{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_69963/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_69963","id":"gutenberg_69963","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/69963","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Biographies","Category: British Literature","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Watts, Isaac, 1674-1748"],"text":"[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF DR. WATTS.\n\nPRESENTED BY MISS ABNEY TO DR. WILLIAMS\u2019 LIBRARY.]\n\n\n\n\n                               ISAAC WATTS;\n\n                          His Life and Writings,\n\n                         _HIS HOMES AND FRIENDS_.\n\n      \u201cFew men have left behind such purity of character, or such\n      monuments of laborious piety. He has provided instruction for\n      all ages, from those who are lisping their first lessons to\n      the enlightened readers of Malebranche and Locke; he has left\n      neither corporeal nor spiritual nature unexamined; he has\n      taught the art of reasoning and the science of the stars.\u201d\u2014_Dr.\n      Johnson._\n\n      \u201cThe Independents, as represented by Dr. Watts, have a just\n      claim to be considered the real founders of modern English\n      hymnody.\u201d\u2014_Lord Selborne._\n\n                                 LONDON:\n                       THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY,\n             56, PATERNOSTER ROW; 65, ST. PAUL\u2019S CHURCHYARD;\n                           AND 164, PICCADILLY.\n         MANCHESTER: CORPORATION STREET. BRIGHTON: WESTERN ROAD.\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: PREFACE.]\n\n\nMost men who have left behind them a name so universally honoured and\nbeloved as that of Isaac Watts have shone in many biographies; he\nreverses the rule, and really has more monuments in stone erected to\nhis memory than there have been readable biographies to record the\ntransactions of his life.\n\nFrom time to time it seems necessary and natural to attempt some fresh\nrecord of the memory of honoured men; even the best biographies wear out,\nand succeeding ages demand a tribute in harmony with varying impressions\nor increased information. The life of Watts was one of the most quiet\nand equable of lives; it flowed on in almost unbroken tranquillity and\npeace; it was passed in much seclusion, neither his taste nor his health\npermitting him to come much personally into the presence of the world.\nThe authentic incidents of his career, of which we have any record, are,\nindeed, very few, yet, such as they are, they should surely be gathered\nup, and put into some fitting memorial. Besides this, it is a life always\ngood to contemplate. Acquaintance seems to lift the reader almost into\nthat region whose air the good man breathed so freely.\n\nThe object of the following pages will be to attempt to do some justice\nto the various attributes of his mental character. His fame as a writer\nof hymns has, by its very brightness, obscured departments of work which\ncost him far more labour. Watts was modest; in every estimate of himself\nhe disclaimed any title to the rank of a poet; but in truth his powers,\nas manifested in his writings, whether we regard him as a preacher,\ntheologian, or metaphysician, are all equally luminous and instructive.\nBeyond all these, a character exalted by seraphic piety and all-embracing\ncharity makes the narrative of such a life well worthy of the study of\nall to whom it is pleasant to contemplate human nature in the finer\nproportions of genius, sanctified and illustrated by Divine grace. It is\ncurious, and almost amusing, to notice that Samuel Johnson quite tamed\ndown his rugged temper and speech when he wrote the life of Watts. He\nspeaks of him as one who maintained orthodoxy and charity not only in his\nworks but in his innermost nature: not a discourteous or disrespectful\nword flaws the sketch he has written.\n\nWatts was the Melancthon of his times,\u2014not only in the ranks of\nNonconformity, but within the pale of the Establishment there was no\nother mind so resembling the mild and uniform spirit, and graced by\nthe many-coloured scholarship of the great Reformer. It cannot indeed\nbe expected that those should know or care for Watts, who are not in\naffinity with his mild and temperate, and yet majestic nature. Equally\nremoved from the servility which would have enslaved, or the fanaticism\nwhich would have inflamed, the portrait of Watts is one which will\nbe studied to advantage at all times. When Johnson characterized the\nphilosophical and literary writings of Dr. Watts as \u201cproductions which,\nwhen a man sits down to read, he suddenly feels himself constrained to\npray,\u201d he also describes the influence which the reading or the study\nof his whole life is calculated to have upon the mind. It is not fertile\nin personal incidents, but it has been well remarked that the Christian\nbiography has other objects\u2014it may be hoped that many other biographies\nhave higher objects\u2014than that of merely exciting the imagination, or\nagitating the mind by the recital of romantic adventures, brilliant\nactions, or daring exploits. Watts reminds us of that saying of Richard\nSibbes, that \u201ca Christian must be neither a dead sea nor a raging sea.\u201d\nHis frequent illnesses, as in the case of Richard Baxter, \u201cset him upon\nlearning to die, and thus he learned how to live.\u201d For the greater\nportion of his life he lived painfully within sight of the world to come;\nhe hovered on the border-land of life; he is a fine illustration of power\nin weakness, and he adds another to the list of those men who surprise us\nby the results of amazing industry, plied beneath all the interferences\nof sickness, and a weak and fragile frame.\n\nThanks are due, and are hereby heartily rendered, to the Rev. Herman\nCarlyle, LL.B., of Southampton, for permission to engrave the portrait\nfrom the vestry of Above Bar Chapel\u2014it has never been engraved before,\nand is believed to be the portrait presented by his pupil, early in\nlife, to the Rev. John Pinhorne, master of the Southampton Grammar\nSchool; and also to J. Hunter, Esq., of Dr. Williams\u2019 Library, for his\ninvariable courtesy, and for permission, obtained through him, to use the\nportrait formerly the property of Miss Abney, and the bust, of which also\nengravings are given in the work.\n\n                                                           E. PAXTON HOOD.\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: CONTENTS.]\n\n\n  CHAP.                                            PAGE\n\n     I.\u2014BIRTH AND CHILDHOOD OF ISAAC WATTS            1\n\n    II.\u2014IN THE ACADEMY AT STOKE NEWINGTON            15\n\n   III.\u2014IN THE HARTOPP FAMILY                        32\n\n    IV.\u2014PASTOR OF A LONDON CHURCH                    40\n\n     V.\u2014FIRST PUBLICATION AS A SACRED POET           57\n\n    VI.\u2014RESIDENCE IN THE ABNEY FAMILY                75\n\n   VII.\u2014HYMNS                                        84\n\n  VIII.\u2014A CIRCLE OF FRIENDS                         136\n\n    IX.\u2014THE COUNTESS OF HERTFORD AND MRS. ROWE      172\n\n     X.\u2014SHIMEI BRADBURY                             189\n\n    XI.\u2014HIS TIMES                                   205\n\n   XII.\u2014RETURN TO STOKE NEWINGTON                   218\n\n  XIII.\u2014THE WORLD TO COME                           226\n\n   XIV.\u2014THE MAN                                     246\n\n    XV.\u2014DEATH AND BURIAL                            258\n\n   XVI.\u2014SUMMARY AND ESTIMATE OF PROSE WRITINGS      274\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: ST. MICHAEL\u2019S GAOL, IN WHICH WATTS\u2019 FATHER WAS CONFINED.]\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nBirth and Childhood of Isaac Watts.\n\n\nIsaac Watts was born at Southampton, July 17th, 1674, the same year in\nwhich John Milton died. He was the eldest of nine children, and was named\nafter his father, Isaac. His father was a truly worthy and respectable\nman. In the course of the future years of his very long life, he became\nthe master of a school of considerable reputation in the town. Dr.\nJohnson says it was reported that Watts\u2019 father was a shoemaker. In the\nyear 1700 Isaac Watts, of 21, French Street, Southampton, was a clothier\nor cloth factor; so he is described in legal documents which still exist\nin that town; so he is described in another deed of 1719; while in 1736\nhe is described as \u201cIsaac Watts, of the town and county of Southampton,\ngentleman:\u201d[1] this was the year in which he died. At the time, however,\nof Isaac\u2019s birth, deep grief was round, and heavy distress over the\nhousehold. The father was a Nonconformist, and a deacon of that which is\nnow the Above Bar Congregational Church in Southampton. It was a cruel\ntime; the laws were very bitter against Nonconformists, and the traveller\nthrough Southampton in many months of the year 1674-75 might have seen\na respectable young woman, with a child at her breast, sitting on the\nsteps of the gaol seeking and waiting for admission to her husband. It\nwas the mother of Watts, and the daughter of Alderman Taunton. Tradition\nsays, she was French in her lineage, of an exiled Huguenot family, driven\nover to England by intolerance and the massacre of St. Bartholomew, in\nthe reign of Queen Elizabeth. Thus Watts was the child of persecution,\nand through all the earliest years of his life his mind must have been\nhabituated to such impressions and associations as were well calculated\nto draw out and give sharpness and distinctness to his convictions. The\nold prison remains very nearly the same as when the young mother sat\nwith her child looking up to the barred room in which her husband was\nconfined. It stands upon the beach of the sweet Southampton waters, which\nthen rolled much further in, and almost washed the prison doors. Legend\nasserts that it was only a few steps from this spot that Canute fixed his\nchair when, in order that he might rebuke the adulation of his courtiers,\nhe commanded the waves to retire. Perhaps the imprisoned man turned to\nthe incident, and thought of One who is able to still the noise of the\nwaves and the tumult of the people, and to say to all billows, \u201cHitherto\nshalt thou come, and no further.\u201d If able to climb to the tower of his\nprison, a lovely scene opened to his view: the charming hills of Bittern\non the left; the \u201csweet fields beyond the swelling floods\u201d opposite, on\nthe right of the Southampton waters; at his foot the old houses of the\nquaint little town, and his own persecuted abode.\n\nThe author of \u201cThe Christian Life in Song\u201d has not unnaturally conceived\nthat probably to his mother he was indebted for the lyrical tendencies\nin which at a very early period his faith sought to express itself. The\nFrench Huguenots led the way in the utterance of feeling in sweet sacred\nhymns; and the grieving young mother might perhaps refresh her faith by\nsome of the strains of her old people, while little knowing that she\nheld in her arms one who was to eclipse the fame of Clement Marot in\nthis particular. As to the imprisonment of the father, a licence had\nbeen issued in 1662 by Charles II., under the signature of Arlington,\nallowing \u201ca room or rooms\u201d in the house of Giles Say to be used for\ncongregational worship, and Mr. Say, himself an exile and refugee from\nthe persecutions of France, to be \u201cthe teacher.\u201d In a short time this\nlicence of indulgence was withdrawn, and Mr. Say and his chief supporters\nwere thrown into prison; one of the principal of these, as we have seen,\nwas Isaac Watts the elder. It was an unpromising commencement to an\nillustrious life; and this trouble was no sooner escaped from than it\nwas renewed. Liberated from prison, Isaac was still a very young child\nwhen his father was imprisoned again on the same charge for six months.\nIn 1683 he was obliged to flee from home into exile from his family.\nWhere he passed his time we have no exact information, but for two years\nhe was living principally in London; and thus the family continued to\npass through a course of domestic suffering until those happier days\ncame which brought the abdication of the Stuart family and in honour of\nwhich, on the succession of William, we cannot wonder that Isaac Watts\nwas glad to pour out some of his earliest verses.\n\nWatts sprang from a fairly good family. Alderman Taunton, his grandfather\non his mother\u2019s side, is still remembered in Southampton by his public\nbenefactions. The grandfather Watts had been engaged in the naval\nservice, and was commander of a man-of-war in the year 1656 under\nAdmiral Blake. He appears to have been a man of great courage and many\naccomplishments. He had some skill in the lighter recreations of music,\npainting, and poetry. A story is told how in the East Indies he had a\npersonal conflict with a tiger, which followed him into a river; he\ngrappled with the monster, and got the better in the conflict. In the\nDutch war the vessel he commanded exploded, and thus in the prime of life\nhe met his end. It has been tenderly remarked that \u201cthe grandmother Lois\u201d\nis often as influential on the opening mind as \u201cthe mother Eunice.\u201d The\nwidow of the gallant sailor, and grandmother of the poet, had not only\nmany stories to tell of her husband\u2019s adventures, but seems to have been\nremarkably amiable, if she may be judged by the glowing verses in which\nher grandson sought to do honour to her memory. She sought to instil into\nhis mind the lessons of early piety, and exercised an influence over\nhis early education during the time when trial and grief were strong in\nthe household of her children. The old people appear to have possessed\nconsiderable property, but it was probably much diminished during those\npersecuting times. Such was the stock whence the poet was descended. We\nmay speak of it as a good strong root, both upon the father\u2019s and upon\nthe mother\u2019s side. A sap of nobleness and gentleness seems to have given\nvitality to both families, and to have left its best influences in their\nchild.\n\nIsaac Watts the elder was a man of great social worth. In after years his\nboarding-school became a most flourishing establishment, and children\nwere sent to it to receive their training both from America and the West\nIndies. There is a document written to his family when he was living\nin exile from them, which places his high principles of character, his\nprudence and his piety, his strong Protestantism, and his intelligence in\na very remarkable light. He also had a taste for sacred verse, and many\nof his pieces have been preserved breathing a saintly meditative spirit.\n\nMr. Parker, the amanuensis of Dr. Watts, mentions a singular anecdote to\nillustrate how his advice was sought by persons of the town on account of\nhis reputation for wisdom. A person, a stonemason, in Southampton, had a\ndream. He had purchased an old building for its materials; previous to\nhis pulling it down he dreamed that a large stone in the centre of an\narch fell upon him and killed him. Upon asking Mr. Watts his opinion,\nhe said, \u201cI am not for paying any great regard to dreams, nor yet for\nutterly slighting them. If there is such a stone in the building as you\nsaw in your dream\u201d (which he told him there really was), \u201cmy advice to\nyou is, that you take great care, in taking down the building, to keep\nfar enough off from it.\u201d The mason resolved to act upon his opinion, but\nin an unfortunate moment he forgot his dream, went under the arch, and\nthe stone fell upon him and crushed him to death.\n\nThis good father lived to the advanced age of eighty-five; his son Isaac\nwas then in his sixty-third year, and only two or three days before his\nfather\u2019s death addressed to him the following tender and satisfying\nletter:\u2014\n\n                                \u201cNEWINGTON: _February 8th, 1736-37_.\n\n    \u201cHONOURED AND DEAR SIR,\n\n    \u201cIt is now ten days since I heard from you, and learned by my\n    nephew that you had been recovered from a very threatening\n    illness. When you are in danger of life, I believe my sister\n    is afraid to let me know the worst, for fear of affecting me\n    too much. But as I feel old age daily advancing on myself, I am\n    endeavouring to be ready for my removal hence; and though it\n    gives a shock to nature when what has been long dear to one is\n    taken away, yet reason and religion should teach us to expect\n    it in these scenes of mortality and a dying world. Blessed be\n    God for our immortal hopes, through the blood of Jesus, who has\n    taken away the sting of death! What could such dying creatures\n    do without the comforts of the Gospel? I hope you feel those\n    satisfactions of soul on the borders of life which nothing can\n    give but this Gospel, which you taught us all in our younger\n    years. May these Divine consolations support your spirits under\n    all your growing infirmities; and may our blessed Saviour form\n    your soul to such a holy heavenly frame, that you may wait with\n    patience amidst the languors of life for a joyful passage into\n    the land of immortality! May no cares nor pains ruffle nor\n    afflict your spirit! May you maintain a constant serenity at\n    heart, and sacred calmness of mind, as one who has long passed\n    midnight, and is in view of the dawning day! \u2018The night is far\n    spent, the day is at hand!\u2019 Let the garments of light be found\n    upon us, and let us lift up our heads, for our redemption draws\n    nigh. Amen.\n\n                            \u201cI am, dear Sir,\n\n                 \u201cYour most affectionate obedient Son,\n\n                                                      \u201cISAAC WATTS.\u201d\n\nTroubled as were the early years of his life, the subject of our\nbiography furnishes one of those rare instances in which the precocity\nof infancy was not purchased at the expense of power in maturity; it is\nsaid that before he could speak plainly, when any money was given to him,\nhe would cry, \u201cA book! a book! buy a book!\u201d He began to learn Latin at\nthe age of four years, and in the knowledge of this language and in Greek\nhe made swift progress; it is probable that of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew\nhe had considerable knowledge while yet a child. He is one of those who\nhave been said to \u201clisp in numbers.\u201d His utterances of infant rhyme\nare not astonishing, but every biography of him has repeated the story\nhow, when he was seven years of age, his mother after school-hours one\nafternoon offered him a farthing if he would give her some verses, when\nhe presented her with the well-known couplet:\n\n    I write not for a farthing, but to try\n    How I your farthing writers can outvie.\n\nIt was about the same time that, some verses of his falling into the\nhands of his mother, she expressed her doubts whether he could have\nwritten them, whereupon he immediately wrote the following acrostic;\nand if some of the lines seem to falter, the last two are certainly\nremarkable as the expression of a mere child, and have even a kind of\nprophecy in them of his future years:\n\n    I am a vile polluted lump of earth,\n    S o I\u2019ve continued ever since my birth;\n    A lthough Jehovah grace does daily give me,\n    A s sure this monster Satan will deceive me,\n    C ome, therefore, Lord, from Satan\u2019s claws relieve me.\n\n    W ash me in Thy blood, O Christ,\n    A nd grace Divine impart,\n    T hen search and try the corners of my heart,\n    T hat I in all things may be fit to do\n    S ervice to Thee, and sing Thy praises too.\n\nIt was perhaps from the uncertainty of tuition at home, or from the\nyouthful student outstripping the attainments of his father, that he\nwas early sent to the grammar-school at Southampton, of which the Rev.\nJohn Pinhorne was the principal. He was a man of good character and\nattainments, rector of All Saints Church in Southampton, prebendary\nof Leckford, and vicar of Eling, in the New Forest. The Nonconformist\nrelations of his young pupil appear to have produced no uncharitable\neffect upon the master\u2019s mind. From the first he prophesied the future\neminence and celebrity of the young scholar. He died in 1714, when these\nwere in their dawn. Watts held him in most reverent and grateful memory,\nand illustrated these feelings in a Pindaric Latin ode, which, in its\nrecapitulation of the classical authors, to whose pages the master had\nguided his knowledge, certainly shows at once the abundant scholarship of\nthe worthy pair.\n\nThere, in the grammar-school of the town, in the dark reigns of the\nSecond Charles and James, the little Puritan was the most diligent and\nadvanced scholar, the beloved of his master. He very early exhibited\na great proficiency in Latin, Greek, and French. A spare, pale child,\nthere was perhaps nothing peculiarly prepossessing in his features, if\nwe except the bright, intense sparkling eye, and the quivering, nervous\nexpression. There was certainly nothing robust about him, but all the\nindications of the future scholar. May we not also say the indications of\nthe future saint\u2014a little meditative Samuel\u2014of a time in our history of\nwhich we may say \u201cthe Word of the Lord was precious in those days, there\nwas no open vision?\u201d\n\nThese first years, when the mind was gathering to itself the many tools\nof knowledge, were passed in his father\u2019s house at Southampton\u2014an utterly\ndifferent Southampton from that which we see now\u2014a charming little\nsequestered town; the gentle river rolled its pleasant and pellucid\nwaves before it, undisturbed by the iron floating bridge, as the nobler\nSouthampton Water rolled along between it and the Isle of Wight.\nUnsullied by steamboats, it was no dep\u00f4t for the great navies of the\nWest, but it must have been a charming country town, its streets almost\novershadowed by the noble trees of the New Forest. The historian and\nantiquarian will find no lack of material for observation and suggestion\nin Southampton; it is rich in old nooks and reminiscences, and as full of\nmaterial for the artist as for the arch\u00e6ologist. Legend and story of St.\nBenedict or King Canute, of the knightly Bevis and Ascapart were, we may\nbe sure, not less fragrant then than they are there to-day. Many of the\nold houses are standing; the old town walls, the monuments of the great\nRoman road, and the noble bars of the town looked, we may be sure, more\nperfect then than now; the neighbourhood in which Watts lived still bears\ntraces of being the oldest part of the town; other spots, which bear the\nmarks of nineteenth century improvements in handsome parks and squares\nand streets, were then only wide, open fields; and many of the objects\ninteresting to those who visit English shrines have altogether passed\naway. The gaol in which Watts\u2019 father was confined, St. Michael\u2019s Prison,\nthe old Bull Hall, and the buildings round the old Walnut tree\u2014the town\nretains the names of these places, and still conveys some impression of\nwhat they were. The Blue Anchor Postern still exhibits its massive old\nmasonry, the relics of a building inhabited by King John, and a royal\nresidence of Henry III. Yet more interesting memories gather in another\npart of the town, round the Widows\u2019 Almshouses,[2] founded by Mr.\nThorner, the friend and co-religionist of Watts\u2019 father. The little town,\nfrom being one of the most inconsiderable, has become one of the most\nthriving and famous in the empire.\n\nStill, changed as Southampton is during the last two hundred years,\nit is not difficult to realize something of its ancient character.\nIts counterpart or resemblance may still be found in some of those\nsmall seaport towns of France which have been left to their primitive\nisolation by the retreating tides of population. Yet a good many things\nin the old town of Southampton remain unchanged. It is full of quaint\nnooks and corners, gateways and archways bearing the evident marks of\nhigh antiquity. For a long period Southampton sank into a state of\nsequestration and repose; but her early history was something like her\nlater, and there was a day when in the most palmy and splendid time of\nVenice her connection with that great commercial republic was as intimate\nas it is now with the Eastern and Western Indies. Its glory dates from\nthe time of the Conquest; and a circumstance ominous to England in the\nlanding there of Philip II., of Spain, the husband and ill-adviser of\nMary, is the last instance recorded of its prominence and splendour in\nthe ancient day. The old parish of All Saints, in which Watts was born,\nand the neighbourhood in which his childhood was passed, remain so little\nchanged as to enable the visitor to carry in his mind a fair picture of\nthe old lanes and streets, rambling round the old church, in the middle\nof the now rudely paved square.\n\nThe house in which Watts was born, in French Street, is still standing,\nand seems to give the assurance of being much the same, although it\nhas so far yielded to the indignities of time that one side of it is a\npublic-house and the other a marine store. It must have been a plain\nbut roomy, substantial building, standing back with its garden behind\nit, full of lofty rooms and rambling nooks and passages. There he first\nsaw the light, there he passed his play days of childhood; there the\ndreamy, studious boy accumulated the first spoils of knowledge; returning\nthither after his academical course was closed, there he wrote his first,\nand even a considerable number of his hymns; and thither, a celebrated\nman, he often came to visit his parents, even when he was an old man. A\nfragrant memory of early piety and matured holiness still lingers over\nthe old place, and consecrates it as one of our English shrines.[3]\n\nIn his childhood circumstances happened likely to produce some effect\nupon his mind. The memory of the terrible plague of 1665, in which\nbetween one and two thousand persons were swept away, was still fresh\nin Southampton for one hundred and fifty years after. The annalists of\nthe town tell us it did not recover from the state of decay into which\nit fell from that dreadful visitation. The shops were all closed, all\nwho could fled from the town, and the streets were overgrown with grass.\nWhen Watts was six years old the great comet flamed over England, with\nwhich were associated in many minds such dreadful portents, and it no\ndoubt lent a colour to many of his after most imaginative conceptions.\nIt was an object of singularly marvellous splendour. Several years after\nhe seems to have put the memory of the impressions it produced upon him\ninto the couplets in which he alters Young\u2019s description, and the words\nsufficiently show how the surprising spectacle had excited his youthful\nfancy:\n\n    Who stretched the comet to prodigious size,\n    And poured his flaming train o\u2019er half the skies?\n    Is\u2019t at Thy wrath the heavenly monster glares\n    O\u2019er the pale nations, to announce Thy wars?\n\nThe life of Watts had very little in it at any time which related to\nthe history of the period in which he lived, yet it is impossible not\nto notice that these first years of his life at Southampton were among\nthe most exciting and memorable of the country\u2019s history. What England\nwas Lord Macaulay has well described in perhaps one of the most charming\nchapters of his history\u2014_the State of England at the death of Charles\nII._ It was the time of England\u2019s Reign of Terror, and circumstances\nwere happening, the conversations upon which must have produced a vivid\nimpression upon the mind of a youth of lively sensibility. The execution\nof Algernon Sidney and Lord William Russell, the trial of Richard Baxter,\nthe rising of Monmouth, the tremendous descent of Jefferies in the Bloody\nAssize of the West, the trial of the bishops, the flight of James, the\nlanding of William at Torbay, and his progress to London; these were\ncircumstances such as England had never seen before, such as England can\nnever see again, and they all crowded fast upon each other in the years\nof Watts\u2019 boyhood and early youth.\n\nThe period of the youth of Watts calls up to the mind a singularly\ncontradictory range of associations; it was a wild, wicked, and\nfrivolous time, and yet there were men living then whose names have\nadorned, and will ever adorn the literature of our land. Watts was\nfourteen years of age when John Bunyan finished his eventful course.\nSamuel Wesley, the father of John and Charles, was just leaving his\nacademy at Stoke Newington and the Dissenters, by whom he had been\neducated; Henry More, the singular mystic, preceded Bunyan by one year\nto the grave; Ralph Cudworth was accumulating his immense mass of\nnebulous scholarship; South was preaching his celebrated sermons, in\nwhich coarseness so frequently \u201ckibes the heels\u201d of wisdom; Robert Boyle\nwas, with intense ardour, prosecuting his observations and studies in\nnatural history and science, and blending with equal ardour with them his\ndevotions to revealed religion and Divine truth; Barrow was pursuing his\nponderous lucubrations; Newton was expounding the system of the universe,\nand Locke the system of the mind; Howe was indulging in his seraphic\nardours; Dryden was drawing to the close of an inglorious life, and\nwriting some of the pieces which have best served his fame; John Evelyn,\nthe model of an English gentleman, was studying his trees at Wootton, or\npenning his entertaining diary at Sayn Court; Samuel Pepys, garrulous and\nsilly, was writing a history without knowing it, as the Boswell or the\nPaul Pry of the court and the town; Lely was flattering a meretricious\ntaste by his paintings, and Christopher Wren preparing his plans for\nrebuilding London.\n\nThe persecutions to which the Nonconformists through this period were\nexposed of course affected society in Southampton; the avenues to\nprosperity and peace seemed to lie only in conformity to the Church of\nEngland. It was then that, in consequence of his great and promising\nattainments, his diligence and high character, an offer was made to Watts\nby Dr. John Speed, a physician of the town, on the behalf of several\nothers, to send him to one of the universities, and very handsomely\ndefray all his expenses there. He did not hesitate for a second, but\nrespectfully and firmly replied that he was determined to take up his\nlot amongst the Dissenters. Two of his early friends, in every way\nincomparably his inferiors, conformed, and attained to archiepiscopal\ndignities. Yet, in spite of all that he afterwards wrote on the relation\nof the civil magistrate to religion, there would seem to have been\nlittle in his faith, feeling, or practice which might not easily have\nfound a home in the Establishment but for the persecuting spirit of the\ntime. It was the same year that in his slight, curious autobiographical\nmemoranda,[4] he mentions concisely how he \u201cfell under considerable\nconvictions of sin;\u201d in the year following, his entry runs on, \u201cand was\nled to trust in Christ, I hope.\u201d In the same year, 1689, he mentions\nthat he had a great and dangerous sickness; and all these events of his\nlife, which look so brief and cold to us as we put them down on paper,\nwere great and crucial events to him, settling the foundations of his\ncharacter, probably leading him away from the pursuits of scholarship\nas a mere charm and recreation of cultivated taste, to regard it as the\nimportant means by which an entrance might be obtained to everlasting\ntruths. These events would add to those motives which had determined him\nto renounce the idea of university training, and to seek an entrance into\nthe ministry through the humbler portal of a Dissenting academy.\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nIn the Academy at Stoke Newington.\n\n\nThe neighbourhood of London, to which Isaac Watts removed from\nSouthampton for the purpose of completing his studies, and preparing for\nthe work of the ministry, was Stoke Newington, and in that neighbourhood\nhe was destined to pass the greater part of his life. It was probably\neven then pervaded, as for a long time before and ever since, by an\natmosphere of mild but consistent Nonconformity; the academy in which\nhe studied was beneath the superintendence of the Rev. Thomas Rowe, the\npastor of the Independent Church assembling in Girdlers\u2019 Hall, in the\nCity. It was probably one of the most considerable of the time, and\nappears to have succeeded to one also well known upon the same spot,\nof which the principal was the Rev. Charles Morton. Here studied the\ncelebrated Daniel Defoe, also originally intended for the Nonconformist\npulpit, as he says in one of his reviews: \u201cIt is not often I trouble\nyou with any of my divinity; the pulpit is none of my office. It was my\ndisaster first to be set apart for, and then to be set apart from, the\nhonour of that sacred employ.\u201d The academy had a good reputation, and\nthe effort which old Samuel Wesley had made to sully its fair fame only\nreflected his own dishonour, and left it untarnished.\n\nCharles Morton was one of those obscure but remarkable men in which our\ncountry at that time was so rich. He was descended from a singularly\ndistinguished family\u2014that of Cardinal Morton, Thomas Morton, Bishop of\nDurham, and many other distinguished men. He took his degree of M.A.\nat Wadham College, Oxford, and became, and continued until the Act of\nUniformity, rector of Blisland, in Cornwall; after preaching for a short\ntime at St. Ives he removed to London, and shortly after opened an\nacademy on Newington Green. Defoe pronounces the highest encomiums upon\nhim and his method as a tutor; and Samuel Wesley, in the midst of his\nbitterness and ungracious flippancy\u2014for he had been maintained on the\nfoundation under the idea of entering the Nonconformist ministry\u2014ceases\nfrom his abuse to honour the memory of his master; he, however, after\nhaving trained several men who became eminent in their day, teased\nby continued persecution, passed over to America; there his fame had\npreceded him; there he became pastor of a church in Charlestown, and\nVice-president of Harvard University.[5]\n\nShortly after the departure of Mr. Morton for America, the academy to\nwhich Watts was consigned was founded by the eminently learned Theophilus\nGale, M.A., the author of that large medley of scholarship \u201cThe Court\nof the Gentiles.\u201d He also had been deprived of considerable Church\npreferments. To his charge the eccentric Philip Lord Wharton committed\nthe tutorship of his sons; with them he travelled on the Continent,\nadding to the stores of his mental wealth, and contracting a friendship\nwith the learned Bochart. He arrived in the metropolis on his return to\nsee the city in the flames of the terrible conflagration, but to learn\nthat the manuscripts he had left in the care of a friend were all saved,\nwhile the house in which they had been preserved was destroyed. His\nmind was so largely stored with every kind of learning that his friends\nentreated him to settle as a professor of theology, which he did at Stoke\nNewington, and there he continued till he died in 1678, at the early age\nof forty-nine. He left his personal estate for the education of young men\nfor the ministry; his library, with the exception of his philosophical\nbooks, to Harvard College. Beneath a tutor so distinguished the interests\nof the two academies had probably merged into one. The successor of Mr.\nGale was one of his own students, Thomas Rowe, whom we have already\nmentioned. He was the son of the Rev. John Rowe, M.A., ejected from\nWestminster Abbey, and who was called to preach the thanksgiving sermon\nbefore the Parliament on the occasion of the destruction of the Spanish\nfleet, October 8th, 1656. Thomas Rowe very early entered upon the work of\nthe ministry. At the age of twenty-one he succeeded his father as pastor\nof Girdlers\u2019 Hall in Basinghall Street.\n\nIsaac Watts came to the academy of Stoke Newington in the year 1690; he\nwas then in his sixteenth year. \u201cSuch he was,\u201d says Dr. Johnson, \u201cas\nevery Christian Church would rejoice to have adopted.\u201d\n\nThere was no doubt a rare congeniality of spirit between the tutor and\nhis illustrious pupil; the native gentleness of the latter found nothing\nperhaps in the former to give to it either sharpness or force; indeed,\nthe name of Thomas Rowe would be lost but for the fame of Watts. The\npupil was nearer to manhood than was implied in his years; he was a\nwell-informed and richly cultivated scholar when he left his father\u2019s\nhouse, and his modest bearing was such as even a tutor might entrust with\nthe responsibilities of friendship. Friendship soon matured between\nthem; the tutor testified that he never on any occasion had to give\nhis pupil a reproof. His academical exercises show with what diligence\nhe was applying himself to the work of preparation for the work of his\nfuture life. A sweet and cheerful gravity pervaded his manners and his\nstudies, and it may be boldly said that in the great universities of\nthat time there were very few who wrought with so much vigour or to so\nmuch purpose. His Latin essays written at this period \u201cshow,\u201d says Dr.\nJohnson, \u201ca degree of knowledge both philosophical and theological, such\nas very few attain by a much longer course of study.\u201d This verdict of\nJohnson is only just. One method adopted by Watts in his studies he has\ncommended to others in his \u201cImprovement of the Mind,\u201d and it has probably\nbeen often successfully adopted. It was the plan of abridging the works\nof the more eminent writers in the various departments of study. Thus\nhe printed the material more indelibly on his memory; at the same time,\nby recasting the thoughts or the information in his own mind, he was\nso compelled to analyze and digest that he made the whole matter more\nentirely his own mental property. To this practice he alludes when he\nsays: \u201cOther things also of the like nature may be usefully practised\nwith regard to the authors which you read\u2014viz., If the method of a book\nbe irregular, reduce it into form by a little analysis of your own, or by\nhints in the margin; if those things are heaped together which should be\nseparated, you may wisely distinguish and divide them; if several things\nrelating to the same subject are scattered up and down separately through\nthe treatise, you may bring them all to one view by references; or if the\nmatter of a book be really valuable and deserving, you may throw it into\na better method, reduce it to a more logical scheme, or abridge it into\na lesser form. All these practices will have a tendency both to advance\nyour skill in logic and method, to improve your judgment in general, and\nto give you a fuller survey of that subject in particular. When you have\nfinished the treatise with all your observations upon it, recollect and\ndetermine what real improvements you have made by reading that author.\u201d[6]\n\nThere was another plan which reveals the careful student, and to which\nDr. Gibbons refers in his life: \u201cThere was another method also which\nthe doctor adopted, it may be in the time of his preparatory studies,\nthough of this we are not able to furnish positive evidence, but of which\nthere is the fullest proof in his further progress of life, namely, that\nof interleaving the works of authors, and inserting in the blank pages\nadditions from other writers on the same subject. I have now by me, the\ngift of his brother Mr. Enoch Watts, the \u2018Westminster Greek Grammar\u2019\nthus interleaved by the doctor, with all he thought proper to collect\nfrom Dr. Busby\u2019s and Mr. Teed\u2019s \u2018Greek Grammars,\u2019 engrafted by him into\nthe supplemental leaves; and I have besides in my possession a present\nfrom the doctor himself, a printed discourse by a considerable writer,\non a controverted point in divinity, interleaved in the same manner, and\nmuch enlarged by insertions in the doctor\u2019s own hand.\u201d Certainly from\nhints such as these no writer could seem by his own careful diligence to\nbe more admirably prepared to write to and counsel young men and others\nconcerning the improvement of the mind.\n\nMost of the biographers of Watts have referred to his fellow-students.\nSeveral of them were interesting men. \u201cThe first genius in the academy,\u201d\nto adopt Watts\u2019 own descriptive designation, was Mr. Josiah Hart;\nbut very speedily after his removal from Mr. Rowe he conformed, and\nbecame chaplain to John Hampden, Esq., the member for Buckinghamshire.\nPresently after he became chaplain to his grace the Duke of Bolton, Lord\nLieutenant of Ireland. Such offices furnished very easy opportunities for\nadvancement in the Church. Before long he became Bishop of Kilmore and\nArdagh; and in 1742 he was translated to the archbishopric of Tuam, with\nwhich was united the bishopric of Enaghdoen, with liberty to retain his\nformer see of Ardagh; yet he retained friendly relationships with his\nold fellow-student, and in the \u201cLyrics\u201d occurs a free translation of an\nepigram of Martial to Cirinus, which seems to intimate that he was not\nwanting himself in poetic inspiration:\n\n    So smooth your numbers, friend, your verse so sweet,\n    So sharp the jest, and yet the turn so neat,\n    That with her Martial, Rome would place Cirine,\n    Rome would prefer your sense and thought to mine.\n    Yet modest you decline the public stage,\n    To fix your friend alone amidst th\u2019 applauding age.\n\nFifty years after the period of their life as fellow-students we find\nthe Archbishop writing to Watts, \u201cGod grant we may be useful while we\nlive, and may run clear and with unclouded minds till we come to the very\ndregs! I send you my visitation charge to my clergy of Tuam. I submit it\nto your judgment. Your old friend and affectionate servant, JOSIAH TUAM.\u201d\nIf in some part singularly expressed, it gives a not unpleasing idea of\nthe writer\u2019s character.\n\nAnother fellow-student was Mr. John Hughes; but he also, though dedicated\nto, and educated for, the Dissenting ministry, upon leaving the academy\nsoon conformed to the Establishment; he cultivated the lighter studies\nof music, poetry, and painting. The Lord Chancellor Cowper, in 1717,\nappointed him secretary to the commissions of the peace; and after the\nresignation of the Chancellor he was still continued in the same office.\nHe became a contributor to the \u201cTatler,\u201d \u201cSpectator,\u201d and \u201cGuardian,\u201d and\nhe attained to the friendship of some of the most distinguished men of\nthe age. Addison admired him as a poet, Pope held him in veneration for\nhis goodness, and Bishop Hoadley honoured him as a friend.\n\nOthers of the fellow-students continued stedfast to the principles of\ntheir Dissenting Alma Mater, and became in their way also useful and\nremarkable men; among these was Mr. Samuel Say, the fellow-townsman of\nWatts, and one year his junior. After a useful course of ministrations he\nsucceeded Dr. Calamy at Westminster, and continued there until his death.\nThrough life he was on intimate friendly terms with his fellow-townsman.\nLittle as we know of him, sufficient is known to give to us the picture\nof a thoroughly accomplished man, even with considerable claims to be\nregarded as a man of genius; indeed it strikes us, in reviewing the\nintercourse of these young men with each other, and their recommendations\nof each other, that there was a thoroughness about their attainments; and\nthat while they were faithful to severer studies they were not indisposed\nto those graceful exercises of the mind and fancy which have generally,\nbut we believe unjustly, been regarded as incompatible with the severity\nof the Puritan character. To this indulgence, no doubt, the taste of the\ntutor, Mr. Rowe, was favourable. We know that Watts was accomplished\nin several departments of taste, although all the exercises which\nhave come down to us from his college-days are quite of the severer\ncharacter\u2014critical, metaphysical, and theological\u2014but his conscience was\nprobably of that tender order which would esteem it an unfaithfulness\nto the object for which he was placed in the academy to turn aside to\npursuits of a lighter and less sacred description. Another fellow-student\nof Isaac Watts was Daniel Neal, celebrated as the author of \u201cThe History\nof the Puritans;\u201d he proved in an eminent degree his call to the work of\nthe ministry, and after some time spent in travel settled as a pastor in\nthe metropolis.\n\nIt is usual in our day, with the Dissenting academies, to receive no one\nas student for the ministry who has not previously qualified himself\nby membership with the church which commends him. The practice appears\nto have been more liberal in Watts\u2019 day. He was never a member of the\nchurch at Southampton, but in the third year of his residence with Mr.\nRowe he united himself with the church of his tutor, as he enters it in\nhis memoranda, \u201cI was admitted to Mr. T. Rowe\u2019s church December, 1693.\u201d\nThis church also, like so many of the Independent churches in the city,\nhad a very honourable ancestry\u2014as we have previously said, it then held\nits meetings in Girdlers\u2019 Hall, Basinghall Street; after the death of\nMr. Rowe it removed to Haberdashers\u2019 Hall, but the church itself appears\nto have originated with the eminent William Strong, M.A., still held\nin honour by the lovers of old Puritan literature for his folio on the\nCovenants. He was a fellow of Katherine Hall, Cambridge, and rector\nof More Crichel, in Dorsetshire. This living during the Civil Wars he\nwas compelled by the Cavaliers to relinquish, and, coming to London,\nhe became minister of the church assembling in Westminster Abbey, and\nsubsequently in the House of Lords. It is singular that thus both the\nministers of the congregation in Girdlers\u2019 Hall were originally pastors\nof the church in Westminster Abbey. Mr. Strong died in 1654, and was\nburied in the Abbey church, but upon the restoration his remains had,\nwith those of Cromwell, Blake, and Pym, the honour of exhumation. Still,\nin the church when Watts became a member of it, lingered some of the old\nelements which first composed it; perhaps the most conspicuous of these\nwas Major-General Goffe, the well-known name of one of the judges of\nCharles I.\n\nSuch was the church with which Watts held his first communion, and\nfrom which he was only transferred to become the pastor of that over\nwhich he presided for the remainder of his life. It need hardly be said\nthat whatever interest attached to its memory in connection with the\ncircumstances which we have recited, his name confers upon it the most\npermanent human interest. The union must have strengthened that intimacy\nwe have already pointed out between himself and his tutor, pastor, and\nfriend. It is not probable that even at this period Mr. Rowe had the\nlarge scholarship and keen insight into the beauties of the most famous\nclassics possessed by his pupil, if we may form a judgment from the\nPindaric ode to Mr. Pinhorne, but a quiet mind will often marshal ideas\ninto order, and give a military usefulness in commanding materials it\ncould not recruit. Watts was probably never, at any period of his life,\nwanting in the accoutrements of discipline; but this was the service\nchiefly rendered at the academy, this and the more earnest entrance upon\nphilosophical and theological studies. We are sure also that he and his\ntutor well harmonized in their sense of the duty and the dignity of moral\nindependence; Watts had already shown himself to be possessed of this by\nhis entrance into the academy. In his lines \u201cTo the much honoured Mr.\nThomas Rowe, the director of my youthful studies,\u201d he says:\n\n    I hate these shackles of the mind\n      Forged by the haughty wise;\n    Souls were not born to be confined,\n    And led, like Samson, blind and bound;\u2014\n    But when his native strength he found\n      He well avenged his eyes.\n    I love thy gentle influence, Rowe,\n    Thy gentle influence like the sun,\n    Only dissolves the frozen snow,\n    Then bids our thoughts like rivers flow,\n    And choose the channels where they run.\n\nAnd here we may say farewell to the tutor; he lived just long enough\nto see his scholar settled in the ministry; but for his companion\npupils he occupied a solitary home; he was never married, and in 1705,\nriding through the city on horseback, he was seized with a fit, fell\nfrom his horse, and instantly died. He was one of those men of whom\nthe world makes little mention, and finds little recorded; he was a\ncomparatively young man. We have dwelt upon the furniture of his mind,\nthe attractiveness of his manners, the docility and beauty of his\ndisposition; to these it may be added that he was also probably possessed\nof an engaging manner in the pulpit, as he retained what was then\nconsidered a large congregation to the time of his death.\n\nWhile referring to the Dissenting academies of those days, it may be\ninteresting to notice that from one of them in Gloucester, beneath the\ntutorship of the Rev. Samuel Jones, two eminent men received their first\ntraining for the ministry of the Church of England, although intended\nfor the Nonconformist communion\u2014Samuel Butler, the distinguished author\nof the \u201cAnalogy,\u201d and Bishop of Durham; and Thomas Secker, Bishop of\nOxford, and afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury. The Archbishop probably\nfound one of his earliest patrons in Dr. Watts, by whom, as the following\nletter testifies, he was introduced to the academy. The biographers of\nthe Archbishop, Dr. Porteus and Dr. Stinton, pass over the Archbishop\u2019s\nfirst studies, as conducted by \u201cone Mr. Jones, who kept an academy at\nGloucester;\u201d but the following letter from Secker, written when about the\nage of eighteen to Dr. Watts, gives a very admirable idea of the manner\nin which he directed the work of study in the academy:\n\n                                     \u201cGLOUCESTER: _Nov. 18th, 1711_.\n\n    \u201cREV. SIR,\n\n    \u201cBefore I give you an account of the state of our academy,\n    and those other things you desired me, please to accept of\n    my hearty thanks for that service you have done me, both in\n    advising me to prosecute my studies in such an extraordinary\n    place of education, and in procuring me admittance into it.\n    I wish my improvements may be answerable to the advantages I\n    enjoy; but, however that may happen, your kindness has fixed\n    me in a place where I may be very happy, and spend my time to\n    good purpose, and where, if I do not, the fault will be all\n    my own. I am sensible how difficult it is to give a character\n    of any person or thing, because the most probable guesses we\n    make very often prove false ones. But, since you are pleased to\n    desire it, I think myself obliged to give you the best and most\n    impartial account of matters I can.\n\n    \u201cMr. Jones, then, I take to be a man of real piety, great\n    learning, and an agreeable temper; one who is very diligent in\n    instructing all under his care, very well qualified to give\n    instructions, and whose well-managed familiarity will always\n    make him respected. He is very strict in keeping good order,\n    and will effectually preserve his pupils from negligence and\n    immorality. And accordingly, I believe, there are not many\n    academies freer in general from those vices than we are. In\n    particular my bedfellow, Mr. Scott,[7] is one of unfeigned\n    religion, and a diligent searcher after truth. His genteel\n    carriage and agreeable disposition gain him the esteem of every\n    one. Mr. Griffith is more than ordinary serious and grave, and\n    improves more in everything than one could expect from a man\n    who seems to be not much under forty; particularly in Greek\n    and Hebrew he has made a great progress. Mr. Francis and Mr.\n    Watkins are diligent in study and truly religious. The elder\n    Mr. Jones, having had a better education than they, will in\n    all probability make a greater scholar; and his brother is one\n    of quick parts. Our logic, which we had read once over, is so\n    contrived as to comprehend all Hereboord, and far the greater\n    part of Mr. Locke\u2019s Essay, and the Art of Thinking. What Mr.\n    Jones dictated to us was but short, containing a clear and\n    brief account of the matter, references to the places where it\n    was more fully treated of, and remarks on, or explications of\n    the authors cited, when need required. At our next lecture we\n    gave an account both of what the author quoted and our tutor\n    said, who commonly then gave us a larger explication of it,\n    and so proceeded to the next thing in order. He took care,\n    as far as possible, that we understood the sense as well as\n    remembered the words of what we had read, and that we should\n    not suffer ourselves to be cheated with obscure terms which had\n    no meaning. Though he be no great admirer of the old logic,\n    yet he has taken a great deal of pains both in explaining\n    and correcting Hereboord, and has for the most part made him\n    intelligible, or shown that he is not so. The two Mr. Joneses,\n    Mr. Francis, Mr. Watkins, Mr. Sheldon, and two more gentlemen,\n    are to begin Jewish Antiquities in a short time. I was designed\n    for one of their number, but rather chose to read logic once\n    more; both because I was utterly unacquainted with it when I\n    came to this place, and because the others having all, except\n    Mr. Francis, been at other academies, will be obliged to make\n    more haste than those in a lower class, and consequently cannot\n    have so good or large accounts of anything, nor so much time\n    to study every head. We shall have gone through our course in\n    about four years\u2019 time, which I believe that nobody that once\n    knows Mr. Jones will think too long.\n\n    \u201cI began to learn Hebrew as soon as I came hither, and find\n    myself able now to construe and give some grammatical account\n    of about twenty verses in the easier parts of the Bible, after\n    less than an hour\u2019s preparation. We read every day two verses\n    apiece in the Hebrew Bible, which we turn into Greek (no one\n    knowing which his verses shall be, though at first it was\n    otherwise). And this, with logic, is our morning\u2019s work. Mr.\n    Jones also began about three months ago some critical lectures,\n    in order to the exposition you advised him to. The principal\n    things contained in them are about the antiquity of the Hebrew\n    language, letters, vowels, the incorruption of the Scriptures,\n    ancient divisions of the Bible, an account of the Talmud,\n    Masora, and Cabala. We are at present upon the Septuagint, and\n    shall proceed after that to the Targumim, and other versions,\n    etc. Every part is managed with abundance of perspicuity, and\n    seldom any material thing is omitted that other authors have\n    said upon the point, though very frequently we have useful\n    additions of things which are not to be found in them. We have\n    scarce been upon anything yet but Mr. Jones has had those\n    writers which are most valued on that head, to which he always\n    refers us. This is what we first set about in the afternoon,\n    which being finished we read a chapter in the Greek Testament,\n    and after that mathematics. We have gone through all that is\n    commonly taught of algebra and proportion, with the first\n    six books of Euclid, which is all Mr. Jones designs for the\n    gentlemen I mentioned above, but he intends to read something\n    more to the class that comes after them.\n\n    \u201cThis is our daily employment, which in the morning takes up\n    about two hours, and something more in the afternoon. Only on\n    Wednesdays, in the morning, we read Dionysius\u2019s Periegesis,\n    on which we have notes, mostly geographical, but with some\n    criticisms intermixed; and in the afternoon we have no lecture\n    at all. So on Saturday, in the afternoon, we have only a\n    Thesis, which none but they who have done with logic have any\n    concern in. We are also just beginning to read Isocrates and\n    Terence, each twice a week. On the latter our tutor will give\n    us some notes which he received in a college from Perizonius.\n\n    \u201cWe are obliged to rise at five of the clock every morning,\n    and to speak Latin always, except when below stairs amongst\n    the family. The people where we live are very civil, and the\n    greatest inconvenience we suffer is, that we fill the house\n    rather too much, being sixteen in number, besides Mr. Jones.\n    But I suppose the increase of his academy will oblige him to\n    move next spring. We pass our time very agreeably betwixt\n    study and conversation with our tutor, who is always ready to\n    discourse freely of anything that is useful, and allows us\n    either then or at lecture all imaginable liberty of making\n    objections against his opinion, and prosecuting them as far as\n    we can. In this and everything else he shows himself so much a\n    gentleman, and manifests so great an affection and tenderness\n    for his pupils as cannot but command respect and love. I almost\n    forgot to mention our tutor\u2019s library, which is composed for\n    the most part of foreign books, which seem to be very well\n    chosen, and are every day of great advantage to us.\n\n    \u201cThus I have endeavoured, sir, to give you an account of all\n    that I thought material or observable amongst us. As for my own\n    part, I apply myself with what diligence I can to everything\n    which is the subject of our lectures, without preferring one\n    subject before another; because I see nothing we are engaged in\n    but what is either necessary or extremely useful for one who\n    would thoroughly understand those things which most concern\n    him, or be able to explain them well to others. I hope I have\n    not spent my time, since I came to this place, without some\n    small improvement, both in human knowledge and that which is\n    far better, and I earnestly desire the benefit of your prayers\n    that God would be pleased to fit me better for His service,\n    both in this world and the next. This, if you please to afford\n    me, and your advice with relation to study, or whatever else\n    you think convenient, must needs be extremely useful, as well\n    as agreeable, and shall be thankfully received by your most\n    obliged humble servant,\n\n                                                    \u201cTHOMAS SECKER.\u201d\n\nSecker\u2019s first communion was with a Dissenting church\u2014the Rev. Timothy\nJollie\u2019s\u2014and he preached his first sermon in a Dissenting meeting-house\nat Bolsover, in Derbyshire. He retained his feelings of affectionate\nindebtedness to his early friend to the close of Watts\u2019 life.\n\nHis term of study closed at Stoke Newington, Watts, still little\nmore than a youth, returned for some time to his father\u2019s house at\nSouthampton. Worshipping with the congregation there, under the ministry\nof the Rev. Nathaniel Robinson, he felt that the psalmody was far\nbeneath the beauty and dignity of a Christian service. He was requested\nto produce something better, and the following Sabbath the service\nwas concluded with what is now the first hymn of the first book; and\na stirring hymn it is\u2014as an ascription of praise or worship, and as a\nconfession of faith it is remarkably comprehensive and complete.\n\n    Behold the glories of the Lamb\n      Amidst His Father\u2019s throne;\n    Prepare new honours for His name,\n      And songs before unknown.\n\n    Let elders worship at His feet,\n      The church adore around,\n    With vials full of odours sweet,\n      And harps of sweeter sound.\n\n    Those are the prayers of the saints,\n      And these the hymns they raise;\n    Jesus is kind to our complaints,\n      He loves to hear our praise.\n\n    Eternal Father, who shall look\n      Into Thy secret will?\n    Who but the Son shall take the book,\n      And open every seal?\n\n    He shall fulfil Thy great decrees,\n      The Son deserves it well;\n    Lo! in His hand the sovereign keys\n      Of heaven, and death, and hell.\n\n    Now to the Lamb that once was slain,\n      Be endless blessings paid;\n    Salvation, glory, joy, remain\n      For ever on Thy head.\n\n    Thou hast redeemed our souls with blood,\n      Hast set the prisoners free;\n    Hast made us kings and priests to God,\n      And we shall reign with Thee.\n\n    The worlds of nature and of grace\n      Are put beneath Thy power;\n    Then shorten these delaying days,\n      And bring the promised hour.\n\nThis is the tradition of the origin of the first hymn. It was received\nwith great alacrity and joy. It was indeed \u201ca new song.\u201d The young poet\nwas entreated to produce another, and another. The series extended from\nSabbath to Sabbath, until almost a volume was formed, although their\npublication was long delayed. This was the interesting result of his\nreturn to Southampton.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nIn the Hartopp Family.\n\n\nReturning from Southampton, Isaac Watts entered the family of Sir John\nHartopp, the first of those two influential friends whose names will\nalways be associated with his own; it was October 15th, 1696, he being\nthen twenty-two years of age, when he went to reside with him. Within\nthe memory of some of the old inhabitants of Stoke Newington there stood\non the north side of Church Street the remains of a red brick house,\nwith large casement windows; once they were all handsomely painted,\nand bore the arms of Fleetwood, Hartopp, and Cook. But no one of these\nlater generations saw that old mansion in all its original greatness.\nIn later years it came to be divided into houses, and parts of it\ndrifted down from the abode of statesmen to the boarding-school for\nyoung ladies. Still it retained even to its close, traditionary relics\nand reminiscences of the old days of its pride and importance. On the\nceilings of its principal rooms were the remains of the arms of the\nLord General Fleetwood; and in the upper part there was a little door\nconcealed by hangings, through which the persecuted Nonconformist passed\ninto a place of safety and concealment, in the days of Charles II. The\nold house was built towards the close of the reign of Elizabeth, so\nthat even at the period when it comes before our readers it was ancient.\nIt was purchased by Charles Fleetwood, Lord General of the army of the\nCommonwealth, and under Cromwell one of the Council of State. It is quite\nunnecessary here to dwell upon his transient importance and power; he was\none of the last of those remarkable men in that singular interregnum of\nour history, and the very last after the resignation of Richard Cromwell\nwho held some of the shadows of the departed substance of greatness. He\nspent the remainder of his days in the mansion of Stoke Newington before\nhis final departure for Bunhill Fields. To this place, in time succeeded\nSir John Hartopp, by his wife Elizabeth Fleetwood, a grand-daughter of\nthe General; and to this old red brick building, with its secret chambers\nand armorial casements and ceilings, Isaac Watts came as a tutor in the\nfamily.\n\nSir John Hartopp was not a mere city knight, and indeed city knighthoods\nmeant much more in those days than now. He was of an old Leicestershire\nfamily of Dalby Parva, in the register books of which place the name\nis written Hartrupte. The family was able to trace a very interesting\nhistory back to the time of Richard II.; the baronetcy dated from the\ntime of James I., and the family received considerable honours from\nCharles I., and, what is more to the purpose of the present memoir,\nit was in his house that Richard Baxter planned, if he did not partly\nwrite, \u201cThe Saint\u2019s Everlasting Rest.