Then sliall it be 
 gloriously evident that He has conquered Satan, and kept 
 the hosts of hell in chains ; when it shall appear that He 
 has made poor, mean, trembling believers victorious over 
 all the powers of darkness, for the Prince of Peace has 
 bruised him under their feet." 
 
f 
 
 ^0 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 ATTS, as we have seen, lived so niueli in retirement 
 
 f T and retreat, and was so constant a sufferer from the 
 infirmities of healtli, that little is known in the way of 
 incident and anecdote of his life. In a sense, indeed, he 
 lived constantly before the eyes of men, for his industry, 
 when he was capable of industry, must have been immense; 
 he mnst have read extensively, he thought deeply, and he 
 possessed not only an active but a facile pen, which 
 appears to have served him very readily when he desired 
 to translate his thoughts into language. His life belongs 
 to that order we represent by such names as Richard 
 Hooker, Jeremy Taylor, and John Howe : we do not here 
 compare or contrast the finer details of their character, but, 
 like them, he appears to have been essentially a man of 
 contemplation ; his activity was only the reflection of a 
 contemplative life. In height he was quite beneath the 
 common standard ; Dr. Gibbons says not above live feet, 
 or, at most, five feet two inches ; we are not accustomed 
 to associate so small a stature with any commanding 
 presence in the pulpit ; yet his preaching was greatly 
 
Watts as a Man. 
 
 247 
 
 admired, and Dr. Jennings says that it was not only 
 weighty and powerful, " but there was a certain dignity 
 and respect in his very aspect which commanded attention 
 and awe, and when he spoke, such strains of truly Christian 
 eloquence flowed from his lips as one thinks could not be 
 easily slighted, if resisted." He was altogether a very 
 slight figure — thin, an oval face, an aquiline nose, his com- 
 plexion fair and pale, and. Gibbons says, his forehead low ; 
 but this does not appear in his portrait, nor does that 
 which it usually indicates, a want of generosity, mark his 
 character. When unable to preach, it was with difficulty 
 he could be persuaded to accept the stipend of the church 
 of which he was the pastor, saying tlaat, as he could not 
 preach, he liad no title to any salary. His refusal was not 
 
 , accepted, but the delicate sense of honour marks the 
 character of the man ; while, from the time he lived in 
 the Abney family, he devoted a third part of his income 
 
 ' to charitable purposes. His eyes appear to have lighted 
 up his face ; they are described as singularly small and 
 gi'ey, and are said to have been amazingly piercing and 
 
 xexpressive. His voice was very fine and. slender, but 
 'regular, audible, and pleasant. The anecdote is well 
 known of him that when he was in one of those coffee- 
 houses — then the haunts of men who knew what company 
 they miglit expect to find, for every particular coterie had 
 its own place of rendezvous — he overheard his name given 
 by one person to another, who said in surprise, " What ! is 
 that the great Dr. Watts ?" Whereupon he wrote down a 
 verse and handed it to him : 
 
 Were I so tall to reach the pole, 
 
 And grasp the ocean in a span, 
 I must be measured by my soul, — 
 
 The mind's the standard of the man. 
 
248 
 
 The Man. 
 
 We have never thought the anecdote a very likely one ; 
 Watts was altogether too quiet, and we may use the word, 
 majestic in his manner to make it possible he would do 
 this. The verse is indeed his, but it occurs in a lengthy 
 poem, and it is possible that it was fitted into a fabulous 
 incident which some inventor of scenic situations thought 
 might be, or ought to be, true. There is another anecdote 
 wliicli has been related of him, alLliough we have seen 
 it attributed to others, how, when once in a coffee-house, 
 .and somewhat in the way of a tall giant of a man, he said 
 to Watts, " Let me pass, 0 giant !" and Watts replied, 
 " Pass on, 0 pigmy !" "I only referred to your mind," 
 said the giant ; " I also to yours," replied Watts. 
 
 Whatever impression such anecdotes may convey, one 
 of his chief characteristics was a very modest apprecia- 
 tion of himself. " His humility," said Dr. Jennings, "like 
 a deep shade, set off' his other graces and virtues, and made 
 them shine with greater lustre." And of those attributes 
 of his character of which others thought most highly, he 
 thought very inconsiderably. And to such a character is 
 often allied that which is very noticeable in him, a very 
 grateful sense of all favours conferred upon him. There 
 was nothing narrow in his mind, he had a great width of 
 thought and a great width of love : although, as we have 
 seen, a Nonconformist by strong conviction, judging the 
 communion to which he belonged as favourable to civil and 
 religious freedom, and regarding the service as most in 
 harmony with what he considered the simplicity of the 
 Gospel, he was on terms of friendship with many other 
 communions, and especially with several of the prelates, 
 ministers, and members of the Established Church. It 
 would be expected, although this is not invariably the case, 
 tliat a mind so richly stored, united to so ready an 
 
Aversion to Satire — Economy of Time. 
 
 249 
 
 eloquence, would shine in conversation, and this was the 
 ''^|case. It is said that in conversation his wit sparkled ; 
 his biographer says, " It was like an ethereal flame, ever 
 vivid and penetrating but he had an aversion to satire, 
 lieferring to the pictures he sometimes introduces, illus- 
 trating the vices and follies of his age, he utterly disclaims 
 the idea that in them he has attempted to portray any per- 
 sonal character. " I would not," he says, " willingly create 
 needless pain or uneasiness to the most despicable figure 
 among mankind ; there are vexations enough among the 
 beings of my species without my adding to the heap. When 
 a reflecting glass shows the deformity of a face so plain as 
 to point to the person, he will sooner be tempted to break 
 the glass than reform his blemishes ; but if I can find any 
 error of my own happily described in some general 
 character, I am then awakened to reform it in silence, 
 without the public notice of the world, and the moral 
 writer attains his noblest end." He was not happy in the 
 friendship of listeners, who took down with any accuracy 
 1 the sayings which fell from him ; and it is probable that 
 j in conversation, although rich and full, wide and wise, it 
 was rather remarkable for these characteristics than for 
 either its gaiety or its force. 
 
 1 There were few waste moments for whicn he had to give 
 ! an account; he acted like a miser by his time, and per- 
 mitted few moments to pass without their being garnered 
 and compelled to pay interest. We read of his writing 
 \ on horseback, and whithersoever he travelled the objects 
 which entered either the eye or the ear seem to hax^e left 
 aljiding impressions. It seems even the injustice of his 
 opponents in disputation did not make him angry. Such 
 injustice we know he had to experience ; and when, in his 
 later years, he offended on both sides, one writer complain- 
 
250 
 
 The Man. 
 
 ing of liim that he had gone too far, and another that he 
 had not gone far enough, he contented liimself by saying, 
 " Moderation iniist expect a box on both ears." A character 
 like that of Watts inspires confidence in almost all that 
 proceeds from his pen : the men, indeed, who carry what 
 Chalmers called "weight in life," are usually the tall, 
 the self-assertive, and the strong ; none of these attri- 
 butes mark him, and yet he appears to have carried great 
 weight. It was not by vehemence, l)ut by wisdom ; he did 
 not win by the forcible striking of the ball, but by pre- 
 science and a judicious calculation. 
 
 Watts, like so many of the great wits,. poets, and authors 
 of his time, was what we should now consider very slightly 
 versed in the accomplishments of travel : a few places in 
 the neighbourhood of London and Southampton and Tun- 
 bridge Wells seem almost to exhaust his excursions. 
 Indeed, England was for the most part an unknown 
 country, and as to the continent of Europe, men of wealth 
 and fashion were expected to perfect their education by 
 the grand tour, but to persons even in Watts' circle of 
 society, France, Switzerland, and Italy, with their cities, 
 memories, forests, and mountains, were unknown. Cray 
 had not yet discovered Cumberland and Westmoreland, 
 and when discovered, there were no facilities to make 
 travel thither very easy ; Yorksliire and Lancashire were 
 almost equally imknown. The place to which we frequently 
 find Watts retreating for the benefit of his health was Tun- 
 bridge Wells, and a singular place it must have been for 
 a retreat, judging from the description Macaulay has 
 given us of it in his history ; but it furnishes us with a 
 singular sense of the simple things which excited the 
 imagination, to read how Watts regarded it. Many a 
 modern reader is struck with surprise at Shakespeare's 
 
Tunh'idge Wells in Watts Time. 251 
 
 description of the cliffs of Dover — a description of terror and 
 fear arising from precipitous heights, which we could scarcely 
 now persuade ourselves to be just of Helvellyn and Pendle. 
 The rocks of Tunbridge seemed to Watts so wild and fear- 
 fiU that they furnish him with a sul)ject for a sermon, " On 
 the vain Eefuge of Sinners," from the text reciting the con- 
 dition of those who said to the mountains and rocks, " Fall 
 on us, and hide us from the face of Him that sitteth upon 
 tlie throne." The sermon is expressly called "A Meditation 
 upon the Eocks near Tunbridge Wells," and he says : 
 
 '■ When I see such awful appearances in nature, huge 
 and lofty rocks hanging over my head, and at every step of 
 my approach they seem to nod upon me with overwhelm- 
 ing ruin; when my curiosity searches far into hollow clefts, 
 their dark and deep caverns of solitude and desolation, 
 methinks, whilst I stand amongst them, I can hardly think 
 myself in safety, and, at best, they give a sort of solemn 
 and dreadful delight. Let me improve the scene to religious 
 purposes, and raise a Divine meditation. Am I one of 
 those wretches who sliall call to these huge impending 
 rocks to fall ui)on me ? " 
 
 When Watts first visited Tunl)ridge Wells in search 
 of health and refreshment, it must have been to our 
 modern sense an uncomfortable place ; even at the close of 
 his life and in his later visits, it was only just rising into 
 importance as the retreat of the coteries of fashion and 
 letters ; it is almost the only spot left now which we may 
 be sure, from some points of view, looks much as it did in 
 the day when Watts, Richardson, or J ohnson walked along 
 the Pantiles, and inhaled the breezes from the neighbour- 
 ing rocks and grounds. Such as it was at the close of tlie 
 seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries, we find described 
 in the pages of Macaulay and some of the novelists and 
 
2o2 
 
 The Man. 
 
 ])oets. The waters possessed some real, and acqxiired an arti- 
 ticial, fame ; tliere was no town, only a few neat and rustic 
 cottages, some of these moveable ; moveable cabins and 
 huts were di^iwn on sledges from one part of the common 
 to another. Fashionable London tradespeople went down 
 and spread out their liazaars under the trees, and near tlie 
 spring ; a fair was daily Iield, in which were booths where 
 tlie man of letters and the politician might find his cup of 
 coffee, his newsjjaper, and liis friend ; and others, in which 
 the gambler might find his vice and his victim. On the 
 whole, it was a merry place for sated and wearied fashion- 
 able loungers, where they might believe that they were 
 becoming rural, and charm themselves into the persuasion 
 that they were the spectators of a poetry of nature, which 
 they would have been indisposed to experience too long 
 or too deeply ; but a place where we cannot suppose 
 that Watts found himself for any length of time at 
 home. He was, however, frequently there, and upon 
 one occasion he was guilty oi' one of the few of what 
 maj' be called the vanities of verse which fell from his 
 pen. The atmosphere of watering-places is favoura])le to 
 every kind of literary as well as other lounging. Watts 
 was not altogether insensible, we should suppose, to the 
 charms of female beauty, and certainly a man may well be 
 moved to express himself in verse concerning it, when 
 feeble verses have been erroneously attril)uted to him. 
 It was in the summer of 1712, when at Tunbridge Wells, 
 that he wrote the following lines in honour of Lady 
 Sunderland, one of the daughters of the Duke of Marl- 
 borough ; her husband had just been dismissed from the 
 councils of the queen, and she had just withdrawn from 
 the court. We may suppose the little clusters of various 
 loungers and talkers would be surprised to see them in 
 
Tlic Lines to Lady Sunderland. 
 
 some one of tlie little local flyiug " Mercury's " of the day 
 where these verses appeared and were attributed to Watts ; 
 he appears to have felt it was an occasion for some apology 
 for stepping into such a by-way ; he does so in the follow- 
 ing note, upon which fancy may a little divert itself as to 
 the life he and others led at Tunbridge Wells : 
 
 TO AMYXTAS. 
 
 " Perhaps you were not a little surprised, my friend, when 
 you saw some stanzas on the Lady Sunderland at Tun- 
 bridge Wells, and were told that I wrote them ; but when 
 I give you a full account of the occasion your wonder will 
 cease. The Duke of Marlborough's three daughters, namely, 
 the Lady Godolphin, the Lady Sunderland, and the Lady 
 Bridgewater, had been at the Wells some time when I 
 came there ; nor had I the honour of any more acquaint- 
 ance with any of them than what was common to all the 
 company in the Wells, that is, to be told who they were 
 when they passed by. A few days afterwards they left 
 that place, and the next morning there was found a cojiy 
 of verses in the coffee-house, called the ' Three Shining 
 Sisters;' but, the author being unknown, some persons 
 were ready to attribute them to me, knowing that I had 
 heretofore dealt in rhyme. I confess I was ashamed of 
 several lines in that copy. Some were very dull, and 
 others, as I remember, bordered upon profaneness. 
 
 "That afternoon I rode abroad as usual for my healtli, 
 and it came into my head to let niy friends see that, if I 
 would choose such a theme, I would write in another 
 manner than that nameless author had done. Accordingly, 
 as I was on horseback, I began a stanza on the ' Three 
 
254 
 
 The Man. 
 
 Shilling Sisters,' but my ideas, iny rhyme, aud the metre 
 would not hit well while the words ran in the plural 
 number ; and this sliglit occurrence was the real occasion 
 of turning my thoughts to the singular ; and then, because 
 the Lady Sunderland was counted much the finest woman 
 of the three, I addressed tlie verses to her name. After- 
 wards when I came to the coffee-house, I entertained some 
 of my friends with these lines, and tliey, imagining it 
 would be no disagreeable thing to the company, persuaded 
 me to permit them to pass through the press." 
 
 But here are the verses — 
 
 Ode to Lady Sunderland, 1712. 
 
 Fair nymph, ascend to Beauty's throne, 
 And rule that radiant •world alone ; 
 Let favourites take thy lower sphere, 
 No monarchs are thy rivals here. 
 
 The court of Beauty built sublime. 
 Defies all pow'rs but heaven and time ; 
 Envy, that clouds the hero's sky. 
 Aims but in vain her shafts so high. 
 
 Not Blenheim's field, nor Ister's flood, 
 Nor standards dyed in Gallic blood, 
 Tom from the foe, add nobler grace 
 To Churchill's house than Spenser's face. 
 
 The warlike thunder of his arms 
 Is less commanding than her charms ; 
 His lightning strikes with less surprise 
 Than sudden glances from her eyes. 
 
 His captives feel theh- limbs confuied 
 In iron ; she enslaves the mind : 
 We follow with a pleasing pain. 
 And bless the conqueror and the chain. 
 
 The Muse tliat dares in numbers do 
 What paint and pencil never knew, 
 Faints at her presence in despair, 
 Aud owns th' inimitable fair. 
 
At Tunhridge WeJIs. 
 
 255 
 
 Presently appeared the following epigram or ivipromiytn 
 composed by some divine, of wliicli it has been truly 
 remarked that it is difficult to say whether the author or 
 the lady has the greater compliment ! — 
 
 While numerous bards have sounded Spenser's name, 
 And made her beauties heirs to lasting- fame, 
 Her memory still to their united lays 
 Stands less indebted than to "Watts' s praise. 
 What wondrous charms must to that fair be given, 
 Wbo moved a mind that d^velt so near to heaven ! 
 
 Tunbridge Weils is still the pleasant resort of those who 
 seek the mild and quiet attractions of charming scenery, 
 refreshing breezes, and crags and downs ; but the romantic 
 season of Tunbridge Wells is to be sought for about the 
 period when Watts and his contemporaries were visitors 
 there, scenes open to the fancy which it would be difficult 
 to realize now amidst its splendid palatial residences ; even 
 Xature must look less like Nature than it did then, while 
 the superior auxiliaries of comfort and accommodation 
 have, as in almost all such instances, been purchased at tlie * 
 expense of dissipating the charms and rural beauties of a 
 place which still retains so many of them as to make one 
 of the most attractive and satisfying haunts for a sick 
 heart among tlie sanatories of England. 
 
 The life of Dr. Watts must be illustrated rather from his 
 works than from its incidents. It is remarkable that so 
 little is recorded of him ; his powers of conversation seem 
 to have been considerable, and hi.s reputation for wit was 
 what we might naturally suppose from the liveliness of 
 many of his prose writings. But he was certainly unfor- 
 tunate in his first biographer. Dr. Gibbons was an accom- 
 plished man, a correct and fine scholar, but surely the last 
 thing for which he was ever intended, either by nature or 
 
256 
 
 The Man. 
 
 by grace, was to write a biography. His contains many 
 noticeable and acute remarks, and some passages which 
 almost dilate into beauty ; but it is strange that, constant 
 as was his intercourse with his friend, he has preservetl 
 scarcely anything either of anecdote, conversation, or de- 
 scription illustrating their intercourse ; and it seems certain 
 that Watts' life would have well repaid the assiduity of a 
 Buswell. His mind Avas remarkably full, and Gibbons 
 testifies how, on any and every occasion, he was able to 
 express himself at once with great force, propriety, and 
 elegance. But his biographer only tells us how his life, 
 from the time of his earliest studies, afforded little variety, 
 and consef|uently has few subjects for narration— it "flowed 
 along in an even, uniform tenor ; one year, one month, one 
 week, one day being, in a manner, a repetition of the 
 former." Like some other eminent men, it somewhat 
 appears as if he finished the furnishing of his mind when 
 in his youngest years, and devoted all the after period of his 
 life to the unfolding, amplifying, expounding, and popular- 
 izing the stores he had amassed and acquired. Dr. Gibbons 
 refers to the fact that his " Treatise on Astronomy and 
 Geography " was most prol)ably prepared for the tuition of 
 Mr. — afterwards Sir John — Hartopp ; when published in 
 1725, in the dedication to Mr. Eames, he says that: "The 
 papers had lain by him in silence above twenty years ; " and 
 as to his " Logic," we have already referred to it ; and the 
 dedication in which he tells his former pupil that " it was 
 fit that the public should receive, through his hands, what 
 was originally written for the assistance of his younger 
 studies, and was thus presented to him." And thus we are 
 assured that the work which met with so large a reception 
 and distinguished applause was prepared in days when he 
 was himself little more than a youth, to serve his own 
 
Watts' Well. 
 
 257 
 
 purposes of tuition. Such was the life of this interesting 
 man — it was a fountain of life and power. In the spacious 
 chapel-walk in Southampton there is a paTement-stone 
 marked with the letter W — it stands for Watts ; but, as 
 Mr. Carljle says in his interesting paper on Watts, it 
 might stand for Watts' Well ; it was once the property of 
 Isaac Watts, and the well has a long story, well authenti- 
 cated in the church records of the Above Bar congregation. 
 That well of clear, beautiful water was purchased by old 
 Isaac Watts from his friend, Eobert Thorner, the f(junder 
 of the Southamj)ton Cliarity. It was on, and constituted 
 a part of, the tenement known T)y the name of the Meeting- 
 house ; then it was leased to tlie church, then it was pur- 
 chased by the church. It was known in Southampton 
 two hundred years ago. It is now a fountain sealed, but 
 still it is known, and proudly the pastor says, " Our father 
 Isaac gave us this well, and drank thereof, himself and his 
 children."* Watts' Well is no inapt symbol or emblem 
 of Watts' life and labours. Even lost to sight, sealed over, 
 its springs still pour along their refreshing, cooling, and 
 transparent streams ; nor have the crowds who hurry 
 tlioughtlessly by power to interfere with the useful fresh- 
 ness of its pure blessings. 
 
 " The last days are the best witnesses for a man." 
 " Blessed," says old liobert Harris, " shall he be that so 
 lived that he was desired, and so died that he was missed." 
 Isaac Watts illustrated in a remarkable manner power in 
 weakness. 
 
 * So say.s Mr. Carlyle, in one of the most interesting little documents 
 in oonnofrtion with the life of Watts ever published, the little paniplikt 
 to which we have ab-eady referred. 
 
 S 
 
CHAPTEE XV. 
 
 aE died in 1748, at the age of seventy-four, in ri})e 
 years, and hoary with the honours of holinessT) We 
 are dependent upon his friend and l)iographer, Dr. Gibl)ons, 
 for almost all that we know of his last days and hours, but 
 it is very pleasant to find that the author of " The World 
 to Come " himself went down to the grave with all the 
 calmness and confidence which the words he has uttered 
 have so often imparted to others in the outlook towards 
 the better country. He says, " It is a glory to the Gospel 
 ' when we can lie down with courage in hope of its promised 
 blessings ; dying with faith and fortitude is a noble conclu- 
 . sion of a life of zeal and service." " Death in the course 
 / of nature," he says, " as well as by the hands of violence, 
 ;liath always something awfid and formidable in it; flesh 
 and blood shrink and tremble at tlie appearance of a disso- 
 lution; but death is the last enemy of all the saints, and 
 ( when a Cluistian meets it with sacred couraoe he cives 
 ' that hofiour to the Captain of liis salvation which the 
 saints in glory can never give, and which we can never 
 repeat ; it is an honour to our common faith when it over- 
 comes the terrors of death, and raises the Christian to a 
 
Varying Paths in the Dark Valleij. 
 
 259 
 
 song of triumph in the view of the hist enemy ; it is a new- 
 crown put upon the head of our Eedeemer, and a living- 
 cordial put into the hands of mourning friends in our dying 
 , hour when we can take leave of them with holy fortitude, 
 rejoicing in the salvation of Christ." 
 
 Such were his words ; such honour have not all the 
 saints ; some who have looked forward through life with 
 triumph to that hour have fainted when it came, and some 
 who feared it most have felt it least : peculiar tempera- 
 ments and special forms of pain and disease sometimes 
 make death dreadful ; and an old writer says, " We are not 
 glad to feel the snake, even when we know its sting is 
 drawn." Thomas Walsh, one of the holiest and most emi- 
 nent of the early Methodists, was very angry against John 
 Fletcher, tlie seraphic vicar of Madeley, because he heard 
 him say that some comparatively weak believers might 
 die most cheerfully, and that some strong ones, for the 
 further purification of their faith, or for inscrutable reasons, 
 might have severe conflicts. " Be it done unto you accord- 
 ing to your faith," said Walsh, " and be it done unto me 
 according to mine." But when the hour came to Walsh it 
 wasxjiouded, and those eyes which had " looked out of the 
 windows were darkened ;" only at the last moment he ex- 
 claimed, "He is come ! He is come ' My beloved is mine, 
 and I am His for ever !" And so he passed. But Fletcher 
 died in a rapture. " I know thy soul," said his wife, " but 
 if Jesus is very present with thee, lift up thy right hand." 
 Immediately it was raised. " If the prospects of glory 
 sweetly open before thee, repeat the sign." The hand was 
 raised a second time, and so his soul breathed itself away. 
 Faith survives the presence of sensible comforts. An aged 
 believer in Southampton, on her death-bed, complained of 
 the absence of sensible comforts to her pastor, the Eov. W. 
 