\u201d Sir John Hartopp, the friend of\nWatts, was born at the commencement of the Civil Wars. In his early\nyouth the whole of his neighbourhood was alive with marchings and\ncounter-marchings. Buckminster was the place of the family residence,\nand the steeple of the parish church was used as a watch-tower for\nreconnoitring. The house was alive and perpetually on the guard against\nthe incursions of the Cavaliers. Sir Edward Hartopp, the first baronet,\ndied at the commencement of the Protectorate of Cromwell, and was buried\nat Buckminster; his son, the father of Sir John, died a short time\nprevious to the Restoration, and about this time we find the family\nremoved to London and settled at Stoke Newington. Sir John became an\neminent Nonconformist; as he cast in his lot among the Independents,\nhe was a member of the Church of Dr. Owen, with whom he maintained a\nvery close and intimate friendship; and there is in the library of the\nNew College, in St. John\u2019s Wood, a volume of the sermons of Owen, very\ncarefully written down after hearing them, copied, probably for use in\nthe family, in Sir John\u2019s handwriting. Many of Dr. Owen\u2019s manuscripts\ncame into his possession upon his decease, and were contributed by him to\nthe complete collection of the Doctor\u2019s sermons.\n\nSir John Hartopp was an ardent and active patriot. He was three times\nchosen representative for his native county of Leicestershire. In 1671 he\nwas high sheriff, and he afterwards distinguished himself by his earnest\nadvocacy of the Bill of Exclusion to bar the Duke of York\u2019s succession\nto the throne. He became the subject of much persecution, and paid in\nfines apparently the larger portion of \u00a37,000. He died in 1722, when the\naffairs of the nation had long, through the active exertions of such\nmen as he was, settled themselves into comparative tranquillity and\nprosperity. Watts preached in his memory his sermon \u201cOn the Happiness\nof Separate Spirits made Perfect,\u201d and he dwells at some length upon\ncertain personal characteristics, from which we gather that Sir John\nwas an accomplished man, with a taste for universal learning, and the\npursuit of knowledge in various forms\u2014mathematics in his younger days,\nand astronomy in his old age; keeping alive his early knowledge of Greek\nfor an intelligent acquaintance with the New Testament, and so late in\nlife as at the age of fifty entering upon the study of Hebrew. His house\nbecame the refuge of the oppressed, while by some happy disposition\nof Providence he himself was saved from those more severe and painful\npersecutions to which so many were not only exposed but subjected. His\nardent attachment to Dr. Owen assures us of the temper and character of\nhis religious convictions, and altogether he shines out before us as one\nof those beautiful and luminous examples and illustrations of the men to\nwhom our country owes so much. So far as we can gather from what is left\non record of him, he appears to have been a true Christian gentleman,\na fine harmonious combination of characteristics blending in him the\nseverity of high principle with a gentle and tenderly affectionate nature.\n\nSir John Hartopp, as we have seen, became by marriage connected with\nthe family of Cromwell; he married Elizabeth, one of the daughters of\nthe Lord General Fleetwood, and his sister married a son of the old\ngeneral\u2014thus there was a double connection. When Fleetwood\u2019s house\nwas first built in the village of Stoke Newington it must have been\na stately mansion. In his day it was probably divided, and had all\nthe characteristics of the old mansions of the earlier part of the\nseventeenth century. Hither the General retired after the Restoration,\nand here, singularly enough, he was permitted to pass his days in\ntranquil obscurity. He died while Watts was studying at the adjoining\nacademy. Watts no doubt knew the old Ironside, for he was on terms of\nclose intimacy with his son, Smith Fleetwood. Such were some of the\ncollateral connections of the Hartopp family. And there was another. Sir\nNathaniel Gould, to whom Watts inscribes a poem, who married Frances,\nthe daughter of Sir John and Lady Hartopp. Such was the circle in which\nit appears he moved to and fro with a pleasant and indulged affability.\nAll of these people were members of the church over which Dr. Owen had\npresided, and of which Watts was hereafter, and shortly, to be minister.\nIt was no doubt owing to the intimacy he sustained with all these\neminent persons, that he by-and-bye received the invitation to become\ntheir pastor, in which relation he preached a funeral sermon, as we have\nseen, for Sir John, so also for Lady Hartopp, and Lady Gould, of whom he\nremarks, \u201cI would copy a line from that most beautiful elegy of David,\nand apply it here with more justice than the Psalmist could to Saul and\nJonathan, \u2018Lovely and pleasant were they in their lives, and in their\ndeath they were not divided,\u2019 silent were they and retired from the\nworld, and unknown except to their intimate friends; humble they were\nand averse to public show and noise, nor will I disturb their graves by\nmaking them the subject of public praise.\u201d\n\nIt was a house full of daughters and two sons. Two had already gone\nto the family vault, and one\u2014born the year of Watts\u2019 entrance into\nthe family\u2014was soon to follow. But there were nine daughters in the\nhousehold; of these two had died before the days of Watts\u2019 residence,\nseven survived; these were Helen, and Mary, and Martha, and Elizabeth,\nand a second Anne, and Bridget, and Dorothy, and Frances. Was Watts their\ntutor? It was a dangerous neighbourhood for a young man, amidst all those\nbright glances and radiant young faces in the Puritan household; perhaps\nthe danger had been greater had there been fewer of them. Fancy indulges\nherself in picturing the life of the young student there. As we have\nseen, Frances married Sir Nathaniel Gould, and died in 1711, six days\nafter her mother, Lady Hartopp. The other six daughters all lived and\ndied unmarried in the family home. How solitary, one thinks, the last of\nthat bright circle must have felt, dying there in 1764, sixty-two years\nafter Watts first took up his abode among them.\n\nIsaac Watts entered the family as the tutor of the future baronet, and\nmany of those pieces which he afterwards gave to the world were the\nproductions of this time, many of his \u201cMiscellaneous Thoughts,\u201d the\nchief portions of his \u201cLogic,\u201d and probably much of his \u201cImprovement\nof the Mind.\u201d We have said already he furnishes, like John Calvin and\nsome others, an instance of a singular prematurity of intelligence, not\nhowever interfering, as is so frequently the case, with future eminence,\nusefulness, and advancement.\n\nHere, then, was for some time Watts\u2019 home. He studied hard and\ndiligently, drawing forth and putting into shape the results of previous\nyears of scholarship. Behind the house there were extensive gardens and\nremarkably fine trees, and especially a noble cedar, said to have been\nplanted by General Fleetwood, concerning which Robinson tells a singular\nstory: That long years ago a scythe had been hung up in the fork of the\ntree, and was left there unnoticed and untouched until years after it\nwas discovered, the body of the tree having completely overgrown it and\nenclosed the blade so fast that it could not be removed. \u201cAnd,\u201d says\nRobinson, \u201cit is at this day to be seen, the point of the blade on the\none side, and the end on the other.\u201d[8]\n\nThe young man to whom Watts was tutor died at the age of thirty-five.\nHe had succeeded his father in the baronetcy. Watts had given to him a\nnoble training. Upon the publication of his \u201cLogic\u201d it was dedicated\nto him, and the writer reminds him that it had been prepared for him\nto assist his early studies. Some of the most animating verses in the\n\u201cLyrics\u201d are addressed to him, and many other scholastic pieces also\nwere prepared for his pupil while residing at Stoke Newington. Amidst\nthe shades of its trees were written many of those essays so pleasing\nto read now, his \u201cMiscellaneous Thoughts\u201d and \u201cJuvenile Relics.\u201d Here\nthe young man was indeed training himself as well as teaching his pupil,\nwhen we remember that many, if not most, of his hymns had already been\nwritten at Southampton, and that his \u201cInstitutes of Logic\u201d and his whole\nmethod of thought were matured and written here; truly he appears to\nhave been an industrious athlete. Neither egotism nor egoism seems to\nshadow his studies by any morbid self-consciousness, or any wondering\ndreams as to what his future destiny might be. He appears to have been\none to whom faith and duty were sufficient. He had found his Saviour, and\nhe believed; he had his work to do, and he wrought at it like a living\nconscience. By-and-by he left the old house which had yet a singular\nhistory. His pupil was very wealthy, and he appears to have given during\nhis life, and to have left upon his death a maintenance, with the family\nmansion, to his six maiden sisters. There they lived, and there they\ndied; and it is remarkable, as has been already said, that one of them\ndied in 1764, aged eighty-one, ninety years, as the church register\nshows, after the death of a young sister in 1674, the year in which Watts\nwas born; this, we may be sure, was throughout his life one of the houses\nhe would frequently revisit, and renew his impressions of youthful days\namidst its elm and cedar shades. Gradually all the members of the family\ndropped away, each in turn gathered one by one, till one and all were\nre-united in the vaults of Stoke Newington Church. But we are stepping on\ntoo fast for our life of Watts, whose more obvious and active career was\nall before him yet.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nPastor of a London Church.\n\n\nWatts preached his first sermon on his birthday, July 17th, 1698; he was\nthen twenty-four years of age. He probably mingled with his duties as\ntutor those of chaplain to the excellent family in which he resided. The\nice once broken, he began to preach constantly. Sir John Hartopp and his\nfamily were members of the church of Dr. Chauncy, in Mark Lane; and it\nwas, no doubt, greatly in consequence of this friendship that Watts was\ninvited to become the assistant of the doctor.\n\nIt is curious to compare the dearth of chapels and preachers in the\nCity in the present day with the many remarkable for their importance\nat the time when Watts became a pastor. Still a few places stand out,\ndating from that time; but, for the most part, all have gone, leaving\nonly the memories of certain men of remarkable attainments, wit, and\neloquence behind them. To the distinguished circle of ministers, and to\nthe church which had known, before him, men so eminent, Watts, all but\nunknown, brought a name which was to give to them a crowning reputation.\nHis qualities as a preacher all accounts represent as rather solid\nthan shining. His sermons were beautiful in their clear harmonious\nsymmetry of powers, rather than startling. Surely never a man who\npoured into his verse so much rich brilliancy of expression\u2014sometimes,\nit must be admitted, with questionable rhetorical afflatus and pomp of\nutterance\u2014preserved through all that we know of his public teaching so\nquiet and equable a flow of language and ideas, so instructive, while\nso entirely removed from all that can unduly agitate the spirit. In\nJeremy Taylor we wonder that the poet seems to abandon every ambitious\nattempt when he writes verse, while his sermons possess a gorgeous and\noverwhelming splendour of diction and imagery. In Watts, on the other\nhand, it is equally surprising that so sprightly and splendid a fancy,\nso rich a command over sacred verses and images, should express itself\nwith such calmness and modesty in words intended for the pulpit; but this\nwas probably of a piece with his whole character. His hymns are often\nraptures and ecstasies, but he reserved these for his most private life,\nfor his own heart, for his closet and study. There was nothing in his\ncharacter bustling, prominent, or obtrusive. In an evening conversation\nhe would shrink as far as possible from taking any prominent part, and\nwould never in ordinary company lead it. In the home circle, among close\nand well-known friends, he shed around himself a genial atmosphere; but\nhe was too essentially a student and a book-man to be in any high sense\na popular preacher. Eminent and eminently honoured, his greatness was\nnot of that order which easily finds itself at home in multitudes. His\nperson was not striking, although we can conceive it to have been very\nimpressive; and his mode of setting forth all things upon which he wrote\nor spoke was so purely thoughtful, demanded so intimate a sympathy with\npensive and meditative moods, and required so close an acquaintance\nwith high and abstract thoughts, that it is not to be wondered at that\nhis fame as a preacher and scholar was rather reserved for the intimate\ncircle than for more extended, not to say vulgar, spheres.\n\nThe City of London at present conveys no idea of what it was then; and\nwhat it was very materially affects our estimate of the position of\nWatts as one of its Nonconformist ministers. The City of London was the\nchief bulwark of English freedom. Happily all the needs and occasions\nfor what it was in those days have long since passed, and England\nitself has greatly become what London was then. The City of that date\ncalls up the idea of some such spots as the great medi\u00e6val cities, the\nburgher strongholds of the middle ages. Not many years before it had\nbeen the refuge of the five members whom Charles I. sought to attach\nfor high treason. It had been committed to the cause of Puritanism,\nProtestantism, and William; some of its chief men had become martyrs to\nthe cause of civil and religious liberty. The governments of Charles\nII. and James II. scarcely permitted to active minds and public men a\nmiddle way. Nonconformity was imposed by the exactions of tyranny upon\nspiritually minded men. Hence, leaving the fanes and structures then\nvery pleasantly standing in many a retired close, surrounded by pleasant\ntrees, sequestered places in the midst of the graves of many generations,\nsuch persons were compelled to assemble for worship where they best\ncould, in some old guild hall or place of trade, some loft over offices\nand warehouses.[9] Most of the congregations we now should consider\nsmall. No company composed of faithful souls meeting for Divine service\nbeneath the blessing of Him who said, \u201cWhere two or three are gathered\ntogether in My name, there am I in the midst of them,\u201d[10] can be held\ncontemptible; but their congregations were largely composed of persons\nwho had figured prominently in the great actions of the immediately\npreceding years, officers and soldiers of that great army which had\noverawed the world by their fame, persons to whom Nonconformity was\nno mere negation, but the profession of all that was dearest to human\nfreedom or to human hopes, men of substance and position, the most\neminent merchants, to whose sense religious and civil liberty were so\nclosely related that it was impossible to do injustice to the one without\naiming at the heart of the other, and who knew that to injure either was\nto hurt the lesser, but still eminent interests of trade and commerce,\nand industry, and national prosperity. Nonconformity in the City of\nLondon has grown in representative wealth and importance; but it may be\nsafely affirmed that it could not show such congregations of noble men as\nthose which thronged its contemptible meeting-houses in Watts\u2019 day.\n\nReferring back to those times, entering one of the chapels during the\ntime of service, we should, perhaps, be astonished and chilled by the\nwant of animation and ardour, if these are to be tested by the apparent\nexcitement. Indeed, to our taste, the service must have appeared very\nformal and frigid; not merely in the fact that no instrumental music of\nany kind would have been tolerated, no response or chant, but, in many\ncongregations, there was no singing at all. To the stricter Puritan\nsensibility this would have been merely intolerable. We have instances of\nministers who were made uncomfortable in their churches, and compelled\nto relinquish them, because they desired to introduce some religious\nmelody; in other instances it was the minister who disapproved such\nextravagant piety in his people. The Society of Friends was not alone in\nits renunciation of all the adornments and flights of religious song.\nEven where singing was indulged, it was Patrick\u2019s or the Scotch version,\nor some such literal translation of the words of Scripture. Paraphrases\nand more expanded religious sentiments had never been heard of, and were\nregarded, when first introduced, as seditious and dangerous innovations,\ndisturbing the purity of so reasonable a service, which derived all its\nlife and interest from its most perfect conformity to a spiritual order;\nthe simple voice of the minister in prayer, and in preaching, meandering\nin many instances through roads of uncommon length. We have instances\non record of a prayer itself taking the entire length of that time we\nnow ordinarily allot to a public service. This state of things in the\ncongregation must have greatly influenced the religious life of the times\nwhere it existed at all. It became cold, remote, and abstract; not that\nthere were wanting instances, both of ministers and congregations, who\nmaintained, in the midst of so much lifelessness, a high spiritual state\nand intercourse.\n\nThe Nonconformists throughout the country were, in the latter part of\nthe seventeenth century, for the most part men disposed to social quiet.\nThey had now recovered in some measure a state of religious tranquillity,\nand they were rather interested quietly to preserve what they possessed,\nthan to attempt any occupation of new ground, either in principle or\nin practice. They made few efforts to correct the vices of men, or to\nconvert them from their life of sin. The round of Nonconformist duty and\npiety was a quiet, staid, and respectable service; nothing, we suppose,\ncould be more unlike the satires so often pronounced upon it. Most of\nits ministers were men of considerable scholarly attainments, their minds\nfed by the rich and strengthening food to be found in some of the oldest\nfathers and the earliest reformers; at the same time they were accustomed\nto abstractions and questions, which at once enlarged and strengthened\nthe understanding. They had no acquaintance with our large varieties of\nnature and language; but they were keen observers of _human_ nature, and\nthey submitted their knowledge to the test and use of daily life. As to\ntheir people, in many instances, no doubt, they were humble, perhaps even\nof obscure rank, but this was not always the case. Nonconformity in those\ntimes included others than those we should even call the respectable\nmiddle classes; it represented an order of political opinion quite as\nmuch as religious doctrine and practice, not only as we have seen in\nLondon, but in many districts of the country. Some of the highest and\noldest families formed the staff and stay of congregations. It was a\nrespectable but cold piety, in many instances with assured tendencies\ntowards Socinianism and Unitarianism. The Nonconformity into which Watts\ncame, and with which during the whole of his life he mingled, is quite\nremoved from that Nonconformity of Methodism and Revivalism which became\nthe great religious movement of the last century. It was a Nonconformity\neducated, solid, rooted in certain principles and assurances, inclining\ntoo exclusively to a life of thought; the religion of intelligent\nmultitudes who could not conform, especially to what the Church of\nEngland was, in that coarse and intolerant time, when her nets gathered\nfish of every sort, among them some chiefly remarkable for their rapacity\nand impurity.\n\nIt was over one of these old City churches, probably the most famous\nof them, that the youthful Isaac Watts was called to preside as the\npastor. The congregation or church contained a number of eminent persons;\nits pastors had been eminent men; here a few years before ministered\nJoseph Caryl. From the pulpit of this place probably were poured forth\nthose prelections on the Book of Job, assuredly in more than one sense a\nmonument to the memory of Patience! Vast and mammoth-like, a megatherium\nof books, the most huge commentary ever written, but a structure of\nlearning, with eloquence and evangelical truth, if large in bulk almost\nequal in worth. Over this church, more recently, had presided a greater\nman in the person of the mighty John Owen, the friend of Cromwell, and,\nduring the Protectorate, Vice-Chancellor of Oxford. The place of meeting\nwas in Mark Lane, and in the congregation there were present some whose\ncharacter and lives might a little daunt any preacher, much more a very\nyouthful one. There were many in that congregation able to carry the\nmemory back through the days of England\u2019s fiery trials, through the years\nof war and of persecution, and the times when the City was alive in its\nown defence. They had heard the cry, \u201cTo your tents, O Israel!\u201d when,\nin an ill-omened hour, Charles I. came to the City; they had seen the\nThames alive with barge and boat as the members were escorted back to\nWestminster; some had served in the camp with the Ironsides, and some\nhad seen Sir Harry Vane hailed to the scaffold; there were officers of\nthe old Commonwealth army, members of the old Long Parliament, strong\nmerchants and magistrates who had stood up for the liberties of the City\nand of England; there, in that congregation, scattered over the place\nwere clustering remnants of the immediate members and descendants of\nCromwell\u2019s family, none more remarkable than that most singular woman,\nMrs. Bendish, Bridget Ireton, the grand-daughter of Cromwell, of whom\nall contemporaries spoke as hearing just the same relation to her\ngrandfather in character that Elizabeth bore to Henry VIII.\u2014a woman with\na most remarkable life; there was Charles Fleetwood, her mother\u2019s second\nhusband; there was Charles Desborough, the brother-in-law to Oliver\nCromwell; there was that fine old English gentleman Sir John Hartopp, and\nLady Hartopp, who was a daughter of Charles Fleetwood, and thus allied\nto Mrs. Bendish; there was Lady Vere Wilkinson, and Lady Haversham, a\ndaughter of the Earl of Anglesey, and the wife of John Thompson Earl of\nHaversham; and there, last as we mention them, but far from least in\nimportance in the life of Watts, Sir Thomas and Lady Abney.\n\nAs we have said already, the Independent churches of the City were in\nthat day greatly composed of such characters as these. Look into any one,\nand you will see such persons of rank and influence, although probably\na kind of Cromwell clannishness gave distinctness and importance to\nthe little church in Mark Lane; there was a respectability and dignity\nabout those churches in general which we should in these days but little\nappreciate. They were snug little spiritual corporations, held together\nby several bonds which have ceased to be distinctive now; a strong faith\nin certain great first principles in religion; a strong faith also in\ncertain political principles, quite essential to the freedom of their\nfaith and their religious life and its usages. Nor can we conceal from\nourselves that there was also a conservative spirit of an aristocratic\nflavour; there was nothing in the communion which savoured of our modern\nmore heterogeneous assemblies: the members were usually persons of strong\ncharacter, considerable culture, and thought. Their idea of liberty was\nno more cut out after the modern type than was their theology; indeed\nboth were ideal. If the Harringtons and Sidneys dreamed their republics,\nnot upon the wild democratic inclusiveness of complete suffrage, the\nproclamation of the sanctity of ignorance, and the wisdom of vice, but\nupon the models of classical times,\u2014these for the most part idealized the\nrepublic of the saints, and formed their conceptions of church life and\npolitical freedom upon the unattainable standard of the college of the\napostles, and the traditions of the community of the saints. Yet it is\nvery easy to perceive how, ensconcing themselves in religious life as in\na comfortable arm-chair, while perfectly faithful themselves, they became\nthe parents of that large declension of such churches to Arianism and the\ncognate Socinian ideas which in the later periods of his life vexed the\nspirit of Watts, and led his thoughtful philosophic nature into an arena\nof mild, but not the less earnest conflict.\n\nWatts, accepting the charge of the church, was ordained over it March\n8th, 1702, the day on which King William died. The young minister\u2019s\nimmediate predecessor was Dr. Isaac Chauncy, who, like most of his\ncoadjutors in the ministry of that period, was a gentleman of good and\nancient family; originally coming over with the Conqueror, settled\nat Yardley, Berkshire, in the time of Elizabeth, and by the drift of\ncircumstances conducted to considerable eminence among the Puritans and\nNonconformists. The father of Isaac Chauncy had been professor of Greek\nin the University of Cambridge, and vicar of Ware, in Hertfordshire.\nHe took up his testimony for Nonconformity when the \u201cBook of Sports\u201d\nwas published, commanding him to desist from preaching on the Sabbath\nafternoon, that the people of his parish might indulge themselves in\nprofane amusements; he fell beneath the vengeance of Archbishop Laud,\nand was twice cited before the Court of High Commission; he made a\nrecantation, which he afterwards so regretted and bewailed that he threw\nup everything and withdrew to New England. His son Isaac held the living\nof Woodborough, in Wiltshire, from whence he was ejected, and after\nministering a short time in Andover came to London, intending to practise\nas a physician, when the church in Mark Lane called him to become its\nminister; but he was not popular as a preacher, however eminent in other\nqualifications.\n\nThe congregation had exhibited signs of decline when Watts was called\nin, probably as one on whom the eyes of leading Nonconformists were\nfixed, especially as the friend of Sir John Hartopp. Although so young,\nhis knowledge of mathematics, of the classics, of Church history, of\ntheological science, especially his piety, must have made him already\nwell known in Nonconformist circles. This knowledge extended back to the\nearly part of 1698, so that for nearly two years he must have been the\npreacher, and it may be presumed very considerably the pastor of the\nchurch before, upon the resignation of Dr. Chauncy, he succeeded him in\nhis office: the members of this distinguished church must have invited\nhim with their eyes completely open to all that he was as a preacher\nand as a man. But he gave no indications of ability to enforce by his\nbodily powers the manifestations of his genius\u2014his health appeared to be\nconstantly failing. For some months before his ordination he had been\nlaid aside from preaching, and in search of health had, by the advice\nof physicians, visited Bath. And then again we find him for some time\nresting at home at his father\u2019s house, now, no doubt, a comfortable\nresidence, a flourishing school, and released from all the terrors which\nhad shadowed it in his infancy. And from thence again by physicians we\nfind him sent to Tunbridge Wells, so that he says, \u201cI was detained from\nstudy and preaching five months by my weakness, except one very short\ndiscourse at Southampton in extreme necessity.\u201d He was of a slight and\nmost fragile frame throughout his life. His works constitute an amazing\nmonument of industry. But during the years he had been tutor in Sir John\nHartopp\u2019s family he must have performed these duties in a spirit of\nremarkable conscientiousness, for he prepared some of the works which\nafterwards delighted and instructed the world, as the necessary means of\nthe course he was pursuing in the education of the young man, his pupil.\nVery remarkably this is the case with his \u201cSystem of Logic,\u201d which when\nit was published many years after was adopted and continued to be until\nrecently the text-book for the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge; this\nappears also to have been the case with his \u201cScheme of Ontology.\u201d He\nrefers to many of his writings published at a much later period of his\nlife, as for the most part the productions of these his earlier years. We\nshall have occasion to speak of these again; at present it is sufficient\nto refer to this persistency of mental labour and assiduous industry as\nnot only the sufficient cause for the illness which suspended him from\nlabour, but the foundation of future years of painful infirmity which\naccompanied him through life.\n\nThere must have been much about him not only to command respect\nbut to enchain affection. Long hesitating as to whether he should\naccept the proffered pastorate, he had not long entered upon the real\nresponsibilities of his office before he was again seized with a painful\nand alarming illness; almost immediately he was compelled again, in\nJuly, 1702, to renew his rest in Southampton, and then returning to\nLondon he mentions, in the memoranda we have already quoted, that he was\n\u201cseized with violent gaundise and colic three weeks after my return to\nLondon, and had a very slow recovery, eight or nine weeks\u2019 illness. From\nSeptember 8th, or thereabouts, to November 27th or 28th. This year, viz.,\n1702, by slow degrees removed from Newington to Thomas Hollis\u2019s, in the\nMinories.\u201d\n\nDuring a period of about six years Watts appears to have resided in the\nfamily of Sir John Hartopp; in the paragraph above quoted he refers to\nhis removal to the house of Mr. Hollis, in the Minories. The names of\nthe places associated with the ministrations or the residence of Watts\nand his fellow ministers in the City, sound to our ears now strange and\nsingularly unromantic and uninteresting; but what they are now we must\nnot for a moment suppose they resembled then. Even the Minories\u2014now\nthe last place in which one could wish to reside\u2014lay, at that time,\nopen and fresh towards the pleasant fields of the east end of London, a\nrather distinguished neighbourhood beneath the shadows of the Tower, and\npleasantly refreshed by the breath from the waters of the then really\nsilvery Thames, whose banks were alive with the songs of watermen. The\nMinories or Minoresses\u2014so called from the nuns of the Order of St.\nClair\u2014had once been the region of noble residences; here had been the\nresidence of Sir Philip Sidney, here his body lay in state. The spot was,\nand is, full of interesting memories. The family of the Hollis\u2019s was\nfrom Sheffield, in Yorkshire, and having founded churches in Doncaster\nand Rotherham, removing to London, the father of Watts\u2019 friend became\none of the most helpful representatives of Nonconformity in the City,\nimmediately connected with the church assembling in Pinners\u2019 Hall,\nbeneath the pastorate of Dr. Jeremiah Hunt. To this place, in consequence\nof the narrow and dilapidated state of the building in Mark Lane, Watts\nand his people were compelled to remove in the year 1704. Pinners\u2019\nHall had for years been used by Nonconformists, and in their turns\nBaxter, Owen, Bates, Manton, and Howe had all preached in it to crowded\ncongregations, hence the reason, most likely, of the friendship of the\nminister and Mr. Hollis.\n\nWe have few particulars of Watts in his pastoral work. From the first\ndays of his pastorate his health was a frequent source of interruption to\nhis activity. The hymns and poems frequently expressing the experience\nof pain, weakness, and weariness are no fancies; they express a very\ndevout spirit of resignation, with regret, as he expresses it, that\n\u201cmany other souls are favoured with a more easy habitation, and he hoped\nwith a better partner, accommodated with engines which have more health\nand vigour;\u201d but he instantly recovers his spirits to exclaim, \u201cShall\nI repine then, while I survey whole nations and millions and millions\nof mankind that have not a thousand\u2019s part of my blessings?\u201d He was\nlaid aside by sickness for five months soon after he became assistant\nto Dr. Chauncy, 1698; he was the subject of another illness soon after\nhis settlement in the pastoral charge in 1701; a violent fever seized\nhim in 1712, his constitution was shattered by it, his nerves weakened\nand unstrung, and he prevented from returning to his public work until\nOctober, 1716; we find from his own record that he was confined by\nillness in 1729; and many other occasions might be discovered of these\nsharp bodily afflictions. Life around him was usually beautiful and\nserene; he seems to have possessed a very large revenue of love, but\nhe unquestionably possessed this \u201cthorn in the flesh,\u201d nor can we doubt\nthat such experiences to such a faith as his, gave personal meaning to\nhis hymns. He sung very often as one stretched on a rack, and not the\nleast of his pains must have been that his incessantly active nature, his\nconstant design and desire to carry out some purpose or to pursue some\ntask found itself checked and arrested. Dr. Gibbons quotes a paragraph\nfrom a very beautiful letter to a friend, a minister, in affliction,\nthrough which there runs a vein of true spiritual friendship, and a\npathos which his own experience of trials would very naturally inspire:\n\u201cIt is my hearty desire for you that your faith may ride out the storms\nof temptation, and the anchor of your hope may hold, being fixed within\nthe veil. There sits Jesus our Forerunner, who sailed over this rough sea\nbefore us, and has given us a chart, even His Word, where the shelves and\nrocks, the fierce currents and dangers are well described, and He is our\nPilot, and will conduct us to the shores of happiness. I am persuaded\nthat in the future state we shall take a sweet review of those scenes\nof Providence which have been involved in the thickest darkness, and\ntrace those footsteps of God when He walked with us through the deepest\nwaters. This will be a surprising delight, to survey the manifold harmony\nof clashing dispensations, and to have those perplexing riddles laid\nopen to the eyes of our souls, and read the full meaning of them in set\ncharacters of wisdom and grace.\u201d\n\nIt is not extraordinary, therefore, that even so early as 1703 the church\nrelieved Watts by choosing a co-pastor, Mr. Samuel Price, a native of\nWales, but a student from Attercliff, in Yorkshire. As it was necessary\nto have a co-pastor, he was chosen upon the express desire and earnest\nrecommendation of Watts; but many years appear to have passed between\nthe choice of the church and his ordination as joint pastor, for Watts\u2019\nautobiographic memoranda says: \u201cJune, 1703, Mr. Samuel Price was chosen\nby the church to assist me;\u201d but he was not ordained to the office of\nco-pastor until 1713. This relationship continued until it was dissolved\nby death. They were colleagues considerably upwards of forty years, and\nPrice succeeded his beloved and amiable friend, whom he survived about\nseven years; he died in 1756, having been connected with the church\nfifty-three years. Watts mentions him in his will as his faithful friend\nand companion in the ministry, and leaves some little legacy, \u201cas only\na small testimony of his great affection for him, on account of his\nservices of love during the many harmonious years of their fellowship\nin the work of the Gospel.\u201d Watts several times, in the course of the\nprefaces and dedications to his published works, refers affectionately\nto his colleague; and his colleague when he died expressed a wish that\nhe might be buried as near as possible to his honoured friend. It may be\nincidentally mentioned that he was uncle to the celebrated Dr. Richard\nPrice.\n\nAlthough his companion in the ministry neither as a preacher nor man of\nletters approached the eminence of Watts, it would seem that he was in\nevery way acceptable as a preacher and a pastor, \u201cjudicious, and useful,\nand eminent in his gift of prayer,\u201d says Gibbons. Certainly, the old\nplace in Mark Lane became too small, for, after a temporary sojourn in\nPinners\u2019 Hall, in 1708 the congregation removed from Mark Lane[11] to\nDuke Street, St. Mary Axe.\n\nIt had been the site of one of the most celebrated metropolitan\necclesiastical establishments previous to the Reformation, the Priory\nof the Holy Trinity, the founder of which was Matilda, Queen of Henry\nI.; it became a huge establishment and enormously wealthy, the richest\nconvent in England, some have said; rich in lands and ornaments, and\nincomparably surpassing all the other priories in the same county. The\nprior was always an alderman of London, although, if he happened to be\nexceedingly pious, he appointed a substitute to enact temporal matters;\nand on solemn days this clerical alderman rode through the city with the\nother aldermen, but arrayed in his monastic habit. On the dissolution of\nthe monasteries this became one of the earliest spoils, and it was given\nby Henry VIII. to Sir Thomas Audley, the Speaker of the House of Commons,\nand afterwards Lord Chancellor. On the site of the old priory he erected\na splendid mansion, in which he resided until his death in 1544. His\ndaughter and sole heiress, Margaret, married Thomas, Duke of Norfolk, so\nthe estate descended to the Howard family, and became the Duke\u2019s place;\nhe lost his head; passing to his eldest son, he sold it in 1592 to the\nmayor, corporation, and citizens of London. This is a singular piece\nof history, which Wilson, in his \u201cHistory of Dissenting Churches,\u201d has\ngathered from Strype, Maitland, and Pennant.\n\nIn the time of Watts the neighbourhood had scarcely fallen from its\nhigh estate. Time had been since the period of the Reformation when Sir\nFrancis Walsingham, Sir Thomas Wyatt, and the Earl of Northumberland had\ntheir houses here; and Bury Street derived its name from the abbots of\nBury, who also had a residence on this spot. Since the time of Cromwell,\nhowever, the region had become a kind of _Juden Strasse_. The Jews, who\nnow form its principal inhabitants, then first settled there. The spot\non which the chapel was built was part of a garden, although removed from\npublic observation, a necessity laid upon the Nonconformists of that\ntime, who were compelled to retreat into obscure recesses to escape the\nvigilance of prowling informers. The building has now entirely passed\naway, but we very well remember it, one of the old square substantial\nbuildings with its galleries, exactly an ideal conventicle of those\ntimes, one of those in which the Nonconformists seemed to teach that\nthere was no beauty in architecture which they particularly desired.\nThe rich furniture and attainments of the ministers\u2019 minds contrasting\nsingularly with the plain and altogether unornamented and even barn-like\nsimplicity of the scene of their ministrations: almost the only buildings\nwhich now retain the entirely unornamented architecture of the Puritan\ntimes are those of the members of the Society of Friends. Such was the\nbuilding opened in Bury Street, October 3rd, 1708; it is also interesting\nto notice that it was erected at the costly sum of \u00a3650! In the present\nyear of the publication of this volume a building has been erected in\nthe City of London for the same order of communicants as those in Bury\nStreet, at a cost of \u00a355,000. The two sums are very suggestive of a\ncomparison and contrast between the Nonconformists of the time of Watts\nand of to-day.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nFirst Publication as a Sacred Poet.\n\n\nThe fact that the first work published by Watts was the \u201cSacred Lyrics\u201d\nmay justify this early estimate of his character as a sacred poet. It\nis probable, nay it is certain, that the time bestowed by Watts upon\npoetry was very slight and insignificant compared with that which he\ndevoted to the graver pursuits of life, and the various studies connected\nwith philosophy, theology, preaching, and education. He first, however,\nappeared in print as the author of the \u201cHor\u00e6 Lyric\u00e6,\u201d the Lyrical\nPoems: and Dr. Johnson judges that they entitled him to an honourable\nplace amongst our English poets. Watts himself thought very modestly\nof his claims in this way, and speaks concerning his own compositions\nin the humblest language. \u201cI make no pretences,\u201d he says, \u201cto the name\nof a poet, or a polite writer in an age wherein so many superior souls\nshine in their works through the nation.\u201d In many of his hymns he\nunquestionably deserves the highest honour: but for the most part it\nis not in the lyrics we are to seek, as we certainly shall not find,\nthe noblest illustrations of his poetical genius; nor, perhaps, is it\nprobable that we should turn to them with much interest or expectation\nbut that they are the production of Dr. Watts, and that he was the\nauthor of those hymns so dear to the Church of Christ, and the \u201cDivine\nand Moral Songs for Children.\u201d In all our judgments and criticisms upon\nWatts as a poet, two things must be borne in mind: first, as we have seen\nabove, that he not only disclaimed the character himself, but proved his\nsincerity by regarding it only as the recreation of grave and serious\nstudies, and the very natural occupation of a man of fine taste and\nlargely cultivated sensibility; and next, we must remember, that the\npoetry of the age in which he lived was artificial, formed for the most\npart upon classical models, whose rules were very greatly inapplicable to\nEnglish verse. The sweetest and most perfect poet in any near approach to\nthose times was Oliver Goldsmith, and he was the writer least imbued with\nclassical lore, and the one who left all classical rules and allusions\nfurthest behind him, content to express himself in simple and pleasing\nEnglish. Johnson was a poet, and Joseph Addison, but although so much\nmore ambitious and devoted to the pursuit, they neither of them have\nproduced sentiments or expressions which charm us more than those we find\nin the productions of Watts. Thomas Gray was a poet, but only in two or\nthree instances did the simplicity and purity of the English language,\nand the simple metre, succeed in winning him from the trammels of\nclassical formularies. Indeed there was something ludicrous in the poetry\nof the time; and the great genius of Pope, which really was equal to\nanything in verse, seemed almost to struggle in vain against the pedantic\nrules he imposed upon himself. It was the age of fantastic ornament and\nof formal symmetry, of artificial gardening, of trimmed yews, when even\nNature herself in her trees, hedgerows, and flower-beds was made to look\nridiculous. A sort of tulip-mania, a false admiration in colour and in\nform, took possession not merely of the speculators in the market, but\nof the devotees of the fine arts. Years passed on before English poetry\nliberated itself from these false trammels, and the first great English\nwriter who subsequently gave freedom and freshness, a combination of\nsublimity and simplicity to English verse, was William Cowper.\n\nWe must separate and distinguish between Watts as a poet, the author\nof the \u201cLyrics,\u201d and Watts as a hymnologist, and the author of those\npieces which, as they have been, so we trust they will continue to be,\na precious legacy of the Church, and the expression of its deepest,\nhighest, and tenderest emotions. In a letter to the \u201cGentleman\u2019s\nMagazine,\u201d when his judgment was appealed to for a poetical decision, he\nsaid, \u201cThough I have sported with rhyme as an amusement in younger life,\nand published some religious composures to assist the worship of God, yet\nI never set myself up among the numerous competitors for a poet of the\nage, much less have I presumed to become their judge.\u201d There is a writer\nof one or two immortal hymns in our language who sometimes suggests a\ncomparison with Dr. Watts. Watts was capable of poetry. He was not only\na poet in his hymns, but a poetic nature often broke through the turgid\npindarics he adopted as the vehicle of his expressions. But Ken was no\npoet at all, and yet, unlike Watts, who disclaimed the character, this\nwas Ken\u2019s one vanity. A writer in the \u201cQuarterly Review,\u201d which may be\naccepted here as an unexceptionable umpire, says, \u201cIf there was any\nvanity in the good man\u2019s heart, it would seem to have been on the subject\nof his poetical skill. He expresses, indeed, a belief that his verses are\nopen to the assaults of criticism, but he must have thought something\nof them, for he left them for publication, and they fill four thick\nvolumes. The contrast is strange between the clear, free, harmonious\nflow of his prose, and the barbarous, cramped, pedantic language, the\nharsh dissonance, the extravagant conceits, which disfigure the great\nmass of his verses. Mr. Anderson has tried the ingenious experiment\nof reducing some passages from metre to prose, and no doubt they gain\nconsiderably! But there is no getting over the fact that these four\nvolumes are altogether a mistake.\u201d[12] Such a criticism as this can never\nbe pronounced on Watts, but it is yet true that some of the vices of Ken\ndisfigure the pages of the \u201cHor\u00e6 Lyric\u00e6,\u201d and they are traceable to the\nsame cause\u2014the forsaking simplicity and nature, and following artificial\nmodels and straining after affected diction.\n\nHe was essentially a hymn writer, and among the lyrics the most beautiful\nand effective pieces are those which either are hymns or approach nearest\nto that order of composition. The modern reader will be impatient of\nthe frequent apostrophe, and, although \u201cpersonification, that is, the\ntransformation of the qualities of the mind, and abstract ideas, and\ngeneral notions into living embodiments,\u201d has ever been regarded as one\nof the noblest exercises and proofs of the poetic faculty, we suppose few\nwill be disposed to regard Watts\u2019 excursions in this way with favour. He\npossessed this power in an eminent degree: instantaneously, apparently, a\nsentiment became an image, and the image pointed to a tender and pathetic\ntreatment. His elegy on the death of William III. has often been cited as\na fine piece of elegiac personification; should it seem extravagant to\nthe reader, it would scarcely seem so to Lord Macaulay; and it must be\nremembered that Dr. Watts was one who regarded himself and the nation as\nprofoundly indebted, surely not unnaturally, for freedom and prosperity\nto the arms and government of the deceased king. He was young when he\nwrote these verses. William, as we have said, died the day on which Watts\nwas ordained to the work of the ministry, 1702. The verses present a\npicture of the illustrious hero lying in state, surrounded by the weeping\narts and graces of society. Dr. Gibbons, not inappropriately, speaks of\nthe piece as \u201cthe largest constellation of personifications occurring\namongst the Doctor\u2019s Odes:\u201d\n\n    Preserve, O venerable pile,\n    Inviolate thy sacred trust;\n    To thy cold arms the British isle,\n    Weeping, commits her richest dust.\n\n    Rest his dear sword beneath his head;\n    Round him his faithful arms shall stand:\n    Fix his bright ensigns on his bed,\n    The guards and honours of our land.\n\n    High o\u2019er the grave _Religion_ set\n    In solemn guise; pronounce the ground\n    Sacred, to bar unhallowed feet,\n    And plant her guardian virtues round.\n\n    Fair _Liberty_, in sables drest,\n    Write his loved name upon his urn;\n    William, the scourge of tyrants past,\n    And awe of princes yet unborn.\n\n    Sweet _Peace_, his sacred relics keep,\n    With olives blooming round her head,\n    And stretch her wings across the deep\n    To bless the nations with the shade.\n\n    Stand on the pile, immortal _Fame_,\n    Broad stars adorn thy brightest robe;\n    Thy thousand voices sound his name\n    In silver accents round the globe.\n\n    _Flattery_ shall faint beneath the sound,\n    While hoary _Truth_ inspires the song;\n    _Envy_ grow pale, and bite the ground,\n    And _Slander_ gnaw her forky tongue.\n\n    Night and the grave, remove your gloom;\n    Darkness becomes the vulgar dead;\n    But glory bids the royal tomb\n    Disdain the horrors of a shade.\n\n    _Glory_ with all her lamps shall burn,\n    And watch the warrior\u2019s sleeping clay,\n    Till the last trumpet rouse his urn,\n    To aid the triumphs of the day.\n\nBut he had a simpler manner, and even in his stronger expressions rose to\nthe majesty of simple strength, as in the following:\n\n    LAUNCHING INTO ETERNITY.\n\n    It was a brave attempt! advent\u2019rous he,\n    Who in the first ship broke the unknown sea:\n    And leaving his dear native shores behind,\n    Trusted his life to the licentious wind.\n    I see the surging brine: the tempest raves:\n    He on the pine-plank rides across the waves,\n    Exulting on the edge of thousand gaping graves:\n    He steers the winged boat, and shifts the sails,\n    Conquers the flood, and manages the gales.\n    Such is the soul that leaves this mortal land,\n    Fearless when the great Master gives command.\n    Death is the storm: she smiles to hear it roar,\n    And bids the tempest waft her from the shore:\n    Then with a skilful helm she sweeps the seas,\n    And manages the raging storm with ease:\n    (Her faith can govern death) she spreads her wings\n    Wide to the wind, and as she sails she sings,\n    And loses by degrees the sight of mortal things.\n    As the shores lessen, so her joys arise,\n    The waves roll gentler, and the tempest dies,\n    Now vast eternity fills all her sight,\n    She floats on the broad deep with infinite delight,\n    The seas for ever calm, the skies for ever bright.\n\nThe weight and grandeur of his thoughts, the radiance of his perception,\nthe far-reaching, remote grandeur of the objects of his verse, must\nalways be taken into account, pondered, and allowed an adequate influence\nover the reader\u2019s mind, whenever attempts are made to estimate what he\nwas as a sacred poet. Not the less was his mind in ready accord with\nobjects of Nature. He had seen, probably, little of Nature in her more\ngrand and exciting moods. Men like him, horn to London life, and only\noccasionally escaping thence to some near and quiet watering-place, saw\nlittle of those ample pages which, in our own or other lands, are now\nunrolled to almost every designing eye. But his verses abundantly show\nwith what perfect sympathy every object touched him, how all the smaller\nor greater things of Nature impressed the subtle sense within him, and\nawoke the mystery and the awe. The following lines, not composed as a\nhymn, but included in his \u201cMiscellaneous Thoughts,\u201d have always seemed to\nus very cogently to illustrate this:\n\n    My God, I love, and I adore;\n    But souls that love would know Thee more.\n    Wilt Thou for ever hide, and stand\n    Behind the labours of Thy hand?\n    Thy hand unseen sustains the poles\n    On which this huge creation rolls:\n    The starry arch proclaims Thy power,\n    Thy pencil glows in every flower;\n    In thousand shapes and colours rise\n    Thy painted wonders to our eyes;\n    While beasts and birds, with labouring throats,\n    Teach us a God in thousand notes,\n    The meanest pin in Nature\u2019s frame\n    Marks out some letter of Thy name.\n    Where sense can reach, or fancy rove,\n    From hill to hill, from field to grove,\n    Across the waves, around the sky,\n    There\u2019s not a spot, or deep or high,\n    Where the Creator has not trod,\n    And left the footstep of a God.\n\nAnd in the same strain, with what strength and majesty he sweeps every\nchord of Nature in his sublime version of the 148th Psalm:\n\n    Loud hallelujahs to the Lord.\n\nThe strong nervousness of his expression, the passionate personification\n(always the mark of a great poet) with which his verses abound,\nsometimes, but more especially in his lyrics, give the appearance of\ninflation to his expressions. But when attempting to describe adequate\nthemes, they only fitly represent the subject, as in the following fine\ndescription of the glory of God in the clouds:\n\n    Thy hand, how wide it spreads the sky!\n      How glorious to behold!\n    Tinged with a blue of heavenly dye,\n      And starred with sparkling gold.\n\n    There Thou canst bid the globes of light\n      Their endless circles run;\n    Where the pale planet rules the night,\n      And day obeys the sun.\n\n    The noisy winds stand ready there\n      Thy orders to obey;\n    With sounding wings they sweep the air,\n      To make Thy chariot way.\n\n    There like a trumpet loud and strong,\n      Thy thunder shakes our coast;\n    While the red lightnings wave along,\n      The banners of Thy host.\n\n    On the thin air, without a prop,\n      Hang fruitful showers around;\n    At Thy command they sink, and drop\n      Their fatness to the ground.\n\nStrong exception has been taken to Watts\u2019 verse, on the score of its\nfrequent, almost passionate, expression of Divine love; in this he\nfrequently writes like Madame Guyon, or like some of those old monastic\nspirits who passed their days in cloisters; and Watts\u2019 life was almost\nas cloisteral as that of a monk. Unlike his amiable friend, Philip\nDoddridge, he was never diverted from any of the solemn pursuits of his\nlife by the claims of human passion or affection, although there are\nnot wanting verses which, perhaps, show that he had not been altogether\ninsensible to female charms:\n\n    Virgins, who roll your artful eyes,\n    And shoot delicious danger thence;\n    Swiftly the lovely lightning flies,\n    And melts our reason down to sense.\n\nBut perhaps his poem \u201cFew Happy Matches,\u201d reveals some reason why his\ntimid spirit refused to seek its happiness in matrimonial chains, and so\nhe turned to the higher affections, singing\u2014\n\n    Life is a pain without Thy love;\n    Who can ever bear to be\n    Cursed with immortality,\n    Among the stars, but far from Thee?\n\nBut the author of many of these hymns must often have been wafted away\nwith a true mystic ecstasy. The warmth of this rapture has been objected\nto; the objection lies, also, against the works of most of the great\nmystics.\n\n    My God, the spring of all my joys,\n\nis one of countless illustrations\u2014\n\n    My God, my life, my love,\n    To Thee, to Thee, I call.\n\nor\u2014\n\n    Dearest of all the names above.\n\nIn such as these, if the reader feels unable to rise to them amidst the\ndelights of family joys\u2014wife, and children, and society\u2014let him remember\nhow Watts lived, his solitary nights, in a family where, no doubt, his\npresence was a charm and blessing, but in which he must have been to\nhimself, comparatively, lonely as a monk, feeding his mind with thoughts\nuntil they became passions and ecstasies to him, and even found their\nvent in such words as the following:\n\n    His charm shall make my numbers flow,\n      And hold the falling floods;\n    While silence sits on every bough,\n      And bends the listening woods.\n\n    I\u2019ll carve our passion on the bark;\n      And every wounded tree\n    Shall drop and hear some mystic mark\n      That Jesus died for me.\n\n    The swains shall wonder when they read,\n      Inscribed on all the grove,\n    That Heaven itself came down and bled\n      To win a mortal\u2019s love.\n\nTo this same order of sacred personification also belong those verses,\nwhich are certainly remarkable, and when properly apprehended among the\nmost tenderly antithetical in our language, on the Death of Moses:\n\n    Sweet was the journey to the sky\n      The wondrous prophet tried;\n    \u201cClimb up the mount,\u201d said God, \u201cand die;\u201d\n      The prophet climbed and died.\n\n    Softly his fainting head he lay\n      Upon his Maker\u2019s breast;\n    His Maker kissed his soul away,\n      And laid his flesh to rest.\n\n    In God\u2019s own arms he left the breath\n      That God\u2019s own Spirit gave;\n    His was the noblest road to death,\n      And his the sweetest grave.\n\nAnd while remarking upon the poet, we may notice that many of his pieces\nreflect that quiet scholarly spirit of the age, in which not only Watts,\nbut so many other writers delighted to indulge; that Seneca-like musing\nand moralizing, that contented dreaming beneath umbrageous woods and by\nthe side of purling streams. It has been said that Samuel Rogers, in\nhis \u201cHuman Life,\u201d portrays the Twickenham side of existence. The Stoke\nNewington side was very much like it, certainly wholly unlike the stir\nand heat of the vivid passions, the painful introspections, and diseased\nmusings, which have forced their way into modern poetry. If Watts\ndescribed or dealt with these it was not in his verse, although many of\nhis prose writings seem to reveal that he was not ignorant of them; such\nis his often quoted piece:\n\n    TRUE RICHES.\n\n    I am not concerned to know\n    What, to-morrow, fate will do:\n    \u2019Tis enough that I can say,\n    I\u2019ve possessed myself to-day:\n    Then, if haply midnight death\n    Seize my flesh, and stop my breath,\n    Yet to-morrow I shall be\n    Heir to the best part of me.\n\n    Glittering stones, and golden things,\n    Wealth and honours that have wings,\n    Ever fluttering to be gone,\n    I could never call my own:\n    Riches that the world bestows,\n    She can take, and I can lose;\n    But the treasures that are mine\n    Lie afar beyond her line.\n    When I view my spacious soul,\n    And survey myself a whole,\n    And enjoy myself alone,\n    I\u2019m a kingdom of my own.\n\n    I\u2019ve a mighty part within\n    That the world hath never seen,\n    Rich as Eden\u2019s happy ground,\n    And with choicer plenty crowned.\n    Here on all the shining boughs\n    Knowledge fair and useful grows;\n    On the same young flow\u2019ry tree\n    All the seasons you may see;\n    Notions in the bloom of light,\n    Just disclosing to the sight;\n    Here are thoughts of larger growth,\n    Rip\u2019ning into solid truth;\n    Fruits refined, of noble taste;\n    Seraphs feed on such repast.\n    Here, in a green and shady grove,\n    Streams of pleasure mix with love:\n    There, beneath the smiling skies,\n    Hills of contemplation rise;\n    Now, upon some shining top,\n    Angels light, and call me up;\n    I rejoice to raise my feet,\n    Both rejoice when there we meet.\n\n    There are endless beauties more\n    Earth hath no resemblance for;\n    Nothing like them round the pole,\n    Nothing can describe the soul.\n    \u2019Tis a region half unknown,\n    That has treasures of its own,\n    More remote from public view\n    Than the bowels of Peru;\n    Broader \u2019tis, and brighter far,\n    Than the golden Indies are;\n    Ships that trace the watery stage\n    Cannot coast it in an age;\n    Harts, or horses, strong and fleet,\n    Had they wings to help their feet,\n    Could not run it half-way o\u2019er\n    In ten thousand days or more.\n\n    Yet the silly wand\u2019ring mind,\n    Loath to be too much confined,\n    Roves and takes her daily tours,\n    Coasting round the narrow shores\u2014\n    Narrow shores of flesh and sense,\n    Picking shells and pebbles thence:\n    Or she sits at Fancy\u2019s door,\n    Calling shapes and shadows to her;\n    Foreign visits still receiving,\n    And to herself a stranger living.\n    Never, never would she buy\n    Indian dust, or Tyrian dye;\n    Never trade abroad for more,\n    If she saw her native store:\n    If her inward worth were known,\n    She might ever live alone.\n\nNor, much in the same vein, was he indisposed occasionally for a gentle\nkind of satire, as in the following vigorous paraphrase, which some\nreaders may perhaps be surprised to find falling from the pen of Watts.\n\u201cWhen I meet with persons,\u201d he says, \u201cof a worldly character, they bring\nto my mind some scraps of Horace:\u201d\n\n    \u201cNos numerus sumus, et fruges consumere nati,\n            Alcinoique juventus\n    Cui pulchrum fuit in medios dormire dies,\u201d etc.\n\n    PARAPHRASE.\n\n    There are a number of us creep\n    Into this world, to eat and sleep;\n    And know no reason why they\u2019re born,\n    But merely to consume the corn,\n    Devour the cattle, fowl, and fish,\n    And leave behind an empty dish.\n    The crows and ravens do the same,\n    Unlucky birds of hateful name;\n    Ravens or crows might fill their places,\n    And swallow corn and carcases.\n    Then if their tombstone, when they die,\n    Ben\u2019t taught to flatter and to lie,\n    There\u2019s nothing better will be said,\n    Than that \u201cThey\u2019ve eat up all their bread,\n    Drank up their drink, and gone to bed.\u201d\n\nAnd the following verses are surely very pleasing to the discontented and\nunquiet:\n\n    \u2019Tis a dull circle that we tread,\n    Just from the window to the bed,\n    To rise to see, and to be seen,\n    Graze on the world awhile, and then\n    We yawn, and stretch to sleep again.\n    But Fancy, that uneasy guest,\n    Still holds a longing in our breast:\n    She finds or frames vexations still,\n    Herself the greatest plague we feel.\n    We take great pleasure in our pain,\n    And make a mountain of a grain,\n    Assume the load, and pant and sweat\n    Beneath th\u2019 imaginary weight.\n    With our dear selves we live at strife,\n    While the most constant scenes of life\n    From peevish humours are not free;\n    Still we affect variety:\n    Rather than pass an easy day,\n    We fret and chide the hours away,\n    Grow weary of this circling sun,\n    And vex that he should ever run\n    The same old track; and still, and still\n    Rise red behind yon eastern hill,\n    And chide the moon that darts her light\n    Through the same casement every night.\n\n    We shift our chambers and our homes,\n    To dwell where trouble never comes:\n    Sylvia has left the city crowd,\n    Against the court exclaims aloud,\n    Flies to the woods; a hermit saint!\n    She loathes her patches, pins and paint,\n    Dear diamonds from her neck are torn;\n    But humour, that eternal thorn,\n    Sticks in her heart: she\u2019s hurried still,\n    \u2019Twixt her wild passions and her will:\n    Haunted and hagged where\u2019er she roves,\n    By purling streams, and silent groves,\n    Or with her furies, or her loves.\n\n    Then our native land we hate,\n    Too cold, too windy, or too wet;\n    Change the thick climate, and repair\n    To France or Italy for air.\n\n    Happy the soul that virtue shows\n    To fix the place of her repose,\n    Needless to move; for she can dwell\n    In her old grandsire\u2019s hall as well.\n    Virtue that never loves to roam,\n    But sweetly hides herself at home.\n    And easy on a native throne\n    Of humble turf sits gently down.\n\nWithout claiming then for Watts a pre-eminent place among those who are\ncalled poets, these citations will be sufficient to show that however\nhe might disclaim the dignity, he deserved the designation. And there\nare poets whose eminence is in general more unquestioned, who deserve it\nless. He was unjust to himself in this particular; verse and rhyme fell\nfrom him easily, happily, naturally. Perhaps he succeeded least when he\nmost ambitiously attempted; but he had a remarkable and pleasant power\nof instantly translating some sentiment which crossed his mind from the\nclassics into English verse, as in those well-known lines,\u2014\n\n    Seize upon truth where\u2019er \u2019tis found,\n    On Christian, or on heathen ground.\n    Amongst your friends, amongst your foes,\n    The flower\u2019s divine where\u2019er it grows,\n    Neglect the prickle and assume the rose.\n\nIn which he elevates the sentiment of Virgil,\u2014\n\n    \u201cFas est ab hoste doceri.\u201d\n\nReferring to his translations, it has been very justly said that he\nseldom translates or imitates a heathen poet but he either makes him\na Christian in the end, or shows his deficiency in not being one.\nHe consistently maintained throughout his writings, as a poet, the\ndetermination expressed in the lines\u2014\n\n    Thy name, Almighty Sire, and Thine,\n    Jesus, where His full glories shine,\n        Shall consecrate my lays.[13]\n\nHis familiar method of remembering the signs of the Zodiac is an\nillustration of the rapid and neat way in which he could bind up\nknowledge in a verse:\n\n    The ram, the bull, the heavenly twins,\n    And next the crab the lion shines,\n      The virgin and the scales;\n    The archer, scorpion, and the goat,\n    The man that holds the water-pot,\n      The fish with glittering tails.