2G0 
 
 Death and Burial. 
 
 KingsLnry, but so strong Avas lier fiiitli that she said, " It 
 is against the whole scope of Divine revelation that my soul 
 should be lost." Old Thomas Fuller; having surveyed the 
 various modes of death, arrived at the short, decisive con- 
 clusion, " None please me." " But away," he adds, " with 
 these tlioug'hts ; tlie mark must not choose what arrow shall 
 be shot against it." The happiness of a clear, calm depar- 
 ture was given to Watts, his closing days were serene and 
 happy ; with all the imaginative glow of his mind, he had 
 naturally a calm character. He had well grounded his 
 convictions ; he had long lived like a sunbeam amidst 
 sunbeams in tlie light. Dr. CJibbons, speaking from his 
 own knowledge, says, " Although his weakness was very 
 great, he knew no decay of intelligence, and was the sub- 
 ject of no wild fancies." His biographer adds, " He saw 
 his approaching dissolution with a mind perfectly calm and 
 composed, without the least alarm or dismay, and I never 
 could discover, though I was frequently with him, the 
 least shadow of a doubt as to his future everlasting happi- 
 ness, or anything that looked like an unwillingness to die ; 
 how I have known him recite with self-application those 
 words in Hebrews, 'Ye have need of patience, that, after ye 
 have done the will of God, ye may receive the promise and 
 how often have I heard him, upon leaving tlie family after 
 supper and withdrawing to rest, declare witli the sweetest 
 composure, that if his Master was to say to him that he had 
 no more work for him to do, he should be glad to be dis- 
 missed that night. And I once heard him say, with a 
 kind of impatience, perhaps such as might in some degree 
 trespass upon that submission we ought always to pay 
 to the Divine will, ' I wonder why the great God should 
 continue me in life, when I am incapable of performing 
 Him any further service ? ' " 
 
A Popular Story DUprovcd. 
 
 261 
 
 The deatli-ljeds of great and eminent men are often 
 hung round with curious fables and inventions ; one is 
 mentioned even to our own day, although Dr. Gribbons 
 denies the whole story in the very first edition of his bio- 
 graphy. Somebody conveyed it to Mr. Toplady, who says, 
 " That little more than half-an-hour before Dr. Watts ex- 
 pired he was visited by his dear friend, Mr. Whitefield ; 
 he, asking him how he found himself, the dying doctor 
 answered, ' Here am I, one of Christ's waiting servants.' 
 Soon after a medicine was brought in, and Mr. Whitefield 
 assisted in raising him upon the bed that he might with 
 more convenience take the draught ; on the doctor's apolo- 
 gizing for the trouble he gave Mr. Whitefield, the latter 
 replied, with his usual amiable politeness, ' Surely, my dear 
 brother, I am not too good to wait up(jii a waiting servant 
 of Christ ! ' Soon after, ]\Ir. Whitefield took his leave, and 
 often regretted since tliat he had not prolonged his visit, 
 which he would certainly have done could he have foreseen 
 that his friend was but within a lialf-an-hour's distance 
 from the kingdom of glory." There is not a word of 
 truth in the whole story ; Dr. Gibbons says it is entirely 
 fictitious. " Mr. Wliitefield never visited the doctor in his 
 last illness or confinement, nor had any conversation or 
 interview with him for some months before his decease. 
 It were to be wished that greater care was practised by the 
 writers of other persons' lives, tliat illusions miglit not take 
 place and obtain the regards of truth, and lay histoiiaus 
 who come after them under tlie unpleasing necessity of 
 dissolving their figments, and therel)y, in consecjuence, 
 evincing to the world how little credit is due to these 
 relations." 
 
 /Tlis dying sayings are recorded, and tliey were all of 
 I them of a (|uiet and peacefid nature. Dr. Jennings, who 
 
262 
 
 Death and Burial. 
 
 preaclied his funeral sermon, and saw him on his death-bed, 
 mentions, that while for two or three years previous to his 
 death his active and more sprightly powers of nature had 
 failed, his trust in (Jod, througli Jesus the Mediator, re- 
 mained unshaken to the lastT^l To Lady Abney he said : " I 
 bless God I can lie down with comlort at night, not being 
 solicitous whether I awake in this world or another." 
 And again he said : " I should be glad to read more, yet not 
 in order to be confirmed more in the truth of the Cliristiaii 
 religion, or in the truth of its promises, for 1 believe them 
 enough to venture into eternity on tliem." When he was 
 almost worn out and broken down liy his infirmities he 
 i^aid, in conversation with a friend, that he remembered an 
 aged minister nsed to say, that the most learned and knowing 
 Christians, when they come to die, have only the same plain 
 promises of the Gospel, for their support as the common 
 and the unlearned. " And so," said he, " I find it ; they are 
 the plain promises of the Gospel that are my support, and 
 I bless God they are plain p)romises, which do not recjuire 
 much labour or pains to understand them, for I can do 
 nothing now but look into my Bible for some promise to 
 support me, and live upon that." Dr. CJil)bons naturally 
 regrets that he did not commit to writing the words of his 
 dying friend ; it is wonderful that he did not ; liut Watts 
 had an amanuensis who had been witli liim upwaids of 
 twenty years, and who, as Gibbons says, was " in a manner 
 ever with him ; " to him and to Miss Abney, or, as she is 
 generally called, Mistress Elizabeth Abney, the eldest 
 daughter and successor to the Abney property, we are 
 principally indebted for the record of his dying words. 
 When he found his spirit tending to impatience, he would 
 check himself, saying : "The business of a Christian is to 
 bear the will of God as well as do it. If I were in health I 
 
Dying Sayings. 
 
 263 
 
 could only be doing that, and that I may do now ; the 
 best thing in obedience is a regard to the will of God, and 
 the way to that is to get our inclinations and aversions 
 as much modified as we can." Some of his expressions 
 were such as the following : " I would be Avaiting to see 
 what God will do with me; it is good to say as Mr. Baxter, 
 what, when, and where God pleases. If God should raise 
 me up again I may finish some more of my papers, or 
 God can make use of me to save a soul, and that will be 
 worth living for. If God has no more service for me to do, 
 through grace I am ready ; it is a great mercy to me that 1 
 have no manner of fear or dread of death. I could if God 
 please lay my head back and die without terror this after- 
 noon or niglit ; my chief supports are from my view of 
 eternal things, and the interest I have in them. I trust all 
 my sins are pardoned through the blood of Christ ; I have 
 no fear of dying ; it would be my greatest comfort to lie 
 down and sleep, and wake no more." DiL-Gibbons a short 
 time before his death came into his room, and finding him 
 alone sat down for conversation with him ; he said not a 
 word of what he had been or done in life, but his soul 
 seemed swallowed up with gratitude and joy for the redemp- 
 tion of sinners by Jesus Christ. His visitor thought he 
 realized the description of the apostle, " Whom having not 
 seen ye love ; in whom, though now ye see Him not, yet 
 believing ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of 
 glory.fl 
 
 So he continued to the close, rising into no ecstasies, nor 
 sinking into any gaeat depressions, in the full possession of 
 his understanding, free from pain of body, comfortable in 
 spirit. This was during the autumn of 1748. |Tt was 
 during the mouth of November that he was confined to 
 his room, never to leave it any more. For three weeks lie 
 
2(i-i 
 
 Death and Burial. 
 
 contiiuuHl ill the state just described, tenderly attended 
 for the most part by Lady Abney or Mr. Parker. The fol- 
 lowing extracts are from Mr. Parker's letters to the brother 
 of Dr. Watts, residing at Southampton, the first datgil 
 November 24th, 1748 : " I wrote to you by the last post 
 that we apprehended my master very near his end, and 
 that we thought it not possible he should be alive when 
 the letter reached your hands ; and it will no doubt greatly 
 surprise you to hear that he still lives. We our.selves are 
 amazed at it. He passed through the last night in the main 
 ipiiet and easy, but for five hours would receive nothing 
 within his lips. I was down in his chamber early in the 
 morning, and found him quite sensible. I begged he would 
 be j)leased to take a little liquid to/moisten his mouth, and 
 he received at my hand three teaspoonsful, and has done 
 the like several times this day. Upon intpiiry he told me 
 he lay easy, and his mind was peaceful and serene. I said 
 to him this morning that he had taught us how to live, and 
 was now teaching us how to die by his patience and com- 
 posure, for he has been remarkably in this frame for several 
 days past. He replied, ' Yes.'/ I told him I hoped he ex- 
 perienced the comfort of these words, ' I will never leave 
 thee, nor forsake thee.' He answered, ' I do.' The ease 
 of body and calmness of mind which he enjoys is a great 
 mercy to him, and to us. His sick chamber has nothing 
 terrifying in it. He is an upright man, and I doubt not 
 that his end will be peace. We are ready to use the 
 words of Job, and say, 'We shall seek him in the morning, 
 but he shall not be.' But God only knows by whose 
 power he is upheld in life, and for wise purposes, no doubt. 
 He told me he liked tliat I should be with him. All other 
 business is put off, and 1 am in the house night and day. 
 1 would administer all tlie relief that is in my power. He 
 
Death. 
 
 265 
 
 is woi'thy of all that can be doue for him. I am your very 
 faithful and truly afflicted servant." - 
 
 On the next day, November 25th, in the afternoon, aged 
 seventy-four years, four months, and eiglit days, the gentle 
 spirit of the Doctor passed away, and Mr. Parker wrote 
 again to the same person : " At length the fatal news is 
 come. The spirit of the good man, my dear master, took 
 its flight from the body to worlds unseen and joys un- 
 known yesterday in the afternoon, without a struggle or a 
 groan. ]My Lady Abney and Mrs. Abney are supported 
 as well as we can reasonably expect. It is a house of 
 mourning and tears, for I have told you before now that 
 we all attended upon him and served him from a principle 
 of love and esteem. May God forgive us all, that we liave 
 improved no more b'y him, while we enjoyed lii m f^ " May 
 I be excused," says his biographer, " if I take the liberty of 
 adding that I saw the corpse of this excellent man in his 
 coffin, and observed nothing more than death in its aspect. 
 The countenance appeared quite placid, like a person fallen 
 into a gentle sleep, or such as the spirit miglit be supposed 
 to leave behind it upon its willing departure to the celestial 
 happiness. How justly might I liave said at the moment 
 I beheld his dead earth, as he does in an e])itaph upon a 
 pious young man, who was removed i'rom our \vorld after 
 a lingering and painful illness : 
 
 "So sleep the saints, and cease to groan, 
 
 When sin and death have done thoii- worst : 
 Clirist has a glory like Ilis own 
 
 Which waits to clothe theii- waking dust ! " 
 
 ^\nd tliis was the manner in which " this silver cord was 
 loosed, and tliis golden bowl broken." 
 £Tliey buried him, of course, in Bunhill Fields ; thither 
 already had been borne the bodies of many of tho.'iC who 
 
266 
 
 Dcatli and Burial. 
 
 had been liis fcUow-studeiits, and his most familiar friends ; 
 and thither were to follow him at last many of those 
 friends who were for a few brief years to survive himj It 
 was the Campo Santo of Nonconformity, the spot con- 
 secrated by the memories of the martyrs and confessors of 
 civil and religious liberty, and their tombs then were fresh. 
 Their graves and their memories were green and verdant. 
 Amidst the wilderness of indiscriminate tombs it is now 
 scarcely possible to deci})lier localities, dust has mingled 
 with dust, yet it would be scarcely possible to visit any- 
 where a spot Avhere almost every mound recalled venerable 
 remains or in the course of years became haunted by such 
 tender and animatina; memories. Bunhill Fields does not 
 possess the attractive and splendid tombs of Fere la Chaise 
 or Munich, of Greenwood or Kensall Green, but it may be 
 with perfect certainty affirmed that none of these places 
 possess such a congregation of sainted sleepers, and such 
 consecrated dust. 
 
 The history of this pensive enclosure goes back to the 
 reign of Henry ni. It had been from a period even 
 anterior to this set apart as the exercising and training 
 ground for the archers and train-bauds of the City ; indeed 
 it is probable, whether he knew it or not, that this is the 
 very spot to which Lord Lytton refers in some of the 
 earlier scenes of the " Last of the Barons," the archery- 
 ground of Finsbury ; a romantic and lovely spot, a very 
 easy walk from the quaint gabled houses of the old City 
 four hundred years since. It was a spot surrounded by 
 gardens and orchards in the Manor of Finsbury or Fens- 
 T)ury, and on the borders of that extensive suburban tract, 
 the Moor Fields ; but when the Great Plague decimated 
 London, the Corporation set ajjart this field as a burial- 
 place for the poor. It was a gentle acclivity, a rising spot 
 
BanJiill Fidch. 
 
 2G7 
 
 of ground, which affection had called the i>yHhill, at a 
 time when the language of the country was very largely 
 held in possession by Norman influences and French 
 terms, as in innumerable instances mingled with Saxon. 
 Thus : 
 
 In death divided from their dearest kiii, 
 This -w as a field to buiy strangers in ; 
 Fragments from families nntinicly reft, 
 Like spoils in flight, or limbs in battle left, 
 Lay there * 
 
 The subsequent history of the place, justifies another 
 characterization from the same poet : 
 
 For they were there to this Siberia sent, 
 Doomed in the grave itself to banishment. 
 
 As a huml)le cemetery for the purposes we have men- 
 tioned, it had been enclosed at the charge of the Corpora- 
 tion, but for this purpose it was not long needed ; and 
 when the ravages of persecution succeeded to those of 
 disease, one Tyndall purchased it, principally for the inter- 
 ment of Dissenters, and it Ijecanie known as Tyndall's 
 Burying Ground. The first interment in this second 
 epoch of its funereal history dates from the first distinctly 
 legible stone in the year 1668. Twenty yeais after this, 
 it received the beloved and revered remains of John 
 Buuyan ; in the interim, many of those who had been 
 among the foremost religious actors, preacliers, and writers 
 of the time came hither — Thomas Goodwin, Tliomas 
 Manton, Joseph Caryl, Tlieophilus Gale, John Owen, 
 William Jenkyn, Henry Jes.sey, William Kiffin, Hanserd 
 Knollys, and many others. In this spot almost every 
 order of religious outlawed opinion finds some representa- 
 
 * Montgomeiy on the Cholera Mount of Slicftield. 
 
2G8 
 
 Dc((fh and Buridl. 
 
 tive : liere reposes Uie active body of Daniel Del'oe, and iii 
 Buuliill Fields, but in a spot set ai)ai't to those of his 
 opinion, rests the founder of the Soeiety of Friends, George 
 Fox ; and here that revered and holy woman, from whose 
 household in the Ilectory of Epworth went forth the in- 
 spiration, as from her own life went forth the lives of the 
 prophet and poet of Methodism, Mrs. Susannah Wesley ; 
 here rest two well-beloved sweet singers, whose names are 
 found in all our hymn-books, Josepli Swain and Joseph 
 Hart. As the years passed along every one brought some 
 additional revenue to the wealth of the spot. Hither 
 came Dr. (iibbons, Watts' biographer, and, by-and-by, 
 John Gill, the author of the huge commentary, if wild iu 
 fancy, still learned in all Eabbinical and Hebrew lore, 
 and John Macgowan, the author of the " Dialogues of 
 Devils ; " here rests Dr. Williams, the founder of the well- 
 known library, and donor of the scholarships connected 
 with it, and by this name we are reminded of the great 
 Ariaus who sleep very quietly here. Here lie Theophilus 
 Lindsay, Abraham Eees, Eichard Price, Nathaniel Lardner, 
 and Thomas Lelsham, all men of huge scholarship, what- 
 ever our estimate of their doctrines ; here lies, of another 
 order, the learned John Fames, the friend and fellow- 
 student of Dr. Watts, the friend and correspondent of Sir 
 Isaac Newton, and of whom Watts said that he was the most 
 learned man he ever knew ; Thomas Bradbury, Watts' 
 abusive and disingenuous traducer and adversary, found 
 the t|uiet he never permitted himself to find when living, 
 either intiam^uil or troublesome times; and hither, within 
 the memory of those living, came JMatthew Wilks, quaint 
 and witty old preacher of the London Tabernacles, and his 
 fiery-hearted and earnest co-pastor, John Hyatt, and James 
 Upton, John iiippon, and the beloved and beautiful 
 
The Konronformists Machpclah. 
 
 269 
 
 Alexander "VVaugli and George Burder. The names "\ve 
 have mentioned are great, but a very small instalment from 
 the list of those famous in holiness and scholarship and 
 sanctified genius, to whom Bunhill Fields was the Mach- 
 pelah of their lives. Indeed, until the opening of the 
 Abney Park Cemetery, a place which derived its name 
 and interest from its association with, and memories of. 
 Dr. Watts, Bunhill Fields was the receptacle of every Xon- 
 conformist notability in the neighltourliood of London. It 
 was as natural that those who had attained an eminence 
 in its confession sliould receive sepulture there, as that the 
 great statesman or poet should repose within tlie hallowed 
 naves of Westmin.ster. The significance of the sjiot, and 
 the fact that it received amongst its other treasures all 
 that was mortal of the subject of this memoir, seem to 
 ju.stify this lengthy loitering amongst its tombs. 
 
 Watts, by his will, directed that his remains should Hud 
 their last resting-home in this place, amongst the fathers 
 and brethren, many of whom he had so well known ; he 
 also desired that it should be conducted as quietly as 
 possible, ])ut wi.shed that his body sliould be attended to 
 the grave by two Independent, two Presbyterian, and two 
 Baptist miinsters ; but an immense concourse of persons 
 gathered, as was to be expected. Dr. Chandler gave the 
 address at the grave, and Dr. David Jennings preached to his 
 people the funeral sermon. Itiiturning from the funeral, Dr. 
 Benjamin Grosvenor was met by a friend, who said, "Well, 
 Doctor, you have seen the end of Dr. Watts, and must soon 
 follow him ; what think you of death ? " " Think of it ! " 
 replied he, " why, when death comes I shall smile on liim 
 if God smile on me." Other funeral sermons were 
 preached, and they are in our possession, especially one by 
 Dr. John Milner, of which Doddridge thought very highly, 
 
270 
 
 Death and Burial. 
 
 aud in whose house Oliver Gohlsmith, a poor, simple young 
 man, his mind and heart full of worlds of shrewdness and 
 tenderness, for a long time lived as an usher. To prevent 
 ;iny laboured and too flattering an epitaph, which in those 
 days, indeed, there was plenty of cause to dread, from the 
 hands of partial friends, wlio certainly had none of the 
 graces of concision, "Watts wrote his own modest memo- 
 rial, and it was placed over his grave. It reads as follows : 
 
 " Isaac Watts, D.I)., jiastor of a church of Christ in 
 London, successor to the Rev. Mr. Joseph Caryl, Dr. John 
 Owen, Mr. David Clarkson, and Dr. Isaac Chauncey, after 
 fifty years of feeble labours in the Gospel, interrupted by 
 four years of tiresome sickness, was at last dismissed to his 
 rest — 
 
 In uno Jesu omnia. 
 
 2 Cor. v. 8 : ' Absent from tlie body, aud present with the 
 Lord.' Col. iii. 4: 'When Christ, who is my life, shall 
 appear, then shall I also appear with Him in glory.' " 
 
 "This monument, on which the above modest inscription 
 is placed, by order of tlie deceased, was erected, as a small 
 testimony of regard to his memory, by Sir John Harto])p, 
 Bart., and Dame Mary Abney." 
 
 But, shortly after his death, a monument was erected to 
 his memory in "Westminster Abbey. Another monument 
 erected in his chapel met with a singular fate : some years 
 since the chapel was pulled down, and all its properties 
 sold off. John Astley Marsden, Esq., of Liscard Castle, in 
 Cheshire, passing through one of the London streets, saw 
 a marble tablet inscribed with the name of Dr. Watts ; 
 inquiring about its meaning, he found it was the very 
 tablet which had been set up behiml his pulpit ; he pur- 
 chased it as an interesting relic of a man for whom he had 
 
From the Bust in Dr. Williatns' Library. 
 
Monuments to His Memory. 
 
 271 
 
 a great reverence, he took it home to his residence in 
 Cheshire, and upon his own ground he reared a church at 
 his own expense, and there placed the old cast-aside 
 monument, handing the church over in trust to the Con- 
 gregational body. The inscription is that humble memorial 
 which Watts himself had prepared, and to which we have 
 referred. In addition, however, to these, a monument has 
 l)een raised to his memory in Abney Park Cemetery, a 
 cemetery which has succeeded to the reputation of Bunhill 
 Fields as the resting-place of metropolitan Nonconformists, 
 and is spread out upon the gTounds where stood the house 
 and park, the history of which, aud its relation to the 
 memory of Watts, we have given in an earlier part of this 
 volume. 
 
 In 1861, principally through the active exertions of 
 Mr. William Lankester, a monument was erected to his 
 memory in his native town of Southampton. The statue, 
 about eight feet high, which is three feet larger than life, 
 is of white marble, and stands upon a pedestal of polished 
 grey Aberdeen granite ; and the site selected has received 
 since tlien the designation " Watts' Park." The move- 
 ment for the erection of the monument received the co- 
 operation of Churchmen as well as Nonconformists, and 
 the president of the committee was Dr. Wigram, the Bishop 
 of Rochester. The statue was uncovered by the Earl of 
 .Shaftesbury, July 17th, 1861, and the day was kept with 
 great festivity in the town;* it took the shape of a great 
 local celebration in honour of a man who had conferred 
 
 * "Memorials, Iliatorical, Descriptive, Poetical and Pictorial, Com- 
 memorative of the Inaujfuration of the Statue to Dr. Isaac Watts, in the 
 Western Park, Southampton, by the Earl of Shaftesbury, July 17th, 
 1861." See also "The Proceedings connected with the Inauguration of 
 the Memorial Statue to Dr. Isaac Watts, at Southampton, July 17th, 
 IHGl." 
 
272 
 
 Drnih and Jlin^ial. 
 
 lionour on the town liy liis life and writings. It ia not 
 nninteresting to think of the change of public sentiment 
 since the day when the infant Isaac, in the arms of his 
 mother, was held up to the eyes of his father in the gaol 
 of the very town where, to the honoured memory of that 
 infant, there was offered up so large an ovation of respect, 
 in which not only the Mayor and Corporation, but 
 members, ministers, and prelates of that very Church 
 which had persecuted the father for his opinions, united. 
 It is a testimony to the change which has passed over 
 ecclesiastical opinion since that day. 
 