\n\nAnd his receipt for the orderly conduct of Divine worship, for sustaining\na mental effort in prayer, is useful, beautiful, and perfect:\n\n    Call upon God, adore, confess,\n      Petition, plead, and then declare\n    You are the Lord\u2019s, give thanks and bless,\n      And let Amen confirm the prayer.\n\nThe devout purpose which ruled and governed the whole life of Watts is\nof course manifest in his poems. Such as he is, he is always a sacred\npoet; he never forgets that his life has been consecrated and set apart\nto religious teaching and to the promulgation of useful knowledge; his\nmoralities are recreation, never mere dreams; and if he never attempts\nthe great flights of poetry in epic or dramatic writing, we may remember\nthat in this, as in his yet more sacred pieces, he was a lyrist, and\nreserved all his greater efforts for his work in the ministry, seeking\nthus to make more sweet and serviceable the whole service of the House of\nGod.\n\nThroughout these remarks we have left it to be inferred that the\nverse-making, great as was the fame it procured the author, was regarded\nby him merely as the _accident_ of his work; at the same time his nature\nseems to have been truly in sympathy with all those impulses derived\nfrom external scenery, calculated to stir a poetic sensibility. We fancy\nhis modest nature would almost have assented, without a rejoinder, even\nto some of the very severe criticisms which modern fastidiousness has\npronounced upon him; but Dr. Gibbons assures us how swiftly and instantly\nhis spirit caught every impression of natural scenery and life; how he\ndelighted in the rural verdure, or the waving harvest-field, or the\nresounding grove; how his nature was awed almost equally by the wonderful\nand subtle labours of the industrious bee, or the sun walking through\nthe heavens in the greatness of his strength. In his lyrics, classical\nforms, perhaps, rather hampered than aided him; he was fascinated by the\nmajestic roll of the Pindaric Greek; but from this fault the best of his\nhymns are entirely free.\n\nWe have dwelt thus at length upon some of the characteristics of Watts\u2019\nverse, feeling that criticism upon it is far from exhausted; and that,\namidst its various representatives in our language, in spite of that\nmodern contempt which is creeping even into the circles of those who\nprofess to hold his faith and follow in his footsteps, he still deserves\nto retain a place in the history of English poetry. We have referred\nrather to those more striking and obvious marks of his genius; but\nwe must still prefer him in his more quiet and subdued strains of\ndevotion, those peaceful, pensive lines with which his works abound. It\nis equally certain that he wrote a number of verses and lines perfectly\nindefensible on the score of good taste: this is the more remarkable,\nbecause his taste does seem to have been cultivated to the highest pitch\nof excellence; and his mind was remarkable, not merely for the plenitude\nof its ideas, but for the easy elegance with which he ordinarily gave\nexpression to them. However this may be, their bad taste and strange\nconceits have not greatly repressed the reverence with which we regard\nthe works of George Herbert or of Henry Vaughan; nor does the frequent\nturgidity of Milton much interfere with the admiration and awe with which\nwe read most of his poems.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n[Illustration: ABNEY HOUSE, STOKE NEWINGTON.]\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\nResidence in the Abney family.\n\n\nIt was at that period of Watts\u2019 life, when he felt in a very especial\nmanner his loneliness, and fever and infirmity were reducing him to a\npainful sense of abiding weakness, that Sir Thomas and Lady Abney invited\nhim to spend a week with them at their magnificent house of Theobalds,\nin Hertfordshire. He accepted the invitation, and the hosts and their\nguest seemed to have been so mutually pleased with each other that Watts\ncontinued in the family until his death, a period of thirty-six years.\nWatts must have then been about thirty-eight years of age. Johnson\nremarks upon this friendship that \u201cit was a state in which the notions of\npatronage and dependence were overpowered by the perception of reciprocal\nbenefits; it deserves a particular memorial;\u201d and he refers to Dr.\nGibbons\u2019 interesting account, which is, indeed, one of the most pleasant\npieces of his biography, and compels the wish that he had more frequently\nbroken the monotony of the book by pages so pleasing. The event was one\nof those kind providences which those who watch the lives of eminent men,\nwho have served their generation and the cause of God, will not fail\nto perceive. Think of the solitary student, the shrinking, sensitive\nman, the modest and fearful spirit who could not command service, and\nrecoiled from giving trouble, how fearfully life might have dragged\nalong through a few years of languor and pain, unequal to much service,\nunable to gather round him any, or but few, of the comforts of life,\nsuddenly transferred to all the affluent comforts of this magnificent\nabode, to its rooms, capacious and luxurious, the abode of order, and\nharmony, and holiness, not only a pious household, but entirely after\nthe type favoured by the thoughtful guest. There were the rich rural\nscenes, the delightful garden, the spreading lawn, and the fragrant and\nembowered recess, all wooing the body back to health and the heart to\npeace; and although a few years after his entrance into the household Sir\nThomas Abney dies, yet the guest cannot be permitted to depart. The same\naffection and respect are continued by Lady Abney and her daughter. Lady\nAbney was the sister of the chief friend of Watts\u2019 younger days, Thomas\nGunston; her wealth was very great, and, says Gibbons, \u201cher generosity\nand munificence in full proportion.\u201d There must have been a pleasant\nfellowship and community of tastes, certainly a fitting harmony of\ncharacter; reminding us of Robert Boyle with his sister Lady Ranelagh, or\nWilliam Cowper with Mary Unwin; such relationships are very beautiful in\ntheir serene, unselfish character. Beneath the roof of Lady Abney Watts\ndied. Within two months of his departure to Bunhill Fields, she was taken\nto her resting-place in the vaults of Stoke Newington Church. But the\nfamily in which Dr. Watts was for more than half his life an honoured\nguest merits some more particular mention.\n\nSir Thomas Abney was descended from an ancient and respectable family in\nDerbyshire. His father was James Abney, Esq., of Wilsley, whose ancestors\nhad enjoyed that estate upwards of five hundred years. The son came\nto the City of London, and appears to have passed through the honours\nof Alderman, Sheriff, and Lord Mayor. For the services he rendered to\nKing William he received the honour of knighthood, and was chosen chief\nmagistrate some years before his turn. He appears to have had in those\ntroublesome times great influence in the City, though holding at that\ntime a strong opinion adverse to the Stuarts. He was chosen in 1701 to\nrepresent it in Parliament; he was a director of the Bank, and president\nof St. Thomas\u2019 Hospital; and when, upon the death of the exiled James,\nthe King of France, Louis XIV., caused the Pretender to be proclaimed\nat St. Germains King of Great Britain, and by the recall of the Earl\nof Macclesfield war seemed to be unavoidable, Sir Thomas Abney, in the\nCourt of Common Council, proposed, in opposition to the majority of his\nbrethren on the bench, an address to William III., declaring that they\nwould support him against France and the Pretender: it was carried and\ntransmitted to the King, who was then on the Continent. It is impossible\nnow to estimate the vigour this imparted to the King\u2019s affairs\u2014it was the\nnote which roused the nation. It was said that this act of Sir Thomas\nAbney served the cause of the King more than if he had raised for him a\nmillion of money.\n\nIt is a singular circumstance that although Watts received such marks\nof favour from the Abney family, Sir Thomas and Lady Abney do not\nappear to have, in the first days of their acquaintance, belonged to\nthe church of which Watts was pastor. Sir Thomas was a member of that\nchurch during the pastorate of Mr. Caryl, whose daughter was his first\nwife. After Mr. Caryl\u2019s death he united himself with the church of which\nJohn Howe was the minister. Nonconformists were at that time, as they\nhave been frequently since, Lord Mayors of the City, usually complying\nby occasional conformity so far as to attend one part of the Sunday\nat church, the other at their own place of worship. When Sir Humphrey\nEdwin, who was a member of Pinners\u2019 Hall congregation, was Mayor, he\nvery unwisely caused the regalia of the City to be carried to his\nmeeting-house, and it created a vehement storm.\n\nBut it is remarkable that Mr. Milner, usually very accurate, in his\nlife of Dr. Watts quotes a paragraph from \u201cThe Shortest Way with the\nDissenters,\u201d speaking of it as a piece of High Church vituperation,\napparently unaware that this was the very production of Defoe, the satire\nfor which he was put in the pillory; Mr. Milner, misled by the heartiness\nof the composition, like many of Defoe\u2019s day, came to the conclusion\nthat it was the work of an enemy to those whose interests the pamphlet\nwas intended to serve. The paragraph points immediately to Sir Thomas\nand his friend Watts, as the reader will perceive by the designations\nitalicized: \u201cBut a lady, Queen Anne, now sits on the throne, who though\nsprung from that blood which ye and your forefathers spilt before the\npalace-gates, puts on a temper of forgiveness, and, in compassion to your\nconsciences, is not willing that you should lose the hopes of heaven by\npurchasing here on earth. She would have no more Sir Humphreys tempt the\njustice of God, by falling from his true worship and giving ear to the\ncat-calls and back-pipes at St. Paul\u2019s; would have your _Sir Thomas\u2019s_\nkeep to their primitive text, and not venture damnation to play at long\nspoon and custard for a transitory twelvemonth; and would have your _Sir\nTom_ sing psalms at Highgate Hill, and split texts of Scripture _with\nhis diminutive figure of a chaplain_, without running the hazard of\nqualifying himself to be called a handsome man for riding on horseback\nbefore the City trainbands.\u201d\n\nIt may be noticed now how much the interest of King William and the\nHanover succession to the throne of England were served by the Protestant\ndissenters of the City of London, and by no one more than by Sir Thomas\nAbney. He lived to a good old age, dying at his house at Theobalds in the\nyear 1722. Nor can we wonder that his friend should pay a high tribute to\nhis memory in a funeral sermon, and seek to give it a more durable place\nin a sketch in his \u201cMiscellaneous Thoughts.\u201d\n\nTheobalds was a fine old palace, and has been celebrated in the verses\nof poets and the pages of novelists, and the memoirs of historians; but\nno biography of Watts gives any specific account of the magnificent old\nbuilding in which he spent the greater number of the years of his life.\nIt was as much Watts\u2019 home as if it had been his own property; and he\nwas in the habit of saying his poetical contributions would have been\nmuch more numerous had he, in his early life, been privileged with the\nmeans of retirement among such shades and gardens, and ample grounds.\nTheobalds was, and had been, everything that could excite the memory,\nor stir or soothe and lull the imagination. Situated a little more than\na mile from Cheshunt, in Hertfordshire, and within an easy ride from\nthe metropolis, on the borders of Enfield Chase, it possessed a very\nremarkable history; it had been the favourite residence of the mighty\nCecil, Lord Burleigh; to this place he fled with eagerness to enjoy his\nshort intervals of leisure; amidst its shades he planned and plotted\nschemes in which the whole future of England\u2019s history was interested;\nhe laid out immense sums of money upon the grand pile, and kept up\ngreat state with extraordinary magnificence, while he might be seen\nambling along upon a mule through the groves of his magnificent domains,\noverlooking his workmen or the parties of pleasure he had gathered around\nhim. Here, at this old house, Queen Elizabeth had repeatedly rested in\nthe course of her great progresses. Here, when Burleigh and his mistress\nhad both passed away, came James I., and held his masques, written by Ben\nJonson, and enjoyed his pleasures. It was in his reign that it was given\nup by the Earl of Salisbury to Queen Anne of Denmark, amidst such strange\npageantries of most intemperate folly that Sir John Harington writes,\ncontrasting the days of James I. with what he remembered of the same\nplace in the days of Queen Elizabeth, \u201cI never did see such lack of good\norder, discretion, and sobriety, as I have now done.\u201d\n\nIn Watts\u2019 day there was living in the neighbouring village of Cheshunt\nthat remarkable man, also a member of Watts\u2019 church. Richard Cromwell,\nalthough, somewhat to shroud himself in obscurity, he usually went by the\nname of Mr. Clarke. An eminent novelist[14] has woven into his fiction\nvery naturally one of the most striking incidents of his story from the\ncasual meeting of his hero and the son of the Protector on this very\nspot, when Cromwell became his host and entertainer. Richard Cromwell\ndied probably before Watts became a constant resident at Theobalds; and\nindeed Cromwell removed from Cheshunt some time before his death.\n\nCheshunt churchyard once contained a number of inscriptions upon the\ntombs from the pen of the poet; most of them have probably long been\nobliterated, but two or three have been snatched from oblivion; an\ninscription for the tomb of Thomas Pickard, Esq., citizen of London, who\ndied suddenly, probably a member of Watts\u2019 church:\n\n    A soul prepared needs no delays,\n    The summons comes, the saint obeys;\n    Swift was his flight and short the road,\n    He closed his eyes and saw his God.\n    His flesh rests here till Jesus come\n    And claims the treasure from the tomb.\n\nAnother epitaph:\n\n    Beneath this stone Death\u2019s prisoner lies.\n    That stone shall move, the prisoner rise\n    When Jesus with Almighty word\n    Calls His dead saints to meet their Lord.\n\nThe following lines were not long since in existence, written upon a\nceiling dial at a western window of Theobalds:\n\n    Little sun upon the ceiling\n    Ever moving, ever stealing\n    Moments, minutes, hours away;\n    May no shade forbid thy shining\n    While the heavenly sun declining\n    Calls us to improve the day.\n\nThere was another, indeed there appear to have been several; it was the\ntaste of the times to line the avenues with these moralities in verse:\n\n    Thus steal the silent hours away,\n    The sun thus hastes to reach the sea,\n    And men to mingle with their clay.\n    Thus light and shade divide the year,\n    Thus till the last great day appear\n    And shut the starry theatre.\n\nIf we are able to discriminate Watts in his various abodes here and at\nStoke Newington, certainly it is not his biographers we have to thank for\nit. They have jumbled up his residences in a very heterogeneous fashion,\nand leave us very much in doubt whether their descriptions of his rooms\napply to his earlier or later abode. Assuredly he lived in a mansion\nlarge enough for him. One of the smallest of mortals, he had one of the\nlargest homes. We can readily believe that good Sir Thomas was very well\npleased from such a pile to deliver up a suite of apartments to such a\nguest. His own rooms were a kind of true literary hermitage, adorned with\npaintings from his own pencil, and his collection of portraits of eminent\npersons he had known, or great contemporaries he admired; at the entrance\nof his study on the outside were the fine lines from the first book of\nHorace\u2019s satires, in which he denounces the faithless friend: \u201cHe who\nreviles his absent friend, who does not defend him while another defames\nhim, who aims at the groundless jeers of people, and the reputation of a\nwit, who can feign things not seen, who cannot keep secrets, he is the\nrancorous man.\u201d The spaces within, where there were no shelves, were\nfilled up with prints of distinguished friends, or eminent persons. Of\ncourse, there was a spacious old Elizabethan fireplace, panelled on\neither side, and in each panel an inscription from the beloved Horace. On\nthe one side:\n\n    Locus est pluribus umbris.\n\nAnd on the other:\n\n    Quis me dolorum propria dignabitor umbra.\n\nThere we are permitted to fancy him. Such were his haunts among those\npleasant and sequestered shades, and such was his home. His rooms well\narranged and tasteful, as one biographer has depicted them. The lute and\nthe telescope on the same table with the Bible, a treatise on logic in\none hand, and hymns and spiritual songs in the other. Few writers in our\nlanguage seem to suggest a finer illustration of the mingled powers of\nfaith and reason.\n\nWith so small a family what a silent household it must have seemed,\nsustained in its grand and memorable stateliness. There passed what we\nmay believe to have been the happiest years of Watts\u2019 life, amidst scenes\ninviting to rest, and with little to disturb the equanimity of his quiet\nspirit, receiving and reflecting its own peace, peace not to be disturbed\neven by much bodily restlessness and pain. Those numerous allusions in\nhis hymns to the wakeful hours of night were not mere poetic fancies,\n\u201cthe comforts of my nights\u201d were not unneeded; for many years he knew\nlittle of sleep, except such as could be obtained by medicine; intense\nmental application, working upon a weak and nervous constitution, brought\nabout the consequences of insomnia, or sleeplessness yet his mind seems\nto have been too calm, too equally balanced, and too completely under\nthe control of highest principles, ever to know such agitations as shake\nto their centre some poetic natures. Even public agitations did hot\ndisturb him much. Almost the severest trial he knew was the vehement and\nintolerant persecution he sustained from the tongue and pen of Thomas\nBradbury; but to him we may refer in subsequent pages.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII.\n\nHymns.\n\n\nSo early as the year 1700 Watts\u2019 brother, Mr. Enoch Watts, wrote a letter\nto him from Southampton, urging upon him the publication of his hymns. It\nsets not only the mind of the writer as a member of the Doctor\u2019s family\nin a favourable light, as well as it expresses the probable general\nfeeling of desire for some hymns suitable for Divine service. We quote it\nhere:\n\n                                        \u201cSOUTHAMPTON: _March, 1700_.\n\n    \u201cDEAR BROTHER,\u2014\n\n    \u201cIn your last you discovered an inclination to oblige the world\n    by showing it your hymns in print, and I heartily wish, as well\n    for the satisfaction of the public as myself, that you were\n    something more than inclinable thereunto. I have frequently\n    importuned you to it before now, and your invention has often\n    furnished you with some modest reply to the contrary, as if\n    what I urge was only the effect of a rash and inconsiderate\n    fondness to a brother; but you will have other thoughts of the\n    matter when I first assure you that that affection, which is\n    inseparable from our near relationship, would have had in me\n    a very different operation, for instead of pressing you to\n    publish, I should with my last efforts have endeavoured the\n    concealment of them, if my best judgment did not direct me to\n    believe it highly conducing to a general benefit, without the\n    least particular disadvantage to yourself. This latter I need\n    not have mentioned, for I am very confident whoever has the\n    happiness of reading your hymns (unless he be either sot or\n    atheist) will have a very favourable opinion of their author;\n    so that, at the same time you contribute to the universal\n    advantage, you will procure the esteem of men the most\n    judicious and sensible. In the second place, you may please to\n    consider how very mean the performers in this kind of poetry\n    appear in the pieces already extant. Some ancient ones I have\n    seen in my time, who flourished in Hopkins and Sternhold\u2019s\n    reign; but Mason now reduces this kind of writing to a sort of\n    yawning indifferency, and honest Barton chimes us asleep. There\n    is, therefore, a great need of a pen, vigorous and lively as\n    yours, to quicken and revive the dying devotion of the age, to\n    which nothing can afford such assistance as poetry, contrived\n    on purpose to elevate us even above ourselves. To what may we\n    impute the prevalency of the songs, filled with the fabulous\n    divinity of the ancient fathers, on our passions? Is it, think\n    you, only owing to a natural propensity in us to be in love\n    with fable, and averse to truth in her native plainness? I\n    presume it may partly be ascribed to this, that as romance has\n    more need of artifice than truth to set it off, so it generally\n    has such an abundance more, that it seldom fails of affecting\n    us by making new and agreeable impressions. Yours now is the\n    old truth, stripped of its ragged ornaments, and appears, if we\n    may say so, younger by ages, in a new and fashionable dress,\n    which is commonly tempting.\n\n    \u201cAnd as for those modern gentlemen who have lately exhibited\n    their version of the Psalms, all of them I have not seen I\n    confess, and, perhaps, it would not be worth while to do it\n    unless I had a mind to play the critic, which you know is\n    not my talent, but those I have read confess to me a vast\n    difference to yours, though they are done by persons of no mean\n    credit. Dr. Patrick most certainly has the report of a very\n    learned man, and, they say, understands the Hebrew extremely\n    well, which, indeed, capacitates him for a translator, but he\n    is thereby never the more enabled to versify. Tate and Brady\n    still keep near the same pace. I know not what sober beast\n    they ride (one that will be content to carry double), but I am\n    sure it is no Pegasus: there is in them a mighty deficiency\n    of that life and soul which is necessary to raise our fancies\n    and kindle and fire our passions, and something or other they\n    have to allege against the rest of adventurers; but I have\n    been persuaded a great while since, that were David to speak\n    English, he would choose to make use of your style. If what I\n    have said seems to have no weight with you, yet you cannot be\n    ignorant what a load of scandal lies on the Dissenters, only\n    for their imagined aversion to poetry. You remember what Dr.\n    Speed says:\n\n        So far hath schism prevailed they hate to see\n        Our lines and words in couplings to agree,\n        It looks too like abhorred conformity:\n        A hymn so soft, so smooth, so neatly drest,\n        Savours of human learning and the beast.\n\n    And, perhaps, it has been thought there were some grounds\n    for his aspersion from the admired poems of Ben. Keach, John\n    Bunyan, etc., all flat and dull as they are; nay, I am much out\n    if the latter has not formerly made much more ravishing music\n    with his hammer and brass kettle.\n\n    \u201cNow when you are exposed to the public view these calumnies\n    will immediately vanish, which, methinks, should be a motive\n    not the least considerable. And now we are talking of music,\n    I have a crotchet in my brain, which makes me imagine, that\n    as chords and discords equally please heavy-eared people,\n    so the best divine poems will no more inspire the rude and\n    illiterate than the meanest rhymes, which may in some measure\n    give you satisfaction, in that fear you discover, _ne in rude\n    vulgus cadant_, and you must allow them to be tasteless to many\n    people, tolerable to some, but to those few who know their\n    beauties, to be very pleasant and desirable; and, lastly, if I\n    do not speak reason, I will at present take my leave of you,\n    and only desire you to hear what your ingenious acquaintance\n    in London say to the point, for I doubt not you have many\n    solicitors there, whose judgments are much more solid than\n    mine. I pray God Almighty have you in His good keeping, and\n    desire you to believe me, my dear brother,\n\n              \u201cYour most affectionate kinsman and friend,\n\n                                                      \u201cENOCH WATTS.\u201d\n\nBut notwithstanding this and other solicitations, the first edition was\nnot published until 1707. The copyright of the hymns was sold to Mr.\nLawrence, the publisher, for \u00a310; about half a century before the same\nsum was given to Milton for his \u201cParadise Lost;\u201d the volume instantly\nobtained a very large acceptance, and he then directed his attention to\nhis version of the Psalms; this was only completed by him during the\npainful and distressing illness from which he suffered about 1712 and the\nfollowing years, but the Psalms were not published until the year 1719.\n\n\u201cDr. Watts,\u201d says James Montgomery, in his introduction to the \u201cChristian\nPsalmist,\u201d \u201cmay almost be called the inventor of hymns in our language,\nfor he so far departed from all precedent that few of his compositions\nresemble those of his forerunners, while he so far established a\nprecedent to all his successors that none have departed from it otherwise\nthan according to the peculiar turn of mind in the writer, and the style\nof expressing Christian truths employed by the denomination to which\nhe belonged.\u201d And, again, he says, \u201cWe come to the greatest name among\nhymn-writers, for we hesitate not to give that praise to Dr. Isaac Watts,\nsince it has pleased God to confer upon him, though one of the least of\nthe poets of this country, more glory than upon the greatest either of\nthat or of any other, by making his \u2018Divine Songs\u2019 a more abundant and\nuniversal blessing than the verses of any uninspired penman that ever\nlived. In his \u2018Psalms and Hymns\u2019 (for they must be classed together)\nhe has embraced a compass and variety of subjects which include and\nillustrate every truth of revelation, throw light upon every secret\nmovement of the human heart, whether of sin, nature, or grace, and\ndescribe every kind of trial, temptation, conflict, doubt, fear, and\ngrief, as well as the faith, hope, charity, the love, joy, peace, labour,\nand patience of the Christian in all stages of his course on earth,\ntogether with the terrors of the Lord, the glories of the Redeemer, and\nthe comforts of the Holy Spirit, to urge, allure, and strengthen him by\nthe way. There is in the pages of this evangelist a word in season for\nevery one who needs it, in whatever circumstances he may require counsel,\nconsolation, reproof, or instruction. We say this without reserve of\nthe materials of his hymns; had their execution only been correspondent\nwith the preciousness of these, we should have had a Christian Psalmist\nin England next (and that only in date, not in dignity) to the \u2018Sweet\nSinger of Israel.\u2019 Nor is this so bold a word as it may seem. Dr. Watts\u2019\nhymns are full of \u2018the glorious Gospel of the blessed God;\u2019 his themes,\ntherefore, are much more illustrious than those of the son of Jesse, who\nonly knew \u2018the power and glory\u2019 of Jehovah as he had \u2018seen them in the\nsanctuary,\u2019 which was but the shadow of the New Testament Church, as the\nface of Moses holding communion with God was brighter than the veil he\ncast over it when conversing with his countrymen.\u201d\n\nHis attention was very early awakened to the importance and necessity\nfor some improvement in this department of Divine service. Our readers\nwill remember that after he had closed his academical studies at Stoke\nNewington, before he entered on the ministry, he returned home and lived\nduring the years 1695 and 1696 in the old house with his father; he\ndevoted those years, the twenty-first and twenty-second of his life, to\nsystematic reading, meditation, and prayer; and during those years he\nappears to have composed the greater number of his hymns. Thus, if they\nare among the first effusions of his poet\u2019s pen, they are among the best,\nand in this circumstance they resemble the first and chief volume of\none of his successors in the art of sacred poetry in our own day, John\nKeble, whose \u201cChristian Year\u201d was the production of his earliest manhood,\nand all whose subsequent efforts in verse seem to be a vain striving to\novertake the beauty and harmony of his first performances. Many of Watts\u2019\nlater hymns are very noble and beautiful, but the greater number appear\nto have been composed in those early Southampton days. Dr. Gibbons says,\n\u201cMr. John Morgan, a minister of very respectable character now living\nat Romsey, Hants, has sent me the following information: \u2018The occasion\nof the Doctor\u2019s hymns was this, as I had the account from his worthy\nfellow-labourer and colleague, the Rev. Mr. Price, in whose family I\ndwelt above fifty years ago. The hymns which were sung at the Dissenting\nmeeting at Southampton were so little to the gust of Mr. Watts, that he\ncould not forbear complaining of them to his father. The father bid him\ntry what he could do to mend the matter. He did, and had such success\nin his first essay that a second hymn was earnestly desired of him, and\nthen a third, and fourth, etc., till in process of time there was such a\nnumber of them as to make up a volume.\u2019\u201d\n\nIt is remarkable that in England the power of the popular hymn was so\nlate in discovering itself. It does not appear to have been known here\nin the old Roman Catholic days as assuredly it was in other countries,\nwhile in Germany the Reformation was born and brought forth amidst the\nchanting of noble and triumphant hymns. It appears to be impossible\nto realise the services of the Church without the hymn. Canon Liddon,\ncuriously analyzing the texts of several of the Pauline Epistles, seems\nto demonstrate that those \u201cfaithful sayings\u201d quoted by the apostle as the\nembodiment of the belief of the Church, were apostolic hymns sung in the\nRedeemer\u2019s honour. And certainly the early Church expressed its faith and\nits best aspirations in hymns. Of this we have many and very beautiful\nillustrations; as we descend from that time along the line of the ages,\nthe great Divine truths united themselves to experiences and hopes in the\nhearts of many, and as we read the great hymns of the Church we behold\nher travelling along as beneath a series of triumphal arches reared\nout of the service of sacred song, expressing the emotion of multitudes\nof spirits. For the history of holy hymns is really the history of the\nChurch. Our sacred hooks carry us back, indeed, to the airs of Palestine;\nthe voices of the soul strong, intuitional, and clear, rising from the\nsands of Arabia; from the tabernacle in Shiloh, from the forests of\nLebanon, from Moses and David, from Asaph to the sons of Korah, from the\nmajestic antiphones of the temple; the murmur of captives by Babylonish\nstreams; and then rich and strong the raptures of the apostles, touched\nfrom the altar flame of heaven, they were not less than sacred hymns; and\nfrom their times what gushes and wails of sacred song come sounding to\nus, clear and shrill, over the roar of persecuting multitudes, or from\ndesert caves or the lonely Churches of the catacombs! The rich hymns of\nthe early Fathers are still amongst the most treasured legacies of the\nChurch. Christian hymnology is the treasure-house into which all the best\ndevotions of the men \u201cof whom the world was not worthy,\u201d exiled kings,\nbishops, confessors, and seers, and souls of lowlier state, have been\npoured, giving to us in some instances the doxology of a life-time, and\nassociating through all ages the martyr\u2019s or the musician\u2019s name with\nthat one particular chord. We have no collection yet, at all such as we\ndesire to see, in which the varied tones of human hearts through all\ntimes are collected; the surges of old cathedral aisles; low, thrilling\ntones of old monks; thunder-peals of the wild, old, rugged people; chants\nof the ancient martyrs at the stake; the glorious and wonderful hymns of\nthe Greek Church; the treasuries of Latin hymns, and even many of the\nmore popular of the great vernacular German chants. For the hymns of the\nChurch are the lamps of the Church; they are the myriad lights which\nstream through the darkness of the dark centuries, and they furnish the\nfresher beam of the new illumination, lighting the shrines and altars\nand chapels of modern times. What is a hymn? St. Augustine has, in a\nwell-known passage, defined a hymn to have necessarily a threefold\nfunction. It must be praise; it must be praise to God; it must be praise\nin the form of song. These limitations, essential as they seem, would\nperhaps curtail many of our selections. We should then have to exclude\nmuch of that meditative devotion with which our best books abound; much\nalso of that too painful and curious self-anatomy which many of our\nbest hymn-writers permit their strains to exhibit. Yet we are very far\nfrom thinking that to be the test of sacred song which Augustine has\nsupplied, and with which a very able writer in the \u201cQuarterly Review,\u201d\nin an article on hymnology, has quoted with approbation.[15] This test,\napplied to the great hymnals and hymnologists of the Church of the\nmiddle ages, would, we apprehend, be quite a failure. It is true that\npraise, and praise to God, and praise to God through Christ, in the\nform of song, should be the grand criterion for the structure of sacred\nverses for the use of congregations; but to what extent should these be\nmixed with the strains of simple devotion, the dwelling of the spirit\nupon the perfections of the Almighty; and with confession, the laying\nbare of the heart\u2014its wants and its woes\u2014in no morbid tone or strain,\nbefore the Divine and searching eye? Our impression surely is that hymns\nshould represent all that the spirit desires to express in its moods of\npraise and prayer. By a more earnest appeal to the senses, the soul is\nopened; and it has been well said that so closely and mystically knit\ntogether are our higher and lower natures, that to neglect the one is to\nneglect the other. In prayer\u2014the long, earnest, extemporaneous prayer\u2014the\nspirit becomes abstracted, and, perhaps, even in the highest states, in\nthe most subduing states of ecstacy, there are few of the congregation\nwho rise as the preacher rises, or rest as he rests. The hymn, in its\nthrobbings and tremulous and pendulous vibrations, breaks through the\nmonotony and _ennui_ the body imposes on the soul, and, therefore, we\nare quite away from that increasing number in our more immediate midst\nwho are indisposed to avail themselves of the bursts of sensuous song.\nWe remember that it is not long since grave exception was taken by some\namong us to the singing\u2014\n\n    There is a land of pure delight,\n\non the ground that it contains no recognition of, or praise to, the\nRedeemer. But, surely, as long as beautiful sights and beautiful sounds,\nthe solemn gloom and glory of the everlasting hills, and the endlessness\nof the pure sky are to be apprehended by men, so long it must be not\nonly a desirable, but an imperative thing, that they should all be\ntransferred to the keys of the Christian organ and of Christian speech.\nWe are not unaware of the danger of the defence of \u00e6sthetic beauty, to\nspiritual Christianity, but a wise and balanced nature will know how far\nto advance and when to stop, and we quite believe that our doxologies,\nand thanksgivings, and moments of Christian fervour should lay under\ncontribution every faculty of the soul, and that each faculty may be\nmoved by a Divine affection, speak to the heart\u2019s inner chambers, and\nrelate them to the most consecrated heights.\n\nFor song being a natural expression of inflamed emotion, man must\nbecome an unnatural creature if he disdain to sing, and those who cannot\nthemselves sing do not therefore always the less delight in the happy\njubilant expressions attained by others; for man, happily, can enjoy that\nto which he cannot attain, and in this consists one of the great moving\npowers of his soul. Unconverted people sing. They have airs and melodies\nwafted from the ground of the nature in which they live and have their\nbeing; and when they learn and feel their heritage of salvation and\nimmortality, the joy in God through Jesus Christ demands its appropriate\nexpression in suitable elevated strains and tones. And Christians feel\ntheir unity, not so much in reading or in preaching as in those great\nexpressions which rise above the colder forms of the understanding, and\ntouch each other at the centre of some great affection of faith or hope.\nIt is, we must think, to Protestantism that the Church is indebted for\nthe ample and sweeping robes of spiritual melody. Papists indignantly\ndeny this. Cardinal Wiseman has told us in a well-known article, that\nProtestantism is essentially undevotional. Our devotional practices and\nservices might be improved and increased; but for the multitudes of its\nhymnologists, and the multitude of their songs, and for the fulness and\nthe fervour of those same songs Protestantism seems to leave Western and\nEastern Churches far behind. Although some of our spiritual airs and\naspirations need the hallowing touch of time before they can receive the\nconsecration of affection which crowns the words of Basil, and the hymns\nof Ambrose, and the chants of Gregory.\n\nThus, the history of the hymn, and of hymns from the earliest ages, their\noriginals, their writers, their associations, would form one of the most\ncharming chapters of Church history. To read how the great hymns grew,\nwhat study of Church history can be more delightfully entertaining?\nDown the long line of the ages the hymns pass on, and they, more than\nthe creeds of councils and the clangour of warriors, seem to shape the\nspandrels from whence leap up the great arches of the Church. The great\nChurch hymns, by these greatly its unity of faith is proclaimed. In what\nsimple incidents many of the chords arose. That is a very sweet, solemn,\npathetic line in our wonderful Burial Service, \u201cIn the midst of life we\nare in death\u201d\u2014in fact, it seems to be the adaptation of the first line of\nthe rare old Latin hymn, the \u201cMedia Vita,\u201d composed by Notker Balbulus,\nborn of a noble family of Zurich. He attained to great eminence at St.\nGall by his learning and skill in music and poetry, and his knowledge of\nthe Holy Scriptures. No one ever saw him, say the old stories of him, but\nhe was reading, writing, or praying. The faint sound of a mill-wheel near\nhis abbey, moved him to compose a beautiful air to some pious verses, and\nlooking down into a deep gulf, and the danger incurred by some labourer\nin building a bridge over the abyss, suggested the celebrated hymn, the\n\u201cMedia Vita.\u201d What a singular and interesting history there is in the\nhymn, \u201cJerusalem, my happy home.\u201d Through what generations of variations\nit has passed!\n\nThe history of hymns, from the earliest to the latest times, furnishes\none of the most interesting chapters in the history of the Church. In\nthe hymn the spirit seems to bound into a higher life, and expressions\nwhich are scarcely admitted in cold conversation, which almost seem like\nexaggerations in an essay, or inflated even in a sermon, are felt to be\na sweet, fitting, and natural utterance; in some happy moment a nature\ngifted by genius, subdued by sorrow, but lifted up to a region of serene\nvision and glowing consolation, found itself caught and compelled to\nutter an experience which to itself was not always abiding, but which\noften became afterwards an exceeding joy to it to remember, and which\nthe Church at large retained as the expression of what it believed, and\ndesired yet more fervently to believe through all subsequent ages. Thus\nthe great hymns grew, and the Church has never been without them. Thus\nmany of the portions of the Common Prayer Book of the Church of England\nand many of its collects are \u201cthe golden fruit in a network of silver;\u201d\nand we in the present day are singing hymns of the holy men of old, who\nwere moved by the Divine Spirit to utter forth the words of prayer and\npraise. In his Life of Dr. Watts, Dr. Johnson has many remarks which\nhave been the subjects of criticism and exception, but in none are his\nremarks more open to exception than when he says that \u201chis religious\npoetry is unsatisfactory.\u201d \u201cThe paucity of its topics,\u201d he continues,\n\u201cforces perpetual repetition, and the sanctity of the matter rejects the\nornaments of figurative diction; it is sufficient for Watts to have done\nbetter than others what no man has done well.\u201d If this is kindly said,\nstill it is not true; perhaps Johnson was confining his observation,\nwhich he ought not to have done, to sacred poetry as belonging to\nthat order represented by Milton or Phineas Fletcher; and yet this\ncould scarcely be the case; and if he referred to his productions as a\nhymn-writer, then, through the long ages past, men innumerable had done\nwell, as many a noble Latin and German hymn abundantly shows. In the\nfirst ages of the Church, the whole city of Milan was alive with hymns,\nand Augustine tells us how his soul was moved by the power of sacred\npsalms; the passage is well worth remembering. \u201cThe hymns and songs of\nthe Church,\u201d he says, \u201cmove my soul intensely; by the truth distilled by\nthem into my heart the flame of piety was kindled, and my tears flowed\nfor joy. The practice of singing had been of no long standing in Milan,\nit began about the year when Justinian persecuted Ambrose; the pious\npeople, watched in the church, prepared to die with their pastor; there\nmy mother sustained an eminent part in watching and praying; then hymns\nand psalms, after the manner of the East, were sung, with a view of\npreserving the people from weariness; and thence the custom has spread\nthrough Christian Churches.\u201d Johnson was a pious man, the truth as it is\nin Jesus was held by him very heartily, but we are compelled to believe\nthat, with all his amazing knowledge, he had not seen the innumerable\nhymns which through the successive ages had rained down their beautiful\ninfluences on the Church.\n\nLuther, as is well known, ushered in his great Reformation with a voice\nof joy and singing. There is a pretty little anecdote telling how one day\nhe stood at his window and heard a blind beggar sing. It was something\nabout the grace of God, and it brought tears into his eyes, and then the\ngood thought rushed into his soul, and it wrought its results there. \u201cIf\n_I_ could only make gospel songs which would spread of themselves among\nthe people.\u201d And he did so. The songs were fashioned, and flew abroad\nlike singing birds\u2014\u201clike a lark singing towards heaven\u2019s gate,\u201d says one\nwriter; \u201cthe song shot upward, and poured far and wide over the fields\nand villages; and though the snare of the fowler sometimes captured the\npreacher, and military mobs dispersed the congregation\u2014like the little\nminstrel among the clouds, too happy to be silenced, too airy to be\ncaught, and too high to dread man\u2019s artillery\u2014the little song filled all\nthe air with New Testament music, with words such as \u2018Jesus,\u2019 \u2018Believe\nand be saved,\u2019 \u2018Gospel,\u2019 \u2018Grace,\u2019 \u2018Come unto Me,\u2019 \u2018Worthy is the Lamb\nthat was slain,\u2019 and thus they became the passwords and watchwords of the\nChurch.\u201d[16]\n\nWatts has been styled the Marot of England; he must receive far higher\npraise than could be implied by this designation; but there are\nresemblances between the two. Clement Marot was the favourite poet of\nFrancis I. of France; Bayle ascribes to him the invention of modern\nmetrical psalmody. He was a free and even profane writer, but Vatable,\nthe Hebrew professor, suggested to him the translation of the Psalms\ninto French verse. He did so, or rather he translated fifty-two Psalms\n\u201cfrom the Hebrew into French rhyme.\u201d They quite took the taste of Paris;\nthey found universal reception, and became favourites with Francis I.,\nwho sent a copy to Charles V. Most of the pieces were set and sung to\nthe tunes of the gay ballads of that day. They were quite the favourites\nof the court of Henry II. and Catherine de Medicis, especially they\nbecame the favourites of the Huguenot party; Marot, it is said, had\nhimself belonged to the party of the Reformation. Ere long, however, the\ndangerous tendency of the pieces was perceived by the Sorbonne, the book\nwas denounced; Marot fled to Turin, where he closed in poverty a life\nwhich had passed in singular vicissitudes, but which only just before\nhad been sunned in the rays of the courtly magnificence of Paris in that\nsplendid time. Marot\u2019s small collection was completed by Theodore Beza,\nand the pieces continued long in use among the Reformed Churches; some,\nwe believe, are, with many additions, still sung.\n\nOur chief concern at present is with our own country, but the other\nreforming peoples of Europe appear to have preceded us in this holy art,\nalthough some indications are given of the existence of a very hearty\nand earnest religious song; in the Zurich Letters, published by the\nParker Society, we find, even so early as 1560, the following letter from\nBishop Jewel to Peter Martyr; he says: \u201cReligion is now somewhat more\nestablished than it was; the people are everywhere exceedingly inclined\nto the better part; the practice of joining in church music has very much\nconduced to this; for as soon as they had commenced singing in public\nin one little church in London, immediately, not only the churches in\nthe neighbourhood, but even the towns far distant, began to vie with\neach other in practice. You may sometimes see at St. Paul\u2019s Cross, after\nthe service, 6,000 persons, old and young, of both sexes, all singing\ntogether and praising God. This sadly annoys the mass priests and the\ndevil, for they perceive that by this means the sacred discourses sink\nmore deeply into the minds of men, and that their kingdom is weakened and\nshaken at almost every note.\u201d\n\nAs time went along in our country, there appeared a race of poets of the\nhighest order; we need scarcely mention such names as Quarles, Vaughan,\nHerbert, Jeremy Taylor, Richard Baxter, John Norris, Thomas Ken, and with\nthese names we certainly ought to include John Milton, who attempted a\nversion of several of the Psalms, one of which is a great favourite with\nus to this day. Poets not remarkable for sanctity, like John Dryden, were\ncompelled to the service of sacred song, as in the instance of his fine\nhymn,\n\n    Creator, Spirit, by whose aid.\n\nRichard Baxter leaves a beautiful testimony as to the power of sacred\nhymns over himself; he says, \u201cFor myself I confess that harmony and\nmelody are the pleasure and elevation of my soul; I have made psalms of\npraise in the holy assembly the chief delightful exercise of my religion\nand my life, and have helped to bear down all the objections which I have\nheard against church music and against the 149th and 150th Psalms. It was\nnot the least comfort I had in the converse with my late dear wife, that\nour first in the morning and last at night was a psalm of praise, till\nthe hearing of others interrupted it. Let those that savour not melody\nleave others to their different appetites, and be content to be so far\nstrangers to their delights.\u201d\n\nWith all this it is singular that an amazing prejudice existed until the\ntime of Watts against the indulgence of congregational psalmody. Josiah\nConder simply expressed the fact, when he says, \u201cWatts was the first who\nsucceeded in overcoming the prejudice which opposed the introduction\nof hymns into our public worship.\u201d It is quite remarkable that the\nprejudice against congregational singing was quite as great with many\nof our English Churches as amongst the Papists themselves; among the\nPresbyterians especially, this prejudice obtained a considerable hold and\nlingered long. \u201cNo English Luther,\u201d says Conder, \u201chad risen to breathe\nthe living spirit of evangelical devotion into heart-stirring verse\nadapted to the minds and feelings of the people. Are we to suppose the\nwant was not felt, or was there anything in the aristocratic genius of\nthe Presbyterian polity that forbade or repressed the free expression of\ndevotion in the songs of the sanctuary?\u201d[17]\n\nIt was about the time that Isaac Watts came to London that some of the\nassemblies of the saints were shaken by the innovation, of singing. The\nBaptists appear to have been most indisposed to the doubtful practice;\nand in the church of the well-known Benjamin Keach, of Southwark, the\npastoral ancestor of Charles Spurgeon, when the pastor, after long\nargument and effort, established singing, a minority withdrew and \u201ctook\nrefuge in a songless sanctuary,\u201d in which the melody within the heart\nmight be in no danger of disturbance from the perturbations of song.[18]\nThe Society of Friends was not alone in regarding with distaste all the\nexercises of song in the house of the Lord. Those who are interested\nin the curious literature of that time may easily discover pamphlets\nand lectures which show \u201cgreat searchings of heart\u201d upon the question\n\u201cwhether Christ, as Mediator of the New Covenant, hath commanded His\nchurches under the Gospel in all their assemblies to sing the Psalms\nof David, as translated into metre and musical rhyme, with tunable and\nconjoined voices of all the people together, as a Church ordinance, or\nany other song or hymn that are so composed to be sung in rhyme by a\nprelimited and set form of words?\u201d The dispute was mainly confined to\nthe Baptist churches. But in 1708 one of the Eastcheap lectures, in a\ndiscourse by Thomas Reynolds, replied to the \u201cobjections of singing.\u201d A\nfew years before the controversy had run strong and high. Isaac Marlow\nvery angrily maintained the ordinary songless usage, in the year 1696, in\nhis \u201cTruth Soberly Defined\u201d and in the \u201cControversies of Singing Brought\nto an End.\u201d Benjamin Keach seems to have been the first to lead on in\nthis suspicious diversion by the publication of his \u201cBreach Repaired in\nGod\u2019s Worship; or, Singing of Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs, proved\nto be an Holy Ordinance of Jesus Christ.\u201d This appeared in 1691.[19]\nThe controversy is forgotten now, except by those who explore the more\ncurious nooks and corners of Church history. Among the followers of\nChrist the Quakers are the only people who have consistently maintained\ntheir first profession, a profession, however, in which they do not\nimitate their founder, George Fox, of whom we especially read that he\nsometimes led his services with singing.\n\nIt was into this state of things that Isaac Watts was introduced. \u201cI\nalmost think,\u201d says Alexander Knox, \u201cthat he was providentially appointed\nto furnish the revived movement of associated piety, which Divine\nWisdom foresaw would take place in England in the 18th century, with an\nunexampled stock of materials for that department, which alone needed\nto be provided for, of their joint worship. Examine his poetry, and you\nwill find that, though ability to converse with God in solitude is not\nabsolutely overlooked, the sheet-anchor is what he calls the sanctuary.\nIn particular in the Psalms you will find him generally applying to\nChristian assemblies what David said of the Temple services, as if\npublic ordinances occupied the same supreme place in the inward and\nspiritual as in the outward and carnal dispensation.\u201d This judgment of\nKnox is curiously involved, and its latter portion seems to contradict\nits former. Acquaintance with Watts\u2019 hymns will show that Knox was quite\nwrong, that Watts by no means overlooked the inward and the spiritual;\nbut his object seems to have been to provide a congregational, joint, and\nunited service. And for this it does seem as if he in an especial manner\nwas raised up by the providence of God; and this becomes more evident as\nwe notice how it is from his day, and apparently very greatly from the\nmethod he created that the popular hymnology of our country, which is\nnow surely\u2014may we not dare to say?\u2014the noblest, of any church or of any\nnation in the world, dates its true original.\n\nWe have claimed for Watts already a far higher rank than is implied by\nthe Marot of England, but it is certain that exception will be taken to\nour judgment when we say that no other writer of this order approaches\nnear to him in the elevation, not merely of expression, but of sentiment;\nthe very grandeur, the majesty of his epithets, the inflamed utterances\nmay be to some more quiet natures a ground of exception. To them they\nseem sometimes to be open to the charge of inflation. Yet every order and\nvariety of expression, from the loud swelling jubilant rapture to the\nsoftest and sweetest strains of tenderness, find fitting utterance in\nthem.\n\nThe efforts he made to create a sacred congregational psalmody exposed\nhim, as we know, in his own times to obloquy, singular as it seems, even\nto contempt, and this contempt has been renewed in our own day. In a\npaper, understood to be from the pen of John Keble, in the \u201cQuarterly\nReview,\u201d it is said, \u201cWatts was an excellent man, a strong reasoner, of\nundoubted piety, and perhaps\u2014a rarer virtue\u2014of true Christian charity;\nbut in our opinion he laboured under irreparable deficiency for the task\nhe undertook\u2014_he was not a poet!_ He had a great command of Scriptural\nlanguage, and an extraordinary facility of versification; but his piety\nmay induce us to make excuses for his poetry\u2014_his poetry will do little\nto excite dormant piety_.\u201d The writer then goes on to remark upon the\nrude, homely, and unequal strains of Watts, there follows something\nlike a history of psalmody in England, but not another word about our\nauthor.[20] George Macdonald, the novelist, has condescended to sneer\nat Watts and to travesty his verses, while another writer in a fierce\nattack upon evangelicalism\u2014the predominance of which in Watts\u2019 verses we\npresume to be the spring of the hatred they often inspire\u2014informs us that\n\u201cmost of Dr. Watts\u2019 hymns are doggerel;\u201d and after quoting some passages\nhe considers to deserve this appellation\u2014and which some of them do\u2014he\ncloses by saying, \u201cThese may possibly be poetry, but if they are, it is\nextremely plain that \u2018Paradise Lost\u2019 and \u2018In Memoriam\u2019 are not poetry.\u201d\nThus by many it has come to be settled that Watts must take a very low\nplace in English literature, if, indeed, he can be considered in any\nsense worthy of a place at all. Let us see how the case stands. The man\nwho has no sympathy with Nature is not to be expected to find beauty or\nmelody in the poetry of Burns or Wordsworth. Men who have no sympathy\nwith evangelical truth can scarcely be expected to have much admiration\nfor Watts; yet the gifted nobleman, who was the Mec\u00e6nas of the past\nage, was not an indifferent critic, and when called on to cite the most\nperfect verse in the language he immediately instanced\n\n    There shall I bathe my weary soul\n      In seas of heavenly rest,\n    And not a wave of trouble roll\n      Across my peaceful breast.\n\nA friend who, to his other attainments adds those of scholar and a\ncritic, suggests how interesting it would be to analyze the verses\nof Watts, for the purpose of noting how often he evidently thought\nin foreign languages, and especially the Latin, with which he was so\nfamiliar; and hence we have lines which, while to some readers they\nappear to be doggerel, are indeed illustrations that he was using words\nin their real etymological sense, and thus imparting to his verse a\nsingular beauty; thus:\n\n      How _decent_ and how wise,\n      How glorious to behold,\n    Beyond the pomp that charms the eyes\n      And rites adorned with gold.\n\nThus, again, of God:\n\n    He sits on no _precarious_ throne,\n      Nor borrows leave to be.\n\nAnd thus again:\n\n    Let every creature rise and bring\n    _Peculiar_ honours to our King.\n\nEvery poet is to be judged by what he is on the average. Homer has been\nsaid to nod; Milton is frequently very turgid, and innumerable passages\nsink quite below the usual sustained magnificence of the poem; in\nShakespeare there are lines, conceits, and redundances which all good\ntaste would wish away. The reader who judged of Keble\u2019s capacity for\npoetry by his version of the Psalms, or many of his later pieces, would\nnot form a very lofty estimate of his powers. And there are many more\nexpressions and passages than we shall care to count among the psalms\nand hymns of Watts which are wholly indefensible by any standard of good\ntaste, good sense, or good theology. Upon these, critics, like those to\nwhom we have referred, have pounced, these they have quoted, and to the\ncrowds of passages sublime or pathetic, strong or tender, they have most\nadroitly closed their eyes or their ears.\n\nWatts has suffered in many ways. Accused by one class of critics of bad\ntaste, and sneered at for the absence of poetic gifts by another class,\nhis theology has been called in question as leaning towards heresy.\nHow this charge could ever have been made by any man who had read for\nhimself Watts\u2019 hymns passes all our conception. But the Unitarians, with\na mendacity singularly their own, have in many instances taken his hymns\nand garbled them to suit their own theology. The Unitarians are clever\nat taking possession of other people\u2019s property, their churches, their\nendowments, their books, their great names, and, in Watts\u2019 instance,\ntheir hymns. We have even seen the _Te Deum_ adapted to a Unitarian\nservice. The Unitarians are regarded as an exceedingly moral people, and\nit has often been supposed that what they lack in doctrine they make\nup in duty, but it is quite true that they are singularly dishonest;\nand the most eminent Unitarian minister in England in our day, the Rev.\nJames Martineau, does not hesitate to charge such dishonesty upon his\ncommunity; he shows how the term Unitarian has to be kept out of sight\nin order that certain property may be obtained. He says, \u201cHow could\nan organization with a doctrinal name upon its face, the Unitarian\nAssociation, go into court and plead our right to our chapels, on the\nground of their doctrinal neutrality? Accordingly, another association\nhad to be got up specially for the purpose, the Presbyterian Association,\nin order to evade the inconsistency; and I know it to have been the\nopinion of the two founders of the Unitarian Association that they\ncommitted a disastrous mistake in giving a doctrinal name to the\nsociety.\u201d And he says to Mr. Macdonald, to whom he is writing, \u201cUpon\nwhat ground can you claim a rightful succession, as you have so nobly\ndone, to Matthew Henry and the founders of Crook Street, if you place\nthe essence of your Church in doctrines which he did not hold!\u201d[21] And\nthus Unitarians have constructed a science of equivocations, and tread a\nplank of double meanings; it expunges the term Unitarian as designative\nof their creed, and it takes the words representative of the creed of\nthe great Church through all ages, and, reversing the miracle of our\nLord, they use them as vessels in which the wine is turned into water.\nThis is the principle which has governed in Unitarian hymn-books. The\nselection of many of the hymns from Watts, even his sacramental hymns,\nhave in several instances not been permitted to pass unmutilated; and\nthen, putting the top stone upon the column of injustice, the further\nindignity, amounting to insolence, of claiming him as a Unitarian.\n\nIt is a curious thing to find a writer in the \u201cWesleyan Magazine\u201d for\n1831 boasting that none of the Wesleyan hymns have ever been used for\nthe purpose of Unitarian or Socinian worship, while Watts\u2019 have been\nthus frequently employed. The writer admits that in such instances they\nhave been altered, but says that \u201cCharles Wesley\u2019s hymns are made of too\nunbending materials ever to be adapted to Socinian worship.\u201d He was quite\nmistaken in the fact, they have often been \u201cbent\u201d for this purpose; but\nit is the very peculiarity of Watts that he rises to the pre-existent and\nuncreated realms of majesty, of which our Lord speaks as \u201cthe glory I had\nwith Thee before the world was.\u201d It would be interesting to know how any\nSocinian or Unitarian could \u201cbend\u201d that magnificent hymn,\n\n    Ere the blue heavens were stretched abroad,\n    From everlasting was the Word:\n    With God He was; the Word was God,\n    And must divinely be adored.\n\n    By His own power were all things made;\n    By Him supported all things stand;\n    He is the whole creation\u2019s Head,\n    And angels fly at His command.\n\n    Ere sin was born or Satan fell,\n    He led the host of morning stars:\n    Thy generations who can tell,\n    Or count the number of Thy years?\n\n    But lo! He leaves those heav\u2019nly forms,\n    The Word descends and dwells in clay,\n    That He may hold converse with worms,\n    Dressed in such feeble flesh as they.\n\n    Mortals with joy beheld His face,\n    The Eternal Father\u2019s only Son;\n    How full of truth! how full of grace!\n    When through His eyes the Godhead shone.\n\n    Archangels leave their high abode\n    To learn new myst\u2019ries here, and tell\n    The loves of our descending God,\n    The glories of Immanuel.\n\nBut, indeed, the sum of the matter is that the theology\u2014the evangelical\ntheology of Watts\u2019 hymns\u2014is the chief reason of the exception taken to\nthe poetry. He is in a very eminent sense the poet of the Atonement; he\nsaw the infinite meanings in that great expression \u201cthe blood of Jesus\nChrist His Son cleanseth us from all sin.\u201d We have heard some quote and\nspeak of what they have called that dreadful verse!\u2014\n\n    Blood hath a voice to pierce the skies,\n    Revenge the blood of Abel cries;\n    But the dear stream, when Christ was slain,\n    Speaks peace as loud from every vein!\n\nHe saw infinite attributes in the Incarnation of Jesus Christ, God\nmanifested in the flesh, and he saw infinite consequences involved\nin the sacrifice of Christ. It was all to him \u201cthe wisdom of God in a\nmystery,\u201d it was all the great power of God. Thus we have called him\nthe evangelical poet, the poet of the Atonement. Hence those who have a\ndistaste for his doctrine will dislike his verse.\n\nIt was the nature of Watts\u2019 theology that it entered more into the\nheavenly places, the timeless, and the unconditioned purposes of the\nInfinite and Eternal Mind. He was a student, a real and a hard student,\nand the speculations of his intellect whenever he betook himself to\nverse, presented themselves to his mind suffused in the glowing but\nineffable lights of eternity; he seemed to be fond of revolving eternal\ntruths. We hope not to be misunderstood if we speak of him as a mystic.\nAlthough in his prose writings so little of the mystic appears, in his\nhymns he is perpetually moving amidst the adumbrations of uncreated mind.\nWhat an illustration of this is in that extraordinary hymn,\n\n    Lord we are blind, we mortals blind.\n\nMuch of the mystic spirit which pervades his verse is perceptible in the\nfine paradox in the following expressions of the last verse:\n\n    The Lord of Glory builds His seat\n    Of gems unsufferably bright;\n    And lays beneath His sacred feet\n    Substantial beams of gloomy night!\n\nIt is quite vain work to argue with those who take exception to these\nexpressions. If they are not felt they will not be seen. If we say Watts\nwas a mystic, the expression will astonish some of our readers. The hard\nabstract lines of cold creeds, and bodies of theology, suddenly in his\nverse flashed out radiant and visible as planets in southern heavens;\nand his words expressing truths which seem cold in the creed of Calvin\nor the rigid framework of the confessions and catechisms of Puritanism,\nbecame like wings of ardent fire, tipped with seraphic light. There was\neven an oriental splendour about his expressions. He was mighty in the\nScriptures, and we believe it will not be possible to find a verse or\nphrase which is not justified by Scriptural expression. His verse\u2014the\nverse of the man who has been claimed as a Unitarian\u2014was incessantly\nstruggling up to express in glowing metre those sublime flights of\nthought which have always been at once the prevailing glory and gloom of\nwhat is called the Calvinistic theology. We note this in such pieces as\n\n    What equal honours shall we bring\n    To Thee, O Lord, our God, the Lamb?\n    Since all the notes that angels sing\n    Are far inferior to Thy name.\n\nOr,\n\n    When I survey the wondrous cross\n    On which the Prince of Glory died,\n    My richest gain I count but loss,\n    And pour contempt on all my pride.\n\nOr,\n\n    Up to the fields where angels lie,\n    And living waters gently roll,\n    Pain would my thoughts leap out and fly,\n    But sin hangs heavy on my soul.\n\n    Thy wondrous blood, dear dying Christ,\n    Can make this load of guilt remove,\n    And Thou canst hear me where Thou flyest,\n    On Thy kind wings, celestial Dove!\n\nOr,\n\n    Descend from heaven, immortal Dove,\n    Stoop down and take us on Thy wings,\n    And mount and hear us far above\n    The reach of these inferior things.\n\nOr the hymn commencing\n\n    Oh the delights! the heavenly joys!\n\nOr that,\n\n    Now to the Lord a noble song!\n\nWatts, we have said, has suffered in many ways. No hymns, we will be\nbound to say, in our language have suffered so much from garbling and\nmangling; many of them have passed through a perfect martyrdom of\nmaltreatment. Dr. Kennedy, of Shrewsbury, in his \u201cHymnologia Christiana,\u201d\nwill not admit \u201cWhen I can read my title clear\u201d to be a hymn, because\nit is gravely wrong in doctrine; and \u201cThere is a land of pure delight\u201d\nis not admitted, because it is seriously faulty in style. But if an\nimpartial reader should desire to sum up the great merits of Watts, it\nwill perhaps be found that there is no doctrine of the great Christian\ncreed and no great Christian emotion which does not find happy and\nfrequently most faultless expression. His hymns of _Praise to God_, are\nfrequently among the most noble in our language; for instance:\n\n    Sing to the Lord who built the skies,\n    The Lord that reared this stately frame;\n    Let all the nation sound His praise,\n    And lands unknown repeat His name.\n\n    He formed the seas, He formed the hills,\n    Made every drop, and every dust,\n    Nature and time, with all her wheels,\n    And pushed them into motion first.\n\n    Now from His high imperial throne\n    He looks far down upon the spheres;\n    He bids the shining orbs roll on,\n    And round He turns the hasty years.\n\n    Thus shall this moving engine last\n    Till all His saints are gathered in,\n    Then for the trumpet\u2019s dreadful blast,\n    To shake it all to dust again!\n\n    Yet, when the sound shall tear the skies,\n    And lightning burn the globe below,\n    Saints, you may lift your joyful eyes,\n    There\u2019s a new heaven and earth for you.\n\nHe was fond of singing _the uncreated glories of the Son of God_, His\nofficial and mediatorial Majesty, as in that complete and glowing hymn,\n\n    Join all the glorious names.\n\nOr,\n\n    Go worship at Immanuel\u2019s feet.\n\nHe had to vindicate himself during his life for the use of doxologies, or\nhymns of _praise to the Holy Spirit_, as in\n\n    Eternal Spirit, we confess\n    And sing the wonders of Thy grace.\n\nOr the invocation,\n\n    Come, Holy Spirit, heavenly Dove!\n\nThere is an intense and immediate objectiveness about Watts\u2019 hymns;\npraise, like a clear and glowing firmament, encompasses them all, and\nthe objects of adoration revolve, like the firmamental lights, clear and\ndistinct to the vision; they are often interior and meditative, but they\nnever indicate a merely morbid introspection; they seem to glow in the\nlight of the objects of their adoration: again and again we are impressed\nby their reverent effulgence. They are not the singular rapture over the\nworshipper\u2019s own state of feeling, they are not even rapture so much\non account of what is seen; they are praise and honour to the objects\nthemselves, and they have indeed to be perverted before they can express\nany other sentiments than those they originally utter.\n\nFew writers more affectingly set forth _the death of Christ_:\n\n    He dies! the Friend of sinners dies!\n    Lo! Salem\u2019s daughters weep around;\n    A solemn darkness veils the skies,\n    A sudden trembling shakes the ground.\n\n    Break off your tears, ye saints, and tell\n    How high our great Deliverer reigns;\n    Sing how He spoiled the hosts of hell,\n    And led the monster Death in chains.\n\n    Say, \u201cLive for ever, wondrous King!\n    Born to redeem and strong to save;\u201d\n    Then ask the monster, \u201cWhere\u2019s thy sting?\u201d\n    And \u201cWhere\u2019s thy victory, boasting grave?\u201d\n\nThe hymn, indeed, contains some weak lines, but the first and the three\nlast verses have even great dramatic vigour and strength.\n\nBut hymns are not always to shine with splendid lights, _they are to\nsoothe and comfort_; hence such words as\u2014\n\n    Come hither, all ye weary souls.\n\nWe remember a venerable minister eighty-eight years of age, who filled\na conspicuous place in the Church of his day; while he was dying his\ndaughter said to him:\n\n    Jesus can make a dying bed\n    As soft as downy pillows are,\n    While on His breast I lean _my_ head,\n    And breathe my life out sweetly there.\n\nThe old man listened as well as he could to the verse, then turned his\nhead on the pillow, repeated the words \u201c_my_ head,\u201d and so died. Perhaps\nsome critic would remark that the versification is slightly inaccordant\nor defective, but its tenderness has propitiated many a dying pang.\n\n_Devotion_ is the eminent attribute of these hymns,\u2014ardent, inflamed\nrapture of holiness. Well has it been said \u201cto elevate to poetic\naltitudes;\u201d every truth in Christian experience and revealed religion\nneeds the strength and sweep of an aquiline pinion; and this is what\nIsaac Watts has done; he has taken almost every topic which exercises the\nunderstanding and the heart of the believer, and has not only given to it\na devotional aspect, but has wedded it to immortal numbers; and whilst\nthere is little to which he has not shown himself equal, there is nothing\nhe has done for mere effect. Rapt, yet adoring, sometimes up among the\nthunder-clouds, yet most reverential in his highest range, the \u201cgood\nmatter\u201d is in a song, and the sweet singer is upborne as on the wings of\neagles; but even from that triumphal car, and when nearest the home of\nthe Seraphim, we are comforted to find descending lowly lamentations and\nconfessions of sin\u2014new music, no doubt, but the words with which we have\nbeen long familiar in the house of our pilgrimage.\n\n    Religion never was designed\n      To make our pleasures less.\n\n    Thou art the sea of love\n      Where all my pleasures roll,\n    The circle where my passions move,\n      And centre of my soul.\n\n    To Thee my spirits fly\n      With infinite desire,\n    And yet how far from Thee I lie!\n      Dear Jesus, raise me higher.\n\n    I cannot bear Thy absence, Lord,\n    My life expires if Thou depart;\n    Be thou, my heart, still near my God,\n    And Thou, my God, be near my heart.\n\nSuch are the streams of devotion on which we are borne in the verses of\nWatts.\n\nSome of his hymns are like _collects_, the compact, comforting little\n_watchwords and creeds of the Church_\u2014\n\n    Firm as the earth Thy Gospel stands.\n\nOr\u2014\n\n    Our God, how firm His promise stands.\n\nSometimes we have a fine _bold trumpet-like tone of Faith_:\n\n    Begin, my tongue, some heavenly theme,\n      And speak some boundless thing;\n    The mighty works, or mightier name\n      Of our eternal King.\n\n    His very word of grace is strong\n      As that which built the skies;\n    The Voice that rolls the stars along\n      Speaks all the promises.\n\n    He said, \u201cLet the wide heaven be spread,\u201d\n      And heaven was stretched abroad:\n    \u201cAbra\u2019m, I\u2019ll be thy God,\u201d He said,\n      And He _was_ Abra\u2019m\u2019s God.\n\nHow well he has expressed the _depths of contrition_ in his version of\nthe 51st Psalm, what plaintive compassion\u2014\n\n    O Thou that hear\u2019st when sinners cry!\n\nAnd equally well he has depicted the _happiness_ and _serenity_ of \u201ca\nheart sprinkled from an evil conscience:\u201d\n\n    O happy soul that lives on high!\n\nOr\u2014\n\n    Lord, how secure and blest are they\n    Who feel the joys of pardoned sin.\n\nThen how vigorously his notes rouse and stir to the activities of the\n_Christian life_:\n\n    Are we the soldiers of the cross,\n    The followers of the Lamb?\n\nOr\u2014\n\n    Stand up, my soul, shake off thy fears!\n\nThe _patriotic lyrics_ and hymns of Watts have sounded, how in his day\nthey throbbed, with that pulse of prayer for our country:\n\n    Shine, mighty God! on Britain shine\n      With beams of heavenly grace;\n    Reveal Thy power through all our coasts,\n      And show Thy smiling face.\n\n    Amidst our isle, exalted high,\n      Do Thou our glory stand;\n    And, like a wall of guardian fire,\n      Surround the favoured land.\n\nAnd when the Americans held their great \u201cThanksgiving Day,\u201d Watts\u2019 hymn,\nalways sung to the venerable old tune of St. Martin\u2019s, was, as Mrs. Stowe\ntells us, the national hymn of the Puritans.[22]\n\n    Let children hear the mighty deeds\n      Which God performed of old,\n    Which in our younger years we saw,\n      And which our fathers told.\n\n    Our lips shall tell them to our sons,\n      And they again to theirs,\n    That generations yet unborn\n      May teach them to their heirs.\n\nThe extent to which the verses of Watts entered into all the incidents of\nthe social life of the United States is well illustrated in the \u201cPearl\nof Orr\u2019s Island:\u201d in a very striking and pathetic manner the following\nstanzas often interlace the conversations of that charming story:\n\n    Our God, our help in ages past,\n      Our hope for years to come,\n    Our shelter from the stormy blast,\n      And our eternal home.\n\n    Under the shadow of Thy throne\n      Thy saints have dwelt secure:\n    Sufficient is Thine arm alone,\n      And our defence is sure.\n\n    Before the hills in order stood,\n      Or earth received her frame,\n    From everlasting Thou art God,\n      To endless years the same.\n\n    Thy word commands our flesh to dust\u2014\n      \u201cReturn, ye sons of men;\u201d\n    All nations rose from earth at first,\n      And turn to earth again.\n\n    A thousand ages in Thy sight\n      Are like an evening gone;\n    Short as the watch that ends the night\n      Before the rising sun.\n\n    The busy tribes of flesh and blood,\n      With all their lives and cares,\n    Are carried downwards by the flood,\n      And lost in following years.\n\n    Time, like an ever-rolling stream,\n      Bears all its sons away;\n    They fly, forgotten, as a dream\n      Dies at the opening day.\n\n    Like flowery fields the nations stand,\n      Pleased with the morning light;\n    The flowers beneath the mower\u2019s hand\n      Lie withering ere \u2019tis night.\n\n    Our God, our help in ages past,\n      Our hope for years to come,\n    Be Thou our guard while troubles last,\n      And our eternal home.\n\nAnd we are reminded that this grand hymn, which we have heard sung in\nbarns and meeting-houses, in kirks and cathedrals, also comes with tender\npathos in one of the affecting scenes of Charlotte Bront\u00eb.\n\nWhat grand expressions of _personal faith_ abound among these verses,\nwhat a radiant casting back of the blunted arrows of doubt and unbelief!\n\n    Questions and doubts are heard no more;\n    Let Christ and joy be all our theme;\n    His Spirit seals His Gospel sure,\n    To every soul that trusts in Him.\n\n    Learning and wit may cease their strife,\n    When miracles with glory shine;\n    The Voice that calls the dead to life\n    Must be almighty and Divine.\n\nWhat faith in the _Saviour\u2019s glorious resurrection and second advent_!\u2014\n\n    With joy we tell this scoffing age,\n    He that was dead hath left His tomb;\n    He lives above their utmost rage,\n    And we are waiting till He come.\n\n_Sabbath songs_, songs for the social service at the close of the day,\nsongs for every variety of Christian ordinance, songs especially for\nthe Lord\u2019s Supper, songs of grief as the soul realises the death of the\nRedeemer, songs of rapture as the salvation becomes apprehensible\u2014\n\n    Salvation! O the joyful sound!\n\nOr\u2014\n\n    Plunged in a gulf of dark despair.\n\nThe first _Elegies_ in our language are among Watts\u2019 hymns. When early\nmanhood has been smitten down in its green prime, how finely swells aloft\nthat grand elegy with its triumphant close, the paraphrase of the text,\n\u201cHe weakened my strength in the way. He shortened my days:\u201d\n\n    It is the Lord our Saviour\u2019s hand\n    Weakens our strength amidst the race:\n    Disease and death at His command\n    Arrest us and cut short our days.\n\n    Spare us, O Lord, aloud we pray,\n    Nor let our sun go down at noon;\n    Thy years are one eternal day,\n    And must Thy children die so soon?\n\n    Yet in the midst of death and grief,\n    This thought our sorrow shall assuage,\n    \u201cOur Father and our Saviour live;\n    Christ is the same through every age.\u201d\n\n    Before Thy face Thy church shall live,\n    And on Thy throne Thy children reign:\n    This dying world shall they survive,\n    And the dead saints be raised again.\n\nAnd when some form more than ordinarily venerable or beautiful, holy or\nbeloved, has been lowered into its resting-place, while they laid wreaths\nof camellias and evergreens on the coffin, uprose that wonderful elegy:\n\n    Hear what the Voice from heaven proclaims\n      For all the pious dead!\n    Sweet is the savour of their names,\n      And soft their sleeping bed.\n\nAnd how often, in similar circumstances, that other sweet requiem:\n\n    Why do we mourn departing friends?\n\nAmidst trembling prayers, in the darkened room, in the presence of some\nsweet shrouded and coffined form, the memory of some soft sealed face and\nfolded hands, and spirit for ever at rest, has rose the hymn into pensive\nrapture:\n\n    Are we not tending upward too,\n      As fast as time can move?\n    Nor would we wish the hours more slow\n      To keep us from our love.\n\nContrasting the evanescence of man, not merely with the eternity of God,\nbut with the eternity of Christ, and the promised prevalence of His\nsalvation everywhere, who has not seen large meetings leap into hearty\nfervour at the announcement of that noble prophecy:\n\n    Jesus shall reign where\u2019er the sun\n    Does his successive journeys run.\n\nWho has more triumphantly followed the spirit of the believer into its\nglorious home and rest? Watts had a singularly bold and majestic manner\nin striking in the very first words of a hymn the key-note of the whole\npiece; indeed there was usually a singular fitness and force in the first\nline.\n\n    Give me the wings of faith to rise\n      Within the veil, and see\n    The saints above; how great their joys,\n      How vast their glories be!\n\nSome critics have objected to what seems to us the sweet natural pathos\nof that verse:\n\n    How we should scorn the clothes of flesh,\n      These fetters and this load,\n    And long for evening to undress,\n      That we may rest with God.\n\nOr that fine piece:\n\n    Absent from flesh! O blissful thought!\n\nAnd the following verses, not so often quoted, or so well known:\n\n    And is this heaven? and am I there?\n    How short the road! how swift the flight!\n    I am all life, all eye, all ear;\n    Jesus is here my soul\u2019s delight.\n\n    Is this, the heavenly Friend who hung\n    In blood and anguish on the tree,\n    Whom Paul proclaimed and David sung,\n    Who died for them, who died for me?\n\n    Creator-God, eternal light,\n    Fountain of good, tremendous power,\n    Oceans of wonders, blissful sight!\n    Beauty and love unknown before.\n\n    Thy grace, Thy nature, all unknown\n    In yon dark region whence I came,\n    Where languid glimpses from Thy throne\n    And feeble whispers teach Thy name.\n\n    I\u2019m in a world where all is new,\n    Myself, my God; O blest amaze!\n    Not my best hopes or wishes knew\n    To form a shadow of His grace.\n\n    Fixed on my God, my heart, adore;\n    My restless thoughts, forbear to rove;\n    Ye meaner passions, stir no more;\n    But all my powers be joy and love.\n\nAnd one of the most touching of his funeral pieces is that magnificent\nfuneral march for some departed saint, and worthy of the grand air to\nwhich it has often been sung\u2014Handel\u2019s Dead March in \u201cSaul:\u201d\n\n    Unveil thy bosom, faithful tomb!\n    Take this new treasure to thy trust,\n    And give these sacred relics room\n    Awhile to slumber in the dust.\n\n    Nor pain, nor grief, nor anxious fear\n    Invade thy bounds: no mortal woes\n    Can reach the forms which slumber here,\n    And angels watch their soft repose.\n\n    So Jesus slept! God\u2019s dying Son\n    Passed through the grave and blessed the bed:\n    Rest here, dear saint, till from His throne\n    The morning break and pierce the shade!\n\n    Break from His throne, illustrious morn!\n    Attend, O earth, His sovereign word;\n    Restore thy trust\u2014a glorious form\n    Called to ascend and meet the Lord.\n\nA judicious and compendious arrangement in order of the hymns of Watts,\nwould thus show that every form of expression apparently necessary for\npublic service finds some adequate representation: worship, confession,\nprayer, expression of faith; and those churches which for nearly a\ncentury had no other volume to assist them in their public devotions,\ndo not deserve so much pity as has very frequently been expressed for\nthem. Soon after their publication they came to be used outside of the\ncommunion for which they were designed. Ralph Erskine, of Dunfermline,\ndrew a great number of the verses into his most remarkable volumes of\ndivine drollery, sometimes in a most remarkable manner debasing the\nmetre. Should the reader care to see an instance of this he may find it\nin \u201cScripture Songs,\u201d Book III., Song III.; but there are many other\ninstances.\n\nAdmirers of Wesley are fond of citing against Watts the well-known saying\nattributed to him, that he would have given all he had written for the\ncredit of being the author of Charles Wesley\u2019s hymn, \u201cCome, O thou\nTraveller unknown.\u201d It has been truly said, his excessive modesty often\ngloomed his greatness; Gibbons makes some such remark; it, at any rate,\nkept all power and disposition to self-assertion in the shade; but it is\nno reason why his admirers now should imitate, with reference to himself,\nthat virtue, and be indifferent to his great powers as a sacred poet.\n\nNo hymn-writer has suffered so much from mutilation as Watts. Sometimes\nthe attempts at improvement have been ludicrous. We remember a specimen\nof many:\n\n    The little ants, for one poor grain\n      _Exert themselves_ and strive.\n\nInstead of\u2014\n\n    Labour and tug and strive.\n\nBut such emendations are innocent when compared with those in which the\nentire doctrine of the hymn has been expelled.[23] Lord Selborne (Sir\nRoundell Palmer) has said, \u201cWatts altered some of Charles Wesley\u2019s\nhymns, much to his brother John\u2019s discontent, as he testifies in the\npreface to his Hymn Book.\u201d We have very little hesitation in assuring\nhis lordship that he is mistaken, and that he will find no instance in\nwhich Watts altered, however slightly, Wesley\u2019s hymns. In two or three\ninstances he altered and appropriated from Tate and Brady and Patrick,\nand acknowledged the extent of his alterations in notes, a courtesy never\nextended to himself.\n\n    Before Jehovah\u2019s awful throne,\n\nis Watts altered, and admirably altered, by two words in the first line,\nbut the entire hymn was appropriated; but indeed it was impossible that\nWatts could alter Wesley. Watts\u2019 work was all done, and had long been\ndone, before Wesley appeared. Literary plagiarism we believe to be a much\nless common sin than many suppose. Minds on the same plane of thought and\nfeeling are likely to discover the same images, and to indulge in the\nsame expressions. Certainly Mr. Milner, in his \u201cLife of Watts,\u201d is wrong\nwhen he says (page 276) that Watts\u2019 well-known lines:\n\n    The opening heavens around me shine\n      With beams of sacred bliss,\n\nwere probably suggested to Watts by Gray\u2019s\u2014\n\n    The meanest flow\u2019ret of the vale,\n    The simplest note that swells the gale,\n    The common sun, the air, the skies,\n    To him are opening paradise.\n\nWatts\u2019 lines were published nine years before Gray was born!\n\nComparing the two great hymn-writers, Isaac Watts and Charles Wesley, an\nadequate sense may be arrived at, if the very important distinctions are\nnoticed between the work proposed in the verses of the two admirable men.\nIt is our conviction that while Watts has, in the stricter term of the\nword poet, included in himself Charles Wesley, the purpose of Wesley\u2019s\nverse was especially to describe frames, feelings, and experiences,\nto set these to a sweet strain of popular melody, such as might rouse\nthe thousands for whom they were intended. Nothing is more remarkable\nthan the contrasted sense Watts and the Wesleys entertained of their\nperformances. The preface published to the Wesleyan Hymn Book, in 1779,\nis one of the most extravagant efforts of conceit in our language; it is\nsomewhat wonderful that the good taste of the Wesleyan Conference does\nnot omit it from the editions now in the course of circulation. \u201cHere,\u201d\nit says, \u201cis no doggerel, no botches, nothing put in to patch up the\nrhyme, no feeble expletives; here is nothing tinged or bombast, or low\nand creeping; here are no cant expressions, no words without meaning;\nthose who impute this to us know not what they say.\u201d \u201cHere are,\u201d it\ncontinues, \u201cthe purity, elegance, and strength of the English language,\nand the utmost simplicity and plainness suited to every capacity.\u201d It\ngoes on to assert that \u201cin the following hymns is to be found the true\nspirit of poetry, such as cannot be acquired by art or labour, but must\nbe the gift of nature. By labour a man may become a tolerable imitation\nof Spenser, Shakespeare, or Milton, and may heap together pretty compound\nepithets, such as pale-eyed, meek-eyed, and the like; but unless he be\nborn a poet he will never attain to the genuine spirit of poetry.\u201d How\nremarkably all this is in contrast to the spirit of the writer whose\nhymns had been before the world nearly half a century before this first\ncollected edition of the Wesleys\u2019 hymns was published. John Wesley\nincluded many of Watts\u2019 hymns in his own hymn book, but their authorship\nwas not acknowledged; and many others were vigorous translations from the\nGerman of Zinzendorf, Paul Gerhardt, etc.; Watts\u2019 hymn book was entirely\nand wholly his own.\n\nIt is ungracious work to bring into the rivalry of comparison or contrast\ntwo singers who have so sacredly served the Church. Yet we will dare\nto say it here, in the hymns of Watts there is that peculiar accent,\nthat note of pain, that majesty and melody of the deep minor chord\u2014that\nsounding of a deeper experience\u2014that ineffable something which testifies\nto a capacity of agony, as well as to the assurance of ecstasy which is\nthe true poet\u2019s prerogative and power. We would even say the very test\nof Watts\u2019 genius and experience is that many of his pieces, and some\nof his very highest, are unfitted for more than the select experience.\nWesley\u2019s are more easy, common-place, and popular. The hymns of Watts,\nhowever, will stand a far higher test than that of the suffrages of large\ncongregations or ecclesiastical communities\u2014the sighs of the sick-room,\nthe death-bed, the bereaved chamber, the private closet of heart\ndevotion. With these verses on their lips refreshing their hearts, how\nmany pilgrims have approached the\n\n            Land of pure delight\n    Where saints immortal reign.\n\nMost of what has gone before applies to the hymns; but some especial\nreference should be made to the version of the Psalms. Palmer, in his\n\u201cLife of Watts,\u201d says, \u201cThis is generally allowed to be his capital\nproduction in poetry, with which, in point of utility, none of his\nother pieces will bear comparison.\u201d From this verdict there will be many\ndissentients. It is certainly true that in some of the pieces he rises\nto the highest rendering of the evangelical sense of the Psalter. His\nobject was to interpret the Psalms of Christ; it is not therefore very\nremarkable that when a young minister inquired of an elder which was the\nbest commentary on the Psalms, he replied, \u201cWatts\u2019 version of them.\u201d This\njudgment was not so singular as it seems.\n\nWatts\u2019 may be called the Messianic version of the Psalms; he felt that\nwithout this construction they must be very greatly inexplicable. The\nunfolding this idea popularly was an immense boon to the churches. We\nare to remember that the Book of Psalms was the great Hebrew Psalter; it\nwas the Book of Common Prayer and Praise, and when the Christian Church\narose, it still continued the use of these divine airs for the expression\nof its experiences and its faith. Jerome says: \u201cThe labourer, while he\nholds the handle of the plough, sings Alleluia, the tired reaper employs\nhimself on the Psalms, and the vine-dresser, while lopping the vines with\nhis curved hook, sings something out of David; these are our ballads in\nthis part of the world; these, to use the common expression, are our love\nsongs.\u201d Chrysostom has a noble panegyric upon the use of the Psalms in\nthe service of the Church. \u201cIf we keep vigil in the Church, David comes\nfirst, last, and midst. If early in the morning, David is first, last,\nand midst.\u201d Again, he goes on to declare how, \u201cin the funeral solemnities\nfor the dead, or when the girl sits at home spinning, and not in cities\nalone, and not alone in churches, but in the forum and in the wilderness,\nand even in the uninhabitable desert, David excites to the praises of\nGod.\u201d And this has continued true ever since.\n\nThe case being so, why was it that, alike in Hebrew and in Christian\ndays, the Book of Psalms has had such a sovereign power over holy souls?\nThe personality of David has even obscured the higher personality and the\nMessianic symmetry; it is forgotten that in the Hebrew language David\nsignifies the beloved, the darling, the chosen one, and that many of\nthe Psalms, regarded as personal to him, are rather to be apprehended\nin the _same manner_ in which his name occurs in Isaiah and Jeremiah\nand Ezekiel, in which we have \u201cthe key of David,\u201d \u201cDavid, a leader and\ncommander to the people,\u201d in \u201cthe sure mercies of David,\u201d terms the\nfulness of which is lost sight of by their being associated with the\nHebrew prince, rather than with Him who is the infinitely beloved of\nGod and man. Thus in numerous Psalms to which the prefix is given, \u201cA\nPsalm of, or by, David,\u201d a stricter reading would be, \u201cA Psalm to, or\nfor, David;\u201d in some instances this sense comes out with great force,\nand thus they illustrate that text in Ezekiel, penned hundreds of years\nafter David\u2019s death, \u201cI will set one shepherd over them, and he shall\nfeed them, even my servant David (_i.e._ the Beloved). He shall feed them\nand be their shepherd.\u201d What a different fulness of meaning is given to\nsuch innumerable passages as those in the 123rd Psalm, \u201cFor thy servant\nDavid\u2019s sake turn not away the face of thine anointed;\u201d \u201cThe Lord hath\nsworn unto David, Of the fruit of thy body will I set upon thy throne:\u201d\nif we substitute the Beloved one for David in many such passages, and\nwhat a rich meaning is unfolded! David was perhaps the author of all\nthese; but in that wonderful spirit of the Hebrew playing upon words,\njust as he rose from his own occupation to exclaim, \u201cThe Lord is my\nshepherd,\u201d so he rose from his own name, transforming it into a Divine\nsynonym, searching for its origin and filling it out with divine and\nelevated ideas.[24] This was the spirit in which Watts in his version\nrestored the Psalms to Christ, and removed them from the lower and more\ncontracted circle of human personality to the suffering and reigning\nMessiah. Most readers were thankful for the noble restoration of the\nevangelical regalia to their rightful owner; and only here and there\none or two, like the indecent and insolent Bradbury, took exception to\nthe performance as \u201crobbing them of their book of Praise,\u201d as that rash\nand vehement man, referring to the version of Watts, said, \u201cDavid is no\nlonger suffered to be our Psalmist.\u201d\n\nThis, then, is the spirit in which Watts translated the Psalms, to\nthe Christian sense preserving, as we have said, the Messianic idea\nthroughout, as in that stirring call to Christian service:\n\n    Arise, O King of Grace, arise\n      And enter to Thy rest!\n    Lo! Thy church waits with longing eyes\n      Thus to be owned and blest.\n\n    Enter with all Thy glorious train,\n      Thy Spirit and Thy word;\n    All that the Ark did once contain\n      Could not such grace afford.\n\nThe aim of Watts in his Book of Psalms was to translate the Old Testament\nphraseology into a New Testament language and experience. James Hamilton\nhas illustrated this by an anecdote which it can scarcely be impertinent\nto quote here; he says: \u201cI cannot tell it accurately, but I have heard\nof a godly couple whose child was sick and at the point of death. It was\nunusual to pray together except at the hours of \u2018exercise;\u2019 however, in\nher distress, the mother prevailed on her husband to kneel down at the\nbedside and offer a word of prayer. The good man\u2019s prayers were chiefly\ntaken from the best of liturgies, the book of Psalms; and after a long\nand reverential introduction from the 90th and elsewhere, he proceeded,\n\u2018Lord, turn again the captivity of Zion; then shall our mouth be filled\nwith laughter and our tongue with singing.\u2019 And as he was proceeding,\n\u2018turn again our captivity,\u2019 the poor agonized mother interrupted him:\n\u2018Eh, man, you are aye drawn out for thae Jews, but it\u2019s our bairn that\u2019s\ndeein\u2019,\u2019 at the same time clasping her hands and crying, \u2018Lord, help us;\noh, give us back our darling, if it be Thy holy will; and if he is to\nbe taken, oh take him to Thyself!\u2019 And fond as I am,\u201d continues James\nHamilton, \u201cof scriptural phrases in prayer, I am fonder still of reality.\nIt is a striking fact that the prayers addressed to Christ in the Gospels\nare hardly one of them in Old Testament language; just as New Testament\nsongs embed in a language of their own Old Testament phrases;\u201d and, as we\nmay add, just as the woman and her husband had the same purpose in their\nprayers.\n\nAnd it is in this way Watts seems to apologize for his attempts when he\nsays, in his introduction to his version of the Psalms:\n\n    HEBREW MELODIES CHRISTIANIZED.\n\n    \u201cBut since I believe that any Divine sentence, or Christian\n    verse, agreeable to Scripture, may be sung, though it be\n    composed by men uninspired, I have not been so curious and\n    exact in striving everywhere to express the ancient sense and\n    meaning of David, but have rather expressed myself as I may\n    suppose David would have done, had he lived in the days of\n    Christianity; and by this means, perhaps, I have sometimes\n    hit upon the true intent of the Spirit of God in those verses\n    farther and clearer than David himself could ever discover, as\n    St. Peter encourages me to hope (1 Peter i. 11, 13) where he\n    acknowledges that the ancient prophets, who foretold of the\n    grace that should come to us, were, in some measure, ignorant\n    of this great salvation; for though they testified of the\n    sufferings of Christ and His glory, yet they were forced to\n    search and inquire after the meaning of what they spake or\n    wrote. In several other places I hope my reader will find a\n    natural exposition of many a dark and doubtful text, and some\n    new beauties and connections of thought discovered in the\n    Jewish poet, though not in the language of a Jew. In all places\n    I have kept my grand design in view, and that is to teach my\n    author to speak like a Christian. For why should I now address\n    God my Saviour in a song, with burnt sacrifices of fatlings,\n    and with the fat of rams? Why should I pray to be sprinkled\n    with hyssop, or recur to the blood of bullocks and goats? Why\n    should I bind my sacrifice with cords to the horns of an altar,\n    or sing the praises of God to high-sounding cymbals, when the\n    Gospel has shown me a nobler atonement for sin, and appointed\n    a purer and more spiritual worship? Why must I join with David\n    in his legal or prophetic language to curse my enemies, when my\n    Saviour in His sermons has taught me to love and bless them?\n    Why may not a Christian omit all those passages of the Jewish\n    psalmist that tend to fill the mind with overwhelming sorrows,\n    despairing thoughts, or bitter personal resentments, none of\n    which are well suited to the spirit of Christianity, which is\n    a dispensation of hope and joy and love? What need is there\n    that I should wrap up the shining honours of my Redeemer in the\n    dark and shadowy language of a religion that is now for ever\n    abolished, especially when Christians are so vehemently warned\n    in the Epistles of St. Paul against a Judaizing spirit in their\n    worship as well as doctrine? And what fault can there be in\n    enlarging a little on the more useful subjects in the style of\n    the Gospel, where the psalm gives any occasion, since the whole\n    religion of the Jews is censured often in the New Testament as\n    a defective and imperfect thing?\u201d\n\nAnd, again, he says on the\u2014\n\n    SPIRIT OF THE HEBREW PSALMS.\n\n    \u201cMoses, Deborah, and the princes of Israel; David, Asaph,\n    Habakkuk, and all the saints under the Jewish state, sung\n    their own joys and victories, their own hopes, and fears, and\n    deliverances, as I hinted before; and why must we, under the\n    Gospel, sing nothing else but the joys, hopes, and fears of\n    Asaph and David? Why must Christians be forbid all other melody\n    but what arises from the victories and deliverances of the\n    Jews? David would have thought it very hard to be confined to\n    the words of Moses, and sung nothing else on all his rejoicing\n    days but the drowning of Pharaoh of the fifteenth of Exodus.\n    He might have supposed it a little unreasonable, when he had\n    peculiar occasions of mournful music, if he had been forced to\n    keep close to Moses\u2019 prayer in the ninetieth Psalm, and always\n    have sung over the shortness of human life, especially if he\n    were not permitted the liberty of a paraphrase; and yet the\n    special concerns of David and Moses were much more akin to\n    each other than ours are to either of them, and yet they were\n    both of the same religion; but ours is very different. It is\n    true that David has left us a richer variety of holy songs than\n    all that went before him; but, rich as it is, it is still far\n    short of the glorious things that we Christians have to sing\n    before the Lord; we and our churches have our special affairs\n    as well as they. Now, if by a little turn of their words, or\n    by the change of a short sentence, we may express our own\n    meditations, joys, and desires in the verse of those ancient\n    psalmists, why should we be forbidden this sweet privilege?\n    Why should we, under the Christian dispensation, be tied up to\n    forms more than the Jews themselves were, and such as are much\n    more improper for our age and state too? Let us remember that\n    the very power of singing was given to human nature chiefly for\n    this purpose, that our own warmest affections of soul might\n    break out into natural or divine melody, and that the tongue of\n    the worshipper might express his own heart.\u201d\n\nThe following well expresses his modest estimate of his work: \u201cI must\nconfess I have never yet seen any version or paraphrase of the Psalms, in\ntheir own Jewish sense, so perfect as to discourage all further attempts.\nBut whoever undertakes the noble work, let him bring with him a soul\ndevoted to piety, an exalted genius, and withal a studious application;\nfor David\u2019s harp abhors a profane finger and disdains to answer to an\nunskilful or a careless touch. A meaner pen may imitate at a distance;\nbut a complete translation or a just paraphrase demands a rich treasury\nof diction, an exalted fancy, a quick taste of devout passion, together\nwith judgment, strict and severe, to retrench every luxuriant line,\nand to maintain a religious sovereignty over the whole work. Thus the\npsalmist of Israel might arise in Great Britain in all his Hebrew glory,\nand entertain the more knowing and polite Christians of our age. But\nstill I am bold to maintain the general principle on which my present\nwork is founded; and that is, that if the brightest genius on earth, or\nan angel from heaven, should translate David and keep close to the sense\nand style of the inspired author, we should only obtain thereby a bright\nor heavenly copy of the devotions of the Jewish king; but it could never\nmake the fittest psalm-book for a Christian people. It was not my design\nto exalt myself to the rank and glory of poets, but I was ambitions to\nbe a servant to the Churches and a helper to the joy of the meanest\nChristian. Though there are many gone before me who have taught the\nHebrew psalmist to speak English, yet I think I may assume this pleasure\nof being the first who hath brought down the royal author into the common\naffairs of the Christian life, and led the Psalmist of Israel into the\nChurch of Christ, without anything of a Jew about him. And whensoever\nthere shall appear any paraphrase of the Book of Psalms that retains\nmore of the savour of David\u2019s piety, or discovers more of the style and\nspirit of the Gospel, with a superior dignity of verse, and yet the lines\nas easy and flowing and the sense and language as level to the lowest\ncapacity, I shall congratulate the world, and consent to say, Let this\nattempt of mine be buried in silence.\u201d\n\nThis chapter must not be closed without some slight reference to the\nwonderful history and anecdote connected with these hymns; verses\nfrom them have been murmured from innumerable death-beds, have shone\nout as memorial lines on innumerable tombstones, and have proved, in\nhow many instances, to be the converting word, the power of God unto\nsalvation. When the great orator and statesman of the United States,\nDaniel Webster, lay dying, almost the last words which fell from those\neloquent lips which had so often moved in the Senate with thrilling\nand overwhelming power, were those words of Watts\u2019 51st Psalm; and he\nrepeated them again and again:\n\n    Show pity, Lord: O Lord, forgive;\n    Let a repenting rebel live;\n    Are not Thy mercies large and free?\n    May not a sinner trust in Thee?\n\nAnd the gravestone of the great shoemaker, scholar, linguist, and\nmissionary, William Carey, in Bengal, contains beside the name and date\nonly that final confession of faith:\n\n    A guilty, weak, and helpless worm,\n    On Thy kind arms I fall.\n\nThe late beautiful and beloved William Bunting used to tell a story of a\npoor blind woman, in Liverpool, brought to a sense of sin and salvation\nat a Wesleyan service held in connection with the national fast upon the\nfirst visit of cholera to this country. Her impressions had been stirred\nby Watts\u2019 hymn\u2014the 224th of the Wesleyan Selection\u2014\u201cI\u2019ll praise my Maker\nwhile I\u2019ve breath.\u201d The next morning she called on the Rev. R. McOwen,\nand asked if he could procure for her the book in which was the hymn with\nthose lines, also Watts\u2019,\n\n    The Lord pours eyesight on the blind,\n    The Lord supports the sinking mind.\n\nIt also was in the Wesleyan Hymn Book, which Mr. McOwen placed in her\nhands. Her memory was soon stored with the hymns which she delighted\nin repeating. By her talent in shampooing she earned a respectable\nlivelihood. For this purpose she attended on the old Earl of Derby, the\ngrandfather to the present Earl. She repeated one of her hymns to him.\nThe old Earl liked it, and encouraged her to repeat more. But one day,\nwhen repeating the hymn of Charles Wesley, \u201cAll ye that pass by,\u201d she\ncame to the words:\n\n    The Lord in the day of His anger did lay\n    Your sins on the Lamb, and He bore them away,\n\nhe said, \u201cStop, Mrs. Brass, don\u2019t you think it should be\u2014\n\n    \u201cThe Lord in the day of His _mercy_ did lay?\u201d\n\nShe did not think his criticism valid; but it showed she was not\nrepeating her verses to inattentive ears, and other indications showed\nthat the blind woman was made a blessing to the dying nobleman. But such\nanecdotes might be multiplied and extended to many pages.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF ISAAC WATTS IN EARLY LIFE.\n\nBelieved to have been presented by him to his friend and schoolmaster,\nthe Rev. John Pinhorne, Master of the Grammar School, Southampton, now in\nthe Vestry of Above Bar Chapel, Southampton.]\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII.\n\nA Circle of Friends.\n\n\nThe friends of Watts, at almost any period of his life, form an\ninteresting and very memorable circle, a very striking portrait gallery.\nAmongst them are some well-known names, and some, comparatively unknown\nnow, famous then. We have said, about a mile from Theobalds, within the\nparish of Cheshunt, lived RICHARD CROMWELL. He was a member of Watts\u2019\nchurch, although he removed from Cheshunt some short time after Watts\u2019\nsettlement.\n\nBut a more remarkable person than Richard Cromwell was Cromwell\u2019s niece,\nthe granddaughter of the great Protector, Mrs. BENDISH, in whom it was\nsaid the very Protector himself lived again. Her husband was Thomas\nBendish, Esq., a descendant of Sir Thomas Bendish, Baronet, ambassador\nfrom Charles I. to the Court of Turkey. He died in 1707, but she\nsurvived him till 1728, removing, however, in the latter years of her\nlife, to Yarmouth. She was a piece of astonishing eccentricity. She had\na great admiration for Owen as a theologian and Watts as a poet; and\nvery early in his life Watts addressed to her his poem against tears.\nShe was a member of his church. Her admiration for her grandfather was\nextraordinary, and no one was permitted in her presence to express a\ndoubt concerning his legitimate sovereignty or essential greatness. What\nshe might have been as a man is beyond all power to speculate; as a woman\nshe certainly inherited much of her grandfather\u2019s dreamy, musing, moody,\nand ruggedly imperative character. Her character and her connections both\nalike commanded for her great respect, but she was an oddity. She was\nfond of night walks, even on lonely roads. She would not suffer a servant\nto attend her, saying God was a sufficient guard, and she would have no\nother. Visiting at the houses of friends, she would usually set off at\nabout one in the morning in her chaise, or on horseback, chanting as she\nwent one of Watts\u2019 hymns in a key, it is said, more loud than sweet.\nThere are pictures of her, word paintings, which bring her before our\neyes in the oddest light. Capable of comporting herself with dignity in\nthe best society, she disdained no menial employment, and very cheerfully\nturned her hand to the pitch-fork or the spade among her labourers and\nworkmen, working herself with a right ready and forcible good will, from\nthe early morning to declining day, in an attire as mean as the meanest\nof those with whom she was toiling, giving no account, say some records,\nof either her character or even her sex. It is a curious thing to find\nthe youthful Isaac Watts talking to this strong-minded creature like a\npatriarch in his lines addressed to her in 1699, in which occurs the fine\nverse:\n\n    If \u2019tis a rugged path you go,\n    And thousand foes your steps surround,\n    Tread the thorns down, charge through the foe;\n    The hardest fight is highest crowned.\n\nWe could have liked a portrait of her from the pen of Watts, or a record\nof some of his conversations with her or with her uncle, but it does\nnot appear to have been in his way either to sketch the portraits of\nhis friends or to violate private confidences or conferences by putting\nthem on paper. Her son was another of Watts\u2019 intimates, and with him the\nfamily of Bendish became extinct. He died at Yarmouth, unmarried, in the\nyear 1753.\n\nAmong the ministerial friends of Watts stands the almost forgotten name\nof JOHN SHOWER, a very beautiful and eminent man in his day, a man of\nlarge learning and extensive travel. He had ministered for some time\nto an English congregation at Rotterdam, and, returning to England, he\npassed through the periods of trouble afflicting the communion to which\nhe belonged. Watts was on terms of close intimacy with him, and they must\nhave been congenial in their lives of elevated and profoundly cultured\npiety.\n\nAnd there were men around Watts in the ministry with whom he had great\ncongeniality of sentiment. Eminent among these was SAMUEL ROSEWELL,\nthe son of Thomas Rosewell, celebrated for his trial for high treason\nand unjust condemnation before the impious Jefferies. Watts gives an\ninteresting account of his visit to him on his death-bed in one of his\nsermons preached at Bury Street. \u201cCome, my friends,\u201d says he, \u201ccome into\nthe chamber of a dying Christian; come, approach his pillow, and hear\nhis holy language: \u2018I am going up to heaven, and I long to be gone, to\nbe where my Saviour is.\u2014Why are His chariot-wheels so long in coming?\u2014I\nhope I am a sincere Christian, but the meanest and the most unworthy:\u2014I\nknow I am a great sinner, but did not Christ come to save the chief of\nsinners?\u2014I have trusted in Him, and I have strong consolation.\u2014I love\nGod, I love Christ.\u2014I desire to love Him more, to be more like Him, and\nto serve Him in heaven without sin.\u2014Dear brother, I shall see you at the\nright hand of Christ.\u2014There I shall see all our friends that are gone\na little before (alluding to Sir T. Abney).\u2014I go to my God and to your\nGod, to my Saviour and to your Saviour.\u2019 These,\u201d observes Watts, \u201care\nsome of the dying words of the Rev. Mr. S. Rosewell, when, with some\nother friends, I went to visit him two days before his death, and which I\ntranscribed as soon as I came home, with their assistance.\u201d It was after\nthis visit Watts wrote to his friend the following note:\n\n    \u201cDEAR BROTHER ROSEWELL,\n\n    \u201cYour most agreeable and divine conversation, two days ago,\n    so sweetly overpowered my spirits, and the most affectionate\n    expressions which you so plentifully bestowed on me awakened\n    in me so many pleasing sensations, that I seemed a borderer on\n    the heavenly world when I saw you on the confines of heaven and\n    conversed with you there. Yet I can hardly forbear to ask for\n    your stay on earth, and wish your service in the sanctuary,\n    after you have been so much within view of the glorious\n    invisibilities which the Gospel reveals to us. But if that hope\n    fail, yet our better expectations can never fail us. Our anchor\n    enters within the veil, where Jesus, our forerunner, is gone to\n    take our places (Heb. vi. ult.). May your pains decrease, or\n    your divine joys overpower them! May you never lose sight of\n    the blessed world, and of Jesus, the Lord of it, till the storm\n    is passed and you are safely arrived. And may the same grace\n    prepare me for the same mansions, and give you the pleasure of\n    welcoming to those bright regions\n\n    \u201cYour affectionate and unworthy friend and brother,\n\n                                                       \u201cISAAC WATTS.\n\n                                    \u201cLIME STREET, _7th April, 1722_.\n\n    \u201cJust going to Theobalds.\n\n    \u201cP.S.\u2014Our family salute you; they are much affected, pleased,\n    and edified with their late visit. Grace be with you and all\n    your dear relations. Amen.\u201d\n\nAnd among his friends, as we have already seen, he kept up a considerable\nintimacy with his own fellow-townsman and fellow-student, SAMUEL SAY, son\nof Giles Say, who was ejected from the parish church of St. Michael\u2019s in\nSouthampton, and one of the first ministers of the Nonconformist church\nof that town, and with which Watts\u2019 family was connected. He was a kind\nof smaller Watts, a man of large and varied knowledge in the classics,\nmathematics, astronomy, and natural philosophy. For forty-eight years he\nkept a journal of the alterations of the weather and of his observations\nof remarkable occurrences in nature. Possessed of an extraordinary\ngenius, it was veiled and shrouded by a modesty as extraordinary; but\nabout two years before his death some of his papers were committed to the\npress, consisting of poems and essays on the \u201cHarmony, Variety and Power\nof Numbers, whether in Prose or Verse.\u201d He had a great admiration for\nMilton, and translated apparently with great elegance the introduction\nof \u201cParadise Lost\u201d into Latin verse; and in the \u201cGentleman\u2019s Magazine,\u201d\nvol. xxxv., is an interesting paper by him, entitled, \u201cThe Resurrection\nIllustrated by the Changes of the Silkworm.\u201d Watts thought highly of his\njudgment, as the following, among other letters, indicates:\n\n                                                \u201c_April 11th, 1728._\n\n    \u201cDEAR SIR,\n\n    \u201cYour letter, dated from Feb. 10th to March 5th, afforded me\n    agreeable entertainment, and particularly your notes on the 2nd\n    Psalm, in which I think I concur in sentiment with you in every\n    line, and thank you. The epiphonema to the 16th Psalm is also\n    very acceptable, and, in my opinion, the Psalms ought to be\n    translated in such a manner for Christian worship, in order to\n    show the hidden glories of that divine posey. I beg leave only\n    to query about the _Sheol_ in Psalm 16, whether that phrase of\n    \u2018not seeing corruption\u2019 ought to be applied to David at all,\n    since Peter (Acts ii. 31) and Paul (Acts xiii. 36) seem to\n    exclude him. And though I will not say that your sense of the\n    _soul_, _i.e._, the _life_, may answer the Hebrew manner of the\n    reduplication of the same thing in other words, yet, as David\n    sometimes speaks of the _soul_ as a thing distinct from the\n    body, and may not the _soul_ be taken in this place and _Sheol_\n    signify _Hades_, the state of the dead?\n\n    \u201cI am glad my little prayer-book is acceptable to you and your\n    daughter. I perceive you have been also (among many others)\n    uneasy to have no easier and plainer catechism for children\n    than that of the Assembly. I had a letter from Leicestershire\n    the very same day when I received yours on the same subject;\n    and long after this a multitude of requests have I had to set\n    my thoughts at work for this purpose. I have designed it these\n    many years. I have laid out some schemes for this purpose,\n    and I would have three or four series of catechisms, as I\n    have of prayers. I believe I shall do it ere long if God\n    afford health. But, dear friend, forgive me if I cannot come\n    into your scheme of \u2018bringing in the creed;\u2019 for it is, in my\n    opinion, a most imperfect and immethodical composition, and\n    deserves no great regard, unless it be put in at the end of the\n    catechism for form\u2019s sake, together with the Lord\u2019s Prayer and\n    Ten Commandments, as is done in the Assembly\u2019s Catechism. The\n    history of the life and death of Christ is excessively long in\n    so short a system and the design of the death of Christ (which\n    is the glory of Christianity) is utterly omitted. Besides, the\n    operations, of the Spirit are not named. The practical articles\n    are all excluded. In short, \u2019tis a very mean composure, and\n    has nothing valuable\u2014_pr\u00e6ter mille annos_. My ideas of these\n    matters run in another track, which, if ever I have the\n    happiness to see you, may be matter for communication between\n    us. I am sorry I forgot to put up the coronation ode in my\n    pocket. I will count myself in debt till I have an occasion to\n    send you something more valuable along with it. Two days (ago)\n    I published a little essay on charity schools, my treatise of\n    education growing so much longer in my hands than I designed.\n    If it were worth while to send such a trifle you should have\n    it. In the meantime I take leave, and with due salutations to\n    yourself and yours,\n\n    \u201cI am your affectionate brother and servant,\n\n                                                         \u201cI. WATTS.\u201d\n\nWILLIAM COWARD is the name of one of Watts\u2019 intimate friends, an oddity\nin his way as great as Mrs. Bendish: he had been a merchant in the city;\nhe lived in retirement at Waltonstow; his name is well known now in\nNonconformist circles as the founder of \u201cThe Coward Trust,\u201d a useful\nfountain of benevolence for the education of young, and the assistance\nof poor decayed ministers. He was a type of man easily realised to the\nimagination, dogmatical and opinionated, a bundle of eccentricities.\nAmong others, it was his whim to establish a rule that the doors of his\nhouse should never be opened, however pressing the emergency, after eight\no\u2019clock at night, to any person whatever, visitor or friend. The name\nof Hugh Farmer is still held in high and deserved respect for manifold\nattainments, one of Doddridge\u2019s most hopeful students, and who had\nprobably been recommended to Mr. Coward by Doddridge, to whose academy\nCoward was a munificent helper. Farmer was the chaplain of the eccentric\nman, but he arrived one evening at the door too late; he found himself\nwithout lodging for the night, and was compelled to betake himself to the\nhouse of another, perhaps equally eminent, but more courteous friend, Mr.\nSnell, who not only took him in for that evening, but compelled him to\nstay with him for thirty years. Nonconformist ministers appear to have\npossessed some singularly appreciative friends in those days. William\nCoward, however, was, if a man of singular eccentricity, one possessed\nof sterling virtues, and especially zealous in the maintenance of the\nmore rigid articles of faith, and was constantly devising some plans\nof usefulness to assist both metropolitan and country ministers. Watts\nappears to have had great influence over him, and could comb his rugged\nasperities into smoothness. Watts it was to whom we are greatly indebted\nfor the shape assumed by the \u201cCoward Trust.\u201d He devoted \u00a320,000, and by\nWatts\u2019 wise and most judicious advice it was left in such a manner that,\nunlike many other trusts, it has been saved from the consequence of\ndiversion or litigation; and, largely and most respectably useful, it has\nfurnished a most helpful hand in giving a thorough and most respectable\neducation to many a young minister, and helping many a poor one, even to\nthe present day. The \u201cwill\u201d of William Coward is a curiosity, and may be\nstudied, by those who have patience, on the walls of the library of the\nNew College.\n\nAmong the friends of Watts, whose names ought to be mentioned, we must\nnot omit that of JOHN SHUTE, LORD BARRINGTON, a person very interesting\nin his own times. He moved in that immediate circle of which Watts was a\ndistinguished member; he was nearly of Watts\u2019 age, and his mother was a\ndaughter of that Joseph Caryl who was one of Watts\u2019 early predecessors\nin the ministry at Mark Lane. He was a thoughtful, scholarly man, as the\nseveral works he published abundantly show.[25] His sixth and youngest\nson became the well-known Shute Barrington, Bishop of Durham. In the\nmemoir prefixed to the three volumes of his father\u2019s works, the name of\nDr. Watts is never even mentioned, although the verses from the lyrics,\nreferring to the intimacy of Shute with John Locke, addressed to him by\nWatts, are quoted. He was a member of the Church meeting at Pinners\u2019\nHall, and had previously attended the ministry of Thomas Bradbury;\nbut when that person behaved so indecently to Dr. Watts, and took so\nturbulent a part in the discussion with reference to the Trinity, Lord\nBarrington united himself with the Church at Pinners\u2019 Hall, then beneath\nthe ministry of Dr. Jeremiah Hunt. It seems probable that an intimacy\ncommenced early in life between Mr. Shute and Isaac Watts, perhaps before\nthe settlement of Watts in the ministry. It was in 1718 that Swift writes\nof him, \u201cOne Mr. Shute is named for the secretary to Lord Wharton; he is\na young man, but reckoned the shrewdest head in England, and the person\nin whom the Presbyterians chiefly confide; and if money be necessary\ntoward the good work (that is, the repeal of the sacramental test) in\nIreland, it is reckoned he can command as far as \u00a3100,000 from the body\nof Dissenters here. As to his principles, he is a truly moderate man,\nfrequenting the church and the meeting indifferently.\u201d He took the name\nof Barrington about the time this letter was written, a connection of\nhis family, Francis Barrington, Esq., of Tofts, in Essex, leaving to\nhim his estate conditionally upon his taking his name and adopting his\narms. The high favour in which he stood with George I. exposed him to\nthe jealousy and enmity of Sir Robert Walpole. He had an interview with\nthe king on the first day after his arrival in London, apparently in\norder that he might decline certain offices of preferment which were made\nhim, because the Schism and Conformity Bills were as yet unrepealed.\nUpon this occasion he stated to the king the grievances beneath which\nDissenters suffered, although they were amongst the most hearty and\nfaithful friends of the House of Hanover. In the fifth year of this\nreign he was created a peer. He stood very high in the friendship of the\nking, and it seems that it was this very friendship which brought about\nthe close of his political life when, in 1723, he was expelled from the\nHouse of Commons for his connection with the Harburgh lottery. This was\na company formed for carrying on trade between England and the king\u2019s\nelectoral dominions, and it had been proposed that it should be assisted\nby a lottery to defray the expenses in deepening the River Elbe near the\nport of Harburgh; the project had not met with the approbation of Lord\nBarrington, but he received the king\u2019s personal commands to continue\nas sub-governor of the company, Prince Frederick being the governor.\nIt furnished, however, the occasion which Sir Robert Walpole knew how\nto use for the removal from his path of a man dangerous to his own\nunscrupulous ambition. The project itself was simply a means, favoured by\nthe king, for promoting trade between the two countries. But now, in his\nretirement, he betook himself to pursuits of a very different character,\nand the volumes of his theological works are most interesting, and show\nabundantly how he brought to bear upon the department of theology that\nclearness of judgment which had characterized his political life, united\nto a keen analytic power of criticism and discrimination very interesting\nto follow through the subjects he discusses; his essay \u201cOn the\nDispensation of God to Mankind as revealed in Scripture\u201d is especially\nentertaining and suggestive.\n\nHe was nephew, by his mother, of Sir Thomas Abney, and this would make\nhis intimacy with the family in which Watts resided very natural; but at\nhis house at Tofts he kept round about him much intellectual society, and\nsometimes even of persons widely differing in opinion from himself, such\npersons as Antony Collins,[26] the well-known sceptical writer of that\nday. The Greek Testament was frequently the subject of investigation and\ncriticism, and on one occasion it is said Collins remarked concerning the\napostle Paul, \u201cI think so well of him as a man of sense and a gentleman,\nthat if he had asserted he had worked miracles himself, I would have\nbelieved him.\u201d\n\nLord Barrington instantly produced a passage to that effect, when the\ndisconcerted sceptic seized his hat and hastily retreated from the\ncompany. Upon another occasion his lordship inquired how it was that\nalthough he professed to have no religion himself, he was so careful\nthat his servants should attend regularly at church, when he replied\nhe did this to prevent them robbing and murdering him. This amiable\nnobleman, moderate, wise, and well informed, if we may not rather speak\nof him as a man of extensive and varied scholarship, was such a one as\ncould well appreciate and sympathize with Isaac Watts. At the old house\nat Tofts, or Beckets, in Berkshire, where Lord Barrington died, we may\nbe sure that Watts was a frequent visitor, and it was the frequency of\nthe intercourse probably which permits us so few letters between them,\nand of those letters none before 1718. We have already quoted the high\nestimate he formed of Watts\u2019 \u201cView of Scripture History;\u201d his estimate of\nthe \u201cLogic\u201d he rates so highly that he says, \u201cI shall not only recommend\nit to others, but use it as the best manual of its kind myself, and I\nintend, as some have done Erasmus or a piece of Cicero, to read it over\nonce a year.\u201d The following note sets every point of his friendship with\nWatts in a very pleasing light:\n\n                                           \u201cLONDON, _Jan. 11, 1718_.\n\n    \u201cREV. SIR,\n\n    \u201cI cannot dispense with myself from taking the first\n    opportunity I have of acknowledging your great favour in\n    assisting me so readily to offer up the praise due to Almighty\n    God for His signal mercies vouchsafed me on three several\n    occasions, and of assuring you that it was with the utmost\n    concern I understood that I must not flatter myself with\n    the hopes of your being with us in this last. But how very\n    obliging are you, who would give yourself the trouble to let\n    me know that, though you could not give me the advantage\n    of your company at Hatton Garden, yet I should not want\n    your assistance at a distance, where you would address such\n    petitions to heaven to meet ours as tend to render me one of\n    the best and happiest men alive. This they will influence to\n    me in some measure, both by their prevalency at the throne\n    of grace, and by instructing me in the most agreeable manner\n    what I should aspire to. Whilst I read your letter, I found\n    my blood fired with the greatest ambition to be what you wish\n    me. I will, therefore, carefully preserve it, where it shall\n    be least liable to accidents, and where it will be always\n    most in my view. There, as I shall see what I ought to be, by\n    keeping it always before me, I shall not only have the pleasure\n    of observing the masterly strokes of the character you wish\n    me, but, I hope, come in time to bear some resemblance to it.\n    Whilst you were praying for us, we did not forget you; nor\n    shall I cease to beseech Almighty God to make you a bright\n    example of passive virtue, till He shall see fit to restore you\n    to that eminent degree of acceptableness and service you have\n    once enjoyed.