 Thus, some portion of the prophecy of Dr. Jennings in 
 his funeral sermon, from the text, " He being dead yet 
 speaketh," was fulfilled. " If I am not greatly deceived, 
 the same thing will be said of him in far distant ages that 
 is said of Abel in our text ; while he is now celebrating 
 the honours of God and of the Lamb in the new songs of 
 heaven, how many thousands of pious worshippers are this 
 day lifting up their hearts to God in the sacred songs that 
 he taught them upon earth ! Though his voice is not any 
 lunger heard ])y us, yet his words, like those of the day and 
 night, are gone out to the end of the world. America and 
 Europe still hear him speak, and it is highly probable they 
 may continue to do so till Europe and America shall be 
 no more." 
 
CHAPTER XYI. 
 
 Sirmmitrn nntt Estimate of J rose Mritrngs. 
 
 IN attempting any estimate of the prose writings of 
 Watts we give the first place to his educational works. 
 And witliout descending to adulation it may be fairly 
 * j questioned whether any one individual in English literature 
 has effected so much and such various work for the cause 
 of education as Isaac Watts. As we have seen, he gave a 
 system of logic to the universities, a very simple system, 
 but it broke up the old trammels and chains of mere verbal 
 logic, and taught students to look after, and how to look at 
 tilings. Johnson says : " Of his ])liilosophical pieces his 
 'Logic' has been received into tlie universities, and therefore 
 wants no ])rivate recommendation. If lie owes part of it to 
 Le Clerc, it must be considered that no man who under- 
 takes merely to methodize or illustrate a system pretends 
 i to be its author. Few Ijooks," continues Johnson, " have 
 1 been perused by me with greater pleasure than his ' Im- 
 I provement of the Mind,' of which the radical principles may 
 indeed be found in Locke's ' Conduct of the Understanding,' 
 but they are so expanded and magnified by Watts as to 
 confer upon him the merit of a work in i]n- liighest degree 
 useful and pleasing. Wlioever has the care of instructing 
 others may be charged with deficiency in his duty if tliis 
 
 T 
 
274 Summary and Estimate of Prose Writings. 
 
 book is not recommended." And in another paragraph of 
 his memoir Jolmson says: " For children he condescended 
 to lay aside the scholar, the philosopher, and the wit, to 
 write little poems of devotion and systems of instruction 
 adapted to their wants and capacities from the dawn of 
 reason through its gradations of advance in the morning of 
 life. Every man acqiiainted with the common principles of 
 human action will look with veneration on the writer who 
 is at one time combating Locke, and in another making a 
 catechism for children in their fourth year ; a voluntary 
 descent from the dignity of science is perhaps the hardest 
 lesson that humility can teach." 
 
 There is, indeed, scarcely a department of knowledge, 
 however simple, to which he did not descend ; there is 
 scarcely a region of thought, however subtle, through which 
 he did not familiarly move. We have a volume on the 
 " Art of Beading, Writing, and Pronouncing English," this 
 is for the very youngest students ; and for the same age 
 we have his First and Second Catechisms, and his " Divine 
 and Moral Songs ; " we have his work on " Astronomy, 
 Geography, and the Use of the Globes," and the " Com- 
 pendium of the Assembly's Catechism, with Proofs," and his 
 most charming and rememberable " Catechism of Scripture 
 History," a large and yet most compendious volume : and 
 thus we reach the period of life when he prepares the mind 
 for its graver studies and more serious exploits. 
 
 The " Logic " is easy and delightful reading, and yet sets 
 in order, disciplines, marshals, and reviews mental materials 
 so admirably that it may l)e read with great profit as well 
 as pleasure. When Lord Barrington told Watts that he had a 
 purpose to read it through once every year, he said no ex- 
 travagant thing. It brings the mind back to its simplicity ; 
 it is not, and does not profess to be, a science of mind oi" 
 
Watts Logic. 
 
 275 
 
 analysis of method, or the laws of thought, but it is a 
 treatise on logic, understanding by that term not so much 
 the pushing inquiry into unexplored domains and fields, 
 as the setting forth the grammar of thought, the prin- 
 ciples of numeration, by which a knowledge of the contents 
 of the mind may be obtained, which is surely the true idea 
 of logic. The affluence of illustrations and references is 
 veiy great, these occur easily and rapidly, they are gathered 
 up as a reaper gathers up a sheaf In its method it 
 reminds us somewhat of Bacon's "Xovum Organum," for in 
 every chapter, and every discrimination, illusti'ation, and 
 distinction, occur instances unfolding the intention of tlie 
 author, and we venture to think that no logic has appeared 
 since so well calculated to make a clear and honest mind. 
 The characteristics of the "Logic" of Watts are very admir- 
 ably summed up l)y Tissot, of Dijon, in his preface to a, 
 translation pulilished in Paris, 1848: " II y a aussi plus 
 de m^thode et de clart^ peut-etre dans la logique de Watts 
 que dans celle d'Arnaud. Le bon sens Anglais, le sens des 
 affaires, celui de la vie pratique, s'y rdvele a un tres haut 
 degr^, tandis que le sens speculatif d'un thdologien pas- 
 sablement scolastique encore est plus sensible dans I' Art de 
 Penser. Dr. Watts a su etre complet; sans etre excessif, il a 
 touch^ tres convenaljleincnt tout ce (jui devait I'etre, et 
 s'est toujours arreted au point precis ou plus de profondeur 
 nuit la clart^."* 
 
 As the "Logic" is a methodical and orderly arrangement 
 
 * " There i.s also perhaps more method and cleame.ss in the logic of 
 Watts than in tliat of Ai-nauld. Tlio good Engli.sh sen.so — the business 
 faculty — that of practical life, repeats itself here in the highest degree , 
 whilst the .speculative mind of a tolerably scholarly theolf)gia7i is yet 
 more full in the art of tlnnkinij. Now Watts is complete without being 
 extravagant ; ho has touched very adequately all that is necessary, and 
 he always stops at the very pi-ecise iwint where depth might have 
 injured transparency." 
 
27ri Siimnicr'i/ and Estimalc of P)vsc Writing?:. 
 
 of tliose principles which give conduct to the vuiderstaiuliiao;, 
 as we have called it a grammar rather than an etymology 
 of the laws of thought, a setting forth of their necessary 
 conditions of thinking, rather than an inquiry into their 
 first principles, so his " Improvement of the Mind " is an 
 ^ idvance in the education of the character. The "Logic" is 
 . I code of principles, the " Improvement of the Mind " the 
 illustration of those principles in their practice and action. 
 ^0 book can be better fitted to strengthen and direct the 
 mind in the first years of mind-life. Is it ever read now ? 
 Is there an edition of it in circulation now? Are there many 
 youths who would have patience to read it now ? And 
 yet no work has taken its place. It also, like the " Logic," 
 is fertile in illustrations of all that the author desires to 
 convey ; every means by which the mind can be enlarged 
 or strengthened is dwelt upon ; here there seems to be no 
 unnecessary diifuseness, but a compact presentation. The 
 style is apothegmatical, and rather colloquial than rhetorical, 
 and it lea-\^es upon the mind of the reader the impression 
 of a large world of wealth in the mind of the author of 
 which its pages are the mere fragments and indications. 
 There is a wisdom which rules men's lives and acts in their 
 minds unconsciously, and ages and times vary in the 
 method ])ursued for the attainment of knowledge. Per- 
 haps, in the times in which we live the jnetliod is very 
 much out of sight, and men become wise in .spite of them- 
 selves, the faculties of character are sharpened and made 
 intense by friction. It may also be said that charactcT- 
 is not so much the result of certain rules laid down for 
 practice, as the inevitable pressure of certain conditions 
 from which it cannot well escape ; life educates men mon* 
 than books, and the sharp collision of society and its rougli 
 iisao'es more than rules derived from writers. All this is 
 
The Tmproverncnt of the Mind. 
 
 277 
 
 true ; but still some men continue to preach, and others 
 continue to hear, it is to be supposed under the impression 
 tliat the preaching and the hearing are not altogether in 
 vain ; and it is a very desirable thing frequently to draw 
 out into the light certain principles, to give to minds, so 
 to speak, a pictorial resemblance of the idea. 
 
 It is so in the " Improvement of the ]\Iind," the very 
 subjects are suggestive: general rules to obtain knowledge, 
 — the five methods of improvement compared — rules 
 relating to observation — books and reading — judgment of 
 books — living instruction by teachers — learning a language 
 — -of knowing the sense of writers and speakers — conver- 
 sation — of disputes in general — the Socratical way of 
 disputation — forensic disputes — academic or scholastic 
 disputes — study or meditation — of fixing the attention — 
 of enlarging the capacity of the mind — of improving the 
 memory — of detennining questions — of inquiring into 
 causes and effects — of the sciences and their use. Then 
 follows the second part, which was posthumous ; liitherto 
 the mind has been supposed to be attaining, now it is itself, 
 communicating, and here are discussions on methods of 
 teaching and reading lectures — of an instructive style — ftf 
 convincing of truth or delivering from en'or — of the use 
 and abuse of authority — of managing the prejudices f)f 
 men — of instruction by preaching — of writing books for 
 tlie public, etc. etc. And beneath all tliese sul)jccts is 
 spread out a mass of wise and useful observations, the 
 result, the reader thinks, of a life of earnest and careful 
 study. A wise and candid judgment pervades every page. 
 A confidence in the writer as in one who is not writing 
 merely, but who is giving to the reader a portion of himself, 
 gTows in tlie mind. Watts was himself an exceedingly 
 careful student. AVe have seen how his practice was to 
 
278 Saminar// and Edimate of Prose Writings. 
 
 f.oiuleuse or to amplify the volumes or the pages he him- 
 self read. He recommended tliis plan to be followed 
 with tlie nobler pieces of composition, and such us it seemed 
 desirable to make the heirlooms of the mind. 
 
 We have now lying before us the "Ecclesiastics" of John 
 Wilkins, the Bishop of Chester. The volume bears eveiy 
 internal evidence of being the property of Dr. Watts: it is 
 interleaved, and in addition to the varied and singular 
 learning of the book itself, in tlie handwriting of the 
 Doctor there is a perfect storehouse of references, exliibiting 
 tlie amazing world of knowledge over which his mind 
 traA elletl ; and not merely references, but frequently some 
 condensed expression of sentiment and opinion. We ought 
 to refer to this very valuable little manuscript volume 
 again. It often seems surprising that volumes such as 
 these have fallen into such neglect; but they only share the 
 fate of multitudes of others in various departments equally 
 worthy. The number of those who gaze upon the true 
 regalia of literature is very small ; our times delight in 
 startling contrasts, antitheses and paradoxes, and illustra- 
 tions frequently rather remarkable for their brilliancy than 
 lor their solid and abiding persuasiveness. The literature 
 of every time has its vices and its virtues ; wi-iters even 
 exercising a far stronger fascination and spell over their 
 day than Watts are very seldom referred to now, they are 
 names and little more. They are like extinct creations of 
 other times, a kind of dodo, a being very near to our own 
 day, but yet only known by a specimen preserved in a 
 museum. Thus proliably the two works to which we have 
 referred will have few more readers. Yet safer and wiser 
 charts for travelling the seas of knowledge were never pre- 
 pared, and while they breathe a fine mental independence, 
 a freshness wafted from undiscovered realms, they are 
 
His Essays. 
 
 279 
 
 eminently free from all that rashness and audacity of specu- 
 lation which some have chosen to regard as a pursuit of 
 knowledge, or as adding to the spoils of the understanding. 
 He kept his students within the bounds of the knowable 
 and provable, and if he trampled upon the ridiculous logic 
 which had for years held the mind of Europe in chains, by 
 the fetters of words which had no kind of sense either in 
 the heavens or the earth, and resolutely determining that 
 words could only l)e valuable when they were the real 
 signs of things, and tilings of which something could be 
 known ; on the other hand, he gave no encouragement to 
 licentiousness of thought, which is as dangerous to the 
 well-being of tlie intelligence as the servility of opinion. So 
 that, on the whole, whatever advances and attainments we 
 have made since, we may believe that for the discipline 
 and tutelage of the young, a better finger-post could scarcely 
 be set up upon the highways of knowledge than AVatts' 
 "Logic;" a better and more living guide a young man can 
 scarcely have through the cities of instruction than his 
 " Improvement of the Mind." 
 
 . Among the pieces of our autlior wliich are least known 
 iare the essays variously published under the title of "Ee- 
 liquite Juveniles ; Miscellaneous Thoughts in Prose and 
 Verse, on Natural, Moral, and Divine Subjects, written 
 chiefly in younger years." These were published in 1734, 
 and dedicated to the Countess of Hertford. A similar 
 volume is the " Kemnants of Time Employed in Prose and 
 Verse ; or, Short Essays and Composures on Various Sub- 
 jects." All of these are very pleasing essays, in which the 
 writer gives a more than ordinary rein to his fancy : the 
 pieces are in prose and verse, and they display a consider- 
 able amount of humour; the subjects are very various, 
 \ and display the purely literary excursions of the author's 
 
280 Suiniiiary and Estimate of Prose Writings. 
 
 iiiiud. The reiider will be so I'ar interested as to enjoy 
 some few selections. To dwell at length upon the cha- 
 I'acteristics of the essays, or to indulge in any lengthy 
 citation, would be like writing a dissertation upon John- 
 son's " llambler," or Addison's "Spectator;" indeed, there 
 is very much of the Christian Eambler and the Christian 
 Spectator in these papers : brief essays on manners, on 
 certain vices or defects of character, conveyed after the 
 usage of the time beneath names sheltered under a Greek 
 or Latin etymology ; sometimes a graceful meditation 
 upon a text of Scripture, and sometimes a poem. We 
 have ourselves found these essays always fresh and in- 
 teresting, possessing much of the spirit and vivacity and 
 })]iilosophical meditativeness of Cowley, with a perpetual 
 suffusion of Christian sentiment and docti-ine, and the 
 whole exhibiting the vigilance of the author's eye, and the 
 active iisefulness of his mind. 
 
 THE SKELETON. 
 
 " Young Tramarinus was just returned from his travels 
 abroad, when he invited his imcle to his lodgings on a 
 Saturday noon. His uncle was a substantial trader in the 
 City, a man of sincere goodness, and of no contemptible 
 understanding; Crato was his name. Tlie nephew first 
 entertained him with learned talk of his travels. The 
 conversation happening to fall upon anatomy, and speak- 
 ing of the hand, he mentioned the carpus and the meta- 
 carpus, the joining of the bones by many hard names, and 
 the periosteum which covered them, together with other 
 (Jreek words, which Crato had never heard of Then he 
 showed him a few curiosities he had collected ; but 
 
TJu SJ.-eleton. 
 
 281 
 
 anatomy being the subject of their chief discourse, he 
 dwelt much upon tlie skeletons of a hare and a partridge. 
 ' Observe, sir,' said he, ' how firm the joints ! how nicely 
 tlie parts are fitted to each other ! how proper this limb for 
 fiight, and that for running ; and how wonderful the whole 
 composition !' Crato took due notice of the most con- 
 siderable parts of those animals, and observed the cliief 
 reiriarks his nepliew made ; but bemg detained there two 
 hours without a dinner, assuming a pleasant air, he said, 
 ' I wish these rarities had flesh upon them, for I begin to 
 be hungry, nephew, and you entertain me with nothing 
 but l)ones.' Then he carried home his nephew to dinner 
 with him, and dismissed the jest. 
 
 " The next moi'ning his kinsman Trumariiius desired hiiu 
 to hear a sermon at such a church, ' For 1 am informed,' 
 said he, 'the preacher will be my old schoolmaster.' It 
 was Agrotes, a country minister, who was to iulfil the sen- 
 vice of the day ; an honest, a pious, and a useful man, who 
 fed his own people weekly with Divine food, composed liis 
 sermons with a mixture of the instructive and the pathetic, 
 and delivered tliem with no improper elocution. Where 
 any difficulty appeared in the text or the subject, he 
 usually explained it in a very natural and easy mannei-, 
 to the undostanding of all his parisliionei's. He para- 
 plirased on the most affecting parts largely, that he might 
 strike the conscience of every hearer, and had been the 
 happy means of the salvation of many ; ljut he tliought 
 tlius with liimself, ' When 1 preach at London I have 
 liearers of a wiser rank, 1 must feed them with learning 
 and substantial sense, and must have my discourse set 
 thick with distinct sentences and new matter.' He con- 
 trived, therefore, to abridge his composures, and to tlirnw 
 four of his country sermons together to make <ip one for 
 
282 Summnrij and Estimate of Prone Writlnrjs. 
 
 the City, and yet lie could not forbear to add a little Greek 
 in the beginning. He told the auditors bow the text was 
 to be explained ; he set forth the analysis of the words in 
 order, showed the hoti and the dioti — that is, that it was 
 so, and why it was so — with much learned criticism — all 
 of which he wisely left out in the country ; then he pro- 
 nounced the doctrine distinctly, and filled up the rest of 
 the hour with the mere rehearsal of the general and special 
 heads ; but he omitted all the amplification which made 
 his perfoimances in the country so clear and so intelligible, 
 so warm and affecting. Tn short, it was the mere joints 
 and carcase of a long comj)OSure, and contained above 
 forty branches in it. The hearers had no time to consider 
 or reflect on the good things which were spoken, or apply 
 them to their own consciences ; the preacher hurried their 
 attention so fast onward to new matters that they could 
 make no use of anything he said while he spoke it, nor , 
 had they a moment for reflection, in order to fix it in their 
 memories and improve by it at home. 
 
 " The young gentleman was somewhat out of counte- 
 nance when the sermon was done, for he missed all that 
 life and spirit, that pathetic amplification, which impressed 
 his conscience Avhen he was but a school-boy. However, 
 he put the best face upon it, and began to commend the 
 performance. ' Was it not,' said he, ' sir, a substantial 
 discourse ? How well connected all the reasons ! How 
 strong all the inferences, and what a variety and number 
 of them !' 'It is true,' said the uncle, 'but yet methinks 
 I want food here, and I find nothing but bones again. I 
 could not have thought, nephew, joxi would have treated 
 me two days together just alike ; yesterday at home, and 
 to-day at church, the first course was Greek, and all the 
 rest mere skeleton.' " 
 
God in Vegetation. 
 
 283 
 
 GOD IN VEGETATIOX. 
 
 " Let US first consider this as it relates to tlie vegetable 
 part of the creation. Wliat a profusion of beauty and fra- 
 grancy, of shapes and colours, of smells and tastes, is scat- 
 tered among the herbs and flowers of the ground, among 
 the shrubs, the trees, and the fruits of the field ! Colour- 
 ing in its original glory and perfection triumphs here ; red, 
 yellow, green, blue, purple, with vastly more diversities 
 than the rainbow ever knew, or the prism can represent, 
 are distril)uted among the fiowers and the blossoms. And 
 what variety of tastes, Ijotli original and compounded, of 
 sweet, bitter, sharp, with a thousand nameless flavours, are 
 found among the herbs of the garden ! What an amazing 
 difference of shapes and sizes appears among the trees of 
 the field and forest in their branches and their leaves ! and 
 what a luxurious and elegant distinction in their several 
 fruits ! How very numerous are their distinct properties 
 in their uses in human life ! And yet tliese two common 
 elements, earth and water, are the only materials out of 
 wliich they are all composed, from the beginning to tlie end 
 of nature and time. Let the gardener dress for liimself one 
 field of fresli eartli, and make it as uniform as he can ; 
 then let him plant therein all tlie varieties of the vegetable 
 world, in their roots or in their seeds, as lie shall think 
 most proper ; yet out of this common earth, under the 
 droppings of common watei- from heaven, every one of 
 these plants shall lie nourished, and grow up in their proper 
 forms ; all the infinity, diversity of shapes and sizes, 
 colours, tastes, and smells, wliicli constitute and adorn the 
 vegetable world, would the climate permit, might be pro- 
 duced out of the same clods. What rich and surprising 
 
284 SuimaKry and Estimate of Prose Writings. 
 
 wisdom itppears in that Aliuiglity Operator, who out of tlio 
 same matter shall perfume the bosom of the rose, and give 
 the garlic its offensive and nauseous powers ; who from the 
 same spot of ground shall raise the liquorice and the worm- 
 wood, and dress the cheek of the tulip in all its glowing 
 beauties ! What a surprise, to see the same field furnish 
 the pomegranate and the orange tree, with their juicy fruit, 
 and the stacks of corn with their dry and husky grains ; 
 to observe tlie oak raised from a little acorn into its stately 
 gi'owth and solid timl)er; and tliat ])illars for tlie sujiport of 
 future teni])les and palaces should spring out of tlie same 
 bed of earth tliat sent up the vine with such soft and 
 feeble limbs as are unable to support themselves ! Wliat 
 a natural kind of prodigy it is, that cliilling and Inirning 
 vegetables should arise out of the same spot ; that the fever 
 and frenzy shoiild start up from the same bed where the 
 palsy and the lethargy lie dormant in their seeds ! Is it 
 not exceeding strange that healthful and poisonous juices 
 should rise up, in their proper plants, out of the same com- 
 mon o-lebe, and that life and death should o-row and thrive 
 within an inch of each otlier ? Wliat wondrous and inimit- 
 able skill must be attributed to that Supreme Power, that 
 First Cause, who can so infinitely diversify effects, where 
 the servile second cause is so uniibi'm and always tlie same ! 
 It is not for me in this place to enter into a long detail of 
 pliilosophy, and show liow the minute fibres and tiibes of 
 the different seeds and roots of vegetables take liold of, 
 attract, and receive the little particles of earth and water 
 proper for their own growth ; how they form them at first 
 into their own shapes, sending them up aspiring above 
 ground by degrees, and mould them so as frame the stalks, 
 the branches, the leaves, and the buds of every flower, herb, 
 and tree. But I presume the world is too weary of sub- 
 
Food. 
 
 285 
 
 stantial forms, and plastic powers, and names witliout ideas, 
 to be persuaded that these mere creatures of fancy shoukl 
 ever be the operators in this wondrous work. It is much 
 more honourable to attribute all to the design and Iod.l; 
 forethought of God the Creator, who formed the first vege- 
 tables in such a manner, and appointed their little parts to 
 ferment under the wann sunbeams, according to such estal)- 
 lished laws of motion as to mould tlie atoms of earth and 
 water which were near them in their own figure, to make 
 them grow up into trunk and branches, which eveiy night 
 should harden into firmness and stability ; and, again, to 
 mould new atoms of the same element into leaves and 
 bloom, fruit and seed, which last, being dropped into tlie 
 earth, should produce new plants of the same likeness to 
 the end of the world." 
 
 FOOD. 
 