\n\n    \u201cI am, sir, your most obliged humble servant,\n\n                                                        \u201cBARRINGTON.\n\n    \u201cMy wife is very much obliged by your civility. She has desired\n    a copy of your letter, which, she says, will be as useful to\n    her as it has been entertaining, if it be not her own fault.\n    Both our humble services attend the good family where you\n    are. I am sorry my lady\u2019s cold is like to deprive us of their\n    company on Wednesday.\u201d\n\nYet another of the circle of friends, whose names occur to the mind\nwhen we think of Watts, is the saintly JAMES HERVEY. One of Watts\u2019\nbiographers speaks of \u201cthe bloated effusions of Hervey which are\nnow justly discarded, then not only tolerated, but admired.\u201d It is\nan unjust judgment; James Hamilton was much more fair and faithful\nwhen he says of him that \u201che had a mind of uncommon gorgeousness, his\nthoughts are marched to a stately music, and were arrayed in the richest\nsuperlatives;\u201d and he speaks of Hervey\u2019s \u201cTheron and Aspasia\u201d as \u201cone\nof our finest prose poems.\u201d James Hervey deserves that his name should\nbe mentioned with great affection and respect. His life was perpetually\nstretched upon a rack of infirmity and weakness. There is even a kind of\npathetic drollery in watching him at Weston Favell living his bachelor\u2019s\nlife, and, while stirring the saucepan which held the gruel constituting\nhis modest meal, turning aside to derive some new fancy, fact, or image\nfrom the microscope on his study table. As a writer, he indulged himself\ntoo freely in colour, but many of his works are very pleasing; he was\nnot only passionately fond of natural scenery, but in an equal degree\ndelighted in the discoveries of natural history; his copious description\nof the human frame is one of the most seductive dissertations on anatomy\nand physiology in our language; and those subjects, not remarkable for\nbeing invested with the charms of fancy, certainly do in his descriptions\nappear to be invested by the fascinations of poetry. He was a friend\nof both Doddridge and Watts. He lived ever in the neighbourhood of the\ngrave, but his little church of Weston Favell was filled with a loving\ncongregation. It was a small flock, for it was a small church: but the\nhumble villagers felt a large amount of affectionate regard for their\nfeeble and yet famous friend. Into his church he speedily introduced,\nafter their publication, Dr. Watts\u2019 Hymns. So he tells Watts:\n\n    \u201cTo tell you, worthy Doctor, that your works have long been\n    my delight and study, the favourite pattern by which I would\n    form my conduct and model my style, would be only to echo\n    back in the faintest accents what sounds in the general voice\n    of the nation. Among other of your edifying compositions,\n    I have reason to thank you for your \u2018Sacred Songs,\u2019 which\n    I have introduced into the service of my church; so that\n    in the solemnities of the Sabbath, and in a lecture on the\n    week-day, your music lights up the incense of our praise, and\n    furnishes our devotions with harmony. Our excellent friend, Dr.\n    Doddridge, informs me of the infirm condition of your health,\n    for which reason I humbly beseech the Father of spirits and\n    the God of our life to renew your strength as the eagle\u2019s, and\n    to recruit a lamp that has shone with distinguished lustre in\n    His sanctuary; or, if this may not consist with the counsels\n    of unerring wisdom, to make all your bed in your languishing,\n    softly to untie the cords of animal existence, to enable your\n    dislodging soul to pass triumphantly through the valley of\n    death, leaning on your beloved Jesus, and rejoicing in the\n    greatness of His salvation. You have a multitude of names\n    to bear on your breast and mention with your lips, when you\n    approach the throne of grace in the beneficent exercise of\n    intercession; but none, I am sure, has more need of such an\n    interest in your supplications than, dear sir, your obliged and\n    humble and affectionate servant,\n\n                                                     \u201cJAMES HERVEY.\u201d\n\nThere could not be a very long intimacy between these two, or much\nknowledge of each other; they were both hermits, following, in the midst\nof much weakness, the calls of duty and the pursuits of a cultivated\ntaste. The letter we have just quoted was written the year before Watts\ndied; Hervey lived ten years longer, but died at the age of forty-seven.\nHe forms one of a cluster of men singularly interesting to contemplate.\nWith Doddridge, from their vicinity in the same county, he was on terms\nof the closest intimacy. He was a large scholar, a poet by natural\ntemperament, and an intense lover of natural description. His works, once\nso famous, are almost forgotten, and have fallen into quite an undeserved\nneglect, partly arising, it may be, from the unfavourable estimate formed\nof them by those who have not read them, or who may have fixed their\nimpressions from the scanning his \u201cContemplation of the Starry Heavens,\u201d\nor his \u201cReflections in a Flower Garden,\u201d or his \u201cDescant on Creation.\u201d\nHis portrait should be suspended in the gallery of those we are noticing\nas one, who, if not among Watts\u2019 most intimate friends, yet revered and\nloved him much.\n\nBut there is one name with which that of Watts is constantly united; it\nis the name of one whose nature in a marked and special manner seemed\nfitted to produce a perfect harmony and accord, it is the name of PHILIP\nDODDRIDGE. At what period the friendship commenced cannot be very exactly\nascertained. Probably, had the life of Doddridge been spared to pen the\nbiography of his venerable friend, the present biographer might have felt\nhis work a superfluity of naughtiness; but, considerable as the distance\nwas between the ages of the friends, Watts preceded his younger brother\nby only a short time to the grave. Like Watts, his name is especially\nassociated with the hymnology of England; nor is there a collection of\nsacred songs which does not contain some strains from the pair of sweet\nsingers. Doddridge is indeed rather known by a few pieces, very sweet\nand helpful, but limited in the range of their emotions, and never\nattempting the lofty and dazzling flight of Watts\u2019 nobler pieces.\n\nDoddridge\u2019s life is full of interest; it has yet to be written, for\nthere was a variety of incidents in his story which scarcely appears\nin the biography of Kippis, or the admirable memoir of Job Orton. All\nthings considered, it was a wonderful life: its activity was amazing,\nthe variety of his literary acquirements and spoils was prodigious; one\nwould say he had much more of the poet\u2019s temperament than Watts; he was\nimpulsive, passionate, affectionate, yet we certainly miss in him that\nindefinable something which constitutes the poet, and which something,\nWatts assuredly possessed.\n\nIn some particulars both in his ancestry and earlier career Doddridge\nresembled Watts; Philip, like Isaac, was the child (he was the twentieth)\nof a mother whom persecution had drifted to our shores; at his birth his\nmother seemed so near to death that no attention was given to the almost\nlifeless little castaway, the infant, and the world almost lost Philip\nthe moment he was born.\n\nIf Watts probably received his first lessons in biblical knowledge from\nhis grandmother by the fireside of the old house in French Street, the\nDutch tiles in the chimney constituting an illuminated and illustrated\nBible, from which Doddridge\u2019s mother first initiated her own son into\nBible lore, have become a famous tradition. Like Isaac, Philip made so\nmuch progress in scholarship, that he had the offer of a training in\neither University if he would enter the Established Church; it was made\ngenerously by the Duchess of Bedford. Philip, like Isaac, declined the\ntemptation, and so he found his _alma mater_ beneath the more modest and\nobscure roof of a Dissenting academy at Kibworth, in Leicestershire.\n\nDoddridge was born in the year when Watts first became the co-pastor\nof Dr. Chauncy, and he died in 1751, scarcely two years after the\nvenerable friend whom he so much honoured and loved. Thus, when Watts\ndied, Doddridge was on his way to the tomb, dying by the slow process of\nconsumption. Great as was the difference in point of age, it is affecting\nto read the following letter from Watts to Doddridge\u2014indeed, it simply\nexpresses the truth they were \u201cboth going out of the world.\u201d\n\n                        \u201cSTOKE NEWINGTON, _Oct. 18, 1746_, Saturday.\n\n    \u201cDEAR SIR,\n\n    \u201cMy much esteemed friend and brother,\n\n    \u201cIt was some trouble to me that you even fancied I had\n    taken anything ill at your hands; it was only my own great\n    indisposition and weakness which prevented the freedom and\n    pleasure of _conversation_; and I am so low yet that I can\n    neither study nor preach, nor have I any hope of better days\n    in this world; but, blessed be God, we are moving onwards, I\n    hope, to a state infinitely better. I should be glad of more\n    Divine assistance from the Spirit of Consolation, to make me\n    go cheerfully through the remaining days of my life. I am very\n    sorry to find, by reports from friends, that you have met with\n    so many vexations in these latter months of life; and yet I\n    cannot find that your sentiments are altered, nor should your\n    orthodoxy or charity be called in question. I shall take it a\n    pleasure to have another letter from you, informing me that\n    things are much easier, both with you and in the west country.\n    As we are both going out of the world, we may commit each other\n    to the care of our common Lord, who is, we hope, ours in an\n    unchangeable covenant. I am glad to hear Mrs. Doddridge has\n    her health better; and I heartily pray for your prosperity,\n    peace, and success in your daily labours.\n\n            \u201cI am yours affectionately, in our common Lord,\n\n                                                          \u201cI. WATTS.\n\n    \u201cP.S.\u2014I rejoice to hear so well of Mr. Ashworth: I hope my lady\n    and I have set him up with commentators, for which he has given\n    us both thanks. I trust I shall shortly see your third volume\n    of the \u2018Family Expositor.\u2019\u201d\n\nWatts\u2019 life was uniform; we can scarcely point to a period and say the\nman woke into life and being then and there; but Doddridge reached his\nperiod of interior life and labour when he became pastor and tutor at\nNorthampton, and it would almost seem as if disappointment in love made a\nman of him.\n\nThe work accomplished by Doddridge in the academy of which he was tutor\nwas enormous, and it exhibits the thoroughness of the training in the\nsmall unostentatious academy where the Dissenting ministers of that day\ngathered their stores of knowledge, and received their education for the\nministry.\n\nAnd he was great as a preacher\u2014the peasants of the neighbourhood thought\nso\u2014his usefulness among them was eminent; and Akenside, the poet, thought\nso. The variety of his correspondence is an amazing characteristic too;\nvarious, not only as to the personages with whom he corresponded, but the\nsubjects upon which he corresponded with them. Like Watts, his sweet and\ngentle nature charmed the most obdurate\u2014he had not even a Bradbury to\nruffle the equanimity of his spirit\u2014even the rough and savage Warburton\nbecame kind to him; he reviewed the \u201cDivine Legation,\u201d in the \u201cWorks\nof the Learned,\u201d a review of that day; and it was to the English Bishop\nwho quarrelled with everybody, the gentle Nonconformist was indebted for\nobtaining that easy passage in the sailing vessel, in which the captain\ngave up his cabin to him, that he might journey to the warm airs of\nLisbon to lay aside his labours and to die. Doddridge is known by many\nof his works. His \u201cFamily Expositor\u201d a long time held a place in the\nfamily and in the study; but a far more extensive fame has followed the\nauthorship of \u201cThe Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul.\u201d This work,\nas its dedication to Dr. Watts shows, owes also its existence to him;\ntwo letters exhibit, on either side, the sentiments these admirable men\nentertain for each other; the first is the dedication to which reference\nhas been made:\n\n    \u201cREV. AND DEAR SIR,\n\n    \u201cWith the most affectionate gratitude and respect I beg\n    leave to present you a book, which owes its existence to\n    your request, its copiousness to your plan, and much of its\n    perspicuity to your review, and to the use I made of your\n    remarks on that part of it which your health and leisure would\n    permit you to examine. I address it to you, not to beg your\n    patronage to it, for of that I am already well assured, and\n    much less from any ambition of attempting your character, for\n    which, if I were more equal to the subject, I should think\n    this a very improper place, but chiefly from a secret delight\n    which I find in the thought of being known to those whom this\n    may reach as one whom you have honoured, not only with your\n    friendship, but with so much of your esteem and approbation\n    too, as must substantially appear in your committing a work\n    to me, which you had yourself projected, as one of the most\n    considerable services of your life.\n\n    \u201cI have long thought the love of popular applause a meanness\n    which a philosophy far inferior to that of our Divine Master,\n    might have us to conquer. But to be esteemed by eminently\n    great and good men, to whom we are intimately known, appears\n    to me not only one of the most solid attestations of some\n    real worth, but, next to the approbation of God and our own\n    consciences, one of its most valuable rewards. It will, I doubt\n    not, be found so in that world to which spirits like yours are\n    tending, and for which, through Divine grace, you have obtained\n    so uncommon a degree of ripeness. And permit me, sir, while\n    I write this, to refresh myself with the hope that when that\n    union of hearts which has so long subsisted between us shall\n    arrive to its full maturity and endearment there, it will be\n    matter of mutual delight to recollect that you have assigned\n    me, and that I have, in some degree, executed a task which\n    may, perhaps, under the blessing of God, awaken and improve\n    religious sentiments in the minds of those we leave behind us,\n    and of others that may arise after us in this vain, transitory,\n    and ensnaring world.\n\n    \u201cSuch is the improvement you have made of capacities for\n    service that I am fully persuaded heaven has received very\n    few in these latter ages who have done so much to serve its\n    interests here below; few who have laboured in this best of\n    causes with equal zeal and success; and therefore I cannot but\n    join with all who wish well to the Christian interest among us,\n    in acknowledging the goodness of Providence to you, and to the\n    Church of Christ, in prolonging a life, at once so valuable\n    and so tender, to such an advanced period. With them, sir, I\n    rejoice that God has given you to possess in so extraordinary\n    a degree, not only the consciousness of intending great\n    benefit to the world, but the satisfaction of having effected\n    it, and seeing such an harvest already springing up, I hope,\n    as an earnest of a more copious increase from thence. With\n    multitudes more I bless God that you are not in the evening\n    of so afflicted and so laborious a day rendered entirely\n    incapable of serving the public from the press and from the\n    pulpit, and that, amidst the pain your active spirit feels when\n    these pleasing services suffer long interruption from bodily\n    weakness, it may be so singularly refreshed by reflecting on\n    that sphere of extensive usefulness in which by your writings\n    you continually move.\n\n    \u201cI congratulate you, dear sir, while you are in a multitude\n    of families and schools of the lower class, condescending\n    to the humble yet important work of forming infant minds\n    to the first rudiments of religious knowledge and devout\n    impressions, by your various catechisms and divine songs, you\n    are also daily reading lectures of logic and other useful\n    branches of philosophy to studious youth; and this not only\n    in private academies but in the most public and celebrated\n    seats of learning, not merely in Scotland, and in our American\n    colonies, where for some peculiar considerations it might be\n    most naturally expected, but, through the amiable candour of\n    some excellent men and accomplished tutors, in our English\n    universities too. I congratulate you that you are teaching no\n    doubt hundreds of ministers and private Christians by your\n    sermons, and other theological tracts, so happily calculated\n    to diffuse through their minds that light of knowledge, and\n    through their hearts that fervour of piety, which God has been\n    pleased to enkindle in your own. But above all I congratulate\n    you that by your sacred poetry, especially by your psalms and\n    your hymns, you are leading the worship, and, I trust also,\n    animating the devotions of myriads in our public assemblies\n    every Sabbath, and in their families and closets every day.\n    This, sir, at least so far as it relates to the service of the\n    sanctuary, is an unparalleled favour by which God hath been\n    pleased to distinguish you, I may boldly say it, beyond any of\n    His servants now upon earth. Well may it be esteemed a glorious\n    equivalent, and, indeed, much more than an equivalent, for all\n    those views of ecclesiastical preferment to which such talents,\n    learning, virtues, and interests might have entitled you in an\n    establishment; and I doubt not but you joyfully accept it as\n    such.\n\n    \u201cNor is it easy to conceive in what circumstances you could,\n    on any supposition, have been easier and happier than in that\n    pious and truly honourable family in which, as I verily believe\n    in special indulgence both to you and to it, Providence has\n    been pleased to appoint that you should spend so considerable\n    a part of your life. It is my earnest prayer that all the\n    remainder of it may be serene, useful, and pleasant. And as, to\n    my certain knowledge, your compositions have been the singular\n    comfort of many excellent Christians\u2014some of them numbered\n    among my dearest friends\u2014on their dying beds, for I have heard\n    stanzas of them repeated from the lips of several who were\n    doubtless in a few hours to begin the \u2018Song of Moses and the\n    Lamb,\u2019 so I hope and trust that, when God shall call you to\n    that salvation, for which your faith and patience have so long\n    been waiting, He will shed around you the choicest beams of\n    His favour, and gladden your heart with consolations, like\n    those which you have been the happy instrument of administering\n    to others. In the meantime, sir, be assured that I am not a\n    little animated in the various labours to which Providence\n    has called me, by reflecting that I have such a contemporary,\n    and especially such a friend, whose single presence would be\n    to me as that of a cloud of witnesses here below to awaken my\n    alacrity in the race which is set before me. And I am persuaded\n    that, while I say this, I speak the sentiment of many of my\n    brethren, even of various denominations, a consideration\n    which I hope will do something towards reconciling a heart so\n    generous as yours, to a delay of that exceeding and eternal\n    weight of glory which is now so nearly approaching. Yes, my\n    honoured friend, you will, I hope, cheerfully endure a little\n    longer continuance in life amidst all its infirmities from an\n    assurance that, while God is pleased to maintain the exercise\n    of your reason, it is hardly possible you should live in\n    vain to the world or yourself. Every day and every trial is\n    brightening your crown, and rendering you still more and more\n    meet for an inheritance among the saints in light. Every word\n    which you drop from the pulpit has now surely its peculiar\n    weight. The eyes of many are on their ascending prophet,\n    eagerly intent that they may catch, if not his mantle, at least\n    some divine sentence from his lips, which may long guide their\n    ways, and warm their hearts. This solicitude your friends\n    bring in those happy moments when they are favoured with your\n    converse in private, and, when you are retired from them, your\n    prayers, I doubt not, largely contribute towards guarding your\n    country, watering the Church, and blessing the world. Long may\n    they continue to answer these great ends. And permit me, sir,\n    to conclude with expressing my cheerful confidence that in\n    these best moments you are often particularly mindful of one,\n    who so highly esteems, so greatly needs, and so warmly returns\n    that remembrance as,\n\n             \u201cReverend Sir, your most affectionate brother,\n\n                      \u201cAnd obliged humble servant,\n\n                                                  \u201cPHILIP DODDRIDGE.\n\n    \u201cNORTHAMPTON, _Dec. 13, 1744_.\u201d\n\nThis dedication, of which Dr. Watts said, \u201cIt is the only thing in\nthat book I can hardly permit myself to approve,\u201d may be appropriately\nfollowed by a letter to Mr. David Longueville, minister to the English\nchurch at Amsterdam, who had written to Dr. Watts asking his advice with\nreference to the translation of the works of Doddridge into the Dutch\ntongue; to this Watts replies:\n\n    \u201cREV. SIR,\n\n    \u201cIt is a very agreeable employment to which you call me, and\n    a very sensible honour you put upon me, when you desire me to\n    give you my sentiments of that reverend and learned writer, Dr.\n    Doddridge, to be prefixed to a translation of any of his works\n    into the Dutch tongue. I have well known him for many years; I\n    have enjoyed a constant intimacy and friendship with him ever\n    since the providence of God called him to be a professor of\n    human science, and a teacher of sacred theology to young men\n    among us, who are trained up for the ministry of the Gospel. I\n    have no need to give you a large account of his knowledge in\n    the sciences, in which I confess him to be greatly my superior;\n    and as to the doctrines of divinity and the Gospel of Christ,\n    I know not of any man of greater skill than himself, and\n    hardly sufficient to be his second. As he hath a most exact\n    acquaintance with the things of God and our holy religion,\n    so far as we are let into the knowledge of them by the light\n    of nature and the revelations of Scripture, so he hath a most\n    happy manner of teaching those who are younger. He hath a most\n    skilful and condescending way of instruction, nor is there any\n    person of my acquaintance with whom I am more entirely agreed\n    in all the sentiments of the doctrine of Christ. He is a most\n    hearty believer of the great articles and important principles\n    of the Reformed Church, a most affectionate preacher and\n    pathetic writer on the practical points of religion, and, in\n    one word, since I am now advanced in age beyond my seventieth\n    year, if there were any man to whom Providence would permit\n    me to commit a second part of my life and usefulness in the\n    Church of Christ, Dr. Doddridge should be the man. If you have\n    read that excellent performance of his, \u2018The Rise and Progress\n    of Religion in the Soul,\u2019 etc., you will be of my mind; his\n    dedication to me is the only thing in that book I could hardly\n    permit myself to approve. Besides all this, he possesses a\n    spirit of so much charity, love, and goodness towards his\n    fellow Christians, who may fall into some lesser differences of\n    opinion, as becomes a follower of the blessed Jesus, his Master\n    and mine. In the practical part of his labours and ministry,\n    he hath sufficiently shown himself most happily furnished with\n    all proper gifts and talents to lead persons of all ranks\n    and ages into serious piety and strict religion. I esteem it\n    a considerable honour which the Providence of God hath done\n    me, when it makes use of me as an instrument in His hands to\n    promote the usefulness of this great man in any part of the\n    world; and it is my hearty prayer that our Lord Jesus, the Head\n    of the Church, may bless all his labours with most glorious\n    success, either read or heard, in my native language or in\n    any other tongue. I am, reverend sir, with much sincerity your\n    faithful humble servant, and affectionate brother in the Gospel\n    of our common Lord,\n\n                                                      \u201cISAAC WATTS.\u201d\n\n\u201cThe Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul\u201d is still the best book of\nits kind; but, without doing any dishonour to its great merits, it may be\nsaid that it is built up too much upon a frame-work like that of Scupoli\nand A\u2019Kempis, and we have known readers to whom it has rather been a\nmessage of despair than of mercy. Salvation and spiritual happiness seem\nto be rather in the attainment of some subjective condition, than in the\nfinished work of Christ; the soul seems to be invited rather to brood\nover, or look in upon itself, than to look outward and upward to Christ.\nStill it has been rendered into all the leading languages in Europe. But\nit is in his hymns that the influence of Doddridge most resembles that of\nhis friend. His hymns have been spoken of as a kind of spiritual amber:\nbut that term, appropriate as it is, is rather descriptive of hymns in\ngeneral; are they not all pieces of secreted spiritual electricity,\nrare and rich in spiritual emotion? And many of Doddridge\u2019s have an\nineffable beauty. Logan, the Scotch poet, has the doubtful reputation\nof the authorship of several very sweet hymns; we say doubtful, because\nthe authorship turns rather ominously towards the more likely genius of\nMichael Bruce; but, in any case, the famous hymn, so sanctified in almost\nevery Scotch household, as it rises to the old tune of Martyrdom\u2014\n\n    O God of Bethel, by whose hand,\n\nought not to be regarded as his. It may not be uninteresting to notice\ntogether the variations in the two hymns:\n\n    LOGAN.\n\n    O God of Bethel! by Whose hand\n      Thy people still are fed;\n    Who through this weary pilgrimage\n      Hast all our fathers led;\n\n    Our vows, our prayers, we now present\n      Before Thy throne of grace.\n    God of our fathers! be the God\n      Of their succeeding race.\n\n    Through each perplexing path of life,\n      Our wandering footsteps guide:\n    Give us each day our daily bread,\n      And raiment fit provide.\n\n    O spread Thy covering wings around,\n      Till all our wanderings cease,\n    And at our Father\u2019s loved abode\n      Our souls arrive in peace.\n\n    Such blessings from Thy gracious hand,\n      Our humble prayers implore;\n    And Thou shalt be our chosen God\n      And portion ever more.\n\n    DODDRIDGE.\n\n    O God of Jacob, by Whose hand\n      Thine Israel still is fed,\n    Who through this weary pilgrimage\n      Hast all our fathers led;\n\n    To Thee our humble vows we raise,\n      To Thee address our prayer,\n    And in Thy kind and faithful breast\n      Deposit all our care.\n\n    If Thou through each perplexing path,\n      Wilt be our constant guide:\n    If Thou wilt daily bread supply,\n      And raiment will provide;\n\n    If Thou wilt spread Thy shield around,\n      Till these our wanderings cease,\n    And at our Father\u2019s loved abode\n      Our souls arrive in peace;\n\n    To Thee, as to our covenant-God,\n      We\u2019ll our whole selves resign;\n    And count that not our tenth alone,\n      But all we have is Thine.\n\nIt is not generally known that Doddridge pursued for many years the\npractice of Watts\u2014perhaps he derived it from him\u2014of writing a hymn\nafter each or many of his sermons, so that the volume of his hymns is a\ntolerably large one, numbering three hundred and forty-seven. Many of\nthem have great evangelical tenderness and beauty; we do not remember\nthat they ever depart from a good and correct taste; they never soar up\nto Watts\u2019 daring heights, but they are often very sweet and exquisite;\nthey are like the notes of a nightingale in the depths of evening\nshades, or sometimes like dove-like wings flashing near to the earth, but\nin the bright sunshine, \u201cwings tipped with silver, or feathers of yellow\ngold.\u201d And, perhaps, we appreciate rather more the frequent ecstasy of\nhis hymns in the memory of the fact that the story of his own life shows\nhim not to have been incapable of human passion.\n\nTo Doddridge we are indebted for a pleasing illustration of the early\nreception of Watts\u2019 sacred verses; Southey has quoted it in his life\nof Watts; the incident shows that the hymns, in spite of the sneers of\nBradbury, were hailed with much delight, as supplying a very great want,\nnot only in public but domestic service. The letter from Doddridge is\ndated 1731.\n\n\u201cTill heaven is enriched by your removal thither, I hope, sir, to find\nin you a counsellor and a friend, if God should continue my life, and I\ncannot but admire the goodness of Providence in honouring me with the\nfriendship of such a person. I can truly say your name was in the number\nof those which were dearest to me long before I ever saw you. Yet, since\nI have known you, I cannot but find something of a more tender pleasure\nin the thought of your successful various services in the advancement\nof the best causes, that of real, vital, practical Christianity. What\nhappened under my observation a few days ago gave me joy with regard to\nyou, which is yet so warm in my mind, that I hope, sir, you will pardon\nmy relating the occasion of it. On Wednesday last I was preaching in a\nbarn to a pretty large assembly of plain country people at a village a\nfew miles off. After a sermon from Hebrews vi. 12, we sang one of your\nhymns (which, if I remember right, was the 140th of the second book).\nAnd in that part of the worship I had the satisfaction to observe tears\nin the eyes of several of the auditory, and after the service was over,\nsome of them told me that they were not able to sing, so deeply were\ntheir minds affected with it, and the clerk in particular told me he\ncould hardly utter the words of it.[27] These were most of them poor\npeople who work for their living. On the mention of your name, I found\nthey had read several of your books with great delight, and that your\nhymns and psalms were almost their daily entertainments. And when one of\nthe company said, \u2018What if Dr. Watts should come down to Northampton?\u2019\nanother replied, with a remarkable warmth, \u2018The very sight of him would\nbe like an ordinance to me!\u2019 I mention the thing just as it was, and am\npersuaded it is but a familiar, natural specimen of what often occurs\namongst a multitude of Christians who never saw your face. Nor do I by\nany means intend it as a compliment to a genius capable of entertaining\nby the same compositions the greatest and the meanest of mankind, but\nto remind you, dear sir (with all the deference and humility due to a\nsuperior character), how much you owe to Him who has honoured you as the\ninstrument of such extensive service. Had Providence cast my lot near\nyou, I should joyfully have embraced the most frequent opportunities\nof improving my understanding and warming my heart by conversing with\nyou, which would surely have been greatly for my advantage as a tutor,\na minister, and a Christian. As it is, I will omit none which may fall\nin my way; and when I regret that I can enjoy no more of you here, will\ncomfort myself with the thoughts of that blessed state where I hope for\never to dwell with you, and to join with you in sweeter and sublimer\nsongs than you have taught the Church below.\u201d\n\nOne of the most notable persons who crossed the life of Dr. Doddridge\nwas Colonel James Gardiner: the stern soldier loved the gentle Doctor,\nand not less did the gentle spirit of the Doctor attach itself firmly\nto the stern soldier. Another instance of the singular hinges on which\nfriendships are suspended. Doddridge wrote his life, and it created\nno little sensation, especially in those circles to which Colonel\nGardiner belonged. One of the last letters of the Countess of Hertford\nto Dr. Watts refers so distinctly to this book and to the character of\nDoddridge, that it may appropriately find a place here:\n\n                                      \u201cPERCY LODGE, _Nov. 15, 1747_.\n\n    \u201cREVEREND SIR,\n\n    \u201cThe last time I troubled you with a letter was to return you\n    thanks for your work on the \u201cGlory of Christ,\u201d a subject which\n    can never be exhausted, or ever thought of without calling for\n    all the praise which our hearts are capable of in our present\n    imperfect state. My gratitude to you is again awakened by\n    the obligation I am under (and, indeed, the whole Christian\n    Church) to you for giving Dr. Doddridge the plan, and engaging\n    him to write his excellent book of \u201cThe Rise and Progress\n    of Religion in the Soul.\u201d I have read it with the utmost\n    attention and pleasure, and, I would hope, with some advantage\n    to myself, unless I should be so unhappy as to find the\n    impression it has made on my heart wear off like the morning\n    dew which passeth away, which God in His mercy avert. If you\n    have a correspondence with him, I could wish you would convey\n    my thanks to him, and the assurance that I shall frequently\n    remember him in my humble (though weak) address to the throne\n    of Almighty Grace (and which I know myself unworthy to look up\n    to any otherwise than through the merits and sufferings of our\n    blessed Saviour), that he may go on to spread the knowledge and\n    practice of his doctrine, and that he may add numbers to the\n    Church, and finally hear those blessed words, \u2018Well done, thou\n    good and faithful servant, enter thou into thy Master\u2019s joy.\u2019\n\n    \u201cI cannot help mentioning to you the manner of this book\n    falling into my hands, as I think there was something\n    providential in it. About four months ago my poor lord had\n    so totally lost his appetite that his physician thought it\n    necessary for him to go to Bath. I was not a moment in doubt\n    whether I should attend him there, because I knew it was my\n    duty, and, besides, I could not have been easy to be absent\n    when I hoped my care might be of some use. Yet I undertook the\n    journey with a weight upon my spirits, and a reluctance which\n    is not to be described, though I concealed it from him. Since\n    the great affliction with which it pleased Almighty God to\n    visit me by the death of a most valuable and only son, I found\n    myself happiest in almost an entire retreat from the world, and\n    being of a sudden called into a place where I remembered to\n    have seen the utmost of its hurry and vanity exerted, terrified\n    my imagination to the last degree, and I shed tears every time\n    I was alone at the thought of what I expected to encounter; yet\n    this dreaded change has, by the goodness of God, proved one\n    of the happiest periods in my life, and I can look back upon\n    no part of it with greater thankfulness and satisfaction. I\n    had the comfort to see my Lord Hertford recovering his health\n    by the use of those waters as fast as I could hope for. I\n    found it was no longer necessary, as formerly, to avoid giving\n    offence, to be always or frequently in company; I enjoyed\n    the conversation of two worthy old friends, whom I did not\n    expect to meet there, and had an opportunity of renewing my\n    acquaintance with Lady Huntingdon, and admiring that truly\n    Christian spirit which seems to animate the whole course of\n    her life; and, as I seldom went out, I read a great deal, and\n    Frederick, the bookseller, used to send the new books which he\n    received on the waggon nights, of which I kept what I chose,\n    and sent back the rest. One night he sent me an account of some\n    remarkable passages relating to the life of Colonel Gardiner;\n    as I had known this gentleman in his unconverted state, and\n    often heard with admiration the sudden and thorough change of\n    his conduct for many years, it gave me curiosity to read a book\n    which seemed to promise me some information upon that subject.\n    I was so touched with the account given of it that I could not\n    help speaking of it to almost everybody I saw; among others,\n    the Dowager Lady Hyndford came to make me a visit in the\n    morning, and as I knew she was of his country, and had lived\n    much in it, I began to talk to her of the book, and happened to\n    name the author. Upon which she said she would believe whatever\n    he wrote, for he was a truly good man, and had wrote upon the\n    \u2018Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul\u2019 in a manner which\n    she was sure would please me. She gave me the title in writing,\n    and I bought the book the day before I left Bath. I have now\n    been at home three weeks, and have already had the pleasure\n    to engage several others to read it, who, I hope, will think\n    of it as I do. I would not wish to trouble you to write to me\n    yourself, but a letter from your amanuensis to let me know how\n    you enjoy your health, and whether you are still carrying on\n    some work of your pen to the glory of our great Master, would\n    be a very sincere pleasure to me. Let me beg to be remembered\n    in your prayers, for I am every day more sensible of the\n    imperfection of my own, and yet, I hope, my heart is sincere in\n    its desires, that it may be brought to a perfect conformity and\n    submission to the will of my heavenly Father. My Lord Hertford\n    always mentions you with regard, and will be glad of your\n    acceptance of the assurance of his friendship.\n\n                \u201cI am, with an affectionate esteem, Sir,\n\n            \u201cYour most faithful and obliged humble servant,\n\n                                                      \u201cF. HERTFORD.\u201d\n\nIt is impossible not to feel that, viewed from many aspects, Philip\nDoddridge must have been Watts\u2019 most congenial friend. The largest\nportion of Watts\u2019 work was done before they knew each other, but\nfriendships founded in sympathy ripen very rapidly, and the difference\nof years is very slightly felt where there is a great and happy\ncongeniality of hearts. Watts was not a glowing correspondent, but none\nof his letters are so tender as those to Doddridge, to whom he writes\nas his \u201cdear and valuable friend,\u201d and always his \u201caffectionate brother\nand fellow servant,\u201d and the letters warm greatly as the correspondence\nincreases, Doddridge always looked up to, and spoke of, Watts in terms\nof extraordinary reverence and affection; in their work they were\nvery similar; Doddridge\u2019s nature was smaller than his friend\u2019s, but\nin its measure it was very harmonious and perfect. Watts had a fine\nmetaphysical sagacity, and the keenness with which he analyzed never\ninterfered for a moment with the clearness of visions by which he stepped\nfrom the discrete to the concrete, and from parts to the whole; hence,\nnotwithstanding his fair and catholic nature, he appears to have been\nmuch more absolutely dogmatic than Doddridge, and it was perhaps the\ndefect of this great man\u2019s teaching that from the fatal facility which\nbrought him into contact with every class and shade of opinion, the lines\nof his more absolute creed were not fixed with sufficient distinctness:\nbut from his tutorship there passed forth a variety of men who all\ndelighted to confess their obligations to Doddridge,\u2014Hugh Farmer, Andrew\nKippis, Job Orton, Benjamin Fawcett, and, if not the most scholarly, that\nbeautiful and well-known teacher, who realized perhaps beyond any his\ntutor\u2019s spirit and his tutor\u2019s peculiar power, Risdon Darracott. Such was\nDoddridge, without some notice and knowledge of whom a review of the life\nand times, the friends and labours of Watts would be incomplete.\n\nOne hundred and twenty years have passed away since Philip Doddridge\ndied, but his name and many of his works are still as sweet and\nfragrant as ever. His \u201cLife of Colonel Gardiner\u201d is still one of the\nmost interesting of religious biographies; his \u201cFamily Expositor\u201d still\nholds its place in the family; his theological lectures are still an\ninvaluable curriculum; his correspondence is full of entertainment and\ninterest; his hymns are still sung in all our churches, and that to\nwhich we have referred, which ought assuredly to be spoken of as his, \u201cO\nGod of Bethel,\u201d sounded the other day down the aisles of Westminster,\nas the body of Livingstone was lowered into the grave. Doddridge\u2019s\nbody, of course, was denied a resting-place at Lisbon by the civil\nand ecclesiastical authorities, but it was permitted to repose in the\nburying-ground of the English Factory. The great earthquake, which\noccurred shortly after, left his grave undisturbed, and it is a spot of\nholy ground unto this day.[28]\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX.\n\nThe Countess of Hertford and Mrs. Rowe.\n\n\nOne of the most considerable of Watts\u2019 correspondents and apparently\nintimate friends, was Frances, Countess of Hertford, afterwards Duchess\nof Somerset. This lady was the daughter of the Honourable Mr. Thynne,\nbrother to Lord Weymouth; she married Algernon, Earl of Hertford, son\nof Charles Seymour, Duke of Somerset, who succeeded to the honours and\nestates of his father on December 2nd, 1748, _i.e._ about a week after\nthe death of Dr. Watts. The Countess appears to have been a woman of\ngreat piety, amiability, and accomplishments. Thomson, in his \u201cSeasons,\u201d\naddresses her:\n\n    \u201cO Hertford, fitted or to shine in courts\n    With unaffected grace, or walk the plain\n    With innocence and meditation joined\n    In soft assemblage, listen to my song,\n    Which thy own season paints; when Nature all\n    Is blooming, and benevolent like thee.\u201d\n\nA collection of select letters, published by Mr. Hull, in two volumes,\nincludes eleven written by the Duchess, and they have been well\ncharacterized as exhibiting rectitude of heart, delicacy of sentiment,\nand a truly classic ease and elegance of style; tinged with an air of\nmelancholy, occasioned by the loss of her only son, Lord Beauchamp,\nto whom she so frequently refers in her letters to Dr. Watts. His\ndeath at Bologna, in 1744, cast a settled gloom over her mind, for he\nwas a youth who seemed to give evidences of superiority and worth of\ncharacter calculated to confer honour on the exalted station to which\nhe was destined, had his life been spared. Her letters all breathe the\nspirit of unaffected simple piety and resignation; and from the time of\nher husband\u2019s elevation to the dukedom, her life was subjected to the\nexperience of intense troubles, first, in the death of her own son, and\nvery shortly after, in 1750, the death of the Duke, her husband; and it\nis with reference to these occasions of grief that she writes to Lady\nLuxbrough, September 9th, 1750: \u201cYou are very obliging in the concern you\nexpress for the scenes of sorrow I have passed through. I have indeed\nsuffered deeply, but, when I consider it is the will of God, who never\nchastises His poor creatures but for their good, and reflect at the same\ntime how unworthy I was of these blessings, which I now lament the loss\nof, I lay my hand upon my mouth, and dare not repine, but hope I can with\ntruth appeal to Him in the following words: \u2018Such sorrow is sent that\nnone may oppose His holy will. Let me sigh and offer up all my sighs to\nHim! Let me mourn, and in the meantime bless His name in the midst of my\nsorrow.\u2019\u201d\n\nShe did not herself long survive, only till July 7th, 1754, leaving an\nonly daughter, who subsequently became Duchess of Northumberland. The\nCountess herself was the great and intimate friend likewise of Mrs. Rowe;\nand when this lady died, to the Countess and to Dr. Watts she left those\nconfidential letters to which reference may be made in subsequent pages\nof the present volume. How far she drew the Doctor from his retreat, how\noften he visited the lady at her various houses, we have no means of\nknowing; the friendship continued certainly from 1729 to the close of\nWatts\u2019 life, and it was probably commenced some time before this date,\nfor the terms of the first letters are those of warm friendship. In 1731\nshe refers to her children, especially to the son, who was to be in\nafter years a source of such grief to the mother\u2019s heart, and she says,\n\u201cMy young people send their services to you; I assure you my little boy\nhas grown a great proficient in your \u2018Songs for Children,\u2019 and sings\nthem with great pleasure.\u201d The lady herself secretly cultivated the\nrecreation of verse, and sometimes forwarded her fancies in this way to\nthe Doctor, but she says, \u201cI beg the favour of you not to give any copy\nof the enclosed verses, for I would wish my excursions of this kind to\nbe a secret from everybody but you, and a friend or two more, who know\nthat I do not aim at the character of a genius by any attempt of this\nnature, but am led to them merely to amuse a leisure hour, and speak\nthe sentiments of my heart.\u201d She wrote, however, an elegy on Mrs. Rowe,\nwhich called forth an epigram from the Doctor, which was published in his\nposthumous volume of Miscellanies, \u201cRemnants of Time, employed in Prose\nand Verse\u201d:\n\n    Struck with a sight of Philomela\u2019s urn,\n    Eusebia weeps and calls the Muse to mourn;\n    While from her lips the tuneful sorrows fell,\n    The groves confess a rising Philomel.\n\nWriting from the Hermitage on St. Leonard\u2019s Hill, she says: \u201cI return\nyou thanks for the epigram you were so good as to send me, and should\nthink myself very happy if anything of mine could deserve to show the\njoy I should feel in being able to imitate Mrs. Rowe in the smallest\ninstance. I have only two meditations of hers, which she gave me with\nthe strongest injunctions not to let anybody see them, lest they should\nbe thought too rapturous; but as I conclude she would not have included\n_you_ among those from whom she meant they should be concealed, I will\nhave them copied if you desire it.\u201d There are in her letters very\npleasing indications of an amiable mind and heart; she writes to him\nof the books which have met her in the course of her reading, and her\nremarks are characterized by a quiet wisdom and judgment: \u201cMy Lord and\nBetty (the future Duchess of Northumberland) are in London, so that my\nson and his governor are my only companions at present; but we pass our\ntime agreeably enough between reading, walking, and such other amusements\nas this place in which we are and the season of the year afford us; we\nhave been lately reading \u2018Leonidas,\u2019[29] in which I think there are many\nfine thoughts; but I hear the town are much divided in their sentiments\nabout it, since one part are for preferring it to Milton, and others for\nlevelling it to the lowest rank of poetry. I confess neither of these\nappear to me a just representation of it. If you have read it, I shall be\nglad to know your thoughts of it.\u201d In another letter she remarks upon the\npoet Pope: \u201cI think everybody must wish a muse like Mr. Pope\u2019s were more\ninclined to exert itself on Divine and good-natured subjects; but I am\nafraid satire is his highest talent, for I think his \u2018Universal Prayer\u2019\nis by no means equal to some other of his works, and I think his tenth\nstanza:\n\n    Teach me to feel another\u2019s woe,\n      To hide the faults I see;\n    That mercy I to others show,\n      That mercy show to me:\n\nan instance how blind the wisest men may be to the errors of their own\nhearts, for he certainly did not mean to imprecate such a proportion\nof vengeance on himself as he is too apt to load those with whom he\ndislikes; nor would he wish to have his own failings exposed to the eye\nof the world with all the invective and ridicule with which he publishes\nthose of his fellow creatures.\u201d The following is one of the most\ninteresting and favourable letters from the many which Dr. Gibbons has\npreserved of the correspondence extending over so many years:\n\n                                                   \u201c_Jan. 17, 1739._\n\n    \u201cSIR,\n\n    \u201cI am truly sorry to find you complain of any decay, but I\n    am sure if you have any it must he bodily, and has no other\n    effect than that which both Mr. Waller[30] and yourself have\n    so happily described as letting in light upon the soul. I\n    never read anything in life that pleased me better than your\n    meditations on Revelation x., and I hope I shall not only\n    delight in reading the words, but lay the substance of it\n    to my heart, to which end allow me to beg your prayers as an\n    assistance.\n\n    \u201cMy lord\u2019s state of suffering\u2014for he is again confined to\n    his bed by the gout\u2014gives me little opportunity and less\n    inclination to lose much time in the gay amusements which\n    are apt to divert other people from the thoughts of their\n    dissolution; but I am not sure that a life of care and anxiety\n    has not as bad an effect by fixing the mind too attentively\n    on the present gloom, which obscures every cheerful ray which\n    would otherwise enliven one\u2019s spirits. I wish I had anything\n    to send more worth your reading than the following verses, but\n    I have so little leisure that I can scarce get time to write\n    letters to the few friends I correspond with. These lines were\n    written one morning in October as I was sitting in a bow-window\n    in my chamber at St. Leonard\u2019s Hill, which looks on a little\n    grove in the garden, and beyond was an extensive view of the\n    forest:\n\n    How lately was yon russet grove\n    The seat of harmony and love!\n    How beauteous all the sylvan scene!\n    The flowers how gay, the trees how green!\n    But now it no such charms can boast,\n    Its music gone, its verdure lost;\n    The changing leaves fall fast away,\n    And all its pride is in decay;\n    Where blossoms deckt the pointed thorn\n    Now hangs the wintry drop forlorn;\n    No longer from the fragrant bush\n    Odours exhale, nor roses blush.\n    Along the late enamelled mead\n    No golden cowslip lifts its head,\n    Scarce can the grass its spires sustain,\n    Chilled by the frost, or drenched with rain.\n    Alas! just thus with life it fares.\n    Our youth like smiling spring appears,\n    Allied to joy, unbroke with cares;\n    But swiftly fly those cheerful hours,\n    Like falling leaves, or fading flowers;\n    We quickly hasten to decline,\n    And ev\u2019ry sprightly joy resign:\n    Then be our heart prepared to leave\n    Those joys, nor at their absence grieve;\n    Sublimer pleasures let us prove,\n    And fix our thoughts on those above,\n    By the bright eye of sacred truth\n    Review the dangers of our youth,\n    Think how by turns wild passions raged,\n    By calm reflection now assuaged,\n    And bless the gentle ev\u2019ning hour,\n    When reason best exerts its power,\n    And drives those tyrants from our breast,\n    Whose empire they too long possest:\n    Devotion comes with grace divine,\n    Around them heavenly glories shine,\n    While ev\u2019ry gloom their rays dispel,\n    And banish the deceits of hell;\n    Ambition now no more aspires,\n    Contentment mod\u2019rates our desires,\n    From envy free we can behold\n    Another\u2019s honours, or his gold,\n    Nor jealousy our rest alarms,\n    No longer slaves to mortal charms.\n    With prudence, patience comes along,\n    Who smiles beneath oppressive wrong:\n    If then such peaceful heav\u2019nly guests\n    Age introduces to our breasts,\n    Can we his soft approaches fear,\n    Or heave a sigh, or drop a tear,\n    Because our outward forms decay,\n    And time our vigour steals away?\n    Should we regret our short-lived bloom,\n    Which, could it last us to the tomb,\n    Must quickly there to dust consume?\n    If thus life\u2019s progress we survey,\n    View what it gives, what takes away,\n    We shall with thankful hearts declare,\n    It leaves us all that\u2019s worth our care.\n\n    \u201cI am importuned by a very valuable old woman, who is declining\n    apace, to beg your prayers. She took me from my nurse, and\n    if I have any good in me I owe it to her. She was trusted\n    by my mother with the care both of my sister and myself, and\n    has lived with me ever since. But now, though past seventy,\n    she cannot meet death without terror, and yet I believe I may\n    venture to answer that she has always lived under the strictest\n    sense of religion; but lowness of spirit, joined to many bodily\n    infirmities, will shed darkness on the most cheerful minds, and\n    hers never was of that cast. I fear she has very few months, if\n    weeks, to come on earth, and a notice that you will grant her\n    request would make her, I believe, pass them with some comfort.\n    I am forced to take another page to assure you of my lord\u2019s\n    compliments, and those of my young people; the two latter are\n    very well. I have no other view in sending the above verses but\n    to prove that my confidence in your friendship has received no\n    alteration from the length of time which has passed since I had\n    an opportunity of assuring you in person with how true a regard\n\n                              \u201cI am, Sir,\n\n                  \u201cYour most faithful humble servant,\n\n                                                      \u201cF. HERTFORD.\u201d\n\nIt is pleasant in these letters to notice the indications of a quiet and\nretreating spirit. Upon her return, after a considerable absence, to the\nfamily seat near Marlborough, she says: \u201cI have the pleasure of finding\nmy garden extremely improved in the two years I have been absent from it,\nsome little alterations I had ordered are completed; the trees which I\nleft small ones are grown to form an agreeable shade, and I have reason\nto bless God for the pleasantness of the place which is allotted me to\npass many of my retired hours in; may I make use of them to fit me for\nmy last, and that I may do so, allow me to beg the continuation of your\nprayers.\u201d She several times refers to her \u201cdear old nurse,\u201d the \u201cvery\nvaluable old woman\u201d mentioned in the lengthy letter quoted above: \u201cYour\ngood prayers for poor Rothery have met with unexpected success, she is\nso much recovered that I begin to think she will get entirely well, and\nif she does I think nothing of that kind has since I can remember looked\nmore like a miraculous operation of the healing power of the Almighty.\nI hope the same Divine mercy will long preserve you a blessing to the\nage, and that you will find your strength return with the warm weather.\u201d\nThis was written from Windsor Forest; the next month she writes from\nMarlborough: \u201cMy poor old woman has got hither, contrary to her own and\nall our expectations; she has the deepest gratitude for your goodness to\nher, and begs you will accept her thanks; she is still very weak, and I\nfancy will hardly get over the autumn.\u201d\n\nThis lady\u2019s letters exhibit a vein of intelligence and interesting\nreading in pleasant contrast to the frivolity of most of the courtly\nladies of that age. \u201cI have just had the oddest pamphlet sent me I ever\nsaw in my life, called \u2018Amusemens Philosophiques sur le Language des\nB\u00eates.\u2019 It was burnt by the hands of the common executioner at Paris, and\nthe priest who wrote it banished till he made a formal retraction of it,\nand yet I think it very plain by the style that the man was either in\njest or crazed. It is by no means wanting of wit, but extremely far from\na system of probability.\u201d Again, in another letter: \u201cI have forgotten\nwhether in any of my later letters I ever named to you a little book\nnewly translated from the Italian, by the same Mrs. Carter who has a\ncopy of verses printed in the beginning of Mrs. Rowe\u2019s works, occasioned\nby her death. The book she has now translated is Sir Isaac Newton\u2019s\n\u2018Doctrine of Light and Colours made easy for the Ladies.\u2019 My daughter\nand I have both read it with great pleasure, and flatter ourselves that\nwe at least understand some parts of it.\u201d It would be interesting to know\nwho was the lady referred to in the following letter\u2014it was probably Mrs.\nElizabeth Carter; the work of the Doctor\u2019s to which so marked a reference\nis made was undoubtedly his discourses \u201cOn the World to Come,\u201d which had\nonly just been published, a copy of which he had forwarded to her, and\nwhich had been acknowledged two or three weeks before in a letter from\nhis \u201cfaithfully affectionate servant, F. Hertford.\u201d\n\n                                      \u201cMARLBOROUGH, _July 30, 1739_.\n\n    \u201cSIR,\n\n    \u201cI would much sooner have written to you to thank you for the\n    favour of your last letter, had I enjoyed more leisure; but I\n    have had a friend with me this last month who has engrossed a\n    good many of those hours which I used to employ in writing to\n    my correspondents. She is a very pious and religious, as well\n    as agreeable woman, and has seen enough of the world in her\n    younger years to teach her to value its enjoyments and fear its\n    vexations no more than they deserve, by which happy knowledge\n    she has brought her mind and spirits to the most perfect\n    state of calmness I ever saw; and her conversation seems to\n    impart the blessing to all who partake of her discourse. By\n    this you will judge that I have passed my time very much to\n    my satisfaction while she was with me; and, though I have not\n    written to you, you have shared my time with her, for almost\n    all the hours I passed alone I have employed in reading your\n    works, which for ever represent to my imagination the idea of\n    a ladder or flight of steps, since every volume seems to rise\n    a step nearer the language of heaven, and there is a visible\n    progression toward that better country through every page; so\n    that, though all breathe piety and just reason, the last seems\n    to crown the whole, till you shall again publish something to\n    enlighten a dark and obstinate age, for I must believe that\n    the manner in which you treat Divine subjects is more likely\n    to reform and work upon the affections of your readers than\n    that of any other writer now living. I hope God will in mercy\n    to many thousands, myself in particular, prolong your life\n    many years. I own this does not seem a kind wish to you, but I\n    think you will be content to bear the infirmities of flesh some\n    years longer to be an instrument in the hands of God toward the\n    salvation of your weak and distressed brethren. The joys of\n    heaven cannot fade, but will be as glorious millions of ages to\n    come as they are now, and what a moment will the longest life\n    appear when it comes to be compared with eternity!\u201d\n\nUpon the death of Mrs. Rowe, as she had left her meditations for the\nhands of Dr. Watts, when he proposed to publish the volume with his\npreface, he also very naturally proposed to dedicate it to their friend\nthe Countess. With extraordinary modesty, however, she shrunk from\nthis. She writes: \u201cThe sincere esteem I have for you makes it very\ndifficult for me to oppose anything you desire, and it is doubly so in an\ninstance where I might have an opportunity of indulging so justifiable\na pride as I should feel in letting the public see this fresh mark of\nyour partiality to me, but as I am apprehensive that the envy such a\ndistinction would raise against me might draw some vexation with it, I\nhope you will have the goodness to change the dedication into a letter\nto a friend, without giving me any such appellation.\u201d In another letter,\nwith characteristic modesty, she says: \u201cI can, with the strictest truth,\naffirm that I do not know any distinction upon earth that I could feel a\ntruer pleasure in receiving were I deserving of it, but as I am forced to\nsee how much I fall below the idea which the benevolence of your nature\nhas formed of me, it teaches me to humble myself by that very incident\nwhich might administer a laudable pride to a more worthy person. If I\nam constrained to acknowledge this mortifying truth, you may believe\nthere are many people in the world who look upon me with more impartial\neyes than self-love will allow me to do; and others, who perhaps think\nI enjoy more of this world\u2019s goods than I either merit or than falls to\nthe common lot, look at me with envious and malignant views, and are glad\nof every opportunity to debase me or those who they believe entertain a\nfavourable opinion of me. I would hope that I have never done anything,\nwilfully I am sure I have not, to raise any such sentiments in the breast\nof the meanest person upon earth, but yet experience has convinced me\nthat I have not been happy enough to escape them. For these reasons, sir,\nI must deny myself the pleasure and the pride I should have in so public\na mark of your friendship and candour, and beg that if you will design\nme the honour of joining any address to me with those valuable remains\nof Mrs. Rowe, that you will either retrench the favourable expressions\nyou intended to insert, or else give me no other title at the top of it\nthan that of a friend of yours and hers, an appellation which, in the\nsincerity of my soul, I am prouder of than I could be of the most pompous\nname that human grandeur can lay claim to.\u201d\n\nShe shrunk from all observation, and in another letter says, \u201cI will\ntrespass so far on your good nature as to beg you will leave out whatever\nwill imply my attempting to write poetry; but if there be any among the\nthings you have of mine which you think worth placing among yours I\nshall have just cause to be pleased at seeing them come abroad in such\ncompany, if you will have the goodness to conceal my name, either under\nthat of Eusebia or A Friend, a title which I shall think myself happy\nto deserve.\u201d This letter enables us to identify four poetical pieces,\nentitled \u201cA Rural Meditation,\u201d \u201cA Penitential Thought,\u201d \u201cA Midnight\nHymn,\u201d and the \u201cDying Christian\u2019s Hope,\u201d inserted in Watts\u2019 Miscellanies,\nand attributed to Eusebia, as the compositions of the Countess. It may\nnot be unpleasant to the reader to have brought before him some of these\nverses, which will show that the modesty of the Countess need not have\nbeen dictated by the poverty of her expression:\n\n    A RURAL MEDITATION.\n\n    Here in the tuneful groves and flow\u2019ry fields,\n    Nature a thousand various beauties yields:\n    The daisy and tall cowslip we behold\n    Arrayed in snowy white, or freckled gold.\n    The verdant prospect cherishes our sight,\n    Affording joy unmixed, and calm delight\n    The forest-walk, and venerable shade,\n    Wide-spreading lawns, bright rills, and silent glade,\n    With a religious awe our souls inspire,\n    And to the heav\u2019ns our raptured thoughts aspire,\n    To Him who sits in majesty on high,\n    Who turned the starry arches of the sky;\n    Whose word ordained the silver Thames to flow,\n    Raised all the hills, and laid the valleys low;\n    Who taught the nightingale in shades to sing,\n    And bade the skylark warble on the wing;\n    Makes the young steer obedient till the land,\n    And lowing heifers own the milker\u2019s hand;\n    Calms the rough sea, and stills the raging wind,\n    And rules the passions of the human mind.