 " If the food of which one single animal partakes be 
 never so various and different, yet the same laws of motion 
 which God has ordained in the animal world, convert them 
 all to the same purposes of nourishment for that creature. 
 Behold tlie little l)ee gathering its lioney from a thousand 
 flowers, and laying up the precicnis stoi'e for its winter food. 
 Mark how the crow preys upon a carcase, anon it crops a 
 cherry from the tree; and botli are clianged into the flesli and 
 feathers of a crow. Observe the kiiie in tlie meadows feed- 
 ing on a hundred varieties of herbs and flowers, yet all 
 the different parts of their liodies are nourLshed thereby in 
 a proper manner : every flower in the field is made use of 
 to increase the flesh of the heifer, and to make beef lor 
 men ; and out of all these varieties there is a noble milky 
 juice flowing to the udder, which provides nourishment for 
 
2S6 Summary and Estimate of Prose Writings. 
 
 young children. So near akin is man, the lord of the crea- 
 tion, in respect of his body, to the brutes that are his slaves, 
 that the very same food will compose the flesh of both of 
 them, and make them grow up to their appointed stature. 
 This is evident beyond doubt in daily and everlasting 
 experiments. The same bread-corn which we eat at our 
 tables will give rich support to sparrows and pigeons, to 
 the turkey and the duck, and all the fowls of the yard : 
 the mouse steals it and feeds on it in its dark retirement ; 
 while the hog in the sty, and the horse in the manger, 
 woidd be glad to partake. When the poor cottager has 
 nursed iip a couple of geese, the fox seizes one of them for 
 the support of her cubs, and perhaps the table of the land- 
 lord is furnished with the other to regale his friends. Nor 
 is it an uncommon thing to see the favourite lap-dog fed 
 out of the same bowl of milk which is prepared for the 
 heir of a wealthy family, but which nature had originally 
 designed to nourish a calf. The same milky material will 
 make calves, lap-dogs, and human bodies." 
 
 CHRIST AS A SUN. 
 
 " I cannot deny myself, in this place, the pleasure of pub- 
 lishing to the world a very beautiful resemblance, the first 
 hints and notices whereof I received formerly in conver- 
 sation from my reverend and worthy friend Mr. Robert 
 Bragge, whereby the person of Christ as God-man in His 
 exalted state may be happily represented. The sun in the 
 heavens is the most glorious of all visible beings : his 
 sovereign influence has a most astonishing extent through 
 all the planetary globes, and bestows light and heat upon 
 all of them. It is the sun that gives life and motion to all 
 
Christ as a Sun. 
 
 287 
 
 the infinite varieties of the animal workl in tlie earth, air, 
 and water. It draws out the vegetable juices from the 
 earth, and covers the surface of it with trees, herbs, and 
 flowers. It is the sun that gives beauty and colour to all 
 the millions of bodies round the globe ; by its pervading 
 power perhaps it forms minerals and metals under tl:e 
 earth. Its happy effects are innumerable ; they reach 
 certainly to everything that has life and motion, or that 
 gives life, support, or pleasure to mankind. Now suppose 
 God should create a most illustrious spirit, and unite it to 
 the body of the sun, as a liuman soul is united to a human 
 body : suppose this spirit had a perceptive power capacious 
 enough to become conscious of every sunbeam, and all the 
 influences and effects of this vast shining globe, both in its 
 light, lieat, and motion, even to the remotest region ; and 
 suppose at tlie same time it was able, by an act of its will, 
 to send out or witlihold every sunbeam as it pleased, and 
 thereby to give light and darkness, life and death, in a 
 sovereign manner, to all the animal inhabitants of tliis our 
 earth, or even of all the planetary worlds. Such may be 
 the ' glorified human soul of our blessed Redeemer united 
 to His glorified body;' and perhaps His knowledge and 
 His power may be as extensive as this similitude repre- 
 sents, especially when we consider this soul and body as 
 personally united to the Divine nature, and as one with 
 God. Now this noble thought may be su])j)orted by sucli 
 considerations as tliese. As our souls are cunscious of the 
 light, shape, motions, etc., of such distant bodies as the 
 planet Saturn or tlie fixed stars, because our eyes receive 
 rays from thence ; so may not a human soul united to a 
 body as easily be supposed to have a consciousness of any- 
 thing, wheresoever it can send out rays or emit either fiuids 
 or atoms from its own body ? May not the sun, for instance, 
 
2SS Si'.mh) (/)■!/ rind EM i mute of I'rofte Writivgs. 
 
 ii" ;i soul were united to it, become tlierel)}' so glorious a 
 complex being, as to send out every ray with knowledge, 
 and have a consciousness of everything wheresoever it sends 
 its direct or reflected rays ? And may not the hiiman soul 
 of our Lord Jesus Christ have a consciousness of every- 
 •thing wheresoever it can send direct or reflected rays from 
 His own shining and glorified body ? To add yet to the 
 wonder, we may suppose tliat these rays may be subtle as 
 magnetic beams, which penetrate brass and stone as easily 
 as light doth glass ; and at the same time they may be as 
 swift as light, whicli reaches the most amazing distance of 
 several millions of miles in a minute. By this means, 
 since the light of the sun pervades all secret chambers in 
 our hemisphere at once, and fills all places with direct and 
 reflected beams, if consciousness belonged to all those 
 beams, what a sort of omniscient being would the sun be ! 
 I mean omniscient in its own sphere. And why may not 
 the human soul and body of our glorified Saviour be thus 
 furnished with such an amazing extent of knowledge and 
 ])ower, and yet not be truly infinite ? Let us dwell a little 
 longer upon these delightful contemplations. If a soul had 
 l)ut a full knowledge and command of all the atoms of one 
 solid foot of mattei', which according to modern phil()so])liy 
 is infinitely divisil)le, what strange and astonishing influ- 
 ences woiild it liave over this world of ours ? What con- 
 fusions might it raise in distant nations, sending pestilential 
 streams into a thousand bodies, and destroying armies at 
 once ? And it miglit scatter benign or healing' and vital 
 influences to as lai'ge a circumference. If our blessed Lord, 
 in the days of His hiuniliation, could send virtue out of 
 Him to heal a poor diseased woman, who touched the hem 
 of His garment with a finger, who knows what healing 
 atoms, or what killing influences, He may send from His 
 
Christ as a San. 
 
 280 
 
 / dwelling in glory to the remotest distances of our world, to 
 execute His Father's counsels of judgment or mercy ? It is 
 not impossible, so far as I can judge, that the soul of Christ 
 in its glorified state may have as much command over our 
 lieavens and our earth, and all things contained in them, 
 as our souls in the present state have over our own limbs 
 aijd muscles to move them at pleasure. Let us remembei' 
 that it is now found out, and agreed in the new pliilosophy 
 of Sir Isaac Newton, tliat the distances are prodigious to 
 which the powerful influence of the sun reaches in the 
 centre of our jilanetary system. It is the sun wlio holds 
 and restrains all the planets in their several orbits, and 
 keeps in those vast bodies of Jupiter and Saturn in their 
 constant revolutions — one at the distance of 424 millions, 
 and the other at the distance of 777 millions of miles— 
 besides all the other influences it has upon everything that 
 may live and gTow in those planetary worlds. It is the sun 
 who reduces the long wanderings of the comets back again 
 near to himself from distances more inmiensely great tlian 
 those of Saturn and Jupiter. And why may not the human 
 nature of our Lord Jesus Christ, both in soul and l»ody, 
 have a dominion given Him by the Father larger than the 
 sun in the firmament? Why may not the So-n of God 
 Ije endued with an mimeduite consciousness and agency 
 to a far greater distance ? Thus if we conceive of the 
 human soul of Christ, either in tlie amazing extent of 
 its own native powers or in the additional acquirements 
 of a glorified state, we see reason to believe that its 
 capacities are far above our old usual conceptions, and 
 may be raised and exalted to a degree of knowledge, 
 power, and glory suitable and equal to His operations 
 and offices, so far as they are attributed to His human 
 nature in the word of God." 
 
 u 
 
200 Summary and Estimate of Prose Writings. 
 
 APPARENT FOLLV ItEAL WISDOM. 
 
 " This verj^ man, this Gelotes, a few days ago, was carried 
 by his neighbour Typiger, to see a gentleman of his 
 acquaintance ; tliey found him standing at tlie window of 
 liis cliamber, moving and turning round a ghiss prism, near 
 a round liule which he had made in the window-shutter, 
 and casting all tlie colours of the rainbow upon tlie wall of 
 the room. They were unwilling to disturb Iiim, though he 
 amused hunself at this rate for half an hour together, 
 merely to please and entertain his eyesight, as Gelotes 
 imagined, with the brightness and the strength of the reds 
 and tlie blues, the greens and the purples, in many shifting 
 I'orms of situation, while several little implements lay about 
 him, of white paper and shreds of coloured silk, pieces of tin 
 M ith holes in them, spectacles and burning-glasses. "When 
 tlie gentleman at last spied his company, he came down and 
 entertained them agreeably enough upon other subjects, and 
 di.smissed tliem. At another time, Gelotes beheld the same 
 gentleman blowing up laige bubbles with a tobacco-pipe 
 out of a bowl of water well impregnated with soap, whicli 
 is a common diversion of boys. As the bubbles rose, he 
 marked the little changeable colours on the surface of 
 them with great attention, till they broke and vanished 
 into air and water. He seemed to be very grave and 
 solemn in this sort of recreation, and now and then smiled 
 to see the little appearances and disappearances of colours, 
 as the bubbles grew thinner towards the top, while the 
 watery particles of it ran down along the side to the 
 l)ottom, and the surface grew too thin and feeble to include 
 the air, then it bui'st to pieces and was lost. ' Well,' says 
 Gelotes to his friend, '1 did not think you would have 
 cari'ied me into the acfpiaintance of a madman ; surely he 
 
Apparent Folly Ecal Wisdom. 
 
 291 
 
 can never be right in liis senses who wastes his hours in 
 such fooleries as these, ^^^latsoever good opinion I had 
 conceived of a gentleman of your intimacy, I am amazed 
 now that }-ou should keep up any degree of acquaintance 
 with him, Avhen his reason is gone and he is become a 
 mere child. What are all these little scenes of sport 
 and amusement, but proofs of the absence of his under- 
 standing ? Poor gentleman ! I pity him in his unhappy 
 circmnstances ; but I hope he has friends to take care of 
 him under this degree of distraction.' Typiger was not a 
 little pleased to see that his project, with regard to his 
 neighbour Gelotes, had succeeded so well; and when 
 he had suffered him to run on at this rate for some 
 minutes, he interrupted him with a surprising word : ' This 
 very gentleman,' says he, ' is the great Sir- Isaac Newton, 
 the first of philosophers, the glory of Great Britain, and 
 renowned among the nations. You have beheld him now 
 making these experiments over again by which he first 
 found out the nature of lights and colours, and penetrated 
 deeper into tlie mysteries of them than all mankind ever 
 knew before liim. Tliis is the man, and these his contri- 
 vances, upon wliich you so freely cast your contempt, and 
 pronounce liim distracted. You know not the depth of 
 his designs, and therefore you censured them all as 
 fooleries, whereas tlie learned world has esteemed them the 
 utmost reach of human sagacity.' 
 
 " Gelotes was all confusion and silence ; wliereupon 
 '-'^'.yP'o*^^' P^'*'CGe(l(id tlius: 'Go now and lidicuh' the law- 
 giver of Israel, and the ceremonies of the Jewish Churcli, 
 which Moses taught them ; go, repeat your folly and your 
 slanders, and laugli at tliese Divine ceremonies, merely 
 because you know not the meaning of tliem , go, and 
 affront the (Jod of Israel, and reproach Him for sending 
 
292 Summary and Ustimaic of Prose Writings. 
 
 Moses to teach such forms of worshij:) to the Jews. There 
 is not the least of tliem but was appointed by the Greatest 
 of Beings, and has some special design and purpose in the 
 eye of Divine Wisdom. Many of them were explained by 
 the Apostle Paul, in his letter to tlie Hebrews, as types 
 and emblems of the glories and blessings of the New Tes- 
 tament ; and the rest of them, whose reason has not been 
 discovered to us, remain, perhaps, to be made known at the 
 conversion of tlie Jews, when Divine light shall be spread 
 over all the ancient dispensations, and a brigliter glory 
 diffused over all the rites and forms of religion which God 
 ever instituted among the race of Adam.' " 
 
 A PLEA FOR CHEISTIANIZING HORACE. 
 
 " It is a piece of ancient and sacred history which 
 Moses informs us of, that when the tribes of Israel de- 
 parted from the land of Egypt, they borrowed of their 
 neighbours gold and jewels by the appointment of God, 
 for the decoration of their sacrifices and solemn worship 
 when they should arrive at the appointed place in the 
 wilderness. God Himself tauglit His people liow the 
 richest of metals which had ever been abused to the wor- 
 ship of idols might be purified by the fire, and being 
 melted up into a new form, niiglit be consecrated to the 
 service of the living God, and add to the magnificence and 
 grandeur of His taliernacle and temple. Such are some of 
 the poetical writings of the ancient heathens ; they have a 
 great deal of native beauty and lustre in them, and tlirough 
 some happy turn given them by the pen of a Christian 
 poet may be transformed into Divine meditations, and may 
 assist the devout and pious soul in several parts of the 
 Christian life and worship. Amongst all the rest of the 
 
Horace, Christianized. 
 
 293 
 
 Pagan writers, I know none so fit for this service as the 
 odes of Horace, as vile a sinner as he was. Their manner 
 of composure conies nearer the spirit and force of the 
 Psalms of Da\dd than any other ; and as we take the 
 devotions of the Jewish king, and bring them into our 
 Christian churches, by changing the scene and the chro- 
 nology, and superadding some of the glories of the Gospel 
 so may the representation of some of the heathen virtues, 
 by a little more labour, be changed into Christian graces, 
 or, at least, into the image of them, so far as human power 
 can reach. One day, musing on this subject, I made an 
 experiment on the two last stanzas of Ode xxix. Book iii. 
 
 ' Non est metim, si mugiat Africis 
 Malus procellis, ad miseras preces 
 Decurrere, et votis pacisci, 
 Ne Cyprias Syriieque merces 
 
 Addaut avaro divitias mari ; 
 Dum me, biremis preesidio scapliae, 
 Nudum per iEgeos tumultus 
 Aura ferat, geminusque Pollux.' 
 
 The Bkitish Fisherman. 
 Let Spain'. s proud traders, when the mast 
 Bends groaning to the stonny blast, 
 Run to their beads wdth wretched plaints, 
 And vow and bargain with their saints, 
 Lest Turkish silks or Tynan wares 
 
 Sink in the drowning .ship, 
 Or the rich dust Peru prepares. 
 Defraud their long projecting cares, 
 And add new treasures to the greedy deep. 
 My little skiff that skims the shores, 
 With half a sail and two short oars. 
 Provides me food in gentler waves ; 
 But if they gape in watery graves 
 I trust the Eternal Power, whoso hand 
 
 Has swelled the storm on high, 
 To waft my boat and me to land. 
 Or give some angel swift command 
 To bear the drowning sailor to the .sky." 
 
294 Summnry and Edimale nj Trou WrU 'mg?,. 
 
 A work like this would be incomplete if it did not 
 attempt some <jeneral estimate, however feehle, of onr 
 author's works, wliicli are, however, so varioxxs that it is diffi- 
 cult to brin!4 tlieir relation to their author's mind beneath 
 one classification. The remark 1 )r. Jennings made in his 
 funeral sermon is simply just, Avhen he says he "questions 
 whether any nuthor before Dr. Watts ever appeared with 
 a reputation on such a variety of subjects as he has, both 
 as a prose writer and a ])oet. However," he adds, "this 
 T may venture to say, there is no man now living of 
 whose works so many have been diffused at home and 
 abroad, which are in such constant use, and translated into 
 STich a variety of languages, many of which I doubt not 
 will remain more durable monuments of his great talents 
 than any representation I can make of them, though it 
 were to be graven on pillars of brass. Thus did he shine 
 as an ingenious man and a scholar." 
 
 This circimistance of the. raridy of his v:rUivgs consti- 
 tutes them an element of his character : he was more 
 various than intense, acute rather than profound. There 
 are some of his works upon which we need not permit 
 ourselves to be detained, they illustrate his readiness in 
 turning to every kind of laltour which seemed to give the 
 promise of usefulness, for useftdness was evidently in every- 
 thing the object he set before himself. Eegarded by the 
 immense apparatus now at hand for every kind of mental 
 exercise Watts' labours do some of them seem needless ; 
 but regarded from his own age, it appears as if he created, 
 originated, and gave effect to almost every department of 
 religious or improving knowledge. If the reader looks 
 round the literary horizon of that day, he will learn rightly 
 to estimate the benefits conferred by this writer; and these 
 works, the smallest, the most inferior of his mental 
 
Literary Vanities of Watts Age. 
 
 205 
 
 exercises, were not one of tliem a mere compilation, they 
 were all the emanations of that perpetually active muul, 
 which, whether the body were well or ill, must be em- 
 ployed for some useful object and end. None of his l)ooks 
 were made out of other books, excepting, indeed, so iUr 
 as almost every volume must imply the knowledge of a 
 subject and the mind of an author; and at the same time 
 it must be said that some of his books for tlie young haxc 
 been dropped but not surpassed; they might still furnish 
 the best hints and the best arrangements for obtaining nnd 
 imparting knowledge. 
 
 Being a literary man, Watts falls beneath a class of 
 observations which are not either necessary or applicalde in 
 forming an estimate of almost any of his brethren, such as 
 Howe, or Jacomb, or Bradbury, or, indeed, any of the waiters 
 of his order or day. The wisdom of his mind was remark- 
 able ; it was "a city, built four square." In this useful 
 purpose, which he ever kept before him, whatever charges 
 may be preferred against him on the score of the indulg- 
 ence of fancy (and many of his writings reveal how capable 
 he was of such excursions), he kept his mind singularly 
 free from tlie literary vanities of his times, and his times 
 as singularly illustrate at once tlie vanity and tlie glory of 
 literature. If anybody would know wliat vanities tliere 
 were, let him take down the volumes of tlie Allii;nian 
 Oracle,* and he will find few other volumes which will 
 
 * " The Athenian Oracle, being an entire collection of all tlio valiuiMc 
 Questions and An.swers in the old Athenian Mercuiys, intermixed with 
 many cases in Divinity, HLstoiy, Philosophy, Mathematics, Love, and 
 Poetry, and never before Published," etc. 4 vols. Printed for Andrew 
 Bell, <at the Cross Keys. 
 
 " Athenian Sport ; or. Two Tliousand Paradoxes Merrily Argiicd, by a 
 Member of the Athenian Society." 
 
 " Memoirs for the Ingenious; containing several Curious Observations 
 in Philosophy, Mathematics, Pliysic, Philology, and other Arts and 
 
29(3 Sumvumj and Estimate of Prose Writings. 
 
 >;i\'e so lively an impression of the literary folly of those 
 times. Old Samuel Wesley, John Wesley's father, did not 
 disdain to eontribute largely to those pages ; they are 
 alHueut in absurdities, while they have a show of learned 
 ignorance. Select a few ; most of the essays are in the 
 way of question and answer. " IJalaam being a IMoabite, 
 I low could he understand the ass speaking to him in 
 Hebrew ? How came the two disciples to know Moses 
 and Elias on the mount ? I am resolved to go round the 
 earth on foot ; I desire to know whether my head or my 
 feet will travel the most, and how much the one more than 
 the other f Whether or no there is a vacuum ? Whether 
 it is more proper to say the soul contains the body, or the 
 body the soul? Whether the quadrature of the circle be 
 ])()ssible? Pray, why does and not spell turn? the, 
 vied? etc. etc. Whether Adam was a giant? How a 
 silkworm lives when it has left off eating and is enclosed 
 in its web? "VNIiether it is prudent to live in a room 
 haunted by spirits? Whether, since mermen and mermaids 
 have more of the human shape than other fishes, they may 
 be thought to have more reason ? "V^Hiere extinguished fire 
 goes to ? Where was the land of Nod ? How is it the 
 spaniel knows its master's horse ? '\^niethei- a finite 
 creature is capable of enduring infinite loss ?" etc. etc. 
 
 These volumes, perhaps, constitute the most amazing 
 collection of nonsense in our own or any other language; 
 nor are they without a certain value as illustrating, not 
 only the time, then in possession of men, but the ridiculous 
 way in which they used it. Of course there are questions, 
 and many of them, of a more grave and serious character, 
 liut for the most part they are the very soap-bubbles of the 
 
 Sciences, in Miscellaneous Letters." Printed for H. Rhodes, and for 
 J. Harris, at the Aitow, in the Poultry. 
 
Vanities of Literature in Watts' Time. 297 
 
 most foppish and foolish imaginations, the most undisci- 
 plined and frer|iiently prurient and indecent fancies. The 
 iudidgence in these was quite a phase of the intellectual 
 life of the time. A singular chapter in the curiosities 
 of literature and science a reader may find in such volumes 
 as the " Philosophical Conferences of France ;" * and the 
 vanities of theology were quite equal to the vanities of 
 literature, as may be seen ia the innumerable productions 
 of the time. 
 
 With a mind so disposed to imaginative excursions, 
 it is quite worthy of notice that Watts preserved a 
 wise balance of all his powers and faculties ; he lived 
 on the confines of the age of the wildest mysticism our 
 literature has known. From some words in his works 
 he appears to have been well accfuaiated with the writings 
 of Henry ]\Iore, and also to have entertained for them that 
 reverence and respect which assuredly many of them com- 
 mand ; but from their singular and erratic fancies he kept 
 himself quite free. Very strange are the matters with 
 which we find these old men entertained themselves, 
 afiirming "that God of Himself is a dale of darkness, 
 were it not for the liglit of the Son;" "that the star- 
 powers are Nature, and the star-circle the mother of all 
 things, from which all is, subsists, and moves ;" " that the 
 waters of the world are mad, Avhich makes them rave and 
 run up and down, so as they do in the channels of the 
 earth ;" " that tliey, at last, shall be calcined into crystal ;" 
 " that the j)ure Ijlood in man answers to the element of 
 fire in the gTeat world, his heart to the earth, his mouth to 
 
 * "Another Collection of Philo.sophical Conferences of the French 
 Virtuosi, upon Questions of all sorts for the Improving of Natural Know- 
 Ifdtrc, made in the Assembly of the Beaux Esprit of Paris, by the most 
 ingenious persons of that nation, rendered into English." Sold at the 
 George, in Fleet Street, and the Mitre, Middle Temple, IGOj. 
 
208 Summary and Estimate of Prose Writinga. 
 
 the Arctic pole; and" — but we will not iinish this suhlime 
 stretch of metaphysical imagination — " that there he two 
 kinds of fires, the one a cold fire and the other hot, and 
 that death is a cold fire ;" " that everything has sense, 
 imagination, and a fiducial knowledge of (xod in it — 
 metals, meteors, and j)lants not excepted." Also the like 
 pleasant excursions of fancy are found in " Paracelsus," as 
 " that' the stars are, as it were, the phials, or cucurbits, in 
 which meteorical sal, sulphur, and mercury are contained, 
 and that the winds are made out of these by the ethereal 
 vulcans, are blown forth out of these emunctories, as when 
 a man blows or breathes out of his mouth ;" " that the stars 
 are, as it were, the pots in which the archeus, or heavenly 
 vulcan, prepares pluvious matter, which, exhaled from 
 thence, first appears in the form of clouds, and after coii- 
 denses to rain ;" "that liail and snow are the fruits of the 
 stars, proceeding from them as flowers and blossoms from 
 trees;" "that the liglitning and thunder are, as it were, 
 the deciduous fruits of the ethereal stars ;" " that the stars 
 eat and are nourished," etc. etc. 
 
 All this, and a good deal more to the like purpose. Since 
 the beginning of the world, men have asked of themselves 
 and others strange qiiestions, like those Southey discovered 
 in Luys de Escobar: "When God made dresses for Adam 
 and Eve, how did He get the skins of which those dresses 
 were made, seeing that beasts were not yet killed ? " " Per- 
 haps," says the respondent, " He made skins on purpose." 
 " Why are there three persons in the Trinity rather than 
 four or five ? " " St. Cosmas and St. Damian cut off a black 
 man's leg and fastened it on a white man ; which will have 
 the leg at the resurrecticm ? " " How did Adam learn 
 Hebrew ? " Queer curiosities these, all of which will re- 
 mind the reader of the madness of Elinora ]\Iclorina, a 
 
Vanities of Theological Literaivrc. 
 
 299 
 
 lady of ]\Iaiitua, who, heing fully persuaded she was mar- 
 ried to a king, would kneel down and talk with him, as 
 if he had then been present with his retinue. Nay, if she 
 by any chance found a piece of glass upon a dunghill, or if 
 she came upon a piece of oyster-shell or tin, or any such 
 thing that would glisten in the sunshine, she would say it 
 was a jewel sent from her lord and husband, and upon this 
 account she would fill her cabinet full of this kind of rub- 
 bish. The caliinets of the mystics, amidst some worthier 
 matter, are full of the kind of rubbish we have quoted 
 above, whicli, when instanced as solutions of things psychi- 
 cal or physical, seem to be as satisfactory as the old story of 
 the ibolish person wlio, riding an ass to the pond to drink 
 by the light of the moon, and some clouds intervening, and 
 hiding the moon while the ass was drinking, arrived at tlie 
 grave conclusion that the ass had swallowed up the moon, 
 and took it clean out of being. AVhen such grave problems 
 and questions are the result of so much of fasting and 
 devotion, they only remind us of the question preferred 
 by a monk on one occasion to a higher Church dignitary : 
 " How many keys did Christ give to Peter ? " which lirought 
 tlie satisfactory reply, that " lie oiiglit to prepare himself 
 by a course of physic for such grave, sweet, and savoury 
 questions ! " Illustrative as they are of the literary vanities 
 and follies of the time, follies to which even scholarly 
 clergymen and eminent writers lent themselves, and as 
 illustrating also not oidy the freedom of Watts from such 
 epidemical foolishness, but the work Ik; did in calling llic 
 mind to healthful methods of thought, the writer trusts 
 their quotation here may be forgiven. 
 
 He appears to have preserved his mind in great stillness. 
 It is the quiet and still mind which is wise and prudent ; 
 and, like Henry More, to whom we have referred, his life 
 
oOO Sinnvianj and Ultimate of Pro^ic Writings. 
 
 would repeat wliat that great man was wont to say, " In 
 the more peaceful spirit, when it is also a qiiick and percep- 
 tive one, will always reside those faculties which are to the 
 soul vision and power. In the deep and calm mind alone, 
 in a temper clear and serene, such as is purged from the 
 dregs, and devoid of the more disorderly tumults of the 
 body, doth true wisdom or genuine philosophy, as in its 
 own proper tower, securely reside." Hence the first great 
 attribute of Watts' mind is clearness. 
 
 He ever kept before liim a ])urpose of tisef illness, alike in 
 teaching men what to think about, and how to think about 
 it ; indeed, it is simply true, as Gibbons has remarked, that 
 2ierspicuity was eminently a feature of his intellect ; and it 
 must be admitted that upon whatever he speaks or writes, 
 he is always clearly to be understood — as we have seen, it 
 was by no means a great virtue of his age, or of his con- 
 temporaries ; and if he discoursed upon the more lofty and 
 difficult subjects of thought or philosophy, they seem to 
 acquire clearness in their passage through his mind. He 
 did not crowd words upon each other, and images of every 
 order were used by him, not to add to the splendour of a 
 paragraph, or to set off a division, but for the purpose of 
 reflecting light on tlie reader's mind. He lias dwelt himself 
 upon tlie prime importance of j^erspicuity. In his " Im- 
 provement of the Mind," he says : " He that would gain a 
 happy talent for the insti'uction of others must know how to 
 disentangle and divide his thoughts, if too many are ready 
 to crowd into one paragraph ; and let him rather speak three 
 sentences distinctly and clearly, which the hearer receives 
 at once with his ears and his soul, than crowd all the 
 thoughts into one sentence, which the hearer has forgotten 
 before he can understand it." It is a prime virtue in 
 AVutts' style that it is clear ; it ought to be a chief virtue 
 
rerspicuity and Dignity of his Style. 301 
 
 in every writer. In him it illustrated the character of liis 
 mind. He seemed even to be impatient of the dark and 
 obscure, and he never would permit himself to repose 
 near the absolutely incomprehensible without attempting 
 in some way to understand it ; so, also, as he attempts to 
 express his mind upon any subject, liis sentences instantly 
 appear to be the very windows of the intellect. And this 
 accounts for that other noticeable cliaracteristic of his style 
 I ' — i ts perfect ease. Tliere was smoothness and grace, tlie 
 ) entire absence of the turgid and the bombastic ; his sen- 
 I tences flowed along in happy harmony. Very frequently 
 such a style conveys the impression that a man has nothing 
 to say, when, perhaps, it is by immense labour, and by the 
 study of the finest wTiters, and by conversation, that he has 
 attained to that grace and natural ease of manner in whicli 
 all who listen or who read are instantly able to apprehend 
 the meaning. Thus he himself translates his favourite 
 Horace : 
 
 Smooth be your style, and plain and natural, 
 To strike the sins of Wapping or Whitehall ; 
 While others think this easy to attain, 
 Let them but try, arid with their utmost pain, 
 They'll sweat and strive to imitate in vain. 
 
 Another attribute, to which Gibbons alludes, in Watts' 
 style is his dignity, especially in the use of his metaphors 
 and in the restraint he puts upon himself in his most 
 ardent and animated passages. A wise use of the passions 
 is a marked characteristic of his writings, as he says, " Did 
 tlie Great God ever api)oint statues for His ambas^iadors to 
 invite sinners to His mercy ; words of grace written upon 
 brass or marble would do tlie work almost as well ; where 
 the preachers are stone no wonder if tlie hearers are motion- 
 less." And in a fine passage in which he reprobates the 
 
'302 liaiiimanj and Edimatc of Prose Writings. 
 
 pliik)so])hy of the Earl of Sliaftesbury, under the uaine of 
 liha]),sodus, who attinns that neither the fear of future 
 punishment, nor the ]io])e of future reward, can possibly 
 he called irood affections, Watts exclaims : 
 
 " Go, dress u]) all the virtues of human nature in all the 
 beauties of your oratory, and tleclaim aloud on the praise 
 of social virtue and the anuable (pialities of goodness, till 
 your hearts or lungs ache, among the looser herds of 
 mankind, and you will ever tind, as your heathen fathers 
 have done before you, that the wild ajipetites and passions 
 of men are too violent to be restrained by such mild and 
 silken language. You may as well build up a fence of 
 straw and feathers to resist a cannon-ball, or try to 
 quench a flaming granado with a shell of fair water, as 
 hope to succeed in these attempts. But an eternal heaven 
 and an eternal hell carry a Divine force and i)ower with 
 them. This doctrine, from the mouth of Christian 
 ])reachers, has begun the reformation of multitudes. This 
 Gospel has recovered thousands among the nations from 
 iniquity and death. They have been awakened by these 
 awful scenes to begin religion, and afterwards their virtue 
 has imjiroved itself into superior and more refined prin- 
 ciples and habits by Divine grace, and risen to high and 
 eminent degrees, though not to consummate state. The 
 blessed God knows human nature better than Rhapsodiis 
 doth, and has tlirougliout His Word appointed a more 
 pro])er and more effectual method of address to it by the 
 
 ^ passions of hope and fear, by punishments and rewards." 
 His i^^s are large and ample ; thoughts thronged through 
 
 ' his pages. Admirable as Ids prose is, he writes still like a 
 poet, and he speaks of the ^•alue of poetry as not a mere 
 amusement or tlie embroidery of the mind, he says liow it 
 " brightens the fancy with a tliousand beautiful images, 
 
His Attractive Style. 
 
 303 
 
 how it enriflies the suul with sireat aud sublime sentimeuts 
 aud refiued ideas, and fills the memory with a uoble variety 
 of language, it teaches the art of describing well, of 
 painting e^'erJ1;ll^ng to the life, and presenting the pleasing 
 aud frightful scenes of nature aud providence, A'ice and 
 "\ irtue, in their proper charms and horrors ; it assists the 
 art of persuasion, leads to a pathetic mode of speech and 
 writing, and adds life and beauty to conversation." 
 
 ■^\And hence his style is so atty-activ e ; it has often been 
 an enjopnent to us to turn over the pages of his prose 
 writings. AMiat a variety of topics is presented to us in his 
 interesting inquiry " Concerning Space," and how interest- 
 ing his treatment makes the discussion, liowe\ er abstract 
 the topic. It is the same with his philosophic essays on 
 " lunate Ideas," and on the " Nature of Substance," and in 
 that on the " Strength and Weakness of Human IJeason." 
 His sermons, we have before said, have not the pomp 
 and glow of Jeremy Taylor, but they resemble, and cer- 
 tainly do not fall inferior to, those of John Donne, in a 
 quiet metaphysical subtlety and a happy use of images 
 sui)plied by fancy ; but let us select a few : 
 
 " My soul is touched with such a Divine iuHuencc that it 
 cannot rest, while God withdraws, an ike needle iremhles, 
 
 " Nothing could displease I'lironissa (so this good motlier 
 is called) more than to hear a jest thrown upon natural 
 iutirmities. She tliought there was something sacred in 
 misery, aud it was not to be touched witli a rude hand." 
 
 THE SOUL AND GOD. 
 
 and hunts after the living loadstuneJ' 
 
 A SENSITIVE HEART. 
 
304 Summary and Estimate of Prose Writings. 
 
 IMPULSIVE CHEISTIANS. 
 
 " Such Christians as these (such who are weak and too 
 much under the influence of their passions) live very mucli 
 by sudden fits and starts of devotion, without that uniform 
 and steady spring of faith and holiness which would render 
 their religion more even and uniform, more honourable to 
 God and more comfortable to themselves. They are always 
 high on the wing, or else lying moveless on tlie ground. 
 They are ever in the heights or in the depths, travelling on 
 the bright mountains with the songs of lieaven on their 
 lips, or groaning and laljouring througli the dark valleys, 
 and never walking onward as on an even plain towards 
 heaven." 
 
 THE FULFILMENT OF DmNE PREDICTIONS. 
 
 " How easy it will be for our blessed Lord to make a 
 full accomplisliment of all His predictions concerning His 
 kingdom ; salvation shall spread through all the tribes and 
 ranks of mankind, as the lightning from heaven in a few 
 moments would communicate a living flame through ten 
 thousand lamps or torches placed in a proper situation and 
 neighbourhood." 
 
 He had an eminent j^owe^' in description ; the following 
 meditation is a rich illustration of this. The whole medi- 
 tation is far too long to quote — his descriptions of the 
 awakening life of leaves, and birds, and insects — but he 
 closes : 
 
 THE FIRST OF MAY. 
 
 " 'Tis a sublime and constant triumph over all the intel- 
 lectual powers of man, which the great God maintains 
 every moment in these inimitable works of nature, in these 
 impenetrable recesses and all mysteries of Divine art ; and 
 
Descriptive Pover. 
 
 305 
 
 the month of May is the most shining season of this 
 triumph. The flags and banners of Ahnighty wisdom are 
 now dispLayed round half the globe, and the other half 
 waits the return of the sun to spread the same triumph 
 over the southern world. The very sun in the firmament 
 is God's prime minister in this wondrous world of beings, 
 and he works with sovereign vigour on the surface of the 
 earth, and spreads his influence deep under the clods to 
 the very root and fibre, moulding them in their proper 
 forms by Divine direction. There is not a plant, nor a 
 leaf, nor one little ])rancliing thread above or beneath the 
 ground, which escapes the eye or influence of this benefi- 
 cent star. An illustrious emlilem of the omnipresence and 
 imiversal activity of the Creator." 
 
 The following strikes us as very pleasing : 
 
 ON DISTANT THUNDKR. 
 
 " When we hear the thunder rumbling in some distant 
 quarter of the heavens, we sit cabn and serene amidst oiu- 
 Itusiness or diversions; we feel no terrors about u.s, and 
 apprehend no danger. "VMien we see the slender streaks 
 of liglitning play afar off in the liorizon of an evening sky, 
 we look on and amuse ourselves as witli an agreeal)le 
 spectacle, without the least fear or concern. But lo ' the 
 dark cloud rises l)y degrees ; it grows black as night, and 
 big with tempests ; it spreads as it rises to tlie mid-lioaven, 
 and now hangs directly over us; tlie flnslies of liglitiiing 
 grow l)road and strf)ng, and, like sheets of ruddy fire, they 
 lilaze terribly all round the hemispliere. We bar the doors 
 and windows, and every avenue of light, but we bar them 
 all in vain. The flames break in at eveiy cranny, and 
 threaten swift destruction ; tlie thunder follows, burstin<f 
 
 X 
 
30G Summary and Estimate of Prose Writings. 
 
 hvin the cloiul with sudden and tremendous crashes ; the 
 voice of the Lord is redoubled with violence, and over- 
 whelms us with terror ; it rattles over our heads as though 
 the whole house was broken down at once with a stroke 
 from heaven, and was tumbling on us amain to bury us in 
 the ruins. Happy the man whose hope in his God com- 
 poses all his passions amid these storms of nature, and 
 renders his whole deportment peaceful and serene amidst 
 the frights and hurries of weak spirits and unfortified 
 minds." 
 
 Many pages might be filled with such passages in which 
 the compactness of the proverb, or the pleasantry of the 
 i'ancy, or the richness of the description, is remarkable. It 
 comes out of such characteristics as we have noticed, that 
 he reformed the preaching of his day, especially as to the 
 structure of sermons ; it was the age of, what he calls very 
 felicitously, "branching sermons;" and even John Howe, as 
 both Eobert Hall and Henry Rogers* have remarked, " far 
 outwent many of his most extravagant contemporaries in 
 minute and frivolous subdivision ; Nve have sometimes heads 
 arranged rank and file, half a score deep." Henry Rogers 
 continues, " If any would wish to see the full extent to 
 which Howe carried this fault, they may look into the 
 ' scheme ' (a very accurate one), which his publishers pre- 
 fixed to the first edition of the ' Delighting in God,' and l)y 
 the time the student has thoroughly digested and mastered 
 that, he will find little difficulty I apprehend in any of the 
 first books of Euclid." It was the characteristic of nearly 
 all the great Puritan preachers before Watts. He speaks 
 of some who would draw out a long rank of particulars in 
 the same sermon under one general, and run up the number 
 to eighteenthly! or seven and twentiethly ! until they cut all 
 * Rogers' "Life of Howe," p. 476. 
 
Preachers and Prcaclihuj. 
 
 307 
 
 their sense into shreds, so that everything they say of 
 anything is a new particular ; and he says, he has sat under 
 tills preaching until he has thought of Ezekiel's vision in 
 the valley full of bones, " behold they were very many and 
 very dry." He adds, " A single rose bush, or a dwarf pear, 
 with all their leaves, flowers, and fruit about them, have 
 more beauty and spirit in themselves, and yield more food 
 and pleasure to mankind, than the innumerable branches, 
 bouwhs, and twigs of a Ion" hedoe of thorns." In the 
 same manner he satirizes another kind of preaching, in 
 wliich there are no breaks and pauses. " Is there no 
 medium," he says, " between a sermon made up of sixty 
 dry particulars, and a long loose declamation without 
 any distinction of the parts of it ? Must a preacher 
 divide his works by the breaks of a minute watch, or let it 
 run on incessantly like the flowing stream of sand in tlu; 
 hour-glass ? " And thus he imiuires, " Cart a long purling 
 sound awaken a sleepy conscience ? Can you ma>ke the 
 arrow woimd where it will not stick ? Where all the dis- 
 course vanishes from the remembrance, can you imagine 
 the soul to be profited or enriched ? When you brush over 
 the closed eyelid with a feather, did you ever find it give 
 light to the ])lind ? have any of your soft harangues, your 
 contiimed tlireads of silken eloquence, ever raised the 
 dead ?" Very happily he says, " Pi-eachers talk reason and 
 religion to their auditories in vain, if they do not make 
 the argument so short as to come within their grasps, and 
 give a frequent rest to their thoughts ; they must break 
 tlie Bread of Life into pieces to feed childien with it, and 
 part their discourse into distinct propositions, to give tlie 
 ignorant a plain scheme of any one doctrine, and enable 
 tliem to comprehend or retain it. The auditors of the first 
 kind of preacher have some confusion in their knowledge, 
 the hearers of the last have scarce any knowledge at all." 
 
o()8 Siitniiinrij nml Estimate, of Pvo^c Writi)igfi. 
 
 The roader will not full to notice, in this nervons 
 passage, the happy imagery l)y which the writer gives 
 point to his ideas. 
 
 But that which we have said liitherto refers rather to 
 the style, the vehicular frame-work in which Watts Sft 
 forth his thoughts ; it is more important to enter into the 
 mind and spirit of the man ; and, first, no attribute seems 
 more remarkable than the seraphic reverence of his nature, 
 it is not easy to mention a writer who more distinctly 
 realises to the mind one of those six-winged seraphs Isaiali 
 saAv, who with twain covered his face, with twain his feet, 
 and with twain stood ready to Hy ; Watts appeared ready for 
 any flight ; but reverence, an awful sense of the mysterious 
 and inscrutable, governed every movement of his soul. The 
 Unitarians have, with singular audacity, sought to drag 
 him through the Serbonian bog of creedless Christianity.* 
 It is a fine remark, quoted by Southey, that " such doubts 
 as troubled him he subdued, not in a martial posture, biit 
 upon his knees." It is very certain tliat he had a large 
 speculative disposition ; he approached very near to th(! 
 veil wliich hides from man the incommunicable light ; 
 there is not a line in his writings which displays a ten- 
 dency towards Arianism. Towards the doctrine of Sociiii- 
 anism he does not condescend to give a single glance. His 
 complaint was, and we appreliend it to be a more common 
 one than even those who are troubled with it are aware, 
 not that he could not believe all that is revealed, but that 
 
 * The matter, wo suppose, is long since sot at rest ; it may be very 
 distinctly set at rest by a study of Watts' works, discussing the great 
 question of the Trinity. " Watts not a Socinian," by the Kev. S. Palmer, 
 puts the matter in a popular and concise form ; but when his monument 
 was erected in Southampton, a lecture was delivered and published on 
 " His Life, Character, and Religious Opinions," by the Rev. Edmund 
 Kell, M.A., F S.A., the late Unitarian minister of Southampton, in 
 ■w liich the old exploded dishonest statements were uU reiterated. 
 
"Conccrninrj the Evcr-Bkssed Trinitij" 309 
 
 revelation liad not conferred more light npon the subjects 
 of even incomprehensible knowledge. But his prayer, his 
 " solemn address to the great and ever-blessed God, upon 
 what he had written concerning the great and ever-blessed 
 Trinity," is certainly an extraordinary, a passionate and 
 most humble utterance of an ardently devout mind. It 
 is too lengthy for entire quotation, but some of the closing 
 paragraphs will convey the spu-it of the entire piece, and 
 tlie whole may be read, if read in the spirit in which it was 
 written, with profit to every one : " Blessed and faithful 
 (iod, hast Tliou not promised that 'the meek Thou "wilt 
 guide in judgment, the meek Thou wilt teach Thy \\-ay V 
 Hast Thou not taught us by Isaiah, Thy propliet, that Thou 
 wilt ' bring the blind by a way they know not, and wilt lead 
 them in paths which they have not known ? ' Hast Thou 
 not informed us by the prophet Hosea, that ' if Ave follow 
 on to know the Lord, then we shall know Him?' Hath not 
 Thy Son, our Saviour, assured us, that our Heavenly 
 Father will give His Holy Spirit to them that ask Him ? 
 And is He not appointed 'to guide us into all truth?' Have 
 I not sought the gracious guitlance of thy ( Jood Spirit con- 
 tinually ? Am I not truly sensible of my own darkness 
 and weakness, my dangerous prejudices on every side, and 
 Tuy utter insufficiency for my own conduct ? Wilt Thou 
 leave such a poor creature bewildered among a thousand 
 perplexities, which are raised liy the various opinions 
 and contrivances of men, to explain Thy Divine Truth? 
 Help me, Heavenly Father, for I am quite tired and 
 weary of these human explainings, so various and un- 
 certain. "VNHien wilt Thou exj)lain it to me Thyself, 0 my 
 Ood, by the secret and certain dictates of Tliy Spirit, 
 according to the intimation of Tliy Word ? Nor let any 
 pride of reason, nor any affectation of novelty, nor any 
 
''Ill Sioninarif and Estimate of Pro^n: Writings. 
 
 criiuiual bias wlmtevev, turn my heart asiile from liearken- 
 iiig to these Divine dictates of Thy Word and Thy Spirit. 
 Suffer not any of my native corruptions, nor the vanity of 
 my imagination, to cast a mist over my eyes while 1 am 
 searching after the knowledge of Thy mind and will, for 
 my eternal salvation. 
 
 "I entreat, 0 most merciful Father, that Thon wilt not 
 suffer tlie remnant of my short life to be wasted in such 
 endless wanderings in quest of Thee and Thy Son Jesus, as a 
 great part of my past days have been ; but let my sincere 
 eudea\'ours to know Thee, in all the ways whei'eby Thou 
 hast disct)vered Thyself in Thy Woi'd, be crowned with 
 such success that my soul, l)eing established in every 
 needful truth by Tliy Holy Spirit, I may spend my remain- 
 ing life according to the rules of Thy Gospel, and may, with 
 all the holy and happy creation, ascribe glory and honour, 
 wisdom and power, to Thee who sittest upon the throne, 
 and to the Lamb for ever and ever." 
 
 We have stated the matter fairly as in relation to AVatts' 
 entireness of faith, hut justice has not been done to Watts 
 in relation to that dilemma and agitation of public opinion 
 and sentiment which forced him into controversy. It M-as 
 not that he himself doubted, neither was it that he fur 
 himself approached the confines of a discussion of which 
 it might be said — 
 
 Dark with excessive light its .skirts appoar. 
 