\n\nThis correspondence sets in a very beautiful light the character of this\namiable and excellent lady, no doubt one of Watts\u2019 attached friends, and\nintercourse with whom, through the long period of twenty years, must have\nbeen to him a frequent source of rest and enjoyment. When their intimacy\ncommenced she was in immediate attendance on the Queen Caroline, wife of\nGeorge I. In those days the attempts which subsequently were made by the\nCountess of Huntingdon to create a feeling of piety and purity in the\nneighbourhood of the court had not been commenced, the manners of the\ngreat were not favourable to goodness and virtue, and the general spirit\nof the time brings out into strong relief the character of this gentle\nand noble lady; seldom apparently free from illness, her thoughts usually\nmove round those loftiest sources of consolation in which the highest or\nthe humblest equally find the surest and most abiding alleviation and\nrepose.\n\nIn 1737 Watts sustained a loss in the innermost and most intimate circle\nof his acquaintance by the death of Mrs. Rowe. His early relations\nwith this lady have round them some traditions of a tender mystery; it\nis generally supposed that upon his side at one time his feelings for\nMiss Singer, her maiden name, were something more than those of mere\nfriendship. The charms of the lady appear to have been considerable, and\nprocured her previous to marriage many admirers, among others Prior, the\npoet, who sought the lady\u2019s hand in vain, and in his poem on \u201cLove and\nFriendship\u201d expresses himself after the most approved fashion of the\ndisconsolate Werthers of that day, informing her that\u2014\n\n    He dies in woe, that thou mayst live in peace.\n\nIt would seem that Watts\u2019 attachment was some time talked about\nextensively, for Young refers to it in one of his satires:\n\n    What angels would those be, who thus excel\n    In theologies, could they sew as well!\n    Yet why should not the fair her text pursue?\n    Can she more decently the Doctor woo?\n    Isaac, a brother of the canting strain,\n    When he has knocked at his own skull in vain,\n    To beauteous Marcia often will repair,\n    With a dark text to light it at the fair.\n    Oh how his pious soul exults to find\n    Such love for holy men in womankind!\n    Charmed with her learning, with what rapture he\n    Hangs on her bloom, like an industrious bee;\n    Hums round about her, and with all his power,\n    Extracts sweet wisdom from so fair a flower.\n\nMore respectfully, Mrs. Barbauld appears to allude to the circumstance\nwhen addressing Mrs. Rowe, she says:\n\n    Thynne, Carteret, Blackmore, Orrery approved,\n    And Prior praised, and noble Hertford loved,\n    Seraphic Ken, and tuneful Watts were thine,\n    And virtue\u2019s noblest champions filled the line.\n\nBut there is no reason, beyond the idle chatter of the town, to suppose\nthat there was more than ardent friendship between the two; Watts was not\na man ever likely to have been refused in marriage, and the talk appears\nonly to have originated from the fact that people in general suppose\nthat there can be no community of taste, and intellectual intercourse,\nand high and even ardent friendship between opposite sexes without\nits pointing to marriage. That it was not so in this instance appears\ncertain, not only from the very high regard Mrs. Rowe always entertained\nfor Watts, but from the terms of the letter addressed to him to be\ndelivered after her death; we would rather suppose it possible, although\nwe do not assert it, that Elizabeth Singer might have been not indisposed\nto a relationship the idea of which was not encouraged by the Doctor, and\nwhich he deferred to the calmer communion of intimate friendship and\nhigh esteem. The proofs that this was the case are not very clear if the\ncircumstance is probable. However it might be, it never interfered with\ntheir friendship which continued not only unbroken to death, but beyond\ndeath.\n\nMrs. Rowe was a lady quite famous in her own time; to an elevated piety\nshe united in her style of composition many of the faults of the age in\nwhich she lived; her works were tinctured by an ardent mode of expression\nlittle in harmony with the more frigid expressions of our own day. For\nDr. Watts she entertained the highest esteem. She died suddenly, but\nin her cabinet were found letters for two or three of the friends who\nheld the highest place in her affections, especially for the Countess\nof Hertford and Dr. Watts; the letter to the Doctor was accompanied\nby the manuscript of her \u201cDevout Exercises,\u201d which she requested him\nto publish after a complete and thorough revision. A portion of his\ncorrespondence with the Countess upon this we have already quoted; the\nvolume is dedicated to the Countess as Mrs. Rowe\u2019s intimate friend,\nand Watts, whose mind and heart were now in a state of quiet and holy\ncalm, dispassionately reviews the merits of her various works; he does\nnot altogether vindicate her ardent style, on the other hand, he is\nfar from severely reprehending it; he remarks how in former years even\ngrave divines had expressed the fervours of devout love to the Saviour\nmuch in the style of the Song of Solomon, and says, \u201cI must confess that\nseveral of my compositions in verse written in younger life were led by\nthose examples unwarily into this track.\u201d Indeed, many of his hymns,\nespecially those which are paraphrases of the Song of Solomon, are quite\nas ardent as anything we meet with in the writings of Mrs. Rowe. The love\nof Christ is a principle, but we should be sorry to think that in the\nheart of the believer it may not glow with all the fervour and force of\na great passion; the language of the Apostle Paul shows us that it may,\nbut his language is not coloured by the singular ecstasy of the Oriental\nmind; it is fervid, but the line is very distinctly marked between the\nexpressions of a merely human passion, which, however pure upon the\nheart which utters them, may by hearts less holy and elevated seem to\nbe almost the utterance of license, and even to colder though not less\nholy natures may seem to border on profanity. There are Christians still\nwho delight in this doubtful method of expressing and setting forth the\nholiest affections. Watts in all his religious works had at all times\nthe ardent and fervent words of a poetic and imaginative nature, but he\nconsiderably pruned both thought and speech as the years passed in study\nand seclusion brought a riper wisdom; he did not repress the ardours\nof the heart, but he gave to their expression a chastened and colder\nform; he was not satisfied indeed by light without love, but he clothed\nthat love with a more sacred reticence. Mrs. Rowe\u2019s writings have all\nan exceedingly unreticent character, but she lived apparently a holy\nlife, realizing very greatly the ardours which gushed so glowingly from\nher pen, and it says much for all that she was in herself, that through\nso many long years she retained a close and intimate friendship with a\njudgment so wisely balanced, and a nature so simple and domestic, as that\nwhich evidently shines in the character of the Countess of Hertford.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X.\n\nShimei Bradbury.\n\n\nThere was living in London contemporary with Watts one of those ungentle,\nunbeautiful spirits, from whose malignant jealousy few men of eminence\nentirely escape; he appears to have been to Watts what Alexander the\ncoppersmith was to Paul, he did him much evil and sought to do more.\nBradbury was one of the most vehement and virulent spirits of the times,\nhe was infected with the prevalent spirit of railing long before he\nbegan to cast about his Shimei and Rabshakeh pleasantries upon Watts;\nhe was well known for his capabilities in this way, and in 1715 Daniel\nDefoe reproved him in a pamphlet entitled, \u201cA Friendly Epistle by way\nof Reproof, from one of the people called Quakers to Thomas Bradbury, a\ndealer in many words.\u201d The following paragraph illustrates the character\nof the man the pamphlet is intended to represent: \u201cMen, especially,\nThomas, preaching men, as thou art, ought much rather to move their\npeople and their brethren to forbear and forgive one another, than to\nmove and excite them to severities, and to executing revenge upon one\nanother, lest the day come when that which they call justice may be\ndeemed injustice. I counsel thee, therefore, that thou forbear to excite\nthy sons of Belial to do wickedly, but rather that thou preach to them\nthat they repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand; which I meekly\nadvertise thee is the proper duty of thy employment, whereas the other is\nthe work of darkness and tendeth to blood.\u201d\n\nAgain, he says: \u201cI must lead thee by the hand, not by the nose,\nThomas\u2014others have done thee that office already\u2014that thou mayst be\nconvinced, yea, even confounded, for those whom thou hast, with so great\nconfidence, taken on thee to recommend as good men, and men fearing\nGod. I do thee justice, Thomas, and therefore observe in thy behalf\nthat thy modesty would not permit thee to say, \u2018They were men hating\ncovetousness.\u2019\u201d[31]\n\nBradbury was one of those men who, pursuing politics in the pulpit\nwith vehement and intolerant pertinacity, degrade the standard of the\nminister of the Gospel; he was even charged with desiring the blood of\nthe ministers of Queen Anne in the pamphlets of the day, especially in\n\u201cBurnet and Bradbury; or, the Confederacy of the Press and the Pulpit for\nthe Blood of the last Ministry.\u201d[32]\n\nA life of Watts would be quite incomplete which did not give some account\nof his very eminent but now almost forgotten assailant and enemy, Thomas\nBradbury. Born at Wakefield, in Yorkshire, he had all the characteristics\nof a typical Yorkshireman; he was a bold and hearty, and possibly,\nwhatever that may be worth, well-meaning man; he possessed a considerable\namount of natural genius, especially for doubtful drollery and expletive.\nIt is a wonder that his name has not found a record in such histories\nas Macaulay\u2019s and Stanhope\u2019s, for it has a semi-historical interest. He\nwas probably the most representative political Nonconformist among the\nministers in the City of London of his day, and a well-known anecdote\ntells that he was the first to proclaim, as he did from his pulpit, the\naccession of George I. to the throne. It is said that he was walking\nthrough Smithfield in a very pensive and thoughtful mood on Sunday,\nAugust 1st, 1714, when the great \u201cSchism Bill\u201d was about to take effect,\nwhen Bishop Burnet happened to pass in his carriage; the Bishop called to\nhis friend, and inquired into the cause of his great thoughtfulness. \u201cI\nam thinking,\u201d replied Bradbury, \u201cwhether I shall have the constancy and\ncourage of the noble army of martyrs whose ashes are deposited in this\nplace, for I most assuredly expect to see similar times of violence and\npersecution, and that I shall be caused to suffer in a like cause.\u201d\n\nThe Bishop was himself equally zealous with Bradbury for the cause of\nProtestantism; he told him that the Queen was very ill, that she was\ngiven over by her physicians, who expected every hour to be her last;\nand he further said, that he was even then on his way to the Palace to\ninquire the particulars, and that he would despatch a messenger to Mr.\nBradbury with the earliest intelligence of the Queen\u2019s death, and that\nif he should be in the pulpit when the messenger arrived, he should drop\na handkerchief from the gallery as a token of that event. The messenger\nemployed was Mr. John Bradbury, a brother of the preacher, and one in\nthe medical profession. The Queen died while Bradbury was preaching, and\nthe intelligence was conveyed to him by the signal agreed upon; perhaps\nthe preacher may be forgiven if his heart was filled with joy; he indeed\nsuppressed his feelings during the sermon, but in his prayer gave\nthanks to God who had again delivered the nation from the power of evil\ncounsels, and implored a Divine blessing upon his majesty King George and\nthe House of Hanover. He always gloried in being the first who proclaimed\nKing George the First.\n\nThis anecdote gives a fair idea of the character of the man; one more\nutterly unlike Isaac Watts it is impossible to conceive; he was a man\nwhose learning was limited, he had neither taste nor capacity for those\nrefined subtleties either of argument or imagination into which Watts was\nforced by the necessities of controversy in his times; also, Bradbury was\na rugged, rough-and-ready speaker and thinker, possessed of a dangerous\nprompt wit, not always free from a coarse disregard of the feelings of\nothers; nor can we fail to see that there mingled, perhaps unconsciously\nto himself, a considerable amount of jealousy of his more eminent and\nillustrious brother. Before Watts had received his invitation to become\nthe co-pastor or successor of Dr. Chauncy, the congregation had heard\nMr. Bradbury; it is easily understood that the courtly, polished, and\nperhaps fastidious people would scarcely appreciate an eloquence like\nthat of \u201cbold Bradbury\u201d\u2014a term by which Queen Anne designated him. Then,\nat the first signal of his hostility to Watts, one of his own most\ndistinguished people, Watts\u2019 friend, Lord Barrington, forsook him; it was\nperhaps not likely to improve his temper, and Watts, although exceedingly\nfirm in his own convictions, as he had not the strength so neither had\nhe the disposition for any vehement political action, and if he stepped\naside slightly to use his influence in political partisanship, it was\nunfortunately not to aid the particular persons espoused by Bradbury. And\nso it was that in the sermons of this free-spoken man there are handed\ndown to us perhaps the most harsh and unjust words which ever assailed\nthe ministry of Isaac Watts. It was at a later period of life, when Watts\nwas very infirm, that, at a meeting of the ministers in the Redcross\nStreet Library, he rose to propose some resolution, and, with his weakly\nconstitution and feeble voice, he found considerable difficulty in making\nhimself heard, when Bradbury called out to him in the meeting, \u201cBrother\nWatts, shall I speak for you?\u201d The quiet little Doctor turned to him and\nsaid, \u201cWhy, Brother Bradbury, you have often spoken _against_ me.\u201d At\nfirst he had encouraged the idea of Watts\u2019 publication of his Paraphrase\nof the Psalms and of his Hymns, but when they came forth, although they\nproved so acceptable to congregations in general, he continued to use\nthe dull version of Dr. Patrick until his dying day in his own place,\nNew-court Chapel, and prevented their introduction into the service\nat Pinners\u2019 Hall. There, however, on one occasion the clerk happened\nunluckily to give out one of Watts\u2019 pieces; up rose Bradbury immediately,\nexclaiming, \u201cLet us have none of Watts\u2019 _(w)hims_.\u201d\n\nIn all this, and in other such instances, a faithful biographer must see\nthe traces of a good deal of mere jealousy. It is quite an exceptional\ninstance in the life of Watts, and it must seem singular that so sweet\nand gentle a nature should have suffered from the misrepresentations\nof any, and Bradbury has perhaps, even in his grave, been the most\nabiding enemy to Watts\u2019 reputation. It seems scarcely probable that the\nUnitarians could have so audaciously claimed our writer as their own,\nhad not Bradbury set them a wicked example in his sermons. One of the\nmost affecting and earnest passages in the correspondence of Watts is\nhis remonstrance with his unjust brother against unseemly attacks upon\nhim, and misrepresentations of his opinions. Watts, so far as we can\nsee, was never either discourteous or unjust; but he bitterly felt it\nthat while, by his hymns and his treatises, he was attempting to shake\nthe ground of the Arian heresy, his name was, from the pulpit and the\npen, covered with obloquy as injuring and shaking the foundations of the\nmost exalted faith in Christ. Bradbury was not concerned to reply to\narguments, but in a right-down vehement manner to denounce those from\nwhom he differed. He was no metaphysician. Turning over the many volumes\nof his sermons, we find them all characterized by strong evangelical\nstatement, a very happy arrangement of thoughts, and great lucidity\nand apt readiness of expression. He never passed beyond the sense or\nculture of an ordinary audience; it must also be said that he never\nput the bridle on his wit. He was a man who could never find himself\nin the wrong, and who must always have the last word, and that word a\ndisagreeable one. In a most extraordinary manner he could write and say\nthe most abusive and bitter things, and seem quite surprised that the\nperson to whom they were addressed did not take them as expressions of\nkindness. He tells Watts that he is \u201cprofane, conceited, impudent, and\npragmatical;\u201d he says: \u201cYou are mistaken if you think I ever knew, and\nmuch less admired, your mangling, garbling, transforming, etc., so many\nof your Songs of Zion; your notions about psalmody, and your satirical\nflourishes in which you express them, are fitter for one who pays no\nregard to inspiration, than for a Gospel minister, as I may hereafter\nshow in a more public way.\u201d And when Watts mildly demurred to this as a\npersonal reflection, he says, in reply: \u201cShould any one take the liberty\nof burlesquing your poetry, as you have done that of the Most High God,\nyou might call it personal reflection indeed; when I consider that\nmost of those expressions are adopted either by the New Testament or\nthe evangelical prophets, I tremble at your mowing them together, as\nyou were resolved to make the Songs of Zion ridiculous.\u201d Again he says:\n\u201cDo you think that the ministers of London are to stand still while you\ntear in pieces eight great Articles of their faith? And must every one\nwho answers your arguments be accused of personal reflections?\u201d Such is\nthe vein in which this noisy man writes. Watts replies in a spirit of\nsingular meekness; Bradbury, while indulging in the coarsest invective,\nprofesses a large amount of respect and honour, and Watts says: \u201cI am\nalways ready to acknowledge whatsoever personal respect Mr. Bradbury has\nconceived for one of so little merit as I can pretend to; but I know not\nhow to reconcile the profession of so much respect with so many and so\nsevere censures, and with such angry modes of expression, as you have\nbeen pleased to use both in print and in writing.\u201d Vindicating himself\nfor attempting to set the Psalms of David to the service of song, he says:\n\n    \u201cYou tell me that I rival it with David, whether he or I be the\n    sweet psalmist of Israel. I abhor the thought; while yet, at\n    the same time, I am fully persuaded that the Jewish psalm-book\n    was never designed to be the only psalter for the Christian\n    Church; and though we may borrow many parts of the prayers of\n    Ezra, Job, and Daniel, as well as of David, yet if we take them\n    entire as they stand, and join nothing of the Gospel with them,\n    I think there are few of them will be found proper prayers for\n    a Christian Church; and yet, I think, it would be very unjust\n    to say \u2018we rival it with Ezra, Job, etc.\u2019 Surely their prayers\n    are not best for us, since we are commanded to ask everything\n    in the name of Christ. Now, I know no reason why the glorious\n    discoveries of the New Testament should not be mingled with our\n    songs and praises, as well as with our prayers. I give solemn\n    thanks to my Saviour, with all my soul, that He hath honoured\n    me so far as to bring His name and Gospel in a more evident and\n    express manner into Christian psalmody.\n\n    \u201cAnd since I find you have been pleased to make my hymns and\n    imitations of the Psalms, together with their prefaces, the\n    object of your frequent and harsh censures, give me leave\n    to ask you whether I did not consult with you while I was\n    translating the Psalms in this manner, fourteen or fifteen\n    years ago? Whether I was not encouraged by you in this work,\n    even when you fully knew my design, by what I had printed, as\n    well as by conversation? Did you not send me a note, under\n    your own hand, by my brother, with a request that I would form\n    the fiftieth and the hundred and twenty-second Psalms into\n    their proper old metre? And in that note you told me too that\n    one was six lines of heroic verse, or ten syllables, and the\n    other six lines of shorter metre; by following those directions\n    precisely, I confess I committed a mistake in both of them,\n    or at least in the last; nor had I ever thought of putting in\n    those metres, nor considered the number of the lines, nor the\n    measure of them, but by your direction, and at your request. I\n    allow, sir, with great freedom, that you may have changed your\n    opinion since, and you have a right to do it without the least\n    blame from me; but I do declare it, that at that time you were\n    one of my encouragers, and therefore your present censures\n    should be lighter and softer.\n\n    \u201cYou desire me at the end \u2018to remember former friendships,\u2019 but\n    you will give me leave to ask which of us has forgot them most;\n    and I am well assured that I have more effectually proved\n    myself all that which you are pleased to subscribe, viz., your\n    steady, hearty, and real friend, your obedient and devoted\n    servant,\n\n                                                         \u201cI. WATTS.\u201d\n\nAnd the following letter is a very fair illustration of the temper and\nspirit of Watts\u2019 replies to his censorious and abusive brother:\n\n                                       \u201cLIME STREET, _Nov. 1, 1725_.\n\n    \u201cREVEREND SIR,\n\n    \u201cOn Friday night last my worthy friend and neighbour, Mr. Caleb\n    Wroe, called on me at Theobalds, and desired me to convey the\n    enclosed paper to you, with his humble thanks for the share you\n    have given him in the late legacy intrusted with you, and he\n    intreats that you would please to pay the money into the hands\n    of this messenger, that I may return it to him; and I cannot\n    but join my unfeigned thanks with his, that you are pleased to\n    remember so valuable and pious a man in your distributions,\n    whose circumstances are by no means above the receipt of such\n    charitable bequests, though his modesty is so great as to\n    prevent him from sueing for an interest in them.\n\n    \u201cBut while I am acknowledging your unexpected goodness to my\n    friend, permit me, sir, to inquire into the reason of your\n    unexpected conduct towards myself in so different a manner. It\n    is true I live much in the country, but I am not unacquainted\n    with what passes in town. I would now look no further backward\n    than your letter to the Board at Lime Street, about six months\n    ago, where I was present. I cannot imagine, sir, what occasion\n    I had given to such sort of censures as you pass upon me there\n    among others, which you are pleased to cast upon our worthy\n    brethren; nor can I think how a more pious and Christian return\n    could have been made by that Board at that time than to vote\n    a silence and burial of all past contests, and even of this\n    last letter of yours, and to desire your company amongst us as\n    in times past. I had designed, sir, to have never taken any\n    further notice of this letter, if I had not been abundantly\n    informed that your conduct since is of the same kind, and\n    that you have persisted in your public reflections on many of\n    my writings in such a manner as makes it sufficiently appear\n    that you design reproach to the man, as much as to show your\n    zeal against his supposed errors. The particular instances\n    of this kind I need not rehearse to you; yourself are best\n    acquainted with them. And yet, after all this, I had been\n    silent still; but as I acknowledge God and seek Him in all my\n    ways, so I am convinced it is my duty to give you a private\n    admonition, and, as a brother, I intreat you to consider\n    whether all this wrath of man can work the righteousness of\n    God? Let me intreat you, sir, to ask yourself what degrees of\n    passion and personal resentment may join and mingle themselves\n    with your supposed zeal for the Gospel? Jesus, the searcher\n    of hearts, He knows with what daily labour and study, and\n    with what constant addresses to the throne of grace, I seek\n    to support the doctrine of His Deity as well as you, and to\n    defend it in the best manner I am capable of. And shall I tell\n    you also, sir, that it was your urgent request, among many\n    others, that engaged me so much further in this study than I\n    at first intended. If I am fallen into mistakes, your private\n    and friendly notice had done much more toward the correction of\n    them than public reproaches. I am not conscious to myself that\n    either my former or latter conduct towards you has merited such\n    indignities as these; nor can I think that our blessed Lord,\n    who has given you so rich a furniture of imagination, and\n    such sprightly talents for public service, will approve such\n    employment of them in the personal disgrace of your brethren\n    that own the same faith, that preach the same Saviour, and\n    attempt to spread abroad the same doctrines of salvation.\n\n    \u201cI wish, sir, it were but possible for you to look upon your\n    own conduct, abstracted from that fondness which we all\n    naturally bear to self, and see whether there be no occasion\n    for some humbling and penitent thoughts in the sight of God. It\n    is not the design of this writing to carry on a quarrel with\n    you. It has been my frequent prayer, and it will be my joy,\n    to see your temper suited to your work, and to hear that you\n    employ your studies and your style for the support of truth and\n    godliness in the spirit of the Gospel, that is, in the spirit\n    of meekness and love. And I conclude with a hearty request\n    to Heaven that your wit may be all sanctified, that you may\n    minister holy things with honour and purity and great success,\n    and you may become as eminent and public an example of piety,\n    meekness, heavenly-mindedness, and love to all the saints, as\n    your own soul wishes and desires. Farewell, sir, and forgive\n    this freedom of your humble servant and fellow labourer in the\n    Gospel of Christ,\n\n                                                         \u201cI. WATTS.\u201d\n\nIt is very satisfactory, however, throughout the correspondence to feel\nthat Watts, the only one of the two names in which we now feel much\ninterest, preserves a spirit of quietness and candour; the correspondence\nwas forced upon him by the noisy Bradbury, and as he commenced it so he\nwas determined to have the last of it. Watts had quietly implored him to\nsilence, saying: \u201cLet us examine what is past, and take care for the time\nto come what we write or print with regard to our brethren be expressed\nin such language as may dare appear and be read by the light of the last\nconflagration, and the splendour of the tribunal of our returning Lord.\u201d\nThis produced a tempest of a letter, in which Bradbury says: \u201cI learn\nno such passive obedience to an unreasonable adversary, but rather the\ncontrary; you should have left off contention before it was meddled with,\nfor I doubt not to open to the world your shame.\u201d\n\nThe correspondence is very lengthy; it is not probable that it will ever\nbe reprinted; it is not worth the patience of perusal, unless to add to\nthe esteem of the subject of these memoirs. Bradbury\u2019s turbulent nature\nin the course of it seems to be utterly ungoverned, and raves along in a\nmanner quite fatal to any respect with which a desire to think well of\nthe man might possess the reader\u2019s mind. It had perhaps been better if\nthe wave of this correspondence had, like most of Watts\u2019 letters, been\nlost to the eye, but, by some fatality, it is the only complete piece\nof correspondence in our author\u2019s life published. Walter Wilson remarks\nupon it that \u201cthe letters are of that personal nature as do but little\ncredit to the writers.\u201d This is very unjust; if Mr. Wilson had read, he\nmust have known that there is not one word in the letters of Watts which\ndoes not reflect the quiet holiness of a spirit at perfect peace with\nitself, only desirous of healing the heart of his antagonist. Bradbury\neven censures him because, after his attacks on Watts in print, he did\nnot reply in print, but referred to them in private letters to him! Watts\nhad expressed his desire in seeking the truth, and says:\n\n\u201cI acknowledge with respect and thankfulness the kind opinions you have\nentertained of me, and I really \u2018value all the care you have shown not\nto grieve my spirit,\u2019 whensoever I see it practised. I easily believe,\nindeed, that your natural talent of wit is richly sufficient to have\ntaken occasions from an hundred passages in my writings to have filled\nyour pages with much severer censures. In the vivacity of wit, in the\ncopiousness of style, in readiness of Scripture phrases, and other useful\ntalents, I freely own you for my superior, and will never pretend to\nbecome your rival. But it is only calm and sedate argument that weighs\nwith me in matters of controversy, nor will I be displeased with any\nman for showing me my mistakes by force of argument, and in a spirit of\nmeekness; it is only in this manner truth must be searched out, and not\nby wit and raillery.\u201d\n\nTo this came back the following:\n\n\u201cYour profession of \u2018seeking the truth\u2019 is very popular, and I do not\nwonder to find it so often in all your writings; but then there is such a\nthing as \u2018ever learning, and not being able to come to the knowledge of\nthe truth.\u2019 And it is pity, after you have been more than thirty years\na teacher of others, you are yet to learn the first principles of the\noracles of God. What will our hearers think of us when we succeed the\ngreatest men of our last age in nothing else but their pulpits? Is there\nno certainty in the words of truth? Was Dr. Owen\u2019s church to be taught\nanother Jesus, that the Son and Holy Spirit were only two powers in the\nDivine nature? Shall the men who planted and watered so happy a part of\nthe vineyard have all their labours rendered in vain? Shall a fountain in\nthe same place send forth sweet water and bitter? What need is there of a\ncharge?\u201d[33]\n\nOn the whole, it is well to refer to this controversy. It is a painful,\nimportant item in Watts\u2019 life, and brings out very clearly how\nsingularly he was removed from irritable passions, and it sadly reveals\nhow impossible it seems even for the most gentle natures to escape the\nvenom and the vileness of the \u201cperils of false brethren.\u201d\n\nBradbury unquestionably was firmly attached to evangelical truth, so\nfar as he knew it, and his discourses in the two volumes called \u201cThe\nMystery of Godliness, Considered in Sixty-one Sermons,\u201d are certainly\ninteresting, suggestive, and even admirable specimens of preaching; but,\nwe have said, he was chiefly known as a political preacher. His printed\ndiscourses contain few intimations of that wit which was a favourite\nweapon with him in the pulpit, and of which we have some indications in\nthe sermon entitled \u201cThe Ass and the Serpent,\u201d a comparison between the\ntribes of Issachar and Dan in their regard for civil liberty\u2014a sermon,\nlike all those in the volume which contains it, devoted to rousing the\nspirit of the times in which he lived. Regularly as the fifth of November\ncame round, he commemorated the day in a sermon, and afterwards adjourned\nwith his friends to dine at a tavern, where, it is said, he always sung\nthe national song, \u201cThe Roast Beef of Old England;\u201d there, no doubt,\njest and joke passed round pretty freely, for, as we have intimated,\nhe had a sprightly wit and a copious flow of eloquence. Watts gently\nremonstrated with him for these displays, to which he replied in his\nvehement and peppery style. George Whitefield, at a later period, more\nstrongly remonstrated with him on his conduct in this particular, but\nnot apparently with much effect. It is said that upon the death of Queen\nAnne, an incident to which we have already referred, he took for his text\non the occasion of her funeral sermon, \u201cGo, see now this cursed woman and\nbury her, for she is a king\u2019s daughter.\u201d The story is exceedingly likely,\nfor he belonged to a race of men not indisposed to misuse Scripture\nafter that unbecoming fashion; and we may surely say, notwithstanding the\nominous shadows which brooded over the closing years of a reign commenced\nwith so much promise, the anecdote, even the possibility that it may be\ntrue, testifies to the cruel coarseness, the low profane jocularity,\nand ungrateful injustice of the man. He was a hearty politician, to\nwhom all refinements of speech or sentiment were unknown, and, right\nor wrong, he plunged on in a reckless kind of fashion. He adopted as\nhis motto, _Pro Christo et patri\u00e2_, For Christ and my country. Charity\nmay be permitted to hope that he, at any rate, thought the motto did\nnot unworthily represent the man, if sometimes in his conduct he seems\nsomewhat unworthily to represent the motto. And while Watts was pursuing\nhis studies in scholarly seclusion, never knowing the happiness of robust\nhealth, and, although a firm Nonconformist, on good terms with bishops\nand ministers of the Church of England, and ministers and members of many\ncommunions of Christians, Bradbury mixed with freedom with the moving\nparties in the City, and was ever ready to lift up his voice loudly about\nall the political circumstances of the passing hours. Thus the two men,\nalthough ministers of the same order, within a very short distance of\neach other, were in their sympathies wide apart; they desired, indeed,\nthe same great ends, but the roads they took to their attainment were\nwidely different. It is still singular and unaccountable, but for the\npersonal motives we have assigned above, that Bradbury should have\nexpressed himself with so much bitterness and hostility concerning his\nold friend, whose principles, neither in religion nor politics, could\never have been at any very great remove from his own; but so it is, that\namidst the multitude of friends that honoured and esteemed Watts highly\nfor his work\u2019s sake, we find Bradbury standing aside like a very Shimei\npouring upon him his perpetually reiterated torrent of contempt, obloquy,\nand scorn, and no motive appears but the dangerous one which influences\nthree-fourths of all the evil and hatred in the world; jealousy of a\nrank for which he was unfit, and genius to which he could not attain. On\nthe whole, it may be said of Bradbury, in the language of an old English\npoet, he was \u201clike a pair of snuffers, he snips the filth in other men,\nand retains it in himself;\u201d it could not be said of him \u201cthe snuffers\nwere of pure gold.\u201d As Archbishop Abbott says of Jonah, in his sermons on\nthe prophet: \u201cSome drams and grains of gold appear in him and his action,\nbut dross is there by pounds; little wine, but store of water; some\nwheat, but chaff enough.\u201d\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI.\n\nHis Times.\n\n\nTake the life of almost any man who has stood in any relation to the\nthought and intelligence of his times, in any period of English history,\nand it is interesting to regard him by the light of the events flowing on\naround him. Watts was almost a literary solitary; he cannot be referred\nto as greatly influencing the times in which he lived, but an outline of\nhis life is incomplete if we give no reference to the events of his time.\nFrom the last years of the reign of Charles II. to the closing years\nof George II. constitutes the era of Watts. Every age seems eminently\nimportant to its actors\u2014sometimes even to spectators\u2014and yet that age\nstands out with singular distinctness. How different the times of Watts\u2019\nbirth and those of his death: the infant in the arms of a weeping mother,\nbeneath the bars of the dungeon of the imprisoned Nonconformist, and\nthe old man, that same infant, passing away, with the great Methodist\nmovement rising into activity over the whole nation. A little room,\nscarcely tolerated in Southampton, where a few persecuted Nonconformists\nassembled together, and large chapels, capable of holding thousands,\nrising amidst the far-off wastes of Northern Yorkshire and Western\nCornwall, and a sudden burst of religious vitality finding vent in hymns\nand meetings over the whole country.\n\nIf the change in the aspect of religious life was remarkable, not less\nremarkable was the change, or rather perhaps we ought to say the changes,\nwhich had been brought about in the political. The period of Watts\u2019\nchildhood was the most ominous, unhappy, and unsettled in English story;\nmen knew not what to expect, they knew not whither they were drifting.\nThose were the days of the great Monmouth Rebellion and Jeffreys\u2019 \u201cBloody\nAssize;\u201d the days of the execution of Algernon Sidney and Lord William\nRussell, the days of Titus Oates. The mind of England was full of plots,\nand the fear and the shadow of plots, succeeded by internal discords, and\na disunited front to possible external foes. Well has it been said, \u201cIt\nwas high time that James should go; it was time that William should come.\u201d\n\nThe closing years of Watts\u2019 life Mr. Hallam ventures to speak of, and\nEarl Stanhope confirms the verdict, as nationally the happiest period of\nall England\u2019s history, a brief period during which plenty and comfort\nseemed everywhere to abound. We do not refer to the moral state of\nthe people; that appears to have been low enough, but the nation had\nreached, and the people were experiencing, the blessedness of a lull\nof peace after that great storm which had shaken every timber of the\nnational vessel. The period of George II. appears to be that ideal time\nupon which many look back under the designations of \u201cHappy England\u201d and\n\u201cMerry England.\u201d Between these two periods how many intervening chapters\noccur! and it is not a little distressing to a biographer that it seems\nimpossible to lay the hand upon scarcely a letter of the many multitudes\nof letters which Watts must have written, and many, one cannot but think,\nillustrating some of the circumstances and the characters of the times,\nand his interest in them.[34]\n\nThus, for instance, he was an intimate friend of that David Polhill\nwho was one of the foremost men in the affair of the great \u201cKentish\nPetition,\u201d a circumstance which shines brightly among the gallant actions\nof those who, with daring intrepidity, supported William III. It was\nat a time when pusillanimity and fear of France would have been fatal.\nThe House of Commons, rent by faction, was very slow in vindicating the\nking; five Kentish gentlemen, magistrates, interpreting the opinion of\ntheir county, signed as deputies a petition calling upon the House to\nlay aside their own personal differences, to attend better to public\naffairs, and especially to vote sufficient supplies to sustain the king\nand his allies. It was a daring step; the five gentlemen who bore the\npetition to the House all presented themselves as responsible for it; the\nHouse instantly voted that it was scandalous, infamous, and seditious,\ncalculated to destroy the constitution of Parliament, and to subvert the\nestablished government of the realm. The five gentlemen, of whom David\nPolhill was one, were, amidst the acclamations of the nation, committed\nto prison, and there for some time they continued. The pen of Defoe\nsprang into eloquence on their behalf, and when they were liberated, as\nthey were shortly, one of those demonstrations\u2014not of the mob\u2014but of the\nstrong middle classes of England, greeted them on Blackheath on their way\nhome, bells clanging, bonfires burning, and Kent altogether in such a\nstate as it had not been in since the Restoration of Charles II.\n\n1703\u2014one wonders if Watts went down into the City on the 31st of July\nthat year, to see one whom he must very well have known, who, as we\nhave seen, studied some years before Watts was there, at the Dissenting\nAcademy in Stoke Newington\u2014Daniel Defoe, standing in the pillory; for\nDefoe\u2019s great and even intimate friend, William III, was dead, and the\nmen who had long winced beneath his wit, and had longed for the time of\ntheir reprisals, fancied the time had come at last; but, indeed, the\nsentence which was intended for punishment turned into a painful kind of\ntriumph. It cannot be a pleasant position for the head and the hands to\nbe fixtures in that fashion for an hour; but if the sentence has to be\nborne, then it is pleasant to find the rude machine adorned with flowers\nand garlands, and the odium of the punishment transferred from the\nsufferer to his judges. However, they ruined Defoe.\n\nThis was the year in which, as Watts mentions in his slight\nautobiographic memoranda, occurred the great storm, one of the most\nfearful England has ever known. Whole buildings were hurled down, two\nhundred and fifty thousand timber trees torn up by the roots, spires\nbeaten from the churches, and the lead from the roofs of more than one\nhundred churches rolled up like scrolls. Eight thousand persons perished\nby drowning; the Severn overflowed its banks, and fifteen thousand sheep\nbesides other cattle perished; eight hundred dwelling-houses, four\nhundred windmills, and barns without number, were thrown down. Some\npeople were killed in their beds, among others Dr. Kidder, Bishop of Bath\nand Wells, and his wife. The damage done in London amounted to about\na million of pounds sterling, in Bristol to \u00a3150,000. The damage on\nthe sea was still more considerable, many ships of the royal navy were\ncast away, and innumerable merchant vessels. Imagination quite fails to\nrealize the horrors of that tremendous night; it was as one has said of\nit, \u201cAs if the destroying angel hurried by shrouded in his very gloomiest\napparel.\u201d\n\nAnd side by side with such great national calamities went our great\nnational rejoicings. This was the moment in our history when the genius\nof Marlborough was rising, and the victories of Blenheim and Ramillies\nwere taking place, holding in check, beyond any question, the audacity\nof Louis XIV., and exhibiting the power and influence of England in the\nforeign affairs of Europe in a manner never so remarkably exhibited\nbefore.\n\nSuch were \u201cthe times that went over him.\u201d Watts lived through all those\ncurious transactions round the Court of Queen Anne; lived also through\nthe great Sacheverell riots\u2014and a curious time that was for Dissenters,\nas he bears testimony again in his little outline of coincidences with\nhis autobiographical memoranda. \u201cMarch 1st, 1710. The mob rose and pulled\ndown the pews and galleries of six meeting-houses, that is, Mr. Burgess,\nMr. Bradbury, Mr. Earle, Mr. Wright, Mr. Hamilton, and Mr. Charles\nTaylor, but were dispersed by the guards under Captain Horsey, at one\nor two in the morning.\u201d He passed through all that excitement of public\nfeeling arising from the introduction of the \u201cSchism Bill,\u201d which, beyond\nanything, covered with gloom the last days of the reign of Queen Anne.\nWhen she ascended the throne, Watts wrote a lyric in honour of her happy\naccession; there was no inconsistency in his expressing almost a burst of\ngladness and joy at her decease. The \u201cSchism Bill\u201d was worthy of the very\nworst days of the Stuarts; it was intended to crush all Nonconformist\nschools, and all Dissenting academies; any Nonconformist teacher was\nto be imprisoned three months, every schoolmaster was to receive the\nsacrament and take the oaths, and if afterwards guilty of being present\nat a conventicle, to be incapacitated and imprisoned. Earl Stanhope,\nin his quiet, very interesting, and, on the whole, impartial history,\nspeaks of \u201cthis tyrannical act,\u201d and well remarks: \u201cIt is singular that\nsome of the most plain and simple notions, such as that of religious\ntoleration, should be the slowest and most difficult to be impressed\nupon the human mind.\u201d[35] It is interesting to notice that this measure\nwas greatly the creation of Lord Bolingbroke, a man who, while \u201che\nthought it,\u201d as Earl Stanhope says, \u201cnecessary to crush Dissenters,\u201d was\nhimself altogether independent and incapable of any religious faith or\nconviction. Infidelity has never found its interests on the side of true\nfreedom, but only of lawlessness and licentiousness, to which it is ever\nfond of applying the glorious term. In the midst of the panic created\nby this measure the Queen died, died on the very day the Schism Act was\nto have taken effect, and George I. succeeded to the English throne. He\ncommenced his reign with a noble declaration of liberty of conscience. At\nhis first appearing in council he said, \u201cI take this occasion to express\nto you my firm purpose to do all that is in my power for the supporting\nand maintaining the Churches of England and Scotland as they are by\nlaw established, which I am of opinion may be effectually done without\nthe least impairing the toleration allowed by law to her Protestant\nDissenters, so agreeable to Christian charity.\u201d\n\nWatts lived through that great agitation which consigned Francis\nAtterbury, the Bishop of Rochester, first to the Tower, and then to\nexile, for his complicity with the Pretender, and attempts to bring back\nthe Stuarts. Atterbury was sworn by many oaths to maintain the Protestant\nsuccession, but his guilt was soon manifest beyond any doubt, even to the\nmost lenient and doubtful mind. It was greatly to men of Watts\u2019 order\nof religious conviction that the reigning family owed the stability of\nits power; and when the fury of the clergy, especially the High Church\nclergy, was excited by the arrest of the Bishop, one of their own order,\nand attempts even made to set him forth in the light of a martyr, it\nis interesting to notice that it was Bishop Gibson, the friend and\ncorrespondent of Watts, who allayed the storm.[36]\n\nThe intense antipathy to Rome and the Papacy, so manifest in the writings\nof Watts, and in the wild passions of the times, was not without a\ncause, and a cause which would make itself especially felt in the\nCity of London. When Watts was ordained over the church in Mark Lane,\nonly fifteen years had elapsed since the Revocation of the Edict of\nNantes; that dreadful act of persecution had poured over many parts of\nEngland and of America the noble refugees of freedom and Protestantism;\nmultitudes found their way to the neighbourhood of London; not far from\nthe neighbourhood of Watts\u2019 church, there sprung up a Protestant French\ncolony. They did no harm to this nation by their exile hither,\u2014they\nbrought character, and piety, and invention, and wit; where they\nrested they reared the unadorned and humble temples of their simple\nProtestant service. Possessed themselves of the hymns of Clement Marot,\nthey probably suggested a psalmody, sweeter and more elevated than our\nchurches at that time possessed\u2014but in many instances their sufferings\nin the course of their expatriation had been dreadful. From year to year\nthey still escaped to our shores, and found their way to London; the\npeople and their pastors were aided by the government of William and\nMary, and by the succeeding governments. It was not possible but that the\ndread of honest and quiet thinkers, and the more turbulent passions of\nthe people, should be awakened against that fearful system which seemed\nso recklessly to strike at all national happiness and prosperity; and in\nEngland the Papacy had its agents almost ubiquitous, crafty, cunning,\npowerful, cruel, and remorseless; it was no time for the indulgence\nof a mere philosophical calm and dreams of generous toleration. There\nwere frequent wild outbreaks of madness and wrath in heated and excited\nmobs, and the language indulged by writers, usually so clear and wise,\nbecame intense in hatred to Rome; but let the reader transfer his\nfeelings to that time, and interpret his feelings by natural fear, and\nhe will scarcely be able to visit either manifestation with very severe\nreprehension.\n\nThe times through which Watts lived were indeed very remarkable,\nregarded from many points of view. Well might the nation shudder at\nthe idea of any approach to Popery on the part of our own government;\nfor if the villages and towns of our coast opposite to France, and\nthe neighbourhoods of the little suburban villages of Shoreditch and\nSpitalfields, were thronged with the refugees of persecution from\nFrance, refugees of a similar persecution from Austria also, at a later\nperiod, poured into Prussia, into New England, and into some parts of\nour own country, and especially into London. The Church of Rome did\nnot, in those days, permit many years to pass without refreshing the\nmemory of Protestants as to her power and disposition to persecute.\nWatts interested himself on behalf of the poor Saltzburgers (\u00a333,000\nwas raised in London for their relief). Multitudes settled at Ebenezer,\nin Georgia. The Rev. F. M. Ziegenhagen writes to Watts that \u201cany old\nrag thrown away in Europe is of service to them, old shoes, stockings,\nshirts, or anything of wearing apparel from men and women, grown people\nor children. Wherefore, dear sir, if Baron Oxie\u2019s supposition be true,\nperhaps you might, by the blessing of God, be the happy instrument to\nget here and there something of old clothes for them to cover their\nnakedness.\u201d To this application Watts appears to have responded, as Mr.\nZiegenhagen again replies: \u201cThe readiness you show in assisting the poor\nSaltzburgers, nay, your well receiving the mentioning them and their\ncircumstances in my last letter, gave me great satisfaction.\u201d Those of\nthese persecuted ones who passed over to the American plantations appear\nto have settled surprisingly, aided by England; George Whitefield bears\ntestimony to the great blessings which rested upon them. England made a\nparliamentary grant of \u00a310,000 to relieve their sufferings. Our readers\nknow the amazing story, the mighty exodus, the march of the exiles,\namounting to 20,678, in the depth of winter. The pathos of that story is\nimmortalized in one of the sweetest poems of Goethe, and for us in the\nprose of Thomas Carlyle. Prussia threw her arms open to receive them;\nbut many perished on the march for want of food, having been obliged to\nleave their goods behind them. The Count of Warnigrode gave a substantial\ndinner to 900 of them; the Duke of Brunswick liberally entertained\nothers; the clergy of Leipsic met a number of the wanderers on their\nway, and led them into the city through the gates, singing Luther\u2019s hymn\nas they passed in. The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, to which we\nhave referred, happened a short time before Watts commenced his ministry;\nthis rousing event happened when it was drawing towards its close.\n\nAs we turn over some of the hymns of Watts, and some pages of his and\nother writings of the day, it seems as if the denunciations of Rome\nwere wanting in good taste, and tender charitableness of feeling. The\nsentiments Watts expressed and indulged in never appear to go beyond\nthe bounds of propriety; his sentiments towards Rome are shared by John\nMilton, who wrote while the valleys of Piedmont were flaming with burning\nvillages, and covered with the bodies of the slaughtered saints of God.\nIn those years Rome had the power to get up every now and then some such\nstartling _spectacle_ to astonish Europe and mankind. Papists are still\nsurprised that such entertainments were not taken in good part, and\nthat, on the contrary, fervid expressions of indignation were uttered,\nand loud prayers put up that God would save England from the dominancy\nof Rome again in the politics of our nation. Men like Watts judged such\nexpressions to be neither unnatural, unholy, nor unwise: they had not\nreached that stoical calm which contemplates either the insolent outrage\nand persecution of a hierarchy trampling under foot the holiest rights of\nmen, or the groans of protracted suffering, with indifference; they lived\nin the neighbourhood of danger, and did not affect a calmness of feeling\nas they beheld, even in their own neighbourhood, infidelity and priestism\nworking together, as they so often work, forging fetters for a nation.\n\nIn several pages of this volume glances have been given at the aspects\nof the age and its manners, so far as they affected, or were affected\nby, the subject of this memoir. A large portion of that time may be\nspoken of as the most dissolute age of England, and even in the later\nperiod it was a rude, rough time. In those regions in which vice did not\nabound, a thick, dark night of ignorance \u201ccovered the people.\u201d However\nwe may boast of a few splendid names in literature, and however some\ncharacter or incident gives effect and pomp to the scenery, still it is\nonly worthy of the apt description of John Foster[37] that \u201cwe are only\ngazing with delight at a fine public bonfire, while in all the cottages\nround the people are shivering for want of fuel.\u201d It was a time along\nwhose way romance loves to loiter; when the lanthorn lighted the sedan\non the neighbourly visit in town as well as country; when, also, no home\nwas exempted from the housebreaker, and every suburb was haunted by\nhighwaymen.\n\nWe need not dwell at greater length on the literary characteristics of\nthe age; incidentally we may remind our readers that to Watts, in the\nlater years of his life, we owe the introduction to the world of a poem\nwhich has not long ceased to be a very popular one, \u201cThe Grave,\u201d by\nRobert Blair, the minister of the parish of Athelstanford, in Scotland.\nBlair sent his poem to Watts, and Watts thought so well of it that he\nsent it to Doddridge, and both advised its author to publish it, and\nappear to have been able to render him some valuable assistance in making\nit known. Almost forgotten now, it immediately took the popular taste. It\nis not wonderful that it did so, for it has all the gloomy magnificence\nof a body lying in state; but it is gloomy without vulgarity, and has\nthe gorgeousness of the silver shieldings and splendid heraldry on\nthe black velvet. It is short; it perhaps seems to us now almost a\nsentimental piece of commonplace; but it instantly took possession of\nthe public mind, and is still included in most respectable collections\nof English poets. It belonged to a class of pieces which appear to have\nbeen great favourites with people in those days, and which have furnished\nabundant materials for sermons ever since\u2014Hervey\u2019s \u201cMeditations among\nthe Tombs,\u201d and Young\u2019s \u201cNight Thoughts,\u201d\u2014although the last is a very\nfar superior piece of work, and may deserve to be spoken of as one of\nthe finest of purely didactic poems. Blair, in his far-off home among\nthe East Lothians, had everything which to such a nature as his would\nbe likely to press home with a pensive force upon the mind; and the\ndeep reality of James Hervey\u2019s nature, every one at all acquainted with\nhis biography well knows. Edward Young, it may without much indignity\nto charity be believed, was a man of a very different order, in whom\nunrealized sentiment considerably dominated the character. He was a man\nof unquestionable genius, and he so far laid his genius on the altar of\nreligion that he produced not only the poem to which we are referring,\nbut many others, which, if not of equal eminence, had a decided religious\ninfluence. But he was a constant haunter of the abodes of fashion, a\nhanger-on of Courts, and not at all indisposed to avail himself of every\nkind of help in seeking to further his purposes in life. He was not below\nthe average of men, but the \u201cother-worldliness\u201d of his poem contrasts\nstrangely enough with the worldliness of the author; if, when he wrote\nof the other world, he wrote like a saint, we cannot forget that, when\nhe wrote of this, he wrote as a keen satirist. In fact, all this belongs\nto the character of the poetry of the period; it was not real, it was\nstiff and stilted; it was poetry in brocade; nothing about it looks very\nreal. Of course there are beautiful lines and beautiful passages to be\nquoted, but its men and women are not real. The poetry of our own times,\nas compared with those, has gained immeasurably in this, in reality, and\na large proportion of the things which were said and admired then would\nbe regarded as simply ridiculous now.\n\nNo reference has been made to the States of America. The United States\nhad no existence in Watts\u2019 day\u2014America was regarded then much as we\nregard Australia now. Watts had many friends there, and much interesting\ncorrespondence exists between them; especially interesting it is to find\nin the history of Harvard University that Watts\u2019 name occurs as one of\nits early benefactors.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII.\n\nReturn to Stoke Newington.\n\n\nIt would be a very difficult thing to realize now in the suburb of Stoke\nNewington, the Stoke Newington of Isaac Watts\u2019 day. The mighty city has\nabsorbed it; the lanes, the fields, the woods, the old bridge, the old\nchurch, and the very river have vanished. It must have been a very pretty\nlittle rural village, comprised in a small cluster of houses; it may even\nbe spoken of as a kind of sequestered hermitage, amidst whose shades\nthose who desired it might find, if the stillness of nature could give\nit, perfect peace. Even more than forty years after Watts\u2019 death there\nwere only one hundred and ninety-five houses; within the memory of old\ninhabitants it was still but a village. In Watts\u2019 day it was probably\nsurrounded by trees; a short time before he took up his residence there,\nthere were seventy-seven acres of woodland in demesne, part of the\nancient forest of Middlesex, so justifying its name from Stoke, a wood\n(_Stoke Newington_, the new little town in the wood). A very pleasant\nretreat, the like of which we should have to look a long way from any\nLondon suburb to discover now. The ancient houses have disappeared from\nthe present vicinity, and two of the last, and those in which Watts\npassed his early and his later age, the houses of Hartopp and Abney, have\nonly just been pulled down. We have noticed the history of Fleetwood\u2019s\nhouse, built in the reign of Queen Elizabeth; but tradition assigns to\nsome old houses in the village, called the \u201cBishop\u2019s Place,\u201d the frequent\nvisits of Henry VIII., and here, on a part of these premises, was born\nSamuel Rogers, the poet; and it is a singular and noticeable thing, that\nas the father of the poet died in 1793, and had lived the greater part\nof his life at Stoke Newington, those who knew the poet talked with a\nman who was the child of one who had probably not only seen but talked\nwith Isaac Watts. There is a spot in Stoke Newington still called \u201cKing\nHenry\u2019s Walk,\u201d and when the premises supposed to be his retreat were\ntaken down, parts of the old wainscot were found to be richly gilt and\nornamented with paintings, although, indeed, almost obliterated.\n\nStoke Newington, about the period when Watts resided there, was the\nresidence and retreat of many celebrities. Here, as we have seen, Defoe\nwas educated, and for some time resided; and here, a little later,\nresided another whose name has been a charm over childhood, Thomas\nDay, the author of \u201cSandford and Merton.\u201d Watts had only been dead two\nyears when John Howard came to reside in the village. The place seems\nespecially to have been the retreat of retired statesmen or merchants,\nbut all ranks seem to mingle memories in the little village. Queen\nElizabeth\u2019s Walk is founded on the tradition that in the Manor House the\nPrincess Elizabeth was concealed during a part of the reign of Queen\nMary. London suburbs were wont to retain the flavour of a peculiar kind\nof society, and not less really than Twickenham retained its literary\neminence; not less renowned than Clapham for its \u201cSect,\u201d was Stoke\nNewington eminent as the home and haunt of Nonconformist celebrities.[38]\nThe interest of the place, however, gathers greatly round the memories\nof the houses of the Hartopp and the Abney families, for Watts is the\ngreatest name connected with Stoke Newington, and in both these houses he\nfound his home.\n\nWatts\u2019 biographers have hitherto not nicely discriminated the periods\nof his residence; reading Southey, it might be supposed he had passed\nall his life at Stoke Newington; reading Milner, it might be supposed\nhe not only passed the greater part of his life, but closed his days at\nTheobalds. The truth is, that Thomas Gunston, the brother of Lady Abney,\npurchased a house and twenty-five acres of land with the Manor of Stoke\nNewington. He pulled the house down, and commenced the erection of a\nvery large and elegant house on the site of the old one, but he died in\n1700, just before the completion of the building. He was a young man, and\nWatts was young, and between the two there appears to have been a bond of\nexceedingly close and tender friendship. When Thomas Gunston died he left\nthe house to his sister, then residing at Theobalds with her husband, Sir\nThomas Abney, and there Watts resided with them; but many years after,\nprobably when time had softened the stroke which seems to have been felt\nvery keenly, Lady Abney left Theobalds and came to her house in Stoke\nNewington. Watts came with the family, and in this house were passed the\nlast thirteen years of his life, and there, shortly after the death of\nher revered friend, Lady Abney died. The house then became the property\nof the eldest daughter, Miss Elizabeth Abney, who never married, and\nwhose name occurs as a considerable benefactor to the neighbourhood. Upon\nher death, she directed by her will the lease and estate to be sold, and\nafter the payment of certain legacies, the residue to be distributed to\npoor Dissenting ministers, to their widows, and other objects of charity;\nthe sale realized \u00a313,000.\n\nThis, then, was the spot associated with some of Watts\u2019 earliest,\nhappiest days, and was the scene of their quiet close. His friendship\nwith Thomas Gunston was evidently founded on moral and intellectual\nrelationship, and when he died, he poured out his grief in a long elegy,\npublished in the Lyrics. It is noticeable in the poetry of Watts, and\nof that day, that so many of the subjects are devoted to the memory of\nfriends. If a friend died, or if any other circumstance happened in life,\nit seemed necessary to embody the impressions in verse, and we need not,\nperhaps, regard this as altogether artificial and unnatural; in Watts\u2019\ninstance, we may be sure it was not so, although many of the expressions\nsound extravagant; those to which most exception is taken have scarcely\nmore of this characteristic than some of the similar poems of Milton; we\nmay, for instance, remember Lycidas:\n\n    Mourn, ye young gardens, ye unfinished gates,\n    Ye green enclosures and ye growing sweets\n    Lament; for ye our midnight hours have known,\n    And watched us walking by the silent moon\n    In conference divine, while heavenly fire,\n    Kindling our breasts, did all our thoughts inspire\n    With joys almost immortal.\n\nAnd again\u2014\n\n    Oft have I laid the awful Calvin by,\n    And the sweet Cowley, with impatient eye\n    To see these walls, pay the sad visit here,\n    And drop the tribute of an hourly tear.\n    Still I behold some melancholy scene,\n    With many a pensive thought and many a sigh between.\n    Two days ago we took the evening air,\n    I and my grief.\n\nAmidst the exaggerations, however, which a prosaic age may fancy it\ndetects, there is no reason for including expressions which it would\ncertainly be impossible to appropriately use now; the poet calls upon\nthe dusky woods and echoing hills, the flowery vales overgrown with\nthorns, the brook that runs warbling by, the lowing herd, and the moaning\nturtle, the curling vine with its amorous folds, and the stately elms,\nthe reverent growth of ancient years, standing tall and naked to the\nblustering rage of the mad winds. These are images which must have\nbeen simply natural and appropriate when the piece was written; all is\nchanged, entirely changed now, unless some exception be made for the\nelms which are, or were, recently standing. The death of this amiable,\nexcellent, and promising young man stands out as probably the most\nintense grief of Watts\u2019 life. As there was a community of taste, leisure\nfor the indulgence of the pursuits of the intellect and the heart, and\nthe strong wish to gratify the instincts of a noble nature, it is not\nwonderful that Watts poured out his feelings in so lengthy a poem.\n\nThe young man appears to have come of a high-spirited family; his father,\nJohn Gunston, befriended many of the ministers when they fell beneath\nthe arm of persecution; and when the eminent Dr. Manton was imprisoned\nin the Gate House for refusing the Oxford Oath, the Lady Broughton, his\nkeeper, placing the keys at his disposal, allowed him an opportunity of\nvisiting his friend, Mr. Gunston, at Newington. Thus we have the early\nand tender connection of Watts with this village. And not long since\nthe old house was standing. An amiable and accomplished man of our time\nwrites, in a letter dated May, 1840: \u201cOn my return to town I stopped at\nStoke Newington, and paid a promised visit to an old friend and colleague\nat Abney House, where he has charge of the literary education of some\ntwenty candidates for the ministry. The house\u2014that in which Dr. Watts\nlived for more than a generation, composed his precious hymns, and at\nlast died\u2014afforded me, in its noble antique apartments, in its still rich\nembellishments, its surrounding grounds (said to contain the bones of\nOliver Cromwell), and, above all, its sacred associations, more delight\nthan I can express.\u201d[39]\n\nOn the spot where the house stood, with its beautiful grounds, gardens,\nand trees extending round, is now laid out the Abney Park Cemetery,\namongst whose forests of tombs may be detected innumerable names very\ndear to the memories of modern Nonconformists: since the closing of\nBunhill Fields, Abney Park Cemetery has become what it was, a sort of\n_santa croce_, or _campo santo_ of revered and hallowed dust.\n\nThough now within a short walk of the great city, it seemed a sequestered\nvillage when Watts resided there. The roads were probably not of the\nbest, and there were no lights upon them. The woods intervening and in\nthe neighbourhood, would furnish shelter for many social annoyances,\nand even dangers. But it was nearer to London than the more stately and\npalace-like abode of Theobalds, and, noble as it was, it was altogether\na plainer habitation. Watts was probably, after the death of Sir Thomas\nAbney, very much the modest master of both abodes. Until within a short\nperiod of its dissolution the house contained such memories of Watts as\nadorned the walls of Theobalds. We have seen that he was a painter,\nand the fashion at that time was to adorn the wainscoting and walls\nand panels. There were noble rooms in the mansion, and thus were they\nrelieved, mostly by subjects of a classical, mythical, and allegorical\ncharacter. He painted four characters of Youth and Age, Mirth and Grief,\nfor two of the parlours, \u201cwhere,\u201d says Dr. Robinson, \u201cthey are at this\npresent day.\u201d To the time of its fall the mansion testified to the taste\nand elegance with which it was fitted up, the painted room displaying\ncostly ornaments, and altogether a fine specimen of the age in which it\nwas arranged; the mouldings gilt, and the whole of the panels and sides\npainted with subjects from \u201cOvid,\u201d and on the window-shutters pictorial\ndecorations, supposed to have been the production of the pencil of\nWatts, emblematical of Death and Grief, and evidently alluding to the\ndecease of Mr. Gunston. The elms, to which reference has been already\nmade, continued to excite attention to the last. Planted long before the\nbuilding was commenced, they continued to wave their widowed branches\nafter it had passed away. Dr. Robinson mentions a portrait of Watts which\nlong continued in the house, an indifferent portrait of him when a young\nman, in a blue night-gown, wig and band, and three or four duplicate\nmezzotinto prints of him when older by G. White, 1727, clerically\nhabited, with a Bible in his right hand, and under him in capitals:\n\n    ISAAC WATTS\n\n    \u201cIn Christo mea vita latet, mea gloria Christus, hunc lingua,\n    hunc calamus celebrat nec magis, tacebit. In uno Jesu omnia.\u201d\n\nAnd on the upper corner \u201cTo live is Christ, to die is gain.\u201d\n\nHere his last days were passed; Dr. Gibbons does not mention in what\nyear the family left Theobalds to return to Stoke Newington, but it\nmust have been about thirteen years before his death; and during this\ntime, although his life was clouded by many pains and infirmities, he\nstill continued the active operations of his pen, and, as we shall have\noccasion to see, the active operations of his mind, employing himself\nespecially in attempting to solve what seems to many the insolvable\nquestion of the Trinity of Persons in the Godhead. But as he descended\ntowards the closing years it seems that he suffered greatly from some\nmembers of his own family. In a letter from the Rev. John Barker to\nDr. Doddridge, written nearly two years before Watts\u2019 death, we read:\n\u201cThe behaviour of Dr. Watts and the wretch Buckston towards Dr. Isaac\nis a most marvellous, infamous, enormous wickedness; Lady Abney, with\ninimitable steadiness and prudence, keeps our friend in peaceful\nignorance, and his enemies at a becoming distance, so that in the midst\nof the persecution of that righteous man he lives comfortably; and when a\nfriend asks him how he does, answers, \u2018Waiting God\u2019s leave to die.\u2019\u201d[40]\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII.\n\nThe World to Come.\n\n\n\u201cThe World to Come\u201d was for a long time one of those favourite pieces\nwhich occupied a place upon our forefathers\u2019 book-shelves, and\nespecially charmed the dwellers at home in those times and places\nwhen and where there were no Sabbath evening services; it belongs to\nthat era when Christian people found their spiritual pleasure and\nrefreshment in Baxter\u2019s \u201cSaint\u2019s Everlasting Rest,\u201d to which work it\nbears no inconsiderable resemblance. Southey, in his \u201cLife of Watts,\u201d in\nwhich, like Johnson, he lays aside all his acerbity against Watts and\nDissenters, appears to dwell with much pleasure on this book. Probably\nmost of our readers are now unacquainted with it; and, if so, they\nhave to learn how much there is in these two volumes of suggestion and\ninstruction. Watts was fond of dwelling in imagination upon, and dilating\nwith his pen over, the conditions of the world to come. The work first\nappeared in two volumes, although the second was not published until the\nyear 1745, when Watts was drawing near to the period of his own entrance\ninto that kingdom, upon whose conditions he had speculated so largely\nand interestingly. Some portions of this work soon found their way into\nother languages; his piece on \u201cThe End of Time\u201d was translated, as a\ntract, into most of the tongues of Europe; an edition is now circulating,\nor was a short time since, in modern Greek, on the shores of the Levant;\nand none of the prose works of Watts have perhaps obtained so large an\nacceptance, or produced, on the one hand, more serious impressions, and,\non the other, more quieting and comfortable consolation.\n\nThe work has the characteristic of the times in which it was\nwritten\u2014diffuseness; but here, if sometimes there is an indulgence in\nthose fancies and colourings of speech of which we become impatient\nnow, we find some of the best illustrations of that happy power of\nillumination and imagination which we should expect to abound in the\nworks and sermons of such a poet as Watts. The poet and the metaphysician\nmeet, and mutually aid each other in the attempt to enter upon the\nmysteries of the unseen world; his ideas, perhaps, do not differ greatly\nfrom those which are ordinarily entertained amongst us. Franke, the\nwell-known German pietist, was the means of the translation of a portion\nof the work in Geneva, and the translator said, in introducing the work,\nthat \u201cthe preacher had taken occasion of flying with his thoughts into\nthe blessed mansions of the just, and had given not only a very probable\nand beautiful idea of the glory of a future life in general, but also an\nenumeration of the many sorts of enjoyments and pleasures that are to be\nmet with there.\u201d\n\nBut Watts\u2019 \u201cWorld to Come\u201d is not limited to the work that bears that\ntitle. His thoughts perpetually hovered round that fascinating theme. He\nwas constantly, as we find in many of his pieces, engaged in attempts to\nunderstand the nature of metaphysical substance. Though from Revelation\nwe can only gather that \u201cwe know not what we shall be,\u201d yet there are\nprecious hints from which we may obtain all that is sufficient for\ncomfort and for light, especially in the Great Teacher\u2019s promise that\n\u201cwhere I am there shall also My servant be,\u201d and the assurance of His\napostle that \u201cwe shall see Him as He is.\u201d\n\nIt would not be uninteresting to group together all Watts\u2019 words from his\nvarious works illustrating his conception of \u201cThe World to Come,\u201d his\nconjectures concerning the mode of our immortality; thus he presents to\nus\u2014\n\n    THE BRAIN BOOK.\n\n    \u201cWe may try to illustrate this matter by the similitude\n    of the union of a human soul to a body. Suppose a learned\n    philosopher be also a skilful divine and a great linguist, we\n    may reasonably conclude that there are some millions of words\n    and phrases, if taken together with all the various senses of\n    them, which are deposited in his brain as in a repository,\n    by means of some correspondent traces or signatures; we may\n    suppose also millions of ideas of things, human and divine,\n    treasured up in various traces or signatures in the same brain.\n    Nay, each organ of sense may impress on the brain millions\n    of traces belonging to the particular objects of that sense;\n    especially the two senses of discipline, the eye and the ear;\n    the pictures, the images, the colours, and the sounds, that are\n    reserved in this repository of the brain, by some correspondent\n    impressions or traces, are little less than infinite; now,\n    the human soul of the philosopher, by being united to this\n    brain, this well-furnished repository, knows all these names,\n    words, sounds, images, lines, figures, colours, notions, and\n    sensations. It receives all these ideas; and is, as it were,\n    mistress of them all. The very opening of the eye impresses\n    thousands of ideas at once upon such a soul united to a human\n    brain; and what unknown millions of ideas may be impressed on\n    it, or conveyed to it in successive seasons, whensoever she\n    stands in need of them, and that by the means of this union\n    to the brain, is beyond our capacity to think or number. Let\n    us now conceive the Divine Mind or Wisdom as a repository\n    stored with infinite ideas of things present, past, and\n    future: suppose a created spirit, of most extensive capacity,\n    intimately united to this Divine Mind or Wisdom: may it not by\n    this means, by Divine appointment, become capable of receiving\n    so many of those ideas, and so much knowledge, as are necessary\n    for the government and the judgment of all nations? And this\n    may be done two ways, viz., either by the immediate application\n    of itself, as it were by inquiry, to the Divine Mind, to which\n    it is thus united, or by the immediate actual influences and\n    impressions which the Divine Mind may make of these ideas on\n    the human soul, as fast as ever it can stand in need of them\n    for these glorious purposes. Since a human brain, which is\n    mere matter, and which contains only some strokes and traces,\n    and corporeal signatures of ideas, can convey to a human soul\n    united to it many millions of ideas, as fast as it needs them\n    for any purposes of human life; how much more may the infinite\n    God, or Divine Mind or Wisdom, which hath actually all real and\n    possible ideas in it in the most perfect manner, communicate to\n    a human soul united to this Divine Wisdom, a far greater number\n    of ideas than a human brain can receive; even as many as the\n    affairs of governing and judging this world may require. This\n    may be represented and illustrated by another similitude, thus:\n    suppose there were a spherical looking-glass or mirror vast as\n    this earth is; on which millions of corporeal objects appeared\n    in miniature on all sides of it impressed or represented there,\n    by a thousand planetary and starry worlds surrounding this vast\n    mirror; suppose a capacious human spirit united to this mirror,\n    as the soul is to the body: what an unknown multitude of ideas\n    would this mirror convey to that human spirit in successive\n    seasons! Or, perhaps, this spirit might receive all these ideas\n    at once, and be conscious of the millions of things represented\n    all round the mirror. This mirror may represent the Deity; the\n    human spirit taken in these ideas successively, or conscious\n    of them all at once, may represent to us the soul of Christ\n    receiving, either in a simultaneous view, or in a successive\n    way, unknown myriads of ideas, by its union to Godhead; though,\n    it must be owned, it can never receive all these ideas which\n    are in the Divine Mind.\u201d\n\nAnd thus he endeavours to image to his mind the worlds:\n\n    EARTH, HEAVEN, AND HELL.\n\n    \u201cI have often tried to strip death of its frightful colours,\n    and make all the terrible airs of it vanish into softness and\n    delight; to this end, among other rovings of thought, I have\n    sometimes illustrated to myself the whole creation as one\n    immense building, with different apartments, all under the\n    immediate possession and government of the great Creator. One\n    sort of these mansions are little, narrow, dark, damp rooms,\n    where there is much confinement, very little good company,\n    and such a clog upon one\u2019s natural spirits, that a man cannot\n    think or talk with freedom, nor exert his understanding, or\n    any of his intellectual powers with glory or pleasure. This\n    is the Earth in which we dwell. A second sort are spacious,\n    lightsome, airy, and serene courts open to the summer sky,\n    or at least admitting all the valuable qualities of sun and\n    air, without the inconveniences; where there are thousands\n    of most delightful companions, and everything that can give\n    one pleasure, and make one capable and fit to give pleasure\n    to others. This is the Heaven we hope for. A third sort of\n    apartments are open and spacious too, but under a wintry\n    sky, with perpetual storms of hail, rain, and wind, thunder,\n    lightning, and everything that is painful and offensive;\n    and all this among millions of wretched companions cursing\n    the place, tormenting one another, and each endeavouring to\n    increase the public and the universal misery. This is Hell.\n\n    \u201cNow what a dreadful thing it is to be driven out of one of\n    the first narrow dusky cells into the third sort of apartment,\n    where the change of the room is infinitely the worst! No\n    wonder that sinners are afraid to die. But why should a soul\n    that has good hope, through grace, of entering into the serene\n    apartment, be unwilling to leave the narrow smoky prison he\n    has dwelt in so long, and under such loads of inconvenience?\n    Death to a good man is but passing through a death entry, out\n    of one little dusky room of his Father\u2019s house into another\n    that is fair and large, lightsome and glorious, and divinely\n    entertaining. Oh may the rays and splendours of my heavenly\n    apartment shoot far downward, and gild the dark entry with such\n    a cheerful beam as to banish every fear, when I shall be called\n    to pass through.\u201d\n\nHe teaches and very much elaborates, as Southey says, the doctrine of\nMilton:\n\n                        \u2014What, if earth\n    Be but the shadow of Heaven, and things therein\n    Each to other like, more than on earth is thought?\n\nSouthey somewhat naturally finds an occasion for humour in that Milton\nbeheld in heaven a place for armies, the review of bright brigades, and\nillustrious cohorts with keen swords and long bright spears, and so he\nremarks, \u201cThe Heaven of Watts\u2019 imagination was coloured by his earthly\npursuits, and whether there were to be reviews of armies or not there\nwere to be sermons.\u201d \u201cFor,\u201d says Watts, \u201cnot only is there the service of\nthanksgiving here and of prayer, but such entertainment as lectures and\nsermons also, and there all the worship that is paid is the established\nworship of the whole country.\u201d But the conceptions formed by Watts of\nthe heavenly state are majestic in the main. \u201cFor the Church,\u201d he says,\n\u201con earth is but a training school for the church on high, and is, as\nit were, a tiring-room in which we are dressed in proper habit for our\nappearance and our places in that bright assembly.\u201d Thus he beholds\n\u201cBoyle and Ray pursuing the philosophy in which they delighted on earth,\ncontemplating the wisdom of God in His works; and Henry More and Howe\ncontinuing their metaphysical researches with brightened and refined\npowers of mind.\u201d It is singular that Watts, who speculated so keenly\nand clearly into the nature of metaphysical substance, should have thus\nsomewhat embarrassed his views of the heavenly state by discriminating so\nmuch the pursuits of a pure and perfect soul, by characteristics which\npartake of the faulty views of an earthly understanding; but we are to\nremember that he wrote for useful purposes, and we may believe that some\nof those excursions of the fancy, while scarcely consistent even with his\nown metaphysics, added not a little to the pleasant horizon spread out\nbefore the view of those readers unable or indisposed to follow him into\nmore abstract and pure regions of thought. Interestingly and curiously\nhe seeks to trace the progress of the soul from the visible to the\ninvisible world; we know this world by Space and Substance, the solution\nof these in connection with our existence in that future world to come\nis not less a trouble to Watts than it has been to the rest of us. Space\nhe endeavoured to annihilate, Substance also, and he argues, as Isaac\nTaylor has argued since in his \u201cPhysical Theory of Another Life,\u201d that as\ndisembodied spirits cannot exist _everywhere_, and do not probably exist\n_anywhere_, philosophically they may be said to exist _nowhere_.[41] The\nquestion then is whither does the soul depart when it is separated from\nthe body? Perhaps it may be furnished with some new vehicle of a more\nrefined matter, which will remind readers of Abraham Tucker\u2019s singular\nchapters in his \u201cLight of Nature,\u201d on the \u201cVehicular State;\u201d and it is\nvery suggestive to find him intimating that it may abide where death\nfinds it, not changing its place, but only its manner of thinking and\nacting, and its mode of existence, and without removal finding itself\nin heaven or in hell according to its own consciousness, and that is,\naccording to its own previous training or education, and then he says,\n\u201cI may illustrate this by two similitudes, and especially apply them to\nthe case of holy souls departing.\u201d They may remind the reader of Henry\nVaughan\u2019s beautiful verse:\n\n    If a star were confined in a tomb,\n      Its captive light would e\u2019en shine there;\n    But when it bursts it dissipates the gloom,\n      And shines through all the sphere.\n\n\u201cSuppose a torch enclosed in a cell of earth, in the midst of ten\nthousand thousand torches that shine at large in a spacious amphitheatre.\nWhile it is enclosed, its beams strike only on the walls of its own cell,\nand it has no communion with those without. But let this cell fall down\nat once, and the torch that moment has full communion with all those\nten thousands; it shines as freely as they do, and receives and gives\nassistance to all of them, and joins to add glory to that illustrious\nplace.\n\n\u201cOr suppose a man born or brought up in a dark prison, in the midst\nof a fair and populous city. He lives there in a close confinement;\nperhaps he enjoys only the twinkling light of a lamp, with thick air\nand much ignorance; though he has some distant hints and reports of\nthe surrounding city and its affairs, yet he sees and knows nothing\nimmediately but what is done in his own prison, till in some happy\nminute the walls fall down; then he finds himself at once in a large and\npopulous town, encompassed with a thousand blessings. With surprise he\nbeholds the king in all his glory, and holds converse with the sprightly\ninhabitants. He can speak their language, and finds his nature suited to\nsuch communion. He breathes free air, stands in the open light; he shakes\nhimself, and exults in his own liberty.\u201d\n\nThe gentle spirit of Watts trembled before hell; he expressed his belief\nin eternal punishment in the strongest and most unequivocal terms, not\nbecause he found it plainly in his understanding, but because he found it\nplainly declared in the New Testament, while yet, like other fathers in\nthe Church, he expresses within himself a latent hope that God has some\nsecret and mitigating decree, and that although we neither dare preach\nnor speculate upon it, bowing to the word, we yet may hope that Infinite\nLove will find out a way.[42]\n\nSome readers will be surprised to find that among his proofs of a\nseparate state, Watts does not hesitate, although very modestly, to\navow some belief in Apparitions. It was the age of superstition and\nsupernatural visitations. Joseph Addison indeed was aiming at a sweeping\nreform, and attempting to lay all the ghosts in the country. Watts says\u2014\n\n    CONCERNING THE POSSIBILITY OF APPARITIONS.\n\n    \u201cAt the conclusion of this chapter I cannot help taking\n    notice, though I shall but just mention it, that the multitude\n    of narratives, which we have heard of in all ages, of the\n    apparition of the spirits or ghosts of persons departed from\n    this life, can hardly be all delusion and falsehood. Some of\n    them have been affirmed to appear upon such great and important\n    occasions as may be equal to such an unusual event; and several\n    of these accounts have been attested by such witnesses of\n    wisdom, and prudence, and sagacity, under no distempers of\n    imagination, that they may justly demand a belief; and the\n    effects of these apparitions, in the discovery of murders and\n    things unknown, have been so considerable and useful, that a\n    fair disputant should hardly venture to run directly counter\n    to such a cloud of witnesses without some good assurance on\n    the contrary side. He must be a shrewd philosopher indeed who,\n    upon any other hypothesis, can give a tolerable account of all\n    the narratives in Glanvil\u2019s \u2018Sadducisimus Triumphatus,\u2019 or\n    Baxter\u2019s \u2018World of Spirits and Apparitions,\u2019 etc. Though I will\n    grant some of these stories have but insufficient proof, yet if\n    there be but one real apparition of a departed spirit, then the\n    point is gained that there is a separate state.\n\n    \u201cAnd, indeed, the Scripture itself seems to mention such\n    sort of ghosts or appearances of souls departed (Matt. xiv.\n    26). When the disciples saw Jesus walking on the water they\n    \u2018thought it had been a spirit.\u2019 And (Luke xxiv. 37) after\n    His resurrection they saw Him at once appearing in the midst\n    of them, \u2018and they supposed they had seen a spirit;\u2019 and our\n    Saviour doth not contradict their notion, but argues with\n    them upon the supposition of the truth of it, \u2018a spirit hath\n    not flesh and bones as ye see Me to have.\u2019 And, Acts xxiii.\n    8, 9, the word \u2018spirit\u2019 seems to signify \u2018the apparition of a\n    departed soul,\u2019 where it is said, \u2018The Sadducees say there is\n    no resurrection, neither angel nor spirit;\u2019 and, verse 9, \u2018If a\n    spirit or an angel hath spoken to this man,\u2019 etc. A spirit here\n    is plainly distinct from an angel; and what can it mean but an\n    apparition of a human soul which has left the body?\u201d\n\nAn acquaintance with the \u201cWorld to Come\u201d will take away even now from\nthe reader any surprise at the popularity it once enjoyed during years\nwhen printed sermons were not very abundant, and when readers received\nwithout questioning the doctrines and statements of such books as bore\nthe imprint of the names of eminent men. Many passages are fraught with a\nmost pleasing eloquence, and, read by a serious mind, are well calculated\nto convey not only passing, but permanent impressions. Shall we take two\nor three?\n\n    ALL THINGS PREACH THE END OF TIME.\n\n    \u201cTime, hastening to its period, will furnish us with perpetual\n    new occasions of holy meditation. Do I observe the declining\n    day, and the setting sun sinking into darkness? So declines the\n    day of life, the hours of labour, and the seasons of grace;\n    oh may I finish my appointed work with honour ere the light\n    is fled! May I improve the shining hours of grace ere the\n    shadows of the evening overtake me, and my time of working is\n    no more! Do I see the moon gliding along through midnight, and\n    fulfilling her stages in the dusky sky? This planet also is\n    measuring out my life, and bringing the number of my months\n    to their end. May I be prepared to take leave of the sun and\n    moon, and bid adieu to these visible heavens, and all the\n    twinkling glories of them! These are all but the measures of\n    my time, and hasten me on towards eternity. Am I walking in\n    a garden, and stand still to observe the slow motion of the\n    shadow upon a dial there? It passes over the hour lines with\n    an imperceptible progress, yet it will touch the last line\n    of daylight shortly: so my hours and my moments move onward\n    with a silent pace; but they will arrive with certainty at the\n    last limit, how heedless soever I am of their motion, and how\n    thoughtless soever I may be of the improvement of time, or the\n    end of it. Does a new year commence, and the first morning\n    of it dawn upon me? Let me remember that the last year was\n    finished, and gone over my head, in order to make way for the\n    entrance of the present: I have one year the less to travel\n    through the world, and to fulfil the various services of a\n    travelling state: may my diligence in duty be doubled, since\n    the number of my appointed years is diminished! Do I find a\n    new birth-day in my survey of the calendar, the day wherein I\n    entered upon the stage of mortality, and was born into this\n    world of sins, frailties, and sorrows, in order to my probation\n    for a better state? Blessed Lord, how much have I spent already\n    of this mortal life, this season of my probation, and how\n    little am I prepared for that happier world! How unready for\n    my dying moment! I am hastening hourly to the end of the life\n    of man, which began at my nativity: am I yet born of God? Have\n    I begun the life of a saint? Am I prepared for that awful day\n    which shall determine the number of my months on earth? Am I\n    fit to be born into the world of spirits through the strait\n    gate of death? Am I renewed in all the powers of my nature, and\n    made meet to enter into that unseen world, where there shall\n    be no more of these revolutions of days and years, but one\n    eternal day fills up all the space with Divine pleasure, or one\n    eternal night with long and deplorable distress and darkness?\n    When I see a friend expiring, or the corpse of my neighbour\n    conveyed to the grave: alas! their months and minutes are all\n    determined, and the seasons of their trial are finished for\n    ever; they are gone to their eternal home, and the estate of\n    their souls is fixed unchangeably: the angel that has sworn\n    their \u2018time shall be no longer\u2019 has concluded their hopes,\n    or has finished their fears, and, according to the rules of\n    righteous judgment, has decided their misery or happiness for a\n    long immortality. Take this warning, oh my soul, and think of\n    thine own removal! Are we standing in the churchyard, paying\n    the last honours to the relics of our friends? What a number of\n    hillocks of death appear all round us! What are the tombstones\n    but memorials of the inhabitants of that town, to inform us of\n    the period of all their lives, and to point out the day when\n    it was said to each of them, your \u2018time shall be no longer.\u2019\n    Oh may I readily learn this important lesson, that my turn is\n    hastening too! Such a little hillock shall shortly arise for me\n    on some unknown spot of ground; it shall cover this flesh and\n    these bones of mine in darkness, and shall hide them from the\n    light of the sun, and from the sight of man, \u2018till the heavens\n    be no more.\u2019 Perhaps some kind surviving friend may engrave my\n    name, with the number of my days, upon a plain funeral stone,\n    without ornament and below envy; there shall my tomb stand,\n    among the rest, as a fresh monument of the frailty of nature\n    and the end of time. It is possible some friendly foot may,\n    now and then, visit the place of my repose, and some tender\n    eye may bedew the cold memorial with a tear: one or another\n    of my old acquaintance may possibly attend there to learn the\n    silent lecture of mortality from my grave-stone, which my lips\n    are now preaching aloud to the world: and if love and sorrow\n    should reach so far, perhaps, while his soul is melting in his\n    eye-lids, and his voice scarce find an utterance, he will point\n    with his finger and show his companion the month and day of my\n    decease. Oh that solemn, that awful day, which shall finish\n    my appointed time on earth, and put a full period to all the\n    designs of my heart and all the labours of my tongue and pen.\n    Think, oh my soul! that while friends or strangers are engaged\n    on that spot, and reading the date of my departure hence, thou\n    wilt be fixed under a decisive and unchangeable sentence,\n    rejoicing in the rewards of time well improved, or suffering\n    the long sorrows which shall attend the abuse of it in an\n    unknown world of happiness or misery.\u201d\n\nAnd we should think that many a believer has read the following with\nsentiments of delight:\n\n    CHRIST ADMIRED AND GLORIFIED IN HIS SAINTS.\n\n    \u201cAstonishing spectacle! When the dark and savage inhabitants of\n    Africa, and our forefathers, the rugged and warlike Britons,\n    from the ends of the earth, shall appear in that assembly,\n    with some of the polite nations of Greece and Rome, and each\n    of them shall glory in having been taught to renounce the gods\n    of their ancestors, and the demons which they once worshipped,\n    and shall rejoice in Jesus the King of Israel, and in Jehovah\n    the everlasting God. The conversion of the Gentile world to\n    Christianity is a matter of glorious wonder, and shall appear\n    to be so in that great day: that those who had been educated to\n    believe in many gods, or no god at all, should renounce atheism\n    and idolatry, and adore the true God only; and those who were\n    taught to sacrifice to idols, and to atone for their own sins\n    with the blood of beasts, should trust in one sacrifice,\n    and the atoning blood of the Son of God. Here shall stand a\n    believing atheist, and there a converted idolater, as monuments\n    of the almighty power of grace. There shall shine also in that\n    assembly here and there a prince and a philosopher, though \u2018not\n    many wise, not many noble, not many mighty are called.\u2019[43]\n    And they shall be matter of wonder and glory: that princes,\n    who loved no control, should bow their sceptres and their\n    souls to the royalty and Godhead of the poor Man of Nazareth:\n    that the heathen philosophers, who had been used to yield\n    only to reason, should submit their understandings to Divine\n    revelation, even when it has something above the powers and\n    discoveries of reason in it.\n\n    \u201cCome, all ye saints of these latter ages, \u2018upon whom the\n    end of the world is come,\u2019 raise your heads with me, and look\n    far backwards, even to the beginning of time, and the days of\n    Adam; for the believers of all ages, as well as of all nations,\n    shall appear together in that day, and acknowledge Jesus the\n    Saviour: according to the brighter or darker discoveries of\n    the age in which they lived, He has been the common object of\n    their faith. Ever since He was called \u2018the Seed of the woman,\u2019\n    till the time of His appearance in the flesh, all the chosen of\n    God have lived upon His grace, though multitudes of them never\n    knew His name. It is true, the greater part of that illustrious\n    company on the right hand of Christ lived since the time of\n    His incarnation, for the \u2018great multitude which no man could\n    number\u2019 is derived from the Gentile nations. Yet the ancient\n    patriarchs, with the Jewish prophets and saints, shall make a\n    splendid appearance there: \u2018one hundred and forty-four thousand\n    are sealed among the tribes of Israel;\u2019 these of old embraced\n    the Gospel in types and shadows; but now their eyes behold\n    Jesus Christ, the substance and the truth. In the days of their\n    flesh they read His name in dark lines, and looked through the\n    long glasses of prophecy to distant ages, and a Saviour to\n    come; and now, behold, they find complete and certain salvation\n    and glory in Him. \u2018These all died in faith, not having received\n    the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded\n    of them, and embraced them.\u2019 They died in the hope of this\n    salvation, and they shall rise in the blessed possession of it.\n\n    \u201cBehold Abraham appearing there, the father of the faithful,\n    \u2018who saw the day of Christ, and rejoiced to see it;\u2019 who\n    trusted in his Son Jesus, two thousand years before He was\n    born; his elder family, the pious Jews, surround him there,\n    and we, his younger children, among the Gentiles, shall stand\n    with him as the followers of his faith, who trust in the same\n    Jesus almost two thousand years after He is dead. How shall we\n    both rejoice to see this brightest day of the Son of Man, and\n    congratulate each other\u2019s faith, while our eyes meet and centre\n    in Him, and our souls triumph in the sight, love, and enjoyment\n    of Him in whom we have believed! How admirable and divinely\n    glorious shall our Lord Himself appear, on whom every life is\n    fixed with unutterable delight, in whom the faith of distant\n    countries and ages is centered and reconciled, and in whom \u2018all\n    the nations of the earth appear to be blessed,\u2019 according to\n    the ancient word of promise.\n\n    \u201cThen one shall say: \u2018I was a sensual sinner, drenched in\n    liquor and unclean lusts, and wicked in all the forms of\n    lewdness and intemperance; the grace of God my Saviour appeared\n    to me, and taught me to deny worldly lusts, which I once\n    thought I could never have parted with. I loved my sins as\n    my life, but He has persuaded and constrained me to cut off\n    a right hand, and to pluck out a right eye, and to part with\n    my darling vices; and behold me here a monument of His saving\n    mercy.\u2019\n\n    \u201c\u2018I was envious against my neighbour,\u2019 shall another say, \u2018and\n    my temper was malice and wrath; revenge was mingled with my\n    constitution, and I thought it no iniquity; but I bless the\n    name of Christ my Redeemer, who, in the day of His grace,\n    turned my wrath into meekness; He inclined me to love even my\n    enemies, and to pray for them that cursed me; He taught me\n    all this by His own example, and He made me learn it by the\n    sovereign influences of His Spirit. I am a wonder to myself,\n    when I think what once I was. Amazing change, and Almighty\n    grace!\u2019\n\n    \u201cThen a third shall confess: \u2018I was a profane wretch, a\n    swearer, a blasphemer; I hoped for no heaven, and I feared no\n    hell; but the Lord seized me in the midst of my rebellions,\n    and sent His arrows into my soul; He made me feel the stings\n    of an awakened conscience, and constrained me to believe there\n    was a God and a hell, till I cried out astonished, \u201cWhat\n    shall I do to be saved?\u201d Then He led me to partake of His own\n    salvation, and, from a proud, rebellious infidel, He has made\n    me a penitent and a humble believer, and here I stand to show\n    forth the wonders of His grace, and a boundless extent of His\n    forgiveness.\u2019\n\n    \u201cA fourth shall stand up and acknowledge in that day: And I was\n    a poor carnal, covetous creature, who made this world my god,\n    and abundance of money was my heaven; but He cured me of this\n    vile idolatry of gold, taught me how to obtain treasures in the\n    heavenly world, and to forsake all on earth, that I might have\n    an inheritance there; and, behold, He has not disappointed my\n    hopes: I am now made rich indeed, and I must for ever sing His\n    praises.\u2019\n\n    \u201cThere shall be no doubt or dispute in that day whether it was\n    the power of our own will, or the superior power of Divine\n    grace, that wrought the blessed change, that turned the lion\n    into a lamb, a grovelling earthworm into a bird of paradise,\n    and of a covetous or malicious sinner made a meek and a\n    heavenly saint. The grace of Christ shall be so conspicuous\n    in every glorified believer in that assembly, that, with one\n    voice, they shall all shout to the praise and glory of His\n    grace, \u2018Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to Thy name be all\n    the honour!\u2019\n\n    \u201cBehold that noble army with palms in their hands; once they\n    were weak warriors, yet they overcame mighty enemies, and have\n    gained the victory and the prize; enemies rising from earth\n    and from hell to tempt and to accuse them, but they overcame\n    \u2018by the blood of the Lamb.\u2019 What a Divine honour it shall be\n    to our Lord Jesus Christ, \u2018the Captain of our salvation,\u2019 that\n    weak Christians should subdue their strong corruptions, and\n    get safe to heaven through a thousand oppositions within and\n    without! It is all owing to the grace of Christ, that grace\n    which is all-sufficient for every saint. They are made \u2018more\n    than conquerors through Him that has loved them.\u2019 Then shall\n    the faith and courage and patience of the saints have a blessed\n    review; and it shall be told before the whole creation what\n    strife and wrestlings a poor believer has passed through in\n    a dark cottage, a chamber of lone sickness, or perhaps in a\n    dungeon; how he has there combated with \u2018powers of darkness,\u2019\n    how he has struggled with huge sorrows, and has borne, and has\n    not fainted, though he has been often \u2018in heaviness through\n    manifold temptations.\u2019 Then shall appear the bright scene which\n    St. Peter represents as the event of sore trials (1 Peter i. 6,\n    7). \u2018When our faith has been tried in the fire of tribulation,\n    and is found more precious than gold,\u2019 it shall shine to the\n    praise, honour, and glory of the suffering saints, and of\n    Christ Himself at His appearance.\n\n    \u201cBehold that illustrious troop of martyrs, and some among\n    them of the feebler sex and of tender age. Now, that women\n    should grow bold in faith, even in the sight of torments, and\n    children, with a manly courage, should profess the name of\n    Christ in the face of angry and threatening rulers; that some\n    of these should become undaunted confessors of the truth, and\n    others triumph in fires and torture, these things shall be\n    matter of glory to Christ in that day; it was His power that\n    gave them courage and victory in martyrdom and death. Every\n    Christian there, every soldier in that triumphing army, shall\n    ascribe his conquest to the grace of his Lord, his Leader, and\n    lay down all their trophies at the feet of his Saviour, with\n    humble acknowledgments, and shouts of honour.\n\n    \u201cAlmost all the saved number were, at some part of their lives,\n    weak in faith, and yet, by the grace of Christ, they held out\n    to the end, and are crowned; \u2018I was a poor trembling creature,\u2019\n    shall one say, \u2018but I was confirmed in my faith and holiness\n    by the Gospel of Christ; or, I rested on a naked promise, and\n    found support, because Christ was there, and He shall have the\n    glory of it.\u2019 \u2018In Him are all the promises yea, and in Him\n    amen, to the glory of the Father;\u2019 and the Son shall share in\n    this glory; for He died to ratify these promises, and He lives\n    to fulfil them.\n\n    \u201c\u2018Oh, what an almighty arm is this,\u2019 shall the believer say,\n    \u2018that has borne up so many thousands of poor sinking creatures,\n    and lifted their heads above the waves!\u2019 The spark of grace\n    that lived many years in a flood of temptations, and was not\n    quenched, shall then shine bright to the glory of Christ, who\n    kindled and maintained it. When we have been brought through\n    all the storms and the threatening seas, and yet the raging\n    waves have been forbid, to swallow us up, we shall cry out\n    in raptures of joy and wonder: \u2018What manner of Man is this,\n    that the winds and the seas have obeyed him?\u2019 Then shall it be\n    gloriously evident that He has conquered Satan, and kept the\n    hosts of hell in chains; when it shall appear that He has made\n    poor, mean, trembling believers victorious over all the powers\n    of darkness, for the Prince of Peace has bruised him under\n    their feet.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV.\n\nThe Man.\n\n\nWatts, as we have seen, lived so much in retirement and retreat, and\nwas so constant a sufferer from the infirmities of health, that little\nis known in the way of incident and anecdote of his life. In a sense,\nindeed, he lived constantly before the eyes of men, for his industry,\nwhen he was capable of industry, must have been immense; he must have\nread extensively, he thought deeply, and he possessed not only an active\nbut a facile pen, which appears to have served him very readily when he\ndesired to translate his thoughts into language. His life belongs to that\norder we represent by such names as Richard Hooker, Jeremy Taylor, and\nJohn Howe: we do not here compare or contrast the finer details of their\ncharacter, but, like them, he appears to have been essentially a man of\ncontemplation; his activity was only the reflection of a contemplative\nlife. In height he was quite beneath the common standard; Dr. Gibbons\nsays not above five feet, or, at most, five feet two inches; we are not\naccustomed to associate so small a stature with any commanding presence\nin the pulpit; yet his preaching was greatly admired, and Dr. Jennings\nsays that it was not only weighty and powerful, \u201cbut there was a certain\ndignity and respect in his very aspect which commanded attention and\nawe, and when he spoke, such strains of truly Christian eloquence flowed\nfrom his lips as one thinks could not be easily slighted, if resisted.\u201d\nHe was altogether a very slight figure\u2014thin, an oval face, an aquiline\nnose, his complexion fair and pale, and, Gibbons says, his forehead\nlow; but this does not appear in his portrait, nor does that which it\nusually indicates, a want of generosity, mark his character. When unable\nto preach, it was with difficulty he could be persuaded to accept the\nstipend of the church of which he was the pastor, saying that, as he\ncould not preach, he had no title to any salary. His refusal was not\naccepted, but the delicate sense of honour marks the character of the\nman; while, from the time he lived in the Abney family, he devoted a\nthird part of his income to charitable purposes. His eyes appear to have\nlighted up his face; they are described as singularly small and grey, and\nare said to have been amazingly piercing and expressive. His voice was\nvery fine and, slender, but regular, audible, and pleasant. The anecdote\nis well known of him that when he was in one of those coffee-houses\u2014then\nthe haunts of men who knew what company they might expect to find, for\nevery particular coterie had its own place of rendezvous\u2014he overheard his\nname given by one person to another, who said in surprise, \u201cWhat! is that\nthe great Dr. Watts?\u201d Whereupon he wrote down a verse and handed it to\nhim:\n\n    Were I so tall to reach the pole,\n      And grasp the ocean in a span,\n    I must be measured by my soul,\u2014\n      The mind\u2019s the standard of the man.\n\nWe have never thought the anecdote a very likely one; Watts was\naltogether too quiet, and we may use the word, majestic in his manner to\nmake it possible he would do this. The verse is indeed his, but it occurs\nin a lengthy poem, and it is possible that it was fitted into a fabulous\nincident which some inventor of scenic situations thought might be, or\nought to be, true. There is another anecdote which has been related of\nhim, although we have seen it attributed to others, how, when once in a\ncoffee-house, and somewhat in the way of a tall giant of a man, he said\nto Watts, \u201cLet me pass, O giant!\u201d and Watts replied, \u201cPass on, O pigmy!\u201d\n\u201cI only referred to your mind,\u201d said the giant; \u201cI also to yours,\u201d\nreplied Watts.\n\nWhatever impression such anecdotes may convey, one of his chief\ncharacteristics was a very modest appreciation of himself. \u201cHis\nhumility,\u201d said Dr. Jennings, \u201clike a deep shade, set off his other\ngraces and virtues, and made them shine with greater lustre.\u201d And of\nthose attributes of his character of which others thought most highly,\nhe thought very inconsiderably. And to such a character is often allied\nthat which is very noticeable in him, a very grateful sense of all\nfavours conferred upon him. There was nothing narrow in his mind, he\nhad a great width of thought and a great width of love: although, as we\nhave seen, a Nonconformist by strong conviction, judging the communion\nto which he belonged as favourable to civil and religious freedom, and\nregarding the service as most in harmony with what he considered the\nsimplicity of the Gospel, he was on terms of friendship with many other\ncommunions, and especially with several of the prelates, ministers, and\nmembers of the Established Church. It would be expected, although this\nis not invariably the case, that a mind so richly stored, united to so\nready an eloquence, would shine in conversation, and this was the case.\nIt is said that in conversation his wit sparkled; his biographer says,\n\u201cIt was like an ethereal flame, ever vivid and penetrating;\u201d but he had\nan aversion to satire. Referring to the pictures he sometimes introduces,\nillustrating the vices and follies of his age, he utterly disclaims the\nidea that in them he has attempted to portray any personal character. \u201cI\nwould not,\u201d he says, \u201cwillingly create needless pain or uneasiness to the\nmost despicable figure among mankind; there are vexations enough among\nthe beings of my species without my adding to the heap. When a reflecting\nglass shows the deformity of a face so plain as to point to the person,\nhe will sooner be tempted to break the glass than reform his blemishes;\nbut if I can find any error of my own happily described in some general\ncharacter, I am then awakened to reform it in silence, without the public\nnotice of the world, and the moral writer attains his noblest end.\u201d\nHe was not happy in the friendship of listeners, who took down with\nany accuracy the sayings which fell from him; and it is probable that\nin conversation, although rich and full, wide and wise, it was rather\nremarkable for these characteristics than for either its gaiety or its\nforce.\n\nThere were few waste moments for which he had to give an account; he\nacted like a miser by his time, and permitted few moments to pass without\ntheir being garnered and compelled to pay interest. We read of his\nwriting on horseback, and whithersoever he travelled the objects which\nentered either the eye or the ear seem to have left abiding impressions.\nIt seems even the injustice of his opponents in disputation did not make\nhim angry. Such injustice we know he had to experience; and when, in his\nlater years, he offended on both sides, one writer complaining of him\nthat he had gone too far, and another that he had not gone far enough,\nhe contented himself by saying, \u201cModeration must expect a box on both\nears.\u201d A character like that of Watts inspires confidence in almost all\nthat proceeds from his pen: the men, indeed, who carry what Chalmers\ncalled \u201cweight in life,\u201d are usually the tall, the self-assertive, and\nthe strong; none of these attributes mark him, and yet he appears to have\ncarried great weight. It was not by vehemence, but by wisdom; he did\nnot win by the forcible striking of the ball, but by prescience and a\njudicious calculation.\n\nWatts, like so many of the great wits, poets, and authors of his\ntime, was what we should now consider very slightly versed in the\naccomplishments of travel: a few places in the neighbourhood of\nLondon and Southampton and Tunbridge Wells seem almost to exhaust his\nexcursions. Indeed, England was for the most part an unknown country,\nand as to the continent of Europe, men of wealth and fashion were\nexpected to perfect their education by the grand tour, but to persons\neven in Watts\u2019 circle of society, France, Switzerland, and Italy, with\ntheir cities, memories, forests, and mountains, were unknown. Gray had\nnot yet discovered Cumberland and Westmoreland, and when discovered,\nthere were no facilities to make travel thither very easy; Yorkshire and\nLancashire were almost equally unknown. The place to which we frequently\nfind Watts retreating for the benefit of his health was Tunbridge\nWells, and a singular place it must have been for a retreat, judging\nfrom the description Macaulay has given us of it in his history; but it\nfurnishes us with a singular sense of the simple things which excited\nthe imagination, to read how Watts regarded it. Many a modern reader\nis struck with surprise at Shakespeare\u2019s description of the cliffs of\nDover\u2014a description of terror and fear arising from precipitous heights,\nwhich we could scarcely now persuade ourselves to be just of Helvellyn\nand Pendle. The rocks of Tunbridge seemed to Watts so wild and fearful\nthat they furnish him with a subject for a sermon, \u201cOn the vain Refuge of\nSinners,\u201d from the text reciting the condition of those who said to the\nmountains and rocks, \u201cFall on us, and hide us from the face of Him that\nsitteth upon the throne.\u201d The sermon is expressly called \u201cA Meditation\nupon the Rocks near Tunbridge Wells,\u201d and he says:\n\n\u201cWhen I see such awful appearances in nature, huge and lofty rocks\nhanging over my head, and at every step of my approach they seem to nod\nupon me with overwhelming ruin; when my curiosity searches far into\nhollow clefts, their dark and deep caverns of solitude and desolation,\nmethinks, whilst I stand amongst them, I can hardly think myself in\nsafety, and, at best, they give a sort of solemn and dreadful delight.\nLet me improve the scene to religious purposes, and raise a Divine\nmeditation. Am I one of those wretches who shall call to these huge\nimpending rocks to fall upon me?\u201d\n\nWhen Watts first visited Tunbridge Wells in search of health and\nrefreshment, it must have been to our modern sense an uncomfortable\nplace; even at the close of his life and in his later visits, it was only\njust rising into importance as the retreat of the coteries of fashion\nand letters; it is almost the only spot left now which we may be sure,\nfrom some points of view, looks much as it did in the day when Watts,\nRichardson, or Johnson walked along the Pantiles, and inhaled the breezes\nfrom the neighbouring rocks and grounds. Such as it was at the close\nof the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries, we find described in\nthe pages of Macaulay and some of the novelists and poets. The waters\npossessed some real, and acquired an artificial, fame; there was no town,\nonly a few neat and rustic cottages, some of these moveable; moveable\ncabins and huts were drawn on sledges from one part of the common to\nanother. Fashionable London tradespeople went down and spread out their\nbazaars under the trees, and near the spring; a fair was daily held, in\nwhich were booths where the man of letters and the politician might find\nhis cup of coffee, his newspaper, and his friend; and others, in which\nthe gambler might find his vice and his victim. On the whole, it was a\nmerry place for sated and wearied fashionable loungers, where they might\nbelieve that they were becoming rural, and charm themselves into the\npersuasion that they were the spectators of a poetry of nature, which\nthey would have been indisposed to experience too long or too deeply; but\na place where we cannot suppose that Watts found himself for any length\nof time at home. He was, however, frequently there, and upon one occasion\nhe was guilty of one of the few of what may be called the vanities of\nverse which fell from his pen. The atmosphere of watering-places is\nfavourable to every kind of literary as well as other lounging. Watts was\nnot altogether insensible, we should suppose, to the charms of female\nbeauty, and certainly a man may well be moved to express himself in verse\nconcerning it, when feeble verses have been erroneously attributed to\nhim. It was in the summer of 1712, when at Tunbridge Wells, that he wrote\nthe following lines in honour of Lady Sunderland, one of the daughters\nof the Duke of Marlborough; her husband had just been dismissed from the\ncouncils of the queen, and she had just withdrawn from the court. We may\nsuppose the little clusters of various loungers and talkers would be\nsurprised to see them in some one of the little local flying \u201cMercury\u2019s\u201d\nof the day where these verses appeared and were attributed to Watts; he\nappears to have felt it was an occasion for some apology for stepping\ninto such a by-way; he does so in the following note, upon which fancy\nmay a little divert itself as to the life he and others led at Tunbridge\nWells:\n\n    TO AMYNTAS.\n\n    \u201cPerhaps you were not a little surprised, my friend, when you\n    saw some stanzas on the Lady Sunderland at Tunbridge Wells,\n    and were told that I wrote them; but when I give you a full\n    account of the occasion your wonder will cease. The Duke of\n    Marlborough\u2019s three daughters, namely, the Lady Godolphin, the\n    Lady Sunderland, and the Lady Bridgewater, had been at the\n    Wells some time when I came there; nor had I the honour of\n    any more acquaintance with any of them than what was common\n    to all the company in the Wells, that is, to be told who they\n    were when they passed by. A few days afterwards they left that\n    place, and the next morning there was found a copy of verses in\n    the coffee-house, called the \u2018Three Shining Sisters;\u2019 but, the\n    author being unknown, some persons were ready to attribute them\n    to me, knowing that I had heretofore dealt in rhyme. I confess\n    I was ashamed of several lines in that copy. Some were very\n    dull, and others, as I remember, bordered upon profaneness.\n\n    \u201cThat afternoon I rode abroad as usual for my health, and\n    it came into my head to let my friends see that, if I would\n    choose such a theme, I would write in another manner than that\n    nameless author had done. Accordingly, as I was on horseback, I\n    began a stanza on the \u2018Three Shining Sisters,\u2019 but my ideas,\n    my rhyme, and the metre would not hit well while the words ran\n    in the plural number; and this slight occurrence was the real\n    occasion of turning my thoughts to the singular; and then,\n    because the Lady Sunderland was counted much the finest woman\n    of the three, I addressed the verses to her name. Afterwards\n    when I came to the coffee-house, I entertained some of my\n    friends with these lines, and they, imagining it would be no\n    disagreeable thing to the company, persuaded me to permit them\n    to pass through the press.\u201d\n\nBut here are the verses\u2014\n\n    ODE TO LADY SUNDERLAND, 1712.\n\n    Fair nymph, ascend to Beauty\u2019s throne,\n    And rule that radiant world alone;\n    Let favourites take thy lower sphere,\n    No monarchs are thy rivals here.\n\n    The court of Beauty built sublime,\n    Defies all pow\u2019rs but heaven and time;\n    Envy, that clouds the hero\u2019s sky,\n    Aims but in vain her shafts so high.\n\n    Not Blenheim\u2019s field, nor Ister\u2019s flood,\n    Nor standards dyed in Gallic blood,\n    Torn from the foe, add nobler grace\n    To Churchill\u2019s house than Spenser\u2019s face.\n\n    The warlike thunder of his arms\n    Is less commanding than her charms;\n    His lightning strikes with less surprise\n    Than sudden glances from her eyes.\n\n    His captives feel their limbs confined\n    In iron; she enslaves the mind:\n    We follow with a pleasing pain,\n    And bless the conqueror and the chain.\n\n    The Muse that dares in numbers do\n    What paint and pencil never knew,\n    Faints at her presence in despair,\n    And owns th\u2019 inimitable fair.\n\nPresently appeared the following epigram or _impromptu_ composed by some\ndivine, of which it has been truly remarked that it is difficult to say\nwhether the author or the lady has the greater compliment!\u2014\n\n    While numerous bards have sounded Spenser\u2019s name,\n    And made her beauties heirs to lasting fame,\n    Her memory still to their united lays\n    Stands less indebted than to Watts\u2019s praise.\n    What wondrous charms must to that fair be given,\n    Who moved a mind that dwelt so near to heaven!\n\nTunbridge Wells is still the pleasant resort of those who seek the mild\nand quiet attractions of charming scenery, refreshing breezes, and crags\nand downs; but the romantic season of Tunbridge Wells is to be sought for\nabout the period when Watts and his contemporaries were visitors there,\nscenes open to the fancy which it would be difficult to realize now\namidst its splendid palatial residences; even Nature must look less like\nNature than it did then, while the superior auxiliaries of comfort and\naccommodation have, as in almost all such instances, been purchased at\nthe expense of dissipating the charms and rural beauties of a place which\nstill retains so many of them as to make one of the most attractive and\nsatisfying haunts for a sick heart among the sanatories of England.\n\nThe life of Dr. Watts must be illustrated rather from his works than from\nits incidents. It is remarkable that so little is recorded of him; his\npowers of conversation seem to have been considerable, and his reputation\nfor wit was what we might naturally suppose from the liveliness of many\nof his prose writings. But he was certainly unfortunate in his first\nbiographer. Dr. Gibbons was an accomplished man, a correct and fine\nscholar, but surely the last thing for which he was ever intended, either\nby nature or by grace, was to write a biography. _His_ contains many\nnoticeable and acute remarks, and some passages which almost dilate\ninto beauty; but it is strange that, constant as was his intercourse\nwith his friend, he has preserved scarcely anything either of anecdote,\nconversation, or description illustrating their intercourse; and it\nseems certain that Watts\u2019 life would have well repaid the assiduity of\na Boswell. His mind was remarkably full, and Gibbons testifies how, on\nany and every occasion, he was able to express himself at once with\ngreat force, propriety, and elegance. But his biographer only tells us\nhow his life, from the time of his earliest studies, afforded little\nvariety, and consequently has few subjects for narration\u2014it \u201cflowed\nalong in an even, uniform tenor; one year, one month, one week, one day\nbeing, in a manner, a repetition of the former.\u201d Like some other eminent\nmen, it somewhat appears as if he finished the furnishing of his mind\nwhen in his youngest years, and devoted all the after period of his life\nto the unfolding, amplifying, expounding, and popularizing the stores\nhe had amassed and acquired. Dr. Gibbons refers to the fact that his\n\u201cTreatise on Astronomy and Geography\u201d was most probably prepared for the\ntuition of Mr.\u2014afterwards Sir John\u2014Hartopp; when published in 1725, in\nthe dedication to Mr. Eames, he says that: \u201cThe papers had lain by him\nin silence above twenty years;\u201d and as to his \u201cLogic,\u201d we have already\nreferred to it; and the dedication in which he tells his former pupil\nthat \u201cit was fit that the public should receive, through his hands, what\nwas originally written for the assistance of his younger studies, and\nwas thus presented to him.\u201d And thus we are assured that the work which\nmet with so large a reception and distinguished applause was prepared\nin days when he was himself little more than a youth, to serve his own\npurposes of tuition. Such was the life of this interesting man\u2014it was a\nfountain of life and power. In the spacious chapel-walk in Southampton\nthere is a pavement-stone marked with the letter W\u2014it stands for Watts;\nbut, as Mr. Carlyle says in his interesting paper on Watts, it might\nstand for Watts\u2019 Well; it was once the property of Isaac Watts, and the\nwell has a long story, well authenticated in the church records of the\nAbove Bar congregation. That well of clear, beautiful water was purchased\nby old Isaac Watts from his friend, Robert Thorner, the founder of the\nSouthampton Charity. It was on, and constituted a part of, the tenement\nknown by the name of the Meeting-house; then it was leased to the church,\nthen it was purchased by the church. It was known in Southampton two\nhundred years ago. It is now a fountain sealed, but still it is known,\nand proudly the pastor says, \u201cOur father Isaac gave us this well, and\ndrank thereof, himself and his children.\u201d[44] Watts\u2019 Well is no inapt\nsymbol or emblem of Watts\u2019 life and labours. Even lost to sight, sealed\nover, its springs still pour along their refreshing, cooling, and\ntransparent streams; nor have the crowds who hurry thoughtlessly by power\nto interfere with the useful freshness of its pure blessings.\n\n\u201cThe last days are the best witnesses for a man.\u201d \u201cBlessed,\u201d says old\nRobert Harris, \u201cshall he be that so lived that he was desired, and so\ndied that he was missed.\u201d Isaac Watts illustrated in a remarkable manner\npower in weakness.\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV.\n\nDeath and Burial.\n\n\nHe died in 1748, at the age of seventy-four, in ripe years, and hoary\nwith the honours of holiness. We are dependent upon his friend and\nbiographer, Dr. Gibbons, for almost all that we know of his last days and\nhours, but it is very pleasant to find that the author of \u201cThe World to\nCome\u201d himself went down to the grave with all the calmness and confidence\nwhich the words he has uttered have so often imparted to others in the\noutlook towards the better country. He says, \u201cIt is a glory to the Gospel\nwhen we can lie down with courage in hope of its promised blessings;\ndying with faith and fortitude is a noble conclusion of a life of zeal\nand service.