 Arianism was vexing the churcli in g(!ncval in England 
 in that age.* Many of the churches, especially those to 
 \\ Inch Watts stood related, indicated a close proclivity to 
 Arian sentiment. The peculiar spirit of the times had 
 
 * This is ilhistrated and manifest by tlie writing's of Waterland, 
 whicli are almost contemporary with the discussions of Watts. 
 
Ananis7n in the Age of Watts. 
 
 311 
 
 created this degeneracy of sentiment ; there was little of 
 what we are now accustomed to denominate practical 
 Christianity — tlie activities created by Methodism were 
 quite unknown. All over the country were Nonconformist 
 churches (nooks of retreat), where some learned, scholarly, 
 and philosophical minister was at tlie head of a class of 
 thoughtful minds. Numbers of them seemed to have 
 little to do but to think ; the heart did not minister much 
 to the head in many instances. The Unitarianism of our 
 day was unknown. It thus represented very much the 
 high Arian sentiment of reverence to Christ witliout the 
 acknowledgment of His Grodhead. The hymns of Watts 
 abound in expressions of praise to Christ and to the 
 Holy Spirit. He was called upon to vindicate that which 
 he ]iiu)self had done ; he was called upon to defend that 
 whole sclienie of doctrine which accepted the Three Persons 
 in the Divine Godhead. Perhaps the defect in all such 
 efforts is, that the very attempt to embody some doctrines 
 within the forms of the understanding naturally and 
 essentially depraves them. If we say, as we often do, a 
 God understood is no God at all — and this remark apj)lies 
 to mere natural religion — the same holds true of those 
 higher doctrines of revelation which are the adund)rations 
 of " the liglit which no man hath seen or can see." There are 
 doctrines iu Theology, even as there are doctrines in Science, 
 the demonstration of which is rather negative than posi- 
 tive. Chemists tell us of an element essential to our life — 
 we breathe it every moment; it contributes to the balance of 
 all the powers of the atmosphere ; it tames the subtle, 
 fiery-tempered oxygen, the wild and vehement hydrogen ; 
 it represses, allays, and composes, but itself has no colour, 
 no odour ; it has no active properties, no chemical affec- 
 tions ; it is one of the greatest mysteries in nature. It 
 
ol'I Summanj and Estimate of Frose Writimjs. 
 
 is iiivisiblo, ami yet it proclaims its presence ; the clieinist 
 caunot touch it, but he is sure of its existence. It may 
 well fill our minds with awe that we are ever in the 
 presence of such an agent, that hefore it the lamp of science 
 is darkened, like a man with a dim light in a room in 
 which he sees phantoms he cannot touch, and hears voices 
 the causes of which he cannot detect, and as he holds up 
 his lamp he is aware of a presence that disturl)S him, that 
 will not enter into his knowledge, and for which he cannot 
 account. Only he knows that it is. Such is nitrogen. It 
 is thus we apprehend the doctrine of the Trinity. 
 
 All effoits must fail to apprehend the doctrines involved 
 in the idea of the Trinity, which insist upon either the 
 idea of personality or numeration, as tliey are understood 
 by us. Watts, with the Bible in his hand, stood on tlie 
 defensive against the aggTcssions of Arianisni, and ha^•ing 
 attempted to unfold the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, 
 he published his further dissertation, " The Arian Invited to 
 the Orthodox Faith ; a plain and easy method to lead such 
 as deny the Proper Deity of Christ into the belief of that 
 Article." Those who charge Arianism upon Watts can 
 only do so, because througliout tlie argument he has con- 
 ducted it in a sti'ain of eminent courtesy and cliarity. He 
 a})proached the matter in no spirit of disputation, but with 
 a cordial desire to promote, if possible, healing and unity; 
 nor do we think that there are any indications, in the 
 course of any of his discussions, that his own mind or faitli 
 was unhinged ; but the discussions around him compelled 
 him to direct his attention to questions certainly not un- 
 congenial to his speculative and analytic order of mind. 
 Probably the reader feels that there is a sufficient corre- 
 spondence between the sense of our own spiritual wants 
 and the revelation given to us in the Divine Word to 
 
Ahsnrditij of tlie Cliargc of Unitarianism. 313 
 
 make us feel that the Trinity of rcvsons in the Godhead 
 is a necessity of our moral nature, and that it is a doe- 
 trine, as we have already intimated, best held, as most 
 satisfactory to the mind and conscience, when held iin])\\- 
 citly rather than e.rplicitly. 
 
 The claim which the Unitarians put forth to find in 
 AYatts one of themselves is not less than aiadacious and 
 dislionest. It is, however, founded — very ridiculously, we 
 venture to tliink — upon some expressions reported after 
 liis death, whicli implied that he would have been willin^,^, 
 had he been able, to have altered some expressions in liis 
 liymns. Truly it is amazing that the author could sur- 
 vive the publication of liis first volume forty years, and 
 not alter many Ijarljarisms of metre arul expression. It 
 may, perhaps, be partly accounted for from tlie fact that 
 the copyright of the hymns had passed at once from liis 
 hands. We can very well believe there were certain 
 e.xpressions in his hymns he would have been not indis- 
 posed to alter, without touching at all upon matters of 
 doctrine. It will be time enough for Unitarians to claim 
 Watts when they are able to set aside his last publisliei-l 
 words, and to reconcile them with that faith m IucIi they 
 call theirs, or to account, upon such princijdes as tliey 
 would make him hold, for the sentinzents wliich fell from 
 his lips when dying. 
 
 But as a study of Watts' mind, these pieces of his are 
 like all that emanated from his pen, characterized by 
 exceeding reverence for the subject he attempted to eluci- 
 date, and by charity, respect, and courtesy towards his 
 opponents. Johnson says : " I am only enough ac- 
 (juainted with liis theological works to admire his meek- 
 ness of opposition, and his mildness of censure. It was 
 not only in his books, but in his mind, that orthodoxy was 
 
"14 Sum n^iri/ and Edimnfc of Profr irrifiuf/fi. 
 
 united with cliarity." Some will, perlmps, almost think 
 that this width of charity in Watts degenerated into a 
 vice ; we hope this book has made it evident that he both 
 had strong convictions and knew how to act npon them 
 steadily. But his heart was very inclusive in its love. It 
 was not merely that he lived within the shadows of perse- 
 cution, and belonged to an order whose opinions were only 
 tolerated ; he represented the mildest type of Noncon- 
 formity. Perhaps we shall surprise some readers not very 
 well actpiainted with his writings, by informing them that 
 one of the latest efforts of his mind and ])en was upon 
 tlie in(piiry, " Whether an Establishment is altogether an 
 Tmpossil)ility." This was in his Essay, published in the 
 year 17o9, on " Civil Power in Things Sacred." It is a 
 singular scheme, and the question is discussed with great 
 moderation and candour ; but it is rather a plea for a 
 system of national education than the establishment 
 of a national religion. He inquires, indeed, whether there 
 might not be established a religion consistent with the just 
 liberties of mankind, and practicable with every form of 
 civil government. He thinks that officers should be ap- 
 })ointed by tlie State to explain and enforce the great 
 duties and sanctions of morality, and that the citizens 
 should be compelled to receive such lessons as are un- 
 questionably at the foundation of a national well-being, 
 the welfare, strength, and sui)])ort of the State, and that 
 such teachers, as public benefactors, should be sustained 
 at the charge of the State. 
 
 Watts' philosophical works exhibit him in the same 
 light as his theological. Tliey are marked by a vivid dis- 
 ])osition to analysis and speculation, and by that elevated 
 reverence of thought which appertains to all his writings. 
 Instance his " Incpiiry Concerning Space; whether it lie 
 
Waits' Inquiry concerning Space. 
 
 315 
 
 Soinethincr or Nothing, God or a Creature." Most minds are 
 quite unequal to such discussions, and many regard them as 
 unwise, irreverent, and dangerous. They are a kind of intel- 
 lectual Matterhorn which certain daring spirits assault from 
 age to age — the origin of evil, liberty, and necessity — the 
 nature of substance, and time, and space. It would surely 
 l:)e a dangerous and a doubtful doctrine to teach that such 
 questions are only the territories or hunting-grounds of the 
 bold masters of sceptical negations. It does not derogate 
 from the greatness of Isaac Watts to admit that he was 
 neither aJoseph Butler, a "William de Leibnitz, nor aJonathan 
 Edwards ; but in liis mind such studies became means of 
 usefulness. He fashioned Alpenstocks for climbers among 
 those higher mountain ranges, throujih which he had him- 
 self travelled. In such studies a reverent mind may at 
 once enlarge the understanding while learning the limit- 
 ation of its powers. A wise guide will here, too, guard 
 against the dangerous crevasse, while lie hatli himself 
 
 The secret learned 
 To mix his blood with sun.shine, and to take 
 The wind into his pul.se.s.* 
 
 Johnson quotes a passage from Mr. Dyer, charging 
 Watts with confounding the idea of space with empty 
 space, and that he did not consider tliat tliouglv space 
 might be without matter, yet matter, l)eing extended, 
 could not T)e without space. But in reply to this, it 
 may be remarked tliat this is the whole question, 
 and extemled matter falls rather l)ciieatli tlie denomi- 
 nation of substance. It appears certainly the case that 
 Watts, in his discussion, deals with inhnite space, or 
 say, certainly, indefinite space — that is, extension ab- 
 stracted from phenomena. Such space Sir Isaac Newton 
 
 • J. R. Lowell. 
 
rilG Summary and Edimaic of Prone Wriim(]>^. 
 
 reverently regarcled as the seusorium of tiod. Newton 
 ■Nvas so essentially reverent even in thought that it was nt)t 
 ]»ossil)le for him to indulge an idea which was capable of 
 depraving religious conceptions ; l)ut all minds, even reli- 
 gious minds, have not been equally reverent. Hence some 
 have gone on to regard space as the immensity of (Jod, as 
 a property of God. But it would follow from this that as 
 .space is extended, so God, too, must be extended ; and 
 whatever tends to conform God witli nature, or to place 
 Him in contact with it, in any other way than as in rela- 
 tion to His wisdom and His will, is essentially unscrip- 
 tural, and it is a dangerous proclivity below which yawn 
 the fearful gulfs of Pantheism and Atheism. In these 
 discussions our writer anticipated many of those shadows 
 which in the course of a few years were to project them- 
 selves over the whole domain of philosophy and theology ; 
 and, indeed, only a few years before, in the great work of 
 S]i)iuosa, ominous indications had been given ; and tlie 
 second part of tlie " Living Temple " of Jolni Howe bore 
 immediately upon the coming questions. Watts' essay 
 penetrates into tlie stronghold of Pantheism. Newton and 
 Pascal, botli looking up into the infinite spaces, felt tlieir 
 nature called on to reply to the questions suggested. The 
 .silence terrified Pascal ; Newton's calmer nature gathered 
 up even infinite space into the great idea, that it was but a 
 mode, or attribute, of (Jod. Some such doctrines govern 
 the Essays of Watts : Space, he argues, cannot be God ; 
 we cannot indeed conceive that infinite space ever 
 began to be, we have an idea of it as eternal and un- 
 changeable ; according to Watts it seems to contain what 
 existence it has in the very idea, nature, or essence of it, 
 which is OTie attribute of God, and whereby we prove His 
 existence. It appears to be a necessary being and has a 
 
Philosophic Inquiry concerning Space. 317 
 
 sort of self-existence, for we cannot tell how to conceive 
 it not to be. It seems to be an impassible, indivisible, 
 immutal)le essence, and therefore according to the ghastly 
 pantheistic philosophy it is argued that space is God. 
 This idea "Watts concisely set aside, because it involves 
 the absurdity of making the blessed God a Being of 
 infinite length, breadtli, and depth, and ascribing to Him 
 parts of tliis nature measurable by inches, yards, and 
 miles. Perhaps this is not so clear to all readers as it was 
 to the writer liimself; but tlie close seems more satis- 
 factory when he says, " Strongest arguments seem to 
 eWuce this, tliat it must be God, or it must be nothing." 
 Watts, then, was an Idealist, and the remark of Jolnison 
 arises from a misapprehension of the drift of the essay. 
 He argues that space is only the shadow cast by substance 
 — we are sure that shadow or darkness is a mere nothing, 
 and space is nothing but the absence of body, as shade 
 is the absence of light, and both are explicable without 
 supposing either to be real beings : it is therefore merely 
 an abstract idea, or, as we should say, a " thought-form ;" 
 it will follow from this that such an idea of space di.s.solves 
 one of the charming illusions of Pantheism, and tliat 
 there rises from the midst of this universe of uuidentical 
 being the personality of man. 
 
 Some critics have entertained a grim joke at the 
 expense of Watts, that having annihilated space, he 
 proceeded in the next place to annihilate substance, 
 anticipating at once Berkeley and Hume. Let it then be 
 remembered that he engaged in none of these excursion.s 
 in a vain or Pyrrhonistic spirit: his essays were written 
 not to unhinge, but to rest and settle and give repose to 
 the mind ; indeed he says, " There are mysteries wherein 
 we bewilder and lose ourselves by attempting to make 
 
318 Summary and Estimate of Prose Writings. 
 
 soiiiethiug out of notliing;" substance is one of tliese. 
 He goes for some distance on the way with Locke, 
 especially in refuting the idea that substance is some- 
 thing real in nature ; with Locke he argues that " all tlie 
 ideas we have of particular, distinct sort of substances, 
 are nothing but several combinations of simple ideas co- 
 existent in such, the cause of their union, which makes 
 the whole subsist of itself." Oidy then comes in the im- 
 portant question, "what is it that supports the accidents and 
 (jualities of being ? " At this point Watts parts company 
 with Locke. Ilis ideas of substance seem to be antago- 
 nistic to Locke, and dangerously sustaining Spinosa, wlio 
 taught, as our readers know, that tlie whole universe, God 
 and this world, may be the same individual substance — 
 " How can I be sure that God and the material world have 
 not one common substance ?" But, very singularly. Watts 
 himself in tracing the mistakes upon this matter to their 
 origin, seems to fall into the very error he seeks to e.\- 
 plode, the idea of a real, invisible abstract or concrete, 
 seems to stand behind all things ; he says, the mistakes 
 whicli men make arise from the occult quality in the 
 termination of names, ify in solidity, sion in extension 
 which imply a quality without including the substance ; 
 as wliite'/i.c.s'.v, witliout including the substance or the thing 
 tliat is wliite ; the word white is concrete, and denotes the 
 tiling or substance together witli the quality, and he says, 
 " We ought to remember tliat tliimjs are made by God, or 
 Nature, words are made by man, and sometimes applied in 
 a way not exactly agreeable to wliat things and ideas 
 re([uire." The object of Watts in his discussion of the 
 idea of substance, was the same as that in his discussion 
 in the idea of space, to disarm Spinozism of its gross and 
 crude ideas of God. But we do not feel that the same 
 
Tlic Mystery of Vision — Sunbeams and Starhcams. 319 
 
 success closes the discussion. Perhaps it will be sufficient 
 to admit at once that space and substance are both modes 
 of Divine operation. Push the inquiry to any extent, and 
 the most absolute Spinozist is compelled to halt in some 
 such conclusion. That God is extended, that He is a mere 
 infinite extension, is an absurdity ; but it seems that uu 
 injustice is done to the most reverent and infinite thought 
 of God by regarding Him as the essential sub-btans, the 
 substance as of all souls, so of all being. 
 
 That about the philosophic essays which interests us 
 is their freshness, and the clear, easily lucid, and 
 charmingly illustrated style in whicli the doctrines are 
 conveyed. They assuredly are a very happy commentary 
 upon Locke, from whom he often separates, as in the essay 
 on "Innate Ideas;" he agiees with Locke in the main, and 
 then proceeds to discourse upon many simple ideas whicii 
 are innate in some sense. His essay to prove that the 
 " Soul never Sleeps," and " On the Place and Mixtion 
 of Spirits, and the Power of a Spirit to move Matter," are 
 interesting ; that on the " Departing and Separate Soul" is 
 a sublime piece of writing, and on the " Kesurrection of 
 the same Body," and on the " Production and Nourishment 
 of Plants and Animals." Few persons now, it may lie 
 supposed, even know of the existence of these essays ; 
 tliey seem to us pieces of Lndy delightful reading, most 
 instructive, suggestive, and entertaining, singularly free 
 from hard and unpleasant lines of dogmatism, full of 
 delightful and suggestive pictures ; take the following : 
 
 SUNBEAMS AND STAItBKA.MS. 
 
 " What a suq)rising work of God is vision, tliat notwitli- 
 stauding all these inlinite meetings and crossings of star- 
 
C'-O Svmmarij and EsfiDiafe nf Prose Writings. 
 
 beams and sunbeams niglit and day, through all our solar 
 world, there should be such a regular conveyance of light 
 to every eye as to discern each star so distinctly by night, 
 as well as all other objects on earth by day ! And this 
 difficulty and wonder will be greatly increased by con- 
 sidering the innumerable double, triple, and tenfold reflec- 
 tions and refractions of sunbeams, or daylight, near our 
 earth, and among the various bodies on the surface of it. 
 Let ten thousand men stand rouiul a large elevated 
 amphitheatre ; in the middle of it, on a black plain, 
 let ten tliousand white round plates be placed, of two 
 inches diameter, and at two inches distance ; every eye 
 miist receive many rays of liglit reflected from every 
 plate, in order to perceive its shape and colour; now, if 
 there were but one ray of light came from each plate, 
 here would be ten thousand rays falling on every single 
 eye, which would make twenty thousand times ten 
 thousand, that is, two hundred millions of rays crossing 
 each other in direct lines in order to make every plate 
 visible to every man. But if we suppose that each plate 
 reflected one hundred rays, wdiich is no unreasonable 
 supposition, tliis would rise to twenty thousand millions. 
 What an amazing thiiig is the distinct vision of the shape 
 and colour of each plate by every eye, notwithstanding 
 these confused crossings and raysi ! What an astonishing 
 composition is the eye in all the coats and all the humours 
 of it, to convey those ten thousand white images, or those 
 millions of rays so distinct to the retina, and to impress 
 and paint them all there ! And what further amazement 
 attends us if we follow the image on the retina, conveying 
 itself by the optic nerves into the common sensory with- 
 out confusion ? Can a rational being survey this scene 
 and say tiicre is no God ? Can a mind think on this 
 
Motion a Proof of DcUy. 
 
 ptnpendous bodiJy organ, the eye, and not adore tlie 
 Wisdom that contrived it ?" 
 
 And the following is not only most interesting, but 
 anticipates, with much strength, a line of argument 
 important to the sceptical philosophy of our own day. 
 The German Buchner binds up his atheistic philosophy 
 between the two covers of Force and ]\Iatter ; and many 
 in our own country follow in the same train of singularly 
 forgetful thought : forgetful because force and matter are 
 really not sufficient to constitute a universe ; the regu- 
 lative and directive power which controls force and 
 manipulates matter to its will is assuredly as essential a 
 factor as either force or matter* Thus Dr. Watts argui s 
 in his remarks: 
 
 THE DIRECTION' OF MOTION A PROOF OF DEITY. 
 
 "Yet, after all, I know it may be replied again, that 
 gravitation is a power which is not limited in its agency 
 by any conceivable distances whatsoever ; and therefore, 
 when these starbeams are run out never so far into the 
 infinite void by the force of their emission from tlie star, 
 yet their gravitation towards the star, or some of tlu; 
 planetary worlds, wliich sometimes, perliaps, may be nearer 
 to it, has perpetual influence to retard their motion by 
 degrees, even as the motion of a comet is i-etarded by its 
 gi'avitation towards the sun, tliougli it tlies to .such a pro- 
 digious distance from the sun, and in time it is sto])pc(l 
 and drawn back again and made to return towards its 
 centre. And just so, may we suppose, all the suid)eanis 
 and starbeams tliat ever were emitted, even to the borders 
 
 * This matter has hecn well argued against the Atheistic view, in a 
 very interesting little pamphlet, " CroU on the Conservation of Force." 
 
 Y 
 
'o22 Snmmrn-!/ and Estimate of Pro!ie Wrifinr/fi. 
 
 of the creation, to have been restrained by degrees by this 
 principle of gravitation till, moving slower and slower, at 
 last they are stopped in tlieir progress and made to return 
 toward their own or some otlier planetary system. And if 
 so, then tliere is a perpetual return of the beams of liglit 
 towards some or otlier of their bright originals, an ever- 
 lasting circulation of these lucid atoms, whicli will hinder 
 tliis eternal dilation of the bounds of the universe, and at 
 the same time will equally prevent the wasting of the 
 substance of the lucid bodies, the sun or stars. Well, but 
 if this poM'er of restraining and reducing the flight of star- 
 beams be ascribed to this principle of gravitation, let us 
 inquire wliat is this gravitation, which prevents tlie 
 universe from such a perpetual waste of liglit ? It cannot 
 be supposed to be any real property or natural power 
 inhering in matter or body, which exerts its influence at so 
 jjrodigious a distance. I think, therefore, it is generally 
 agreed, and with great reason, that it is properly the 
 influence of a Bivine power upon every atom of matter 
 which, in a most exact proportion to its bulk and distance, 
 causes it to gravitate towards all other material beings, and 
 which makes all the bulky beings in the universe, viz., the 
 sun, planets, and stars, attract the bodies that are near 
 them towards themselves. Now this law of nature being 
 settled at first by (Jod tlie Creator, and being constantly 
 maintained in tlie course of His providence, it is esteemed 
 as an effect of nature, and has a property of matter, though 
 in truth it is owing to the almighty and all-pervading power 
 of God exerting its incessant dominion and influence 
 through the whole material creation, producing an iutinite 
 Miriety of changes which we observe among bodies, con- 
 fining the universe to its appointed limits, restraining the 
 .swift motion of the beams of light, and preserving this vast 
 
Creation or Conservation. 
 
 323 
 
 system of beinos from waste and ruin, from desolation and 
 darkness. If there be a world, there is a God ; if there be 
 a sun and stars, every ray points to their Creator ; not a 
 beam of light from all the lucid globes, but acknowledges 
 its mission from the Avisdom and will of God, and feels the 
 restraint of His laws, that it may not be an eternal 
 wanderer. But I call my thoughts to retire from these 
 extravagant rovings beyond the limits of creation. AVhat 
 do these amusements teacli us but the inconceivable 
 grandeur, extent, and magnificence of the works and the 
 power of God, the astonishing contrivances of His wisdom, 
 and the poverty, the weakness, and narrowness of our own 
 understandings, all which are lessons well becoming a 
 creature ?" 
 
 In the same manner, also, he replies to the modern doc- 
 trine of traducianism in his remarks on 
 
 CRKATION OR CONSKRVATION. 
 
 " It has been a very famous question in the schools, 
 whether conservation be a continual creation, i.e., whether 
 tliat action, whereby God preserves all creatures in their 
 several ranks and orders of being, is not one continued act 
 ol' His creating power or influence, as it were, giving being 
 to them every moment ? Whether creatures, being formed 
 out of nothing, would relapse again into tlieir first estate of 
 nonentity it' tliey were not, as it were, perpetually repro- 
 duced by a creating act of God ? Now there is one ])lain 
 and easy argiiiucnt whereby, perhaps, tliis controver.sy may 
 l)e determined, and it may be proposed in this manner. In 
 whatsoever moment CJod creates a substance, He must 
 create with it all the properties, modes, and accidents which 
 l>elong to it in tliat moment ; for in the very moment 
 
324 Summary and Estimate of Prose Writings. 
 
 of creation the creature is all passive, <and cannot give 
 itself those modes. Now if God every moment create 
 wicked men and devils, and cause them to exist such as 
 they are, by a continued act of creation, must He not, at 
 the same time, create or give being to all their sinful 
 thoughts and inclinations, and even their most criminal and 
 abominable actions ? Must He not create devils, together 
 with the rage and pride, the malice, en\'y, and blasphemy of 
 their thoughts ? Must He not create sinful men in the 
 very acts of lying, perjury, stealing, and adultery, rapine, 
 cruelty, and murder ? Must He not form one man with 
 malice in his heart ? Another with a false oath on the 
 tongue ? A third with a sword in his hand, plunging it 
 into his neighbour's bosom ? Would not tliese formidable 
 consequences follow from the supposition of God's con- 
 serving providence being a continual act of creation ? But 
 surely these ideas seem to be shocking absurdities, whereas, 
 if conservation be really a continued creation, tlie modes 
 must be created together with their substances every 
 moment, since it is not possible that creatures, who every 
 moment are supposed to be nothing but the immediate 
 products of the Divine will, should be capable in every one 
 of those very moments in which they are produced or 
 created to form their own modes in simultaneous co-exist- 
 ence with their subjects. I own there are difliculties on the 
 other side of the question ; but tlie fear of making God the 
 author of sin has bent my opinion this way. We must 
 always inviolably maintain it for the honour of the blessed 
 God, that all spirits, as they come out of His hand, are 
 created pure and innocent ; every sinful act proceeds from 
 themselves, by an abuse of their own freedom of will, or 
 by a volxmtary compliance with the corrupt appetites and 
 inclinations of flesh and blood. We must find some better 
 
On Discrimination in the Use of Words. 325 
 
 way, therefore, to explain God's providential conservation 
 of things than by representing it as an act of proper and 
 continual creation, lest we impute all the iniquities of all 
 men and devils, in all ages, to the pure and holy God, who 
 is blessed for evermore." 
 
 There are two other pieces well worth a study- — his 
 remarks on Mr. Locke's " Essay on the Human Under- 
 standing," and a " Brief Scheme of Ontology." The essay 
 on ontology, like that on logic, is a most interesting hand- 
 book and guide to thought. Watts thought so clearly 
 that it often seems as if he were only putting things 
 neatly. Sometimes, as in his " Pliilosophic Essays," and in 
 his pieces on the Trinity, lie is eminently translucent ; 
 you see that there is light behind. This is the impression 
 conveyed by his dissertation on " Space," " Substance," and 
 " Concerning Spirits, their Place and Motion ;" but in his 
 Ontology and Logic he is transparent, the objects are 
 Ijrought distinctly into view. When he presents before you 
 his greater thoughts his style is indeed clear, but you feel 
 that it is as when "morning is spread upon the mountains" 
 before sunrise, or as when evening lingers in the soft and 
 rosy light after sunset, there is something somewhere 
 behind, some orb of light which spreads out all tliat roseate 
 glow ; in his Ontology and Logic he is concise and dis- 
 tinct, as we have said; you may almost call liiiu a neat 
 writer. He has a wonderful power of accumulating par- 
 ticulars, a singular felicity in discriminating ideas. This 
 gives to him a very nice sense of words, as he says, " We 
 must search the sense of words. It is for want of this that 
 men quarrel in the dark, and that there are so many con- 
 tentions in the several sciences, and especially in divinity." 
 His power of discrimination is so nice that it often becomes 
 as amusing as it is instructive ; regarded thus, his Logic 
 
"26 Sumviary and Estimate of Prone Writings. 
 
 is a most interesting book, we suppose quite the most 
 delightful to read of any treatise on logic in our language. 
 Of this amusing cumulative power let the reader take the 
 i'ollowing : 
 
 NAMES AND NAMING THINGS. 
 
 " Do not suppose that the natures or essences of things 
 always differ from one anotlier as much as their names 
 do. There are various purposes in human life for which 
 we put very different names on the same thing, or on 
 tilings whose natures are near akin ; and thereby often- 
 times, by making a new nominal species, we are ready to 
 deceive ourselves with the idea of another real species of 
 beings, and those whose understandings are led away by 
 the mere sound of words fancy the nature of those things 
 to be very different whose names are so, and judge of them 
 accordingly. I may borrow a remarkable instance for my 
 purpose out of every garden which contains a variety of 
 plants in it. Most of all plants agree in this, that they 
 have a root, a stalk, leaves, buds, blossoms, and seeds : but 
 the gardener ranges them under very different names, as 
 though they were really different kinds of beings, merely 
 \)ecause of the different use and service to whicli they are 
 applied by men, as for instance those plants whose roots 
 are eaten shall appropriate the name of roots to them- 
 selves, such as carrots, turnips, radishes, etc. If the leaves 
 are of chief use to us then we call them herbs, as sage, 
 mint, thyme ; if the leaves are eaten raw they are termed 
 salad, as lettuce, purslane ; if boiled they become pot- 
 herbs, as spinage, coleworts ; and some of those same 
 plants which are pot-herbs in one family are salads in 
 another. If the buds are made our food they are called 
 
Essays on Locjic and Ontology. 
 
 heads or tops ; so cabbage heads, heads of asparagus, and 
 artichokes. If the blossom be of most importance we call 
 it a flower, such as daisies, tulips, and carnations, whicli 
 are the mere blossoms of those plants. If the husks or 
 seeds are eaten they are called the fruits of the ground, as 
 peas, beans, strawberries, etc. If any part of the plant be 
 of known or common use to us in medicine we call it a 
 physical herb, as cardamus, scurvy-grass ; but if we count 
 no part useful we call it a weed, and throw it out of the 
 garden ; and yet perhaps our next neighbour knows some 
 valuable property and use of it, he plants it in his garden 
 and gives it a title of an herb or a flower. You see here how 
 small is the real distinction of these several plants con- 
 sidered in their general nature as the lesser A'egetables, yet 
 what very different ideas we vulgarly form concerning 
 them, and make different species of them', chiefly because 
 of the different names given to them." 
 
 Exactly the same characteristics meet us in his Onto- 
 logy, but here there is yet more of this kind of amuse- 
 ment ; its pages are crowded with illustrations. It was 
 perhaps in the nature of the subject that he scarcely 
 mentions a particular for which he does not furnish one 
 or twenty illustrative examples : take his curious dis- 
 crimination of causes into the deflcient, the permissive;, 
 and the conditional : 
 
 CLASSIFIC.VTIOX OF CAUSES. 
 
 " A deficient cause is wlien the effect owes its existence 
 in a great measure to the absence of something which 
 would have prevented it, so that this may be reckoned a 
 negative rather than a positive cause : the negligence of a 
 gardener, or the want of rain, are the deflcient causes of 
 
o2S Si'.miiiuri/ and Estimate of Prose Writings. 
 
 the ■withering- of plants; and the carelessness of the pilot, 
 or the sinking of the tide, is the cause of a ship's splitting 
 on a rock ; the forgctfulness of a message is the cause of 
 a quarrel among friends, or of the punishment of ser- 
 \'ants ; the not bringing a reprieve in time is the cause of 
 a criminal's being executed ; and the want of education is 
 the cause ■why many a child runs headlong into vice and 
 mischief ; the blindness of a man, or the darkness of the 
 night, are the causes of stumbling; a leak in a boat is a 
 deticieut cause why the -w-ater runs in and the boat sinks ; 
 and a hole in a vessel is called a deficient cause "why the 
 li(j[Uor runs out and is lost. Man is the deficient cause of 
 all his sins of omission, and many of these carry great 
 guilt in them. 
 
 "A permissive cause is that which actually removes 
 impediments, and thus it lets the proper causes operate. 
 Now this sort of cause is either natural or moral. A 
 natural permissive cause removes natural impediments 
 or obstructions, and this may be called a deobstruent 
 cause. So opening the window shutters is the cause of 
 the liglit entering the room ; cleaning the ear may be the 
 cause of a man's hearing music who was deaf before ; 
 breaking down a dam is the cause of the overilowing of 
 ■water and drowning a town ; letting loose a rope is the 
 cause of a ship's running adrift ; leaving off a garment is 
 the cause of a cold and a cough ; and cutting the bridle of 
 the tongue may be the cause of speech to the dumb. 
 
 "Note. — The cause which removes natural impediments 
 may be a proper efficient cause with regard to that re- 
 moval, yet it is not properly efficient, but merely per- 
 missive with regard to the consequences of that removal. 
 
 " A moral permissive cause removes moral impediments, 
 or takes away prohibitions, and gives leave to act : so a 
 
The AdmiraUc Perspicuity of His Style. 329 
 
 master is a permissive cause of liis scholars going to play ; 
 a general is the same cause of his soldiers plundering a 
 city ; and a repeal of a law against foreign silks is the 
 permissive cause why they are worn. 
 
 " Query. — Was not God's permission of Satan to affjict 
 Job rather natural than moral, since his mischievous 
 actions did not hecome lawful thereby, and since it is now 
 become his nature to do mischief where he has no natural 
 restraint ? 
 
 "A condition has been usually caused causa sine qud 
 non, or a cause without which the effect is not produced. 
 It is generally applied to something which is requisite in 
 order to the effect, though it hath not a proper actual 
 intluence in producing that effect. Daylight is a condition 
 of ploughing, sowing, and reaping ; darkness is a condition 
 of our seeing stars and glowworms ; clearness of the 
 stream is the condition of our spying sand and pebbles 
 at the bottom of it ; being well dressed with a head un- 
 covered is a condition of a man's coming into the presence 
 of a king ; and paying a peppercorn yearly is the con- 
 dition of enjoying an estate. How far the perfect idea of 
 the word condition, in the civil law, may differ from this 
 representation is not my present work to determine. 
 
 " Note. — These three last cau.ses may possibly be all 
 ranked under the general name of conditions, but I think 
 it more proper to distingui.sh tliem into their different 
 kinds of causality." 
 
 AVe perhaps repeat ourselves in tliese last remarks, for 
 all is an illustration of that perspicuity which we men- 
 tioned as Watts' first characteristic ; but in him perspicuity 
 was not the attribute of a small mind, or a limited range 
 of vision ; perspicuous speech is the natural instrument of 
 perspicuous tliouglit : how can tliat man express himself 
 
330 Summary (tnd Estimate of Prose Wriiinfis. 
 
 clearly who does not see clearly ? Hence dark language must 
 be the companion of dark vision ; but the perspicuity of a 
 child amongst its playthings, in its playground or its 
 garden is one thing, and tlie perspicuity of the pilot of a 
 vesfjel, or a gifted astronomer, is quite another. However 
 wide or vast the subjects upon which AVatts wrote, it 
 seemed he liad cleared thought in his own mind, by the 
 clearness with which speech served him in making the 
 things in his own mind the property of others ; and upon 
 whatsoever he wrote there was always the same suffusing 
 light of the devoutness of the spiritual mind. Here is no 
 flippancy ; here are no impertinent epigrams, no hard words 
 even for opponents ; we have to search a long way througli 
 his works before we find an expression of severity, we will 
 not say of contempt — perhaps there are such — but we are 
 sure they will only be used of those who, by some abandon- 
 ment of sentiment, had separated themselves from the 
 common feeling of mankind. Yet there was considerable 
 nervousness in his speech, he was a great preacher, he com- 
 jnanded attention ; judging from the testimony of Johnson, 
 he must have been, to cultivated minds, one of the most dis- 
 tinguished preachers of his day : his enunciation was clear, 
 forcible, and distinct, and what was wanting to an imposing 
 presence was made ixjj from the earnestness of the manner, 
 the calm buninousuess, elevation, and we would even say, 
 (he sustained but subdued vehemence of his diction. His 
 sermon on the " Ileformation of Maimers," to which Southey 
 has referred, not in his life of Watts but in one of the 
 volumes of his " Common-place Book," as " an extraordi- 
 nary piece," is an illustration of this. It was preached 
 at the time when we were in conflict with Louis xiv. He 
 gives the following side-glance to the w^ars in Flanders, and 
 on the borders of the Ehine, and he refers to the import- 
 
Watts in the Pidjut. 
 
 331 
 
 ance, not only of fighting the enemy abroad, but resisting 
 vice at home. He exclaims, in a remarkable passage : 
 
 " But was there ever any war without danger, or victory 
 without courage ? Besides, the perils you run here are 
 almost infinitely less than those which attend the wars of 
 nations, where the cause is not half so Divine. The fields 
 of battle in Flanders, and almost all over Europe, have 
 drunk up the blood of millions, and have furnished graves 
 for large armies ; but it can hardly be said that you have 
 hitherto ' resisted unto blood striving against sin.' In a 
 war of more than twelve years' continuance {i.e., against 
 vice at home) there has but one man fallen. The 
 providence of God has put helmets of salvation upon 
 your heads. Some of you can relate wonders of deliver- 
 ance to safety when you have been beset by numbers, 
 and their rage has kindled into resolutions of revenge ; 
 the Lord lias taken away tlieir courage in a moment, 
 the 'men of might have not found their hands;' thus 
 He has caused ' the wrath of man to praise Him, and 
 the remainder of wrath He liatli restrained.' * Eead over 
 this psalm, and with Divine valour pursue the fight. Jiut 
 if your life should he lost in such a cause as this, it will be 
 esteemed martyrdom in the siglit of God, and shall be thus 
 written down in the book of the wars of the Lord. Believe 
 me, these red lines will look well in the records of heaven, 
 when the judgment shall be set, and the books opened in 
 the face of men and angels." 
 
 Watts in the pulpit ought to furnisli the subject for a 
 distinct chapter — it must fall into this feeble attempt to 
 (ealize the man's mind in his works. His sermons were 
 , evidently carefully prepared and admirably arranged ; it 
 was not j)ossible for him to speak without thought, but he 
 
 * I'salm Ixxvi. o, 10. 
 
ooi Summary and Estimate of Prose Writings. 
 
 'used very few notes iu the pulpit, preparing carefully so 
 jthat the mind and memory were fully charged, giving to 
 L'such a mind as his freedom, instantaneous propriety, and 
 1 fulness of expression ; many men who exhibit fulness of 
 {wisdom, Loth in thought and language, in the study, find 
 all fail them when they come to speak in public. On 
 every hand we hear that this was not the case with Watts, 
 and that his deliverances in public corres])onded to his 
 great powers in the study ; and his sermons are of that 
 nature that they assure us if the delivery corresponded to 
 the strength of the matter and the felicity and harmony of 
 tlie comjaosition, they must have been very impressive. As 
 some of the great sermons of Jeremy Taylor appear to have 
 been prepared to preach when he was in exile at the Golden 
 (trove in Wales, in the drawing-room of Lord Vaughan, so 
 some of Watts' sermons were prepared for delivery at the 
 evening worship at Theobalds ; one of the noblest of these 
 ' is a commanding piece on the Scale of Blessedness, or 
 Blessed Saints, Blessed Saviour, Blessed Trinity. In this 
 subduing sermon occurs one of the passages which excited 
 the wrath of Thomas Bradbury, and to which we have 
 referred. Here it is ; the note is evidently intended to 
 justify himself from his coarse assailant, although he does 
 not say so. 
 
 A SCALK OF BLESSEDNESS. 
 
 " Can we ever imagine that Moses the meek, the friend 
 of God, who was, as it were. His confidant on earth. His 
 faithful prophet to institute a new religion, and establish a 
 new Church in the world, who, for God's sake, endured 
 forty years of banishment, and had forty years' fatigue iu 
 a M'ilderness ; who saw God on earth face to face, 
 and the shine was left upon his countenance : can we 
 
Watts in tlie Pulpit. 
 
 333 
 
 suppose that this man has taken his seat no nearer 
 to God in Paradise than Samson and Jephthah, those 
 rash champions, those lude and bloody ministers of 
 Providence ?* Or can we think that St. Paul, the greatest 
 of the apostles, ' who laboured more than they all,' and 
 ' was in sufferings ' more abundant than the rest ; who 
 spent a long life in daily services and deaths for the sake of 
 Christ, is not fitted for, and advanced to a rank of blessed- 
 ness superior to that of the crucified thief, who became a 
 Christian Init a few moments at the end of a life of iin- 
 X^iety and plunder ? Can I persuade myself that a holy 
 man, who has known much of God in this world, and 
 spent his age on earth in contemplation of the Divine ex- 
 cellences, who has acquired a great degree of nearness to 
 God in devotion, and has served Him, and suffered for 
 Him, even to old age and martyi'dom, with a sprightly and 
 faithful zeal : can I believe that this man, who has been 
 trained up all his life to converse with God, and is fitted 
 to receive Divine communications above his fellows, shall 
 dwell no nearer to God hereafter, and share no larger a 
 degree of blessedness, than the little babe who has just 
 entered into this world to die out of it, and who is saved, 
 so far as we know, merely by spreading the veil of the 
 covenant grace, drawn over it by the hand of the parent's 
 faith ? Can it be that the Great Judge who ' cometh and 
 His reward is with Him, to render to every one according 
 
 * " These expressions maybe sufficiently justified if we consider Jeph- 
 thah's rasli vow of sacrifice, wliicli fell upon his only child ; and Sam- 
 son's rude or unbecoming conduct in his amours with the Philistine 
 woman at TLmnath, the harlot at Gaza, and his Delilah at Sorek; his 
 bloody quarrels and his manner of life. The learned and pious Dr. 
 Owen, as I have been often informed by his intimate friend, Sir John 
 Hartopp, called him a rude believer. He might have strong faith of 
 miracles, but a small share of that faith wliich purifies the heart." 
 
334 Summary and Estiviate of Prose Writings. 
 
 to his works,' will make no distinction between Moses and 
 Samson, between the apostle and the thief, between tlu; 
 aged naartyr and the infant, in the world to come ? And 
 yet, after all, it may be matter of iiKpiiry, whether tin; 
 meanest saint among the sons of Adam has not some sort 
 of privilege above any rank of angels by being of a kindred 
 nature to our Ennnanuel, to Jesus the Son of God." 
 
 And the following is a fine passage on the Trinity, wliich 
 may be read with pleasure, although some years after he 
 says that " it is a warmer effort of the imagination than 
 riper years would indulge. What distinctions there may 
 be in this one Spirit I know not ; I am fully established in 
 the belief of the Deity of the Blessed Three, though I know 
 not the manner of the explication." 
 
 THE TRINITY. 
 
 " The Father is so intimately near the Son and Spirit, 
 tliat no finite or created natures or unions can give a just 
 resemblance of it. We talk of the union of the sun and 
 his beams, of a tree and its branches ; but these are but 
 poor images and faint shadows of this mystery, though 
 they are some of the best that I know. The imion of tlie 
 .soul and the body is, in my esteem, still farther from the 
 point, because their natures are so widely different. In 
 vain we search tlu'ough all the creation to find a complete 
 similitude of the Creator. 
 
 " And in vain may we run through all parts and powers 
 of nature and art, to seek a full resemblance of tlie mutual 
 propensity and love of the Blessed Three towards each 
 other. Math(;maticians, indeed, talk of the perpetual ten- 
 di'ncies and infinite approximations of two or more lines 
 
The Trinity. 
 
 on the same surface, which yet never can entirely concur 
 in one line : and if we should say that the Three Persons 
 of the Trinity, by mutual indwelling and love, approach 
 each other infinitely in one Divine nature, and yet lose not 
 their distinct personality, it would be but an obscure 
 account of this sublime mystery. But this we are sure of, 
 that for three Divine Persons to be so inconceivably near 
 one another in the original and eternal spring of love, 
 goodness, and pleasure, must produce infinite delight. lu 
 order to illustrate the happiness of the Sacred Three, may 
 we not suppose something of society necessary to the per- 
 fection of happiness in all intellectual nature ? To know 
 and be known, to love and to be beloved, are, perhaps, such 
 essential ingredients of complete felicity that it cannot 
 subsist without them. And it may be doubted whetlier 
 such mutual knowledge and love, as seems requisite for 
 this end, can be found in a nature absolutely simple in all 
 respects. May we not then suppose that some distinctions 
 in the Divine Being are of eternal necessity, in order to 
 complete the blessedness of Godhead ? Such a distinction 
 as may admit, as a great man e-xpresses it, of delicious 
 society. ' We, for our parts, cannot but hereby have in 
 our minds a more gustful idea of a blessed state, than we 
 can conceive in mere eternal solitude.' 
 
 " And if this be true, then the three differences, which 
 we call personal distinctions, in the nature of God, are as 
 altsolutely necessary as His blessedness, as His being, or 
 any of His perfections. And then we may return to the 
 words of my text, and boldly infer, that if the man is 
 blessed who is chosen by the free and sovereign grace of 
 God, and caused to approach, or draw near Him, wliat 
 immense and unknown blessedness belongs to each Divine 
 Person, to all the Sacred Three, who are by nature and 
 
33G Summary and Edimate of Pime IVrilinr/fi. 
 
 uncliang-eable necessity so near, so united, so much one, 
 that the least moment's separation seems to be infinitely 
 impossible, and, then we may venture to say, it is not to 
 be conceived : and the blessedness is conceivable by none 
 but God ! 
 
 " TJiis is a nobler union and a more intense pleasure 
 than the Man Jesus Christ knows or feels, or can conceive, 
 1'or He is a creature. These are glories too Divine and 
 dazzling for the weak eye of our understanding, too bright 
 for the eye of angels, those morning stars ; and they, and 
 we, must fall down together, alike overwlielmed with 
 them, and alike confounded. These are flights that tire 
 souls of the strono-est wing, and finite minds faint in the 
 infinite pursuit ; these are depths where our tallest thoughts 
 sink and drown ; we are lost in this ocean of being and 
 blessedness that has no limit on either side, no surface, no 
 bottom, no shore. The nearness of the Divine Persons to 
 each other, and the unspeakable relish of their unbounded 
 pleasures, are too vast ideas for our bounded minds to 
 entertain. It is one infinite transport that runs through 
 the Father, Son, and Spirit, without beginning, and without 
 ■ end, with boundless variety, yet ever perfect and ever 
 present without change, and without degree ; and all this 
 l)ecause they are so near to one another, and so nmcli one 
 with God. 
 
 "But when we have fatigiied our spirits and put them 
 to the utmost stretch, we must lie down and rest, and con- 
 fess the great incomprehensible. How far this sublime 
 transport of joy is varied in each subsistence ; how far 
 their mutual knowledge of each other's properties, or their 
 mutual delight in each other's love, is distinct in each 
 Person, is a secret too high for the present determination 
 of our language and our thoughts : it commands our judg- 
 
On C'c/isorious Christians. 
 
 ment in silence, and our wliole souLs into wonder and 
 adoration." 
 
 He frequently indulged in a warmth of expression ; he 
 did not disdain ornament, although all was held in a wise 
 check, and indeed with a severe rein, and his sermons 
 were not less practical than beautiful. They abound in 
 such passages as the following, in which he so sweetly 
 and mildly expostulates with 
 
 CENSORIOUS CHRISTIANS. 
 
 " Be not too severe in your censures, you who have been 
 kept from temptation, but pity others who are fallen, and 
 mourn over their fall. Do not think or say the worst 
 tilings you can of tho.se who have been taken in the snare 
 of Satan, and been betrayed into some grosser ini(|uitii-<. 
 When you see them grieved and ashamed of their own fol- 
 lies, and bowed down under much heaviness, take occasion 
 then to speak a softening and a healing word. Speak IVir 
 them kmdly, and speak to them tenderly. 'Have com- 
 passion of them, lest they be swallowed up of over much 
 soiTow.' And remember, too, 0 censorious Christian, that 
 thou art also in the body. It is rich grace that has kept thee 
 hitherto, and the same God, who for wise ends lias suffered 
 thy brother to fall, may punish thy severity and reproach- 
 ful language by witldiolding His gi-ace from thee in the 
 next hour of teniptatitjn, and then tliy own fall and guilt 
 shall upbraid thee with inward and bitter reflections, for 
 thy sharp censures of thy weak and tempted brother. Tliis 
 life is the only time wherein we can pity the infirmities of 
 our brethren, and bear their burden.s. This law of Christ 
 nmst be fulfilled in this world, for there is no room for it in 
 the next : ' Wherefore bear ye one another's burdens, and so 
 
 z 
 
"38 Staiwian/ and Estimate of Prose Writings. 
 
 fulfil ye the law of Christ.' This world is the only place 
 Avhere different opinions and doctrines are found amongst 
 tlie saints ; disagreeing forms of devotion, and sects, and 
 parties, have no place on high : none of these things can 
 interrupt the worship or the peace of heaven. See to it 
 then, that you practise this grace of charity here, and love 
 thy brother, and receive him into thy heart in holj^ fellow- 
 sliip, tliough lie may be weak in faith, and though he may 
 observe days and times, and may feed ujion herbs, and 
 indulge some superstitious i'ollies while thou art strong in 
 faith, and well acquainted with the liberty of the Gospel. 
 Let not little things provoke you to divide communions on 
 earth : but by this sort of charity, and a Catholic spirit, 
 honour the Saviour and His Church here in this world ; for 
 since there are no parties, nor sects, nor contrarj'' senti- 
 ments among the Church in heaven, this Christian virtue 
 can never find any room for exercise there. This kind of 
 charity ends witli death." 
 
 But such delineations as these might be pursued to a 
 great length, and we have scarcely dwelt at all upon that 
 aspect of his public teaching which the last quotation 
 instantly suggests, its eminent practical character ; his dis- 
 courses on " Christian Morality," his beautiful discourse 
 on " Humility," for which he received the hearty thanks 
 of the Bishop of London ; his " Caveat against Infidelity," 
 his " Guide to Prayer summarily, it may be said, he 
 touched everything with an exquisite delicacy of conscience, 
 and with the elevation of a saint. His mind cannot be 
 summed in one attribute, neither his piety, nor his genius 
 can be said to find an adequate illustration in one work ; 
 he was one of a race of men of whom, indeed, the history 
 of the literature of those times furnishes many illustrations, 
 whose learning and labours were alike vast; they must 
 
The Age of the Great Bookmen. 
 
 have caught the earKest daybeam, and trimmed the lam]> 
 far beyond the hours of midnight, pursuing their indus- 
 trious toil, devouring libraries. Their works formed a 
 library ; they had not the necessities of our times to call 
 them away, nor was it the age of magazines and reviews, 
 and the lighter shall(jps of literature. The age immediately 
 preceding that of Watts, and liis own age, present to us 
 the forms of many men, who in some sheltered nook passed 
 a life unprofitable — ought we to say inglorious ? — satisfied 
 with the spoils of learning, they lived a life of barrenness ; 
 they sought wisdom for her own sake, ueitlier for the use 
 it enabled them to confer on others, or the fame it conferred 
 on themselves ; or, if they published, it was not so much 
 from the benevolent idea of the transfusion of knowledge, 
 but really from their interest only in their own idea. 
 These were the men and those the times whicli may l)e 
 best described in the words of Milton : 
 
 Whose lamp at midnight hour 
 
 Is seen in some high lonely tower, 
 
 Where he may oft outwatch the Bear 
 
 With thrice great Hermes, or unsphere 
 
 The spirit of Plato, to unfold 
 
 What worlds or what vast regions hold 
 
 The immortal mind that hath forsook 
 
 Her mansion in this fleshly nook. 
 
 But to this order of mind Watts added that which alto- 
 gether changed it ; he possessed in an eminent degree the 
 love of books and thought, lofty imaginations, and exclu- 
 sions through the far-off continents of knowledge ; but he 
 added to the volitions of genius, and the accumulations of 
 the scholar, the doing " all for the glory of God ; " few lives 
 so useful and even so obvious seem to have been so sancti- 
 fied from every liunian passion and selfish isolation ; and 
 hence with powers which might have found tlieir gratili- 
 
.'UO Svnniiajnj and Estimate of Prose Writings. 
 
 cation hud he chosen to move like some remote and 
 solitary planet in an unilluminating orb, he preferred 
 rather to be a satellite, shedding a useful lustre on his 
 i^erene way, and in tlie language of a well-known writer, 
 " singing while he shone." The amiable critic to whom we 
 ]ia\ e already referred says that the whole lesson of Watts' 
 life might be condensed into the apostolic injunction, 
 " Study to be quiet and mind your own business ;" and the 
 estimate is greatly true. He was a firm Nonconformist, 
 liut he was no agitator; he lived and wrought laboriously 
 in his vocation, and that vocation was to bring about " the 
 union of mental culture and vital piety." As lie did not 
 ■ write pamphlets to expose the evils of the hierarchy, or 
 Ihe defects of his own ecclesiastical system, so neither 
 did he attempt to rebuke in print such assailants as 
 ]>radbury. He was the first in England who set the 
 ( rospel to music ; and many who knew not the meaning of 
 the words yet found their hearts melted by the melody of 
 genius. There is a saintly dignity and peaceful purity 
 al)0ut his life which it is not invidious to say gives to him, 
 even in writers of his own order, a high pre-eminence. 
 He seems to have been one whom "the peace of Goil 
 which passeth all understanding " kept. And surely he 
 has won a place in the universal Church — no Churcli 
 ]-epudiates him ; his eulogy has been pronounced, and his 
 life recorded, by Samuel Johnson, and Eobert Sou they, 
 and Josiah Conder. If his hymns crowd the " Congrega- 
 tional Hymn Book," they are to l)e found in the " Hymns 
 Ancient and Modern and, as we have seen, his monu- 
 ment adorns not only the " conventicle " but the cathedral. 
 
 Ages differ, and men differ with their age. This is the 
 place neither to compare nor to contrast ; but in an 
 eminent sense AVatts appears to have fulfilled himself 
 
Monument in Westminster Abbey. 341 
 
 He drank deep from every kind of learning : we have seen 
 that he wrote upon every kind of subject ; and althougli it ! 
 is the fashion now to pass him by, and even to underrate 
 many of those pieces in prose and verse which were long 
 held as the most cherished heirlooms of the Church, we 
 shall have to search long and far to discover a more ample 
 and consecrated intelligence, a more conscientious and 
 laborious worker, than the mild, the modest, yet majestic 
 hermit, philosopher, and sweet singer of Theobalds and 
 Stoke Newington. 
 
 MONUMENT OF DK. WATTS IN WESTlIINSTliE ABIiEY. 
 
 « 
 
« .9 
 
 a ^ &" 
 
 S 13 1' o 
 ^ u ^ 
 
 SB'S s % 
 
 R ri* o C 9 
 
 ^ d 
 
 S 
 
 J5 cd O 
 
 ■ .3 o >^fi 
 
 £ be 
 
 't:'3 g p s_§ 
 
 « 
 
 9. o ^^ 
 
 til CD 
 
 S 5 =+H , 
 
 0) 
 
 a ■ 
 
 1^ <! 
 
 K g ^ S'- 
 bc.2 a 
 ft^ o 
 
 - „ tt> ^ K 
 
 <1J Qi =2 W O 
 
 S CI 
 
 •-a 
 
 § 1 
 
 t= =i o 
 
 o 
 
 o 
 
 t3 
 
 50 «H 
 O o3 
 
<D s S a a' 
 
 o " 
 
 ■u a. 
 
 O) - 
 
 ft S 
 
 t>o.2 
 
 o 
 
 > V ^ -5 
 
 bo 
 
 =1 
 
 = o 
 
 • g 
 
 'bp 
 
 o ^ 
 
 = 1^ 
 •1= 
 
 ^ o 
 
 bp 
 
 3 — S 
 
 mo. 
 
 "S o ^ 3 :3 -g ^ 
 S !^ -<! S ? 
 
 1-5 _ ^ 
 
 bc-^ ^ 
 
 -^^ 3 
 
 C S cS 
 g § = 
 
 '^3 
 
 a. 
 
 M 8 
 
 o 
 
 bb« 
 
 o ^ 
 bo P< ^ 
 
 o 
 
 -» ,o 
 
 a^ a 
 
 bt 
 
 -2 
 
 ^1 
 
 O 0) c^j > . 
 
 ^1 ^^^^^ 3 
 
 o a g M 
 
 o 
 
 5W -5- 
 
 O C p 
 
 .2 
 tr*'*' J- 
 
 " 3 b 
 
 C .3 - 
 
 o " 
 o g o 
 -bcW X 
 
 3 
 
 S ~ =5 
 -2 X -^^ 
 
 ej P 73 
 C S 
 3 = 
 
 n " 3 
 
 o o 
 
 3 O'S 
 •"0 3 
 
 (Dot; 
 
 2 a 
 
 ca lii >• 
 o p 
 
 «3 I 
 
 1 
 
 PI 
 
 oj 
 
 bo 
 
 OJ 
 
 m .5 
 
 CO 5^ 3 ^ 
 
 ^ fc, tu 53 g 
 
 c3 'o 
 
 " ft 
 
 •ICO o ^ 
 
 d i5 
 
 3 K 
 .2 
 
 5S r*> ca 
 
 .J3 
 
 a 
 
 e-ft 
 
 X ? 
 
 5 2| 
 
 ■« ,2 
 
 O 
 
 CD 
 
 g ft 
 
 3 o 
 
 3 3 
 
 <^ X 
 
 ^ o 
 
 . 
 
 dj oj cc 
 3 
 
 c 5 .. 
 
 o 
 
 .3 o ■'^ bo 
 
 '§ 'O bo a; 
 ? .3 
 
 fiol2 
 
 2 >^ 
 
 Ci*-" be 
 
 r- C 
 
 otS ai 'S 
 
 §: 2 g 
 
 CO ft 3 
 
 ,3 
 
 ft 
 
 .2-2 ft 
 
 I 
 
 33 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Abney House, old, 223 
 
 Sir Thomas, 76 
 Academy at Gloucester, the, 25 
 
 at Stoko Newingtou, 15 
 Acrostic, an, 7 
 
 Anecdotes — Bliud woman and 
 Watts' hymns, the, 134; Brad- 
 bury and Burnet, 191 ; Bradbury 
 and Dr. Watts, 193 ; death of an 
 aged minister, 113 ; Derby (Earl) 
 and the blind woman, 134 ; dying 
 Webster, the, 134 ; giant and 
 pigmy, 248 ; of Luther, 97 ; 
 sceptic defeated, the, 146 ; stone- 
 mason's dream, the, 5 ; text for 
 Queen Anne, a, 202 ; " That the 
 great Dr. Watts?" 247 ; Watts' 
 {W)fii)iis, 193 ; " What think you 
 of death 'f " 269 ; Wliitefield and 
 Watts, 261 
 
 Anne's reign, close of Queen, 209 
 
 Arianism of Watts' day, the, 311 
 
 Artificial poetry, 58 
 
 Atonement, the poet of the, 108 
 
 Atterbury, Bishop, 210 
 
 Augustine, St., on the songs of the 
 Church, 97 
 
 Barbauld, Mrs., //no., 186 
 
 Barrington, Lord, 144 
 letter to Watts, 147 
 
 Baxter on sacred hymns, 100 
 
 Bendish, Mrs., 136 
 
 Birth and childliood of Watts, 1 
 
 Blair's " Grave," 215 
 
 Bookmen, tlu; age of great, 339 
 
 Bradbury, Thomas, 189, 190; and 
 Bishop Burnet, 191 ; and Dr. 
 
 Watts, 192 ; characteristics, 202 ; 
 Defoe's reproof to, 189 ; political 
 preacher, 190 
 Bunhill Fields, its associations, 265 
 Bunting, W. M., quo., 223 
 Carey's tombstone, inscription, 134 
 Carter, Mrs. Elizabeth, 180 
 Caryl's " Book of Job," 46 
 Catechism, Watts', 141 
 Cedar tree and the scythe, the, 37 
 Character of Watts, 248 
 Chauncy, Dr. Isaac, 48 
 Cluist, Psalms restored to, 129 
 Classical sentiment, ti'anslation, 71 
 Coincidents, table of {see Appen- 
 dix) 
 
 Collins, Antony, and Lord Bar- 
 rington, 146 
 
 Comet, lines on a, 12 
 
 Conder, Josiah, r/uo., 100 
 
 Controversy between Watts and 
 Bradbury, 194-201 
 
 Countess of Hertford and Mrs. 
 Rowe, 172; and the Rise and 
 Progress of Religion, 167 
 
 Coward, William, 142 
 
 Critics, hostile, 111 
 
 Cromwell, Richard, 80 
 
 CiTicial events, 1 4 
 
 Daughters, a gi'oup of, 36 
 
 Death, 259 
 
 Defoe in the pillory, 208 
 
 quoted, 15 
 Derby, Earl, and the blind woman, 
 134 
 
 Devotion the attribute of Watts' 
 I hymns, 113 
 
Index. 
 
 347 
 
 Dissenters, Shortest way with, 78 
 
 Doddridge, Dr. Philip, 151 
 
 Dying, liG'i 
 
 Elegy, a lovely, 36 
 
 England in the times of the last 
 Stuarts, 12 
 
 England's history, happiest period 
 of, 20G 
 
 English hymnology, 99 
 
 Epigram, an, 17-1, 255 
 
 Erskine, Ralph, and Watts' 
 hymns, 122 
 
 Expression, fervour of, 65 
 
 Eaith, expressions of personal, 117 
 
 Family, in the Hartopp, 32 
 last of the Hartopp, 38 
 
 Father, imprisonment of Watts', 1 
 
 Fleetwood, General, 35 
 
 Foster, John, quo., 215 
 
 Friend, letter to an afHicted, 53 
 
 Friends, Watts', 136 
 
 Fuller, Tliomas, on death, 260 
 
 Gale, Theopliilus, 16 
 
 Gardiner, Colonel, 166 
 
 Gibbons, Dr., quo., 53, 54, 89, 256, 
 260, 261 
 
 Girdlers' Hall church, 22 
 
 Gloucester academy, the, 25 
 
 Glover's " Leonidas," 175 
 
 Grandfather and grandmother of 
 Watts, 4 
 
 Gunston, Thomas, 220 
 
 Harris, Rubert, quo., 2o7 
 
 Hart, Joniah, 20 
 
 Hartopp, Sir John, 33 
 daugliters of, 36 
 
 Hartopps, last of the, 38 
 
 Hertford, Countess of, 1 72 ; friend- 
 ship with Watts, 174 ; letters, 
 character of, 173; letters to 
 Watts, 167, 174, 176, 179, 181, 
 182; modesty, 182; poetry, 177, 
 184 
 
 Hervey, James, 148 
 
 letter to Watts, 150 
 Hollis family, the, 51 
 "Horse Lyriciu," 57 
 House in French Street, tho old, 1 1 ; 
 
 old Abnoy, 223 ; Stoke Newing- 
 
 ton, 32 ; Theobalds, 79 
 Hughes, John, 20 
 Hymns, Apostolic, 90 
 
 Hymn, Augustine's definition of a, 
 92 ; oiigin of Watts' first, 30 ; 
 P what is a, 93 
 
 Hymnology, Christian, 91 
 English, 99 
 
 Industry, mental, 50 ; of Watts, 249 
 
 Johnson, Dr., y/^o., 17, 18,75,96,313 
 
 Jones, Rev. Samuel, 25 
 
 Jennings, Dr., quo., 272 
 
 Keble's " Chri.stian Year," 89 
 
 critici.sm of Watts' poetry, 103 
 
 Ken, Bishop, and Watts con- 
 trasted, 59 
 
 Kennedy, Dr., quo., Ill 
 
 Kentish petition, the, 207 
 
 Knox, A., criticism on Watts, 102 
 
 Latin, thinking in, 105 
 
 Letters — Couutess of Hertford to 
 Watts, 167, 174, 176, 179, 181, 
 182 ; Doddridge to Watts, 164 ; 
 Doddiidge's dedicatory, 155 ; 
 Hervey to Watts, 150 ; Jewel to 
 Peter Martyr, 99 ; Lord Baiiing- 
 ton to Watts, 147 ; of Euoch 
 Watts, 84; Seeker to Watts, 
 25 ; to Amsterdam, 160 ; to an 
 afHicted friend, 53 ; to Bradbury, 
 195, 197; to Doddridge, 1.53: 
 to Samuel Say, 141 ; to Thomas 
 Rosewell, 139; Watts to his 
 father, 6 
 
 Liddon, Canon, quo., 90 
 
 Lispings in numbers, 7 
 
 Logan and Doddridge, 162 
 
 London in Watts' day, 42 
 
 Luther's songs, 97 
 
 Macaulay, Lord, quo., 211 
 
 Mansion, an old family, 32 
 
 Mark Lane chapel, 54 
 the chm-ch in, 46 
 
 Marf.t, Clement, 98 
 
 Martineau, James, quo., 106 
 
 " Media Vita," the, 95 
 
 Messianic version of the Psalms, 
 126 
 
 Mind of Watts, seraphic, 308 
 Minories, the, 51 
 Modesty of Watts, 132 
 Montgomery's estimate of Watts' 
 
 hymns, 88 
 Monument to Watts, 271 
 Morton, Rev. Charles, 16 
 
348 
 
 Index. 
 
 Motto, a, 203 
 Mystic, Watts a, 109 
 Nature, Watts' love of, 63 
 Nights, sleepless, 83 
 Nouconfomiist, a politic^al, 190 
 
 service, early, 43 
 Nonconformists of old London, 45 
 Papacy, Watts' antipathy to, 211 
 Parentage of Watts, 3 
 Parker, Mr., (jun., 264, 265 
 Pastor, a youthful, 49 
 Pastor of a London church, 40 
 Persecution, the child of, 2 
 Personal appearance of Watts, 233 
 Personification, a definition of, 60 
 Personifications, a constellation 
 of, 61 
 
 Perspicuity of Watts, 329 
 Philosophical works of Watts, 315 
 Physical theory of another life, 233 
 Pinhome, Eev. John, 8 
 Poetry of Watts' time, 58 
 Poets, imperfections of, lOo 
 Polhill, Du\'id, 207 
 Pope, a criticism on, 175 
 Portrait of Watts, a, 224 
 Prayer, a beautiful, 309 
 Preacher, Watts as a, 40 
 Precocity, 7 
 Price, Samuel, 54 
 
 Prose writings, Estimate and sum- 
 mary, 273 
 Psalmless churches, 101 
 Psalms, Watts', 126 
 Pupil, Watts', 38 
 Puritan reminiscence, 43 
 " Quarterly Review," qi(o., 59 
 Relic, an interesting, 270 
 Resignation in sorrow, 173 
 
 Watts', 260 
 Rise and Progress of Religion, etc., 
 
 155, 162 
 Rogers, Henry, quo., 306 
 Rogers, Samuel, "Human Life," 
 
 characterized, 07 
 Rosewell, Samuel, death of, 138 
 
 letter to, 139 
 Rowe, Mrs., 173, 187 
 
 and Dr. Watts, 185 
 
 I Rowe, Thomas, 17, 24 
 
 Sachevcrell mob, doings of the, 209 
 
 Saltzburgers, tlie, 213 
 
 Say, Samuel, 21, 140 
 
 Schism Bill, the, 209 
 i Scott, Dr. Daniel, 26 
 
 Solborne, Lord, quo., 122 
 
 Seeker, Archbi.shop, 25 
 
 Sermons, branching, 306 
 satirized by Watts, 306 
 
 Shimei Bradbury, 189 
 
 Shower, John, 138 
 
 Singing controversy, the, 101 
 
 Southampton gaol, 2 ; of Watts' 
 day, 9 ; plague at, 1 1 
 
 Southey, Dr., quo., 165 
 
 Spirit, a meek and quiet, 199 
 
 Stoke Newington, 218 ; side of life, 
 67 ; the old house at, 32 
 
 Stoi-m of 1703, the great, 208 
 
 Students, Watts' fellow, 19 
 
 Study, methods of, 18 
 Watts', 82 
 
 Suburb, an old London, 55 
 
 Theobalds, tlie old house at, 79 
 
 Theological works of Watts, 313 
 
 Theology, nature of Watts', 109 
 
 Thomson quo., 172 
 
 Times of Watts, 206 
 
 Tunbridge Wells, 250 
 
 Tutor, Watts as a, 37 
 
 Unitarians and Watts, the, 106, 313 
 
 Verse, a perfect, 104 
 
 Verse, the accident of Watts' life, 73 
 
 Verses, satiric, 69 
 
 Waller quo., 176 
 
 Walsh and Fletcher, death of, 259 
 
 Watchwords and Creeds, 115 
 
 Well, Watts', 257 
 
 Wesley, Charles, and Watts con- 
 trasted, 124 
 
 " Wesley an Magazine " quo., 107 
 
 Wesleys' Obligations to Watts, 
 the, 123 
 
 Words, dying, 262 
 
 " World to Come " criticised, 226 
 
 Yomig, Dr., 216 
 quo., 186 
 
 Zodiac, signs of the, 72. 
 
 LOMDON : PABDOM AND BON, PBINTEB8, PATKBNOBTEB BOW. 
 
Date Due 
 
 NC 2-'50 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ^P'^ 
 
 
 MY 15-53; 
 
 ilM«liilllllH' 
 
 
 
 .1 ^ ' 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 J 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 t