\u201d \u201cDeath in the course of nature,\u201d he says, \u201cas well as by\nthe hands of violence, hath always something awful and formidable in it;\nflesh and blood shrink and tremble at the appearance of a dissolution;\nbut death is the last enemy of all the saints, and when a Christian\nmeets it with sacred courage he gives that honour to the Captain of his\nsalvation which the saints in glory can never give, and which we can\nnever repeat; it is an honour to our common faith when it overcomes the\nterrors of death, and raises the Christian to a song of triumph in\nthe view of the last enemy; it is a new crown put upon the head of our\nRedeemer, and a living cordial put into the hands of mourning friends\nin our dying hour when we can take leave of them with holy fortitude,\nrejoicing in the salvation of Christ.\u201d\n\nSuch were his words; such honour have not all the saints; some who have\nlooked forward through life with triumph to that hour have fainted\nwhen it came, and some who feared it most have felt it least: peculiar\ntemperaments and special forms of pain and disease sometimes make death\ndreadful; and an old writer says, \u201cWe are not glad to feel the snake,\neven when we know its sting is drawn.\u201d Thomas Walsh, one of the holiest\nand most eminent of the early Methodists, was very angry against John\nFletcher, the seraphic vicar of Madeley, because he heard him say that\nsome comparatively weak believers might die most cheerfully, and that\nsome strong ones, for the further purification of their faith, or for\ninscrutable reasons, might have severe conflicts. \u201cBe it done unto you\naccording to your faith,\u201d said Walsh, \u201cand be it done unto me according\nto mine.\u201d But when the hour came to Walsh it was clouded, and those eyes\nwhich had \u201clooked out of the windows were darkened;\u201d only at the last\nmoment he exclaimed, \u201cHe is come! He is come! My beloved is mine, and I\nam His for ever!\u201d And so he passed. But Fletcher died in a rapture. \u201cI\nknow thy soul,\u201d said his wife, \u201cbut if Jesus is very present with thee,\nlift up thy right hand.\u201d Immediately it was raised. \u201cIf the prospects of\nglory sweetly open before thee, repeat the sign.\u201d The hand was raised\na second time, and so his soul breathed itself away. Faith survives\nthe presence of sensible comforts. An aged believer in Southampton, on\nher death-bed, complained of the absence of sensible comforts to her\npastor, the Rev. W. Kingsbury, but so strong was her faith that she\nsaid, \u201cIt is against the whole scope of Divine revelation that my soul\nshould be lost.\u201d Old Thomas Fuller, having surveyed the various modes\nof death, arrived at the short, decisive conclusion, \u201cNone please me.\u201d\n\u201cBut away,\u201d he adds, \u201cwith these thoughts; the mark must not choose\nwhat arrow shall be shot against it.\u201d The happiness of a clear, calm\ndeparture was given to Watts, his closing days were serene and happy;\nwith all the imaginative glow of his mind, he had naturally a calm\ncharacter. He had well grounded his convictions; he had long lived like a\nsunbeam amidst sunbeams in the light. Dr. Gibbons, speaking from his own\nknowledge, says, \u201cAlthough his weakness was very great, he knew no decay\nof intelligence, and was the subject of no wild fancies.\u201d His biographer\nadds, \u201cHe saw his approaching dissolution with a mind perfectly calm\nand composed, without the least alarm or dismay, and I never could\ndiscover, though I was frequently with him, the least shadow of a doubt\nas to his future everlasting happiness, or anything that looked like an\nunwillingness to die; how I have known him recite with self-application\nthose words in Hebrews, \u2018Ye have need of patience, that, after ye have\ndone the will of God, ye may receive the promise;\u2019 and how often have I\nheard him, upon leaving the family after supper and withdrawing to rest,\ndeclare with the sweetest composure, that if his Master was to say to him\nthat he had no more work for him to do, he should be glad to be dismissed\nthat night. And I once heard him say, with a kind of impatience, perhaps\nsuch as might in some degree trespass upon that submission we ought\nalways to pay to the Divine will, \u2018I wonder why the great God should\ncontinue me in life, when I am incapable of performing Him any further\nservice?\u2019\u201d\n\nThe death-beds of great and eminent men are often hung round with curious\nfables and inventions; one is mentioned even to our own day, although\nDr. Gibbons denies the whole story in the very first edition of his\nbiography. Somebody conveyed it to Mr. Toplady, who says, \u201cThat little\nmore than half-an-hour before Dr. Watts expired he was visited by his\ndear friend, Mr. Whitefield; he, asking him how he found himself, the\ndying doctor answered, \u2018Here am I, one of Christ\u2019s waiting servants.\u2019\nSoon after a medicine was brought in, and Mr. Whitefield assisted in\nraising him upon the bed that he might with more convenience take\nthe draught; on the doctor\u2019s apologizing for the trouble he gave Mr.\nWhitefield, the latter replied, with his usual amiable politeness,\n\u2018Surely, my dear brother, I am not too good to wait upon a waiting\nservant of Christ!\u2019 Soon after, Mr. Whitefield took his leave, and often\nregretted since that he had not prolonged his visit, which he would\ncertainly have done could he have foreseen that his friend was but\nwithin a half-an-hour\u2019s distance from the kingdom of glory.\u201d There is\nnot a word of truth in the whole story; Dr. Gibbons says it is entirely\nfictitious. \u201cMr. Whitefield never visited the doctor in his last illness\nor confinement, nor had any conversation or interview with him for some\nmonths before his decease. It were to be wished that greater care was\npractised by the writers of other persons\u2019 lives, that illusions might\nnot take place and obtain the regards of truth, and lay historians who\ncome after them under the unpleasing necessity of dissolving their\nfigments, and thereby, in consequence, evincing to the world how little\ncredit is due to these relations.\u201d\n\nHis dying sayings are recorded, and they were all of them of a quiet and\npeaceful nature. Dr. Jennings, who preached his funeral sermon, and\nsaw him on his death-bed, mentions, that while for two or three years\nprevious to his death his active and more sprightly powers of nature had\nfailed, his trust in God, through Jesus the Mediator, remained unshaken\nto the last. To Lady Abney he said: \u201cI bless God I can lie down with\ncomfort at night, not being solicitous whether I awake in this world or\nanother.\u201d And again he said: \u201cI should be glad to read more, yet not in\norder to be confirmed more in the truth of the Christian religion, or\nin the truth of its promises, for I believe them enough to venture into\neternity on them.\u201d When he was almost worn out and broken down by his\ninfirmities he said, in conversation with a friend, that he remembered an\naged minister used to say, that the most learned and knowing Christians,\nwhen they come to die, have only the same plain promises of the Gospel\nfor their support as the common and the unlearned. \u201cAnd so,\u201d said he, \u201cI\nfind it; they are the plain promises of the Gospel that are my support,\nand I bless God they are plain promises, which do not require much\nlabour or pains to understand them, for I can do nothing now but look\ninto my Bible for some promise to support me, and live upon that.\u201d Dr.\nGibbons naturally regrets that he did not commit to writing the words\nof his dying friend; it is wonderful that he did not; but Watts had an\namanuensis who had been with him upwards of twenty years, and who, as\nGibbons says, was \u201cin a manner ever with him;\u201d to him and to Miss Abney,\nor, as she is generally called, Mistress Elizabeth Abney, the eldest\ndaughter and successor to the Abney property, we are principally indebted\nfor the record of his dying words. When he found his spirit tending to\nimpatience, he would check himself, saying: \u201cThe business of a Christian\nis to bear the will of God as well as do it. If I were in health I\ncould only be doing that, and that I may do now; the best thing in\nobedience is a regard to the will of God, and the way to that is to get\nour inclinations and aversions as much modified as we can.\u201d Some of his\nexpressions were such as the following: \u201cI would be waiting to see what\nGod will do with me; it is good to say as Mr. Baxter, what, when, and\nwhere God pleases. If God should raise me up again I may finish some more\nof my papers, or God can make use of me to save a soul, and that will be\nworth living for. If God has no more service for me to do, through grace\nI am ready; it is a great mercy to me that I have no manner of fear or\ndread of death. I could if God please lay my head back and die without\nterror this afternoon or night; my chief supports are from my view of\neternal things, and the interest I have in them. I trust all my sins are\npardoned through the blood of Christ; I have no fear of dying; it would\nbe my greatest comfort to lie down and sleep, and wake no more.\u201d Dr.\nGibbons a short time before his death came into his room, and finding him\nalone sat down for conversation with him; he said not a word of what he\nhad been or done in life, but his soul seemed swallowed up with gratitude\nand joy for the redemption of sinners by Jesus Christ. His visitor\nthought he realized the description of the apostle, \u201cWhom having not seen\nye love; in whom, though now ye see Him not, yet believing ye rejoice\nwith joy unspeakable and full of glory.\u201d\n\nSo he continued to the close, rising into no ecstasies, nor sinking into\nany great depressions, in the full possession of his understanding, free\nfrom pain of body, comfortable in spirit. This was during the autumn of\n1748. It was during the month of November that he was confined to his\nroom, never to leave it any more. For three weeks he continued in the\nstate just described, tenderly attended for the most part by Lady Abney\nor Mr. Parker. The following extracts are from Mr. Parker\u2019s letters\nto the brother of Dr. Watts, residing at Southampton, the first dated\nNovember 24th, 1748: \u201cI wrote to you by the last post that we apprehended\nmy master very near his end, and that we thought it not possible he\nshould be alive when the letter reached your hands; and it will no doubt\ngreatly surprise you to hear that he still lives. We ourselves are amazed\nat it. He passed through the last night in the main quiet and easy, but\nfor five hours would receive nothing within his lips. I was down in his\nchamber early in the morning, and found him quite sensible. I begged he\nwould be pleased to take a little liquid to moisten his mouth, and he\nreceived at my hand three teaspoonsful, and has done the like several\ntimes this day. Upon inquiry he told me he lay easy, and his mind was\npeaceful and serene. I said to him this morning that he had taught us\nhow to live, and was now teaching us how to die by his patience and\ncomposure, for he has been remarkably in this frame for several days\npast. He replied, \u2018Yes.\u2019 I told him I hoped he experienced the comfort of\nthese words, \u2018I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.\u2019 He answered,\n\u2018I do.\u2019 The ease of body and calmness of mind which he enjoys is a great\nmercy to him, and to us. His sick chamber has nothing terrifying in it.\nHe is an upright man, and I doubt not that his end will be peace. We\nare ready to use the words of Job, and say, \u2018We shall seek him in the\nmorning, but he shall not be.\u2019 But God only knows by whose power he is\nupheld in life, and for wise purposes, no doubt. He told me he liked\nthat I should be with him. All other business is put off, and I am in\nthe house night and day. I would administer all the relief that is in\nmy power. He is worthy of all that can be done for him. I am your very\nfaithful and truly afflicted servant.\u201d\n\nOn the next day, November 25th, in the afternoon, aged seventy-four\nyears, four months, and eight days, the gentle spirit of the Doctor\npassed away, and Mr. Parker wrote again to the same person: \u201cAt length\nthe fatal news is come. The spirit of the good man, my dear master, took\nits flight from the body to worlds unseen and joys unknown yesterday in\nthe afternoon, without a struggle or a groan. My Lady Abney and Mrs.\nAbney are supported as well as we can reasonably expect. It is a house of\nmourning and tears, for I have told you before now that we all attended\nupon him and served him from a principle of love and esteem. May God\nforgive us all, that we have improved no more by him, while we enjoyed\nhim!\u201d \u201cMay I be excused,\u201d says his biographer, \u201cif I take the liberty of\nadding that I saw the corpse of this excellent man in his coffin, and\nobserved nothing more than death in its aspect. The countenance appeared\nquite placid, like a person fallen into a gentle sleep, or such as the\nspirit might be supposed to leave behind it upon its willing departure\nto the celestial happiness. How justly might I have said at the moment I\nbeheld his dead earth, as he does in an epitaph upon a pious young man,\nwho was removed from our world after a lingering and painful illness:\n\n    \u201cSo sleep the saints, and cease to groan,\n      When sin and death have done their worst:\n    Christ has a glory like His own\n      Which waits to clothe their waking dust!\u201d\n\nAnd this was the manner in which \u201cthis silver cord was loosed, and this\ngolden bowl broken.\u201d\n\nThey buried him, of course, in Bunhill Fields; thither already had been\nborne the bodies of many of those who had been his fellow-students, and\nhis most familiar friends; and thither were to follow him at last many\nof those friends who were for a few brief years to survive him. It was\nthe _Campo Santo_ of Nonconformity, the spot consecrated by the memories\nof the martyrs and confessors of civil and religious liberty, and their\ntombs then were fresh. Their graves and their memories were green and\nverdant. Amidst the wilderness of indiscriminate tombs it is now scarcely\npossible to decipher localities, dust has mingled with dust, yet it would\nbe scarcely possible to visit anywhere a spot where almost every mound\nrecalled venerable remains or in the course of years became haunted by\nsuch tender and animating memories. Bunhill Fields does not possess the\nattractive and splendid tombs of _P\u00e8re la Chaise_ or Munich, of Greenwood\nor Kensall Green, but it may be with perfect certainty affirmed that none\nof these places possess such a congregation of sainted sleepers, and such\nconsecrated dust.\n\nThe history of this pensive enclosure goes back to the reign of Henry\nIII. It had been from a period even anterior to this set apart as the\nexercising and training ground for the archers and train-bands of the\nCity; indeed it is probable, whether he knew it or not, that this is the\nvery spot to which Lord Lytton refers in some of the earlier scenes of\nthe \u201cLast of the Barons,\u201d the archery-ground of Finsbury; a romantic and\nlovely spot, a very easy walk from the quaint gabled houses of the old\nCity four hundred years since. It was a spot surrounded by gardens and\norchards in the Manor of Finsbury or _Fens_bury, and on the borders of\nthat extensive suburban tract, the Moor Fields; but when the Great Plague\ndecimated London, the Corporation set apart this field as a burial-place\nfor the poor. It was a gentle acclivity, a rising spot of ground, which,\naffection had called the _Bon_hill, at a time when the language of the\ncountry was very largely held in possession by Norman influences and\nFrench terms, as in innumerable instances mingled with Saxon. Thus:\n\n    In death divided from their dearest kin,\n    This was a field to bury strangers in;\n    Fragments from families untimely reft,\n    Like spoils in flight, or limbs in battle left,\n    Lay there[45]\u2e3a\n\nThe subsequent history of the place justifies another characterization\nfrom the same poet:\n\n    For they were there to this Siberia sent,\n    Doomed in the grave itself to banishment.\n\nAs a humble cemetery for the purposes we have mentioned, it had been\nenclosed at the charge of the Corporation, but for this purpose it was\nnot long needed; and when the ravages of persecution succeeded to those\nof disease, one Tyndall purchased it, principally for the interment of\nDissenters, and it became known as Tyndall\u2019s Burying Ground. The first\ninterment in this second epoch of its funereal history dates from the\nfirst distinctly legible stone in the year 1668. Twenty years after\nthis, it received the beloved and revered remains of John Bunyan; in\nthe interim, many of those who had been among the foremost religious\nactors, preachers, and writers of the time came hither\u2014Thomas Goodwin,\nThomas Manton, Joseph Caryl, Theophilus Gale, John Owen, William Jenkyn,\nHenry Jessey, William Kiffin, Hanserd Knollys, and many others. In\nthis spot almost every order of religious outlawed opinion finds some\nrepresentative: here reposes the active body of Daniel Defoe, and in\nBunhill Fields, but in a spot set apart to those of his opinion, rests\nthe founder of the Society of Friends, George Fox; and here that revered\nand holy woman, from whose household in the Rectory of Epworth went forth\nthe inspiration, as from her own life went forth the lives of the prophet\nand poet of Methodism, Mrs. Susannah Wesley; here rest two well-beloved\nsweet singers, whose names are found in all our hymn-books, Joseph\nSwain and Joseph Hart. As the years passed along every one brought some\nadditional revenue to the wealth of the spot. Hither came Dr. Gibbons,\nWatts\u2019 biographer, and, by-and-by, John Gill, the author of the huge\ncommentary, if wild in fancy, still learned in all Rabbinical and Hebrew\nlore, and John Macgowan, the author of the \u201cDialogues of Devils;\u201d here\nrests Dr. Williams, the founder of the well-known library, and donor of\nthe scholarships connected with it, and by this name we are reminded\nof the great Arians who sleep very quietly here. Here lie Theophilus\nLindsay, Abraham Bees, Richard Price, Nathaniel Gardner, and Thomas\nBelsham, all men of huge scholarship, whatever our estimate of their\ndoctrines; here lies, of another order, the learned John Eames, the\nfriend and fellow-student of Dr. Watts, the friend and correspondent of\nSir Isaac Newton, and of whom Watts said that he was the most learned man\nhe ever knew; Thomas Bradbury, Watts\u2019 abusive and disingenuous traducer\nand adversary, found the quiet he never permitted himself to find when\nliving, either in tranquil or troublesome times; and hither, within\nthe memory of those living, came Matthew Wilks, quaint and witty old\npreacher of the London Tabernacles, and his fiery-hearted and earnest\nco-pastor, John Hyatt, and James Upton, John Rippon, and the beloved and\nbeautiful Alexander Waugh and George Burder. The names we have mentioned\nare great, but a very small instalment from the list of those famous in\nholiness and scholarship and sanctified genius, to whom Bunhill Fields\nwas the Machpelah of their lives. Indeed, until the opening of the Abney\nPark Cemetery, a place which derived its name and interest from its\nassociation with, and memories of, Dr. Watts, Bunhill Fields was the\nreceptacle of every Nonconformist notability in the neighbourhood of\nLondon. It was as natural that those who had attained an eminence in its\nconfession should receive sepulture there, as that the great statesman\nor poet should repose within the hallowed naves of Westminster. The\nsignificance of the spot, and the fact that it received amongst its other\ntreasures all that was mortal of the subject of this memoir, seem to\njustify this lengthy loitering amongst its tombs.\n\nWatts, by his will, directed that his remains should find their last\nresting-home in this place, amongst the fathers and brethren, many of\nwhom he had so well known; he also desired that it should be conducted as\nquietly as possible, but wished that his body should be attended to the\ngrave by two Independent, two Presbyterian, and two Baptist ministers;\nbut an immense concourse of persons gathered, as was to be expected. Dr.\nChandler gave the address at the grave, and Dr. David Jennings preached\nto his people the funeral sermon. Returning from the funeral, Dr.\nBenjamin Grosvenor was met by a friend, who said, \u201cWell, Doctor, you have\nseen the end of Dr. Watts, and must soon follow him; what think you of\ndeath?\u201d \u201cThink of it!\u201d replied he, \u201cwhy, when death comes I shall smile\non him if God smile on me.\u201d Other funeral sermons were preached, and\nthey are in our possession, especially one by Dr. John Milner, of which\nDoddridge thought very highly, and in whose house Oliver Goldsmith, a\npoor, simple young man, his mind and heart full of worlds of shrewdness\nand tenderness, for a long time lived as an usher. To prevent any\nlaboured and too flattering an epitaph, which in those days, indeed,\nthere was plenty of cause to dread, from the hands of partial friends,\nwho certainly had none of the graces of concision, Watts wrote his own\nmodest memorial, and it was placed over his grave. It reads as follows:\n\n    \u201cIsaac Watts, D.D., pastor of a church of Christ in London,\n    successor to the Rev. Mr. Joseph Caryl, Dr. John Owen, Mr.\n    David Clarkson, and Dr. Isaac Chauncey, after fifty years of\n    feeble labours in the Gospel, interrupted by four years of\n    tiresome sickness, was at last dismissed to his rest\u2014\n\n                           In uno Jesu omnia.\n\n    2 Cor. v. 8: \u2018Absent from the body, and present with the Lord.\u2019\n    Col. iii. 4: \u2018When Christ, who is my life, shall appear, then\n    shall I also appear with Him in glory.\u2019\u201d\n\n    \u201cThis monument, on which the above modest inscription is\n    placed, by order of the deceased, was erected, as a small\n    testimony of regard to his memory, by Sir John Hartopp, Bart.,\n    and Dame Mary Abney.\u201d\n\nBut, shortly after his death, a monument was erected to his memory in\nWestminster Abbey. Another monument erected in his chapel met with a\nsingular fate: some years since the chapel was pulled down, and all its\nproperties sold off. John Astley Marsden, Esq., of Liscard Castle, in\nCheshire, passing through one of the London streets, saw a marble tablet\ninscribed with the name of Dr. Watts; inquiring about its meaning, he\nfound it was the very tablet which had been set up behind his pulpit;\nhe purchased it as an interesting relic of a man for whom he had a\ngreat reverence, he took it home to his residence in Cheshire, and upon\nhis own ground he reared a church at his own expense, and there placed\nthe old cast-aside monument, handing the church over in trust to the\nCongregational body. The inscription is that humble memorial which\nWatts himself had prepared, and to which we have referred. In addition,\nhowever, to these, a monument has been raised to his memory in Abney Park\nCemetery, a cemetery which has succeeded to the reputation of Bunhill\nFields as the resting-place of metropolitan Nonconformists, and is\nspread out upon the grounds where stood the house and park, the history\nof which, and its relation to the memory of Watts, we have given in an\nearlier part of this volume.\n\nIn 1861, principally through the active exertions of Mr. William\nLankester, a monument was erected to his memory in his native town of\nSouthampton. The statue, about eight feet high, which is three feet\nlarger than life, is of white marble, and stands upon a pedestal of\npolished grey Aberdeen granite; and the site selected has received\nsince then the designation \u201cWatts\u2019 Park.\u201d The movement for the erection\nof the monument received the co-operation of Churchmen as well as\nNonconformists, and the president of the committee was Dr. Wigram, the\nBishop of Rochester. The statue was uncovered by the Earl of Shaftesbury,\nJuly 17th, 1861, and the day was kept with great festivity in the\ntown;[46] it took the shape of a great local celebration in honour of a\nman who had conferred honour on the town by his life and writings. It\nis not uninteresting to think of the change of public sentiment since\nthe day when the infant Isaac, in the arms of his mother, was held up\nto the eyes of his father in the gaol of the very town where, to the\nhonoured memory of that infant, there was offered up so large an ovation\nof respect, in which not only the Mayor and Corporation, but members,\nministers, and prelates of that very Church which had persecuted the\nfather for his opinions, united. It is a testimony to the change which\nhas passed over ecclesiastical opinion since that day.\n\nThus, some portion of the prophecy of Dr. Jennings in his funeral sermon,\nfrom the text, \u201cHe being dead yet speaketh,\u201d was fulfilled. \u201cIf I am not\ngreatly deceived, the same thing will be said of him in far distant ages\nthat is said of Abel in our text; while he is now celebrating the honours\nof God and of the Lamb in the new songs of heaven, how many thousands\nof pious worshippers are this day lifting up their hearts to God in the\nsacred songs that he taught them upon earth! Though his voice is not\nany longer heard by us, yet his words, like those of the day and night,\nare gone out to the end of the world. America and Europe still hear him\nspeak, and it is highly probable they may continue to do so till Europe\nand America shall be no more.\u201d\n\n[Illustration]\n\n[Illustration: Isaac Watts, D.D.\n\n_From the Bust in Dr. Williams\u2019 Library._]\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVI.\n\nSummary and Estimate of Prose Writings.\n\n\nIn attempting any estimate of the prose writings of Watts we give the\nfirst place to his educational works. And without descending to adulation\nit may be fairly questioned whether any one individual in English\nliterature has effected so much and such various work for the cause of\neducation as Isaac Watts. As we have seen, he gave a system of logic to\nthe universities, a very simple system, but it broke up the old trammels\nand chains of mere verbal logic, and taught students to look after, and\nhow to look at things. Johnson says: \u201cOf his philosophical pieces his\n\u2018Logic\u2019 has been received into the universities, and therefore wants no\nprivate recommendation. If he owes part of it to Le Clerc, it must be\nconsidered that no man who undertakes merely to methodize or illustrate\na system pretends to be its author. Few books,\u201d continues Johnson, \u201chave\nbeen perused by me with greater pleasure than his \u2018Improvement of the\nMind,\u2019 of which the radical principles may indeed be found in Locke\u2019s\n\u2018Conduct of the Understanding,\u2019 but they are so expanded and magnified\nby Watts as to confer upon him the merit of a work in the highest degree\nuseful and pleasing. Whoever has the care of instructing others may be\ncharged with deficiency in his duty if this book is not recommended.\u201d\nAnd in another paragraph of his memoir Johnson says: \u201cFor children he\ncondescended to lay aside the scholar, the philosopher, and the wit, to\nwrite little poems of devotion and systems of instruction adapted to\ntheir wants and capacities from the dawn of reason through its gradations\nof advance in the morning of life. Every man acquainted with the common\nprinciples of human action will look with veneration on the writer who\nis at one time combating Locke, and in another making a catechism for\nchildren in their fourth year; a voluntary descent from the dignity of\nscience is perhaps the hardest lesson that humility can teach.\u201d\n\nThere is, indeed, scarcely a department of knowledge, however simple, to\nwhich he did not descend; there is scarcely a region of thought, however\nsubtle, through which he did not familiarly move. We have a volume on\nthe \u201cArt of Reading, Writing, and Pronouncing English,\u201d this is for\nthe very youngest students; and for the same age we have his First and\nSecond Catechisms, and his \u201cDivine and Moral Songs;\u201d we have his work on\n\u201cAstronomy, Geography, and the Use of the Globes,\u201d and the \u201cCompendium\nof the Assembly\u2019s Catechism, with Proofs,\u201d and his most charming and\nrememberable \u201cCatechism of Scripture History,\u201d a large and yet most\ncompendious volume: and thus we reach the period of life when he prepares\nthe mind for its graver studies and more serious exploits.\n\nThe \u201cLogic\u201d is easy and delightful reading, and yet sets in order,\ndisciplines, marshals, and reviews mental materials so admirably\nthat it may be read with great profit as well as pleasure. When Lord\nBarrington told Watts that he had a purpose to read it through once\nevery year, he said no extravagant thing. It brings the mind back to its\nsimplicity; it is not, and does not profess to be, a science of mind\nor analysis of method, or the laws of thought, but it is a treatise\non logic, understanding by that term not so much the pushing inquiry\ninto unexplored domains and fields, as the setting forth the grammar\nof thought, the principles of numeration, by which a knowledge of the\ncontents of the mind may be obtained, which is surely the true idea of\nlogic. The affluence of illustrations and references is very great, these\noccur easily and rapidly, they are gathered up as a reaper gathers up a\nsheaf. In its method it reminds us somewhat of Bacon\u2019s \u201cNovum Organum,\u201d\nfor in every chapter, and every discrimination, illustration, and\ndistinction, occur instances unfolding the intention of the author, and\nwe venture to think that no logic has appeared since so well calculated\nto make a clear and honest mind. The characteristics of the \u201cLogic\u201d of\nWatts are very admirably summed up by Tissot, of Dijon, in his preface\nto a translation published in Paris, 1848: \u201cII y a aussi plus de m\u00e9thode\net de clart\u00e9 peut-\u00eatre dans la logique de Watts que dans celle d\u2019Arnaud.\nLe bon sens Anglais, le sens des affaires, celui de la vie pratique,\ns\u2019y r\u00e9v\u00e8le \u00e0 un tr\u00e8s haut degr\u00e9, tandis que le sens sp\u00e9culatif d\u2019un\nth\u00e9ologien passablement scolastique encore est plus sensible dans _l\u2019Art\nde Penser_. Dr. Watts a su \u00eatre complet; sans \u00eatre excessif, il a touch\u00e9\ntr\u00e8s convenablement tout ce qui devait l\u2019\u00eatre, et s\u2019est toujours arr\u00eat\u00e9\nau point pr\u00e9cis o\u00f9 plus de profondeur nuit a la clart\u00e9.\u201d[47]\n\nAs the \u201cLogic\u201d is a methodical and orderly arrangement of those\nprinciples which give conduct to the understanding, as we have called\nit a grammar rather than an etymology of the laws of thought, a setting\nforth of their necessary conditions of thinking, rather than an inquiry\ninto their first principles, so his \u201cImprovement of the Mind\u201d is an\nadvance in the education of the character. The \u201cLogic\u201d is a code of\nprinciples, the \u201cImprovement of the Mind\u201d the illustration of those\nprinciples in their practice and action. No book can be better fitted to\nstrengthen and direct the mind in the first years of mind-life. Is it\never read now? Is there an edition of it in circulation now? Are there\nmany youths who would have patience to read it now? And yet no work has\ntaken its place. It also, like the \u201cLogic,\u201d is fertile in illustrations\nof all that the author desires to convey; every means by which the mind\ncan be enlarged or strengthened is dwelt upon; here there seems to be\nno unnecessary diffuseness, but a compact presentation. The style is\napothegmatical, and rather colloquial than rhetorical, and it leaves\nupon the mind of the reader the impression of a large world of wealth\nin the mind of the author of which its pages are the mere fragments and\nindications. There is a wisdom which rules men\u2019s lives and acts in their\nminds unconsciously, and ages and times vary in the method pursued for\nthe attainment of knowledge. Perhaps, in the times in which we live\nthe method is very much out of sight, and men become wise in spite of\nthemselves, the faculties of character are sharpened and made intense by\nfriction. It may also be said that character is not so much the result\nof certain rules laid down for practice, as the inevitable pressure of\ncertain conditions from which it cannot well escape; life educates men\nmore than books, and the sharp collision of society and its rough usages\nmore than rules derived from writers. All this is true; but still\nsome men continue to preach, and others continue to hear, it is to be\nsupposed under the impression that the preaching and the hearing are not\naltogether in vain; and it is a very desirable thing frequently to draw\nout into the light certain principles, to give to minds, so to speak, a\npictorial resemblance of the idea.\n\nIt is so in the \u201cImprovement of the Mind,\u201d the very subjects are\nsuggestive: general rules to obtain knowledge,\u2014the five methods\nof improvement compared\u2014rules relating to observation\u2014books and\nreading\u2014judgment of books\u2014living instruction by teachers\u2014learning a\nlanguage\u2014of knowing the sense of writers and speakers\u2014conversation\u2014of\ndisputes in general\u2014the Socratical way of disputation\u2014forensic\ndisputes\u2014academic or scholastic disputes\u2014study or meditation\u2014of fixing\nthe attention\u2014of enlarging the capacity of the mind\u2014of improving the\nmemory\u2014of determining questions\u2014of inquiring into causes and effects\u2014of\nthe sciences and their use. Then follows the second part, which was\nposthumous; hitherto the mind has been supposed to be attaining, now it\nis itself communicating, and here are discussions on methods of teaching\nand reading lectures\u2014of an instructive style\u2014of convincing of truth or\ndelivering from error\u2014of the use and abuse of authority\u2014of managing the\nprejudices of men\u2014of instruction by preaching\u2014of writing books for the\npublic, etc. etc. And beneath all these subjects is spread out a mass\nof wise and useful observations, the result, the reader thinks, of a\nlife of earnest and careful study. A wise and candid judgment pervades\nevery page. A confidence in the writer as in one who is not writing\nmerely, but who is giving to the reader a portion of himself, grows in\nthe mind. Watts was himself an exceedingly careful student. We have\nseen how his practice was to condense or to amplify the volumes or the\npages he himself read. He recommended this plan to be followed with the\nnobler pieces of composition, and such as it seemed desirable to make the\nheirlooms of the mind.\n\nWe have now lying before us the \u201cEcclesiastics\u201d of John Wilkins, the\nBishop of Chester. The volume bears every internal evidence of being\nthe property of Dr. Watts: it is interleaved, and in addition to the\nvaried and singular learning of the book itself, in the handwriting\nof the Doctor there is a perfect storehouse of references, exhibiting\nthe amazing world of knowledge over which his mind travelled; and not\nmerely references, but frequently some condensed expression of sentiment\nand opinion. We ought to refer to this very valuable little manuscript\nvolume again. It often seems surprising that volumes such as these have\nfallen into such neglect; but they only share the fate of multitudes of\nothers in various departments equally worthy. The number of those who\ngaze upon the true regalia of literature is very small; our times delight\nin startling contrasts, antitheses and paradoxes, and illustrations\nfrequently rather remarkable for their brilliancy than for their solid\nand abiding persuasiveness. The literature of every time has its vices\nand its virtues; writers even exercising a far stronger fascination and\nspell over their day than Watts are very seldom referred to now, they are\nnames and little more. They are like extinct creations of other times,\na kind of dodo, a being very near to our own day, but yet only known by\na specimen preserved in a museum. Thus probably the two works to which\nwe have referred will have few more readers. Yet safer and wiser charts\nfor travelling the seas of knowledge were never prepared, and while they\nbreathe a fine mental independence, a freshness wafted from undiscovered\nrealms, they are eminently free from all that rashness and audacity of\nspeculation which some have chosen to regard as a pursuit of knowledge,\nor as adding to the spoils of the understanding. He kept his students\nwithin the bounds of the knowable and provable, and if he trampled upon\nthe ridiculous logic which had for years held the mind of Europe in\nchains, by the fetters of words which had no kind of sense either in the\nheavens or the earth, and resolutely determining that words could only\nbe valuable when they were the real signs of things, and things of which\nsomething could be known; on the other hand, he gave no encouragement to\nlicentiousness of thought, which is as dangerous to the well-being of the\nintelligence as the servility of opinion. So that, on the whole, whatever\nadvances and attainments we have made since, we may believe that for the\ndiscipline and tutelage of the young, a better finger-post could scarcely\nbe set up upon the highways of knowledge than Watts\u2019 \u201cLogic;\u201d a better\nand more living guide a young man can scarcely have through the cities of\ninstruction than his \u201cImprovement of the Mind.\u201d\n\nAmong the pieces of our author which are least known are the essays\nvariously published under the title of \u201cReliqui\u00e6 Juveniles; Miscellaneous\nThoughts in Prose and Verse, on Natural, Moral, and Divine Subjects,\nwritten chiefly in younger years.\u201d These were published in 1734, and\ndedicated to the Countess of Hertford. A similar volume is the \u201cRemnants\nof Time Employed in Prose and Verse; or, Short Essays and Composures on\nVarious Subjects.\u201d All of these are very pleasing essays, in which the\nwriter gives a more than ordinary rein to his fancy: the pieces are in\nprose and verse, and they display a considerable amount of humour; the\nsubjects are very various, and display the purely literary excursions\nof the author\u2019s mind. The reader will be so far interested as to enjoy\nsome few selections. To dwell at length upon the characteristics of the\nessays, or to indulge in any lengthy citation, would be like writing a\ndissertation upon Johnson\u2019s \u201cRambler,\u201d or Addison\u2019s \u201cSpectator;\u201d indeed,\nthere is very much of the Christian Rambler and the Christian Spectator\nin these papers: brief essays on manners, on certain vices or defects of\ncharacter, conveyed after the usage of the time beneath names sheltered\nunder a Greek or Latin etymology; sometimes a graceful meditation upon a\ntext of Scripture, and sometimes a poem. We have ourselves found these\nessays always fresh and interesting, possessing much of the spirit and\nvivacity and philosophical meditativeness of Cowley, with a perpetual\nsuffusion of Christian sentiment and doctrine, and the whole exhibiting\nthe vigilance of the author\u2019s eye, and the active usefulness of his mind.\n\n    THE SKELETON.\n\n    \u201cYoung Tramarinus was just returned from his travels abroad,\n    when he invited his uncle to his lodgings on a Saturday noon.\n    His uncle was a substantial trader in the City, a man of\n    sincere goodness, and of no contemptible understanding; Crato\n    was his name. The nephew first entertained him with learned\n    talk of his travels. The conversation happening to fall upon\n    anatomy, and speaking of the hand, he mentioned the carpus and\n    the metacarpus, the joining of the bones by many hard names,\n    and the periosteum which covered them, together with other\n    Greek words, which Crato had never heard of. Then he showed\n    him a few curiosities he had collected; but anatomy being\n    the subject of their chief discourse, he dwelt much upon the\n    skeletons of a hare and a partridge. \u2018Observe, sir,\u2019 said he,\n    \u2018how firm the joints! how nicely the parts are fitted to each\n    other! how proper this limb for flight, and that for running;\n    and how wonderful the whole composition!\u2019 Crato took due\n    notice of the most considerable parts of those animals, and\n    observed the chief remarks his nephew made; but being detained\n    there two hours without a dinner, assuming a pleasant air, he\n    said, \u2018I wish these rarities had flesh upon them, for I begin\n    to be hungry, nephew, and you entertain me with nothing but\n    bones.\u2019 Then he carried home his nephew to dinner with him, and\n    dismissed the jest.\n\n    \u201cThe next morning his kinsman Tramarinus desired him to hear\n    a sermon at such a church, \u2018For I am informed,\u2019 said he, \u2018the\n    preacher will be my old schoolmaster.\u2019 It was Agrotes, a\n    country minister, who was to fulfil the service of the day;\n    an honest, a pious, and a useful man, who fed his own people\n    weekly with Divine food, composed his sermons with a mixture\n    of the instructive and the pathetic, and delivered them with\n    no improper elocution. Where any difficulty appeared in the\n    text or the subject, he usually explained it in a very natural\n    and easy manner, to the understanding of all his parishioners.\n    He paraphrased on the most affecting parts largely, that he\n    might strike the conscience of every hearer, and had been the\n    happy means of the salvation of many; but he thought thus with\n    himself, \u2018When I preach at London I have hearers of a wiser\n    rank, I must feed them with learning and substantial sense,\n    and must have my discourse set thick with distinct sentences\n    and new matter.\u2019 He contrived, therefore, to abridge his\n    composures, and to throw four of his country sermons together\n    to make up one for the City, and yet he could not forbear to\n    add a little Greek in the beginning. He told the auditors how\n    the text was to be explained; he set forth the analysis of the\n    words in order, showed the _hoti_ and the _dioti_\u2014that is, that\n    it was so, and why it was so\u2014with much learned criticism\u2014all\n    of which he wisely left out in the country; then he pronounced\n    the doctrine distinctly, and filled up the rest of the hour\n    with the mere rehearsal of the general and special heads; but\n    he omitted all the amplification which made his performances\n    in the country so clear and so intelligible, so warm and\n    affecting. In short, it was the mere joints and carcase of a\n    long composure, and contained above forty branches in it. The\n    hearers had no time to consider or reflect on the good things\n    which were spoken, or apply them to their own consciences; the\n    preacher hurried their attention so fast onward to new matters\n    that they could make no use of anything he said while he spoke\n    it, nor had they a moment for reflection, in order to fix it in\n    their memories and improve by it at home.\n\n    \u201cThe young gentleman was somewhat out of countenance when the\n    sermon was done, for he missed all that life and spirit, that\n    pathetic amplification, which impressed his conscience when\n    he was but a school-boy. However, he put the best face upon\n    it, and began to commend the performance. \u2018Was it not,\u2019 said\n    he, \u2018sir, a substantial discourse? How well connected all the\n    reasons! How strong all the inferences, and what a variety\n    and number of them!\u2019 \u2018It is true,\u2019 said the uncle, \u2018but yet\n    methinks I want food here, and I find nothing but bones again.\n    I could not have thought, nephew, you would have treated me\n    two days together just alike; yesterday at home, and to-day\n    at church, the first course was Greek, and all the rest mere\n    skeleton.\u2019\u201d\n\n    GOD IN VEGETATION.\n\n    \u201cLet us first consider this as it relates to the vegetable part\n    of the creation. What a profusion of beauty and fragrancy, of\n    shapes and colours, of smells and tastes, is scattered among\n    the herbs and flowers of the ground, among the shrubs, the\n    trees, and the fruits of the field! Colouring in its original\n    glory and perfection triumphs here; red, yellow, green, blue,\n    purple, with vastly more diversities than the rainbow ever\n    knew, or the prism can represent, are distributed among the\n    flowers and the blossoms. And what variety of tastes, both\n    original and compounded, of sweet, bitter, sharp, with a\n    thousand nameless flavours, are found among the herbs of the\n    garden! What an amazing difference of shapes and sizes appears\n    among the trees of the field and forest in their branches and\n    their leaves! and what a luxurious and elegant distinction in\n    their several fruits! How very numerous are their distinct\n    properties in their uses in human life! And yet these two\n    common elements, earth and water, are the only materials out\n    of which they are all composed, from the beginning to the\n    end of nature and time. Let the gardener dress for himself\n    one field of fresh earth, and make it as uniform as he can;\n    then let him plant therein all the varieties of the vegetable\n    world, in their roots or in their seeds, as he shall think most\n    proper; yet out of this common earth, under the droppings of\n    common water from heaven, every one of these plants shall be\n    nourished, and grow up in their proper forms; all the infinity,\n    diversity of shapes and sizes, colours, tastes, and smells,\n    which constitute and adorn the vegetable world, would the\n    climate permit, might be produced out of the same clods. What\n    rich and surprising wisdom appears in that Almighty Operator,\n    who out of the same matter shall perfume the bosom of the rose,\n    and give the garlic its offensive and nauseous powers; who\n    from the same spot of ground shall raise the liquorice and the\n    wormwood, and dress the cheek of the tulip in all its glowing\n    beauties! What a surprise, to see the same field furnish the\n    pomegranate and the orange tree, with their juicy fruit, and\n    the stacks of corn with their dry and husky grains; to observe\n    the oak raised from a little acorn into its stately growth\n    and solid timber; and that pillars for the support of future\n    temples and palaces should spring out of the same bed of earth\n    that sent up the vine with such soft and feeble limbs as are\n    unable to support themselves! What a natural kind of prodigy\n    it is, that chilling and burning vegetables should arise out\n    of the same spot; that the fever and frenzy should start up\n    from the same bed where the palsy and the lethargy lie dormant\n    in their seeds! Is it not exceeding strange that healthful and\n    poisonous juices should rise up, in their proper plants, out\n    of the same common glebe, and that life and death should grow\n    and thrive within an inch of each other? What wondrous and\n    inimitable skill must be attributed to that Supreme Power, that\n    First Cause, who can so infinitely diversify effects, where\n    the servile second cause is so uniform and always the same!\n    It is not for me in this place to enter into a long detail of\n    philosophy, and show how the minute fibres and tubes of the\n    different seeds and roots of vegetables take hold of, attract,\n    and receive the little particles of earth and water proper for\n    their own growth; how they form them at first into their own\n    shapes, sending them up aspiring above ground by degrees, and\n    mould them so as frame the stalks, the branches, the leaves,\n    and the buds of every flower, herb, and tree. But I presume\n    the world is too weary of substantial forms, and plastic\n    powers, and names without ideas, to be persuaded that these\n    mere creatures of fancy should ever be the operators in this\n    wondrous work. It is much more honourable to attribute all to\n    the design and long forethought of God the Creator, who formed\n    the first vegetables in such a manner, and appointed their\n    little parts to ferment under the warm sunbeams, according to\n    such established laws of motion as to mould the atoms of earth\n    and water which were near them in their own figure, to make\n    them grow up into trunk and branches, which every night should\n    harden into firmness and stability; and, again, to mould new\n    atoms of the same element into leaves and bloom, fruit and\n    seed, which last, being dropped into the earth, should produce\n    new plants of the same likeness to the end of the world.\u201d\n\n    FOOD.\n\n    \u201cIf the food of which one single animal partakes be never so\n    various and different, yet the same laws of motion which God\n    has ordained in the animal world, convert them all to the same\n    purposes of nourishment for that creature. Behold the little\n    bee gathering its honey from a thousand flowers, and laying up\n    the precious store for its winter food. Mark how the crow preys\n    upon a carcase, anon it crops a cherry from the tree; and both\n    are changed into the flesh and feathers of a crow. Observe the\n    kine in the meadows feeding on a hundred varieties of herbs\n    and flowers, yet all the different parts of their bodies are\n    nourished thereby in a proper manner: every flower in the field\n    is made use of to increase the flesh of the heifer, and to make\n    beef for men; and out of all these varieties there is a noble\n    milky juice flowing to the udder, which provides nourishment\n    for young children. So near akin is man, the lord of the\n    creation, in respect of his body, to the brutes that are his\n    slaves, that the very same food will compose the flesh of both\n    of them, and make them grow up to their appointed stature. This\n    is evident beyond doubt in daily and everlasting experiments.\n    The same bread-corn which we eat at our tables will give rich\n    support to sparrows and pigeons, to the turkey and the duck,\n    and all the fowls of the yard: the mouse steals it and feeds on\n    it in its dark retirement; while the hog in the sty, and the\n    horse in the manger, would be glad to partake. When the poor\n    cottager has nursed up a couple of geese, the fox seizes one\n    of them for the support of her cubs, and perhaps the table of\n    the landlord is furnished with the other to regale his friends.\n    Nor is it an uncommon thing to see the favourite lap-dog fed\n    out of the same bowl of milk which is prepared for the heir\n    of a wealthy family, but which nature had originally designed\n    to nourish a calf. The same milky material will make calves,\n    lap-dogs, and human bodies.\u201d\n\n    CHRIST AS A SUN.\n\n    \u201cI cannot deny myself, in this place, the pleasure of\n    publishing to the world a very beautiful resemblance, the first\n    hints and notices whereof I received formerly in conversation\n    from my reverend and worthy friend Mr. Robert Bragge, whereby\n    the person of Christ as God-man in His exalted state may\n    be happily represented. The sun in the heavens is the most\n    glorious of all visible beings: his sovereign influence has a\n    most astonishing extent through all the planetary globes, and\n    bestows light and heat upon all of them. It is the sun that\n    gives life and motion to all the infinite varieties of the\n    animal world in the earth, air, and water. It draws out the\n    vegetable juices from the earth, and covers the surface of it\n    with trees, herbs, and flowers. It is the sun that gives beauty\n    and colour to all the millions of bodies round the globe;\n    by its pervading power perhaps it forms minerals and metals\n    under the earth. Its happy effects are innumerable; they reach\n    certainly to everything that has life and motion, or that\n    gives life, support, or pleasure to mankind. Now suppose God\n    should create a most illustrious spirit, and unite it to the\n    body of the sun, as a human soul is united to a human body:\n    suppose this spirit had a perceptive power capacious enough\n    to become conscious of every sunbeam, and all the influences\n    and effects of this vast shining globe, both in its light,\n    heat, and motion, even to the remotest region; and suppose at\n    the same time it was able, by an act of its will, to send out\n    or withhold every sunbeam as it pleased, and thereby to give\n    light and darkness, life and death, in a sovereign manner, to\n    all the animal inhabitants of this our earth, or even of all\n    the planetary worlds. Such may be the \u2018glorified human soul\n    of our blessed Redeemer united to His glorified body;\u2019 and\n    perhaps His knowledge and His power may be as extensive as\n    this similitude represents, especially when we consider this\n    soul and body as personally united to the Divine nature, and\n    as one with God. Now this noble thought may be supported by\n    such considerations as these. As our souls are conscious of\n    the light, shape, motions, etc., of such distant bodies as the\n    planet Saturn or the fixed stars, because our eyes receive rays\n    from thence; so may not a human soul united to a body as easily\n    be supposed to have a consciousness of anything, wheresoever\n    it can send out rays or emit either fluids or atoms from its\n    own body? May not the sun, for instance, if a soul were\n    united to it, become thereby so glorious a complex being, as\n    to send out every ray with knowledge, and have a consciousness\n    of everything wheresoever it sends its direct or reflected\n    rays? And may not the human soul of our Lord Jesus Christ\n    have a consciousness of everything wheresoever it can send\n    direct or reflected rays from His own shining and glorified\n    body? To add yet to the wonder, we may suppose that these\n    rays may be subtle as magnetic beams, which penetrate brass\n    and stone as easily as light doth glass; and at the same time\n    they may be as swift as light, which reaches the most amazing\n    distance of several millions of miles in a minute. By this\n    means, since the light of the sun pervades all secret chambers\n    in our hemisphere at once, and fills all places with direct\n    and reflected beams, if consciousness belonged to all those\n    beams, what a sort of omniscient being would the sun be! I mean\n    omniscient in its own sphere. And why may not the human soul\n    and body of our glorified Saviour be thus furnished with such\n    an amazing extent of knowledge and power, and yet not be truly\n    infinite? Let us dwell a little longer upon these delightful\n    contemplations. If a soul had but a full knowledge and command\n    of all the atoms of one solid foot of matter, which according\n    to modern philosophy is infinitely divisible, what strange and\n    astonishing influences would it have over this world of ours?\n    What confusions might it raise in distant nations, sending\n    pestilential streams into a thousand bodies, and destroying\n    armies at once? And it might scatter benign or healing and\n    vital influences to as large a circumference. If our blessed\n    Lord, in the days of His humiliation, could send virtue out of\n    Him to heal a poor diseased woman, who touched the hem of His\n    garment with a finger, who knows what healing atoms, or what\n    killing influences, He may send from His dwelling in glory to\n    the remotest distances of our world, to execute His Father\u2019s\n    counsels of judgment or mercy? It is not impossible, so far as\n    I can judge, that the soul of Christ in its glorified state may\n    have as much command over our heavens and our earth, and all\n    things contained in them, as our souls in the present state\n    have over our own limbs and muscles to move them at pleasure.\n    Let us remember that it is now found out, and agreed in the\n    new philosophy of Sir Isaac Newton, that the distances are\n    prodigious to which the powerful influence of the sun reaches\n    in the centre of our planetary system. It is the sun who holds\n    and restrains all the planets in their several orbits, and\n    keeps in those vast bodies of Jupiter and Saturn in their\n    constant revolutions\u2014one at the distance of 424 millions, and\n    the other at the distance of 777 millions of miles\u2014besides\n    all the other influences it has upon everything that may live\n    and grow in those planetary worlds. It is the sun who reduces\n    the long wanderings of the comets back again near to himself\n    from distances more immensely great than those of Saturn and\n    Jupiter. And why may not the human nature of our Lord Jesus\n    Christ, both in soul and body, have a dominion given Him by the\n    Father larger than the sun in the firmament? Why may not the\n    Son of God be endued with an immediate consciousness and agency\n    to a far greater distance? Thus if we conceive of the human\n    soul of Christ, either in the amazing extent of its own native\n    powers or in the additional acquirements of a glorified state,\n    we see reason to believe that its capacities are far above\n    our old usual conceptions, and may be raised and exalted to a\n    degree of knowledge, power, and glory suitable and equal to His\n    operations and offices, so far as they are attributed to His\n    human nature in the word of God.\u201d\n\n    APPARENT FOLLY REAL WISDOM.\n\n    \u201cThis very man, this Gelotes, a few days ago, was carried by\n    his neighbour Typiger, to see a gentleman of his acquaintance;\n    they found him standing at the window of his chamber, moving\n    and turning round a glass prism, near a round hole which he\n    had made in the window-shutter, and casting all the colours\n    of the rainbow upon the wall of the room. They were unwilling\n    to disturb him, though he amused himself at this rate for\n    half an hour together, merely to please and entertain his\n    eyesight, as Gelotes imagined, with the brightness and the\n    strength of the reds and the blues, the greens and the\n    purples, in many shifting forms of situation, while several\n    little implements lay about him, of white paper and shreds of\n    coloured silk, pieces of tin with holes in them, spectacles and\n    burning-glasses. When the gentleman at last spied his company,\n    he came down and entertained them agreeably enough upon other\n    subjects, and dismissed them. At another time, Gelotes beheld\n    the same gentleman blowing up large bubbles with a tobacco-pipe\n    out of a bowl of water well impregnated with soap, which is a\n    common diversion of boys. As the bubbles rose, he marked the\n    little changeable colours on the surface of them with great\n    attention, till they broke and vanished into air and water. He\n    seemed to be very grave and solemn in this sort of recreation,\n    and now and then smiled to see the little appearances and\n    disappearances of colours, as the bubbles grew thinner towards\n    the top, while the watery particles of it ran down along the\n    side to the bottom, and the surface grew too thin and feeble\n    to include the air, then it burst to pieces and was lost.\n    \u2018Well,\u2019 says Gelotes to his friend, \u2018I did not think you would\n    have carried me into the acquaintance of a madman; surely he\n    can never be right in his senses who wastes his hours in such\n    fooleries as these. Whatsoever good opinion I had conceived of\n    a gentleman of your intimacy, I am amazed now that you should\n    keep up any degree of acquaintance with him, when his reason is\n    gone and he is become a mere child. What are all these little\n    scenes of sport and amusement, but proofs of the absence of\n    his understanding? Poor gentleman! I pity him in his unhappy\n    circumstances; but I hope he has friends to take care of him\n    under this degree of distraction.\u2019 Typiger was not a little\n    pleased to see that his project, with regard to his neighbour\n    Gelotes, had succeeded so well; and when he had suffered him to\n    run on at this rate for some minutes, he interrupted him with a\n    surprising word: \u2018This very gentleman,\u2019 says he, \u2018is the great\n    Sir Isaac Newton, the first of philosophers, the glory of Great\n    Britain, and renowned among the nations. You have beheld him\n    now making these experiments over again by which he first found\n    out the nature of light and colours, and penetrated deeper into\n    the mysteries of them than all mankind ever knew before him.\n    This is the man, and these his contrivances, upon which you so\n    freely cast your contempt, and pronounce him distracted. You\n    know not the depth of his designs, and therefore you censured\n    them all as fooleries, whereas the learned world has esteemed\n    them the utmost reach of human sagacity.\u2019\n\n    \u201cGelotes was all confusion and silence; whereupon Typiger\n    proceeded thus: \u2018Go now and ridicule the law-giver of Israel,\n    and the ceremonies of the Jewish Church, which Moses taught\n    them; go, repeat your folly and your slanders, and laugh at\n    these Divine ceremonies, merely because you know not the\n    meaning of them, go, and affront the God of Israel, and\n    reproach Him for sending Moses to teach such forms of worship\n    to the Jews. There is not the least of them but was appointed\n    by the Greatest of Beings, and has some special design and\n    purpose in the eye of Divine Wisdom. Many of them were\n    explained by the Apostle Paul, in his letter to the Hebrews,\n    as types and emblems of the glories and blessings of the New\n    Testament; and the rest of them, whose reason has not been\n    discovered to us, remain, perhaps, to be made known at the\n    conversion of the Jews, when Divine light shall be spread over\n    all the ancient dispensations, and a brighter glory diffused\n    over all the rites and forms of religion which God ever\n    instituted among the race of Adam.\u2019\u201d\n\n    A PLEA FOR CHRISTIANIZING HORACE.\n\n    \u201cIt is a piece of ancient and sacred history which Moses\n    informs us of, that when the tribes of Israel departed from\n    the land of Egypt, they borrowed of their neighbours gold and\n    jewels by the appointment of God, for the decoration of their\n    sacrifices and solemn worship when they should arrive at the\n    appointed place in the wilderness. God Himself taught His\n    people how the richest of metals which had ever been abused to\n    the worship of idols might be purified by the fire, and being\n    melted up into a new form, might be consecrated to the service\n    of the living God, and add to the magnificence and grandeur\n    of His tabernacle and temple. Such are some of the poetical\n    writings of the ancient heathens; they have a great deal of\n    native beauty and lustre in them, and through some happy turn\n    given them by the pen of a Christian poet may be transformed\n    into Divine meditations, and may assist the devout and pious\n    soul in several parts of the Christian life and worship.\n    Amongst all the rest of the Pagan writers, I know none so\n    fit for this service as the odes of Horace, as vile a sinner\n    as he was. Their manner of composure comes nearer the spirit\n    and force of the Psalms of David than any other; and as we\n    take the devotions of the Jewish king, and bring them into our\n    Christian churches, by changing the scene and the chronology,\n    and superadding some of the glories of the Gospel so may the\n    representation of some of the heathen virtues, by a little more\n    labour, be changed into Christian graces, or, at least, into\n    the image of them, so far as human power can reach. One day,\n    musing on this subject, I made an experiment on the two last\n    stanzas of Ode xxix, Book iii.\n\n        \u2018Non est meum, si mugiat Africis\n        Malus procellis, ad miseras preces\n        Decurrere, et votis pacisci,\n        Ne Cypri\u00e6 Syri\u00e6que merces\n\n        Addant avaro divitias mari;\n        Dum me, biremis pr\u00e6sidio scaph\u00e6,\n        Nudum per \u00c6geos tumultus\n        Aura ferat, geminusque Pollux.\u2019\n\n    THE BRITISH FISHERMAN.\n\n    Let Spain\u2019s proud traders, when the mast\n    Bends groaning to the stormy blast,\n    Run to their beads with wretched plaints,\n    And vow and bargain with their saints,\n    Lest Turkish silks or Tyrian wares\n      Sink in the drowning ship,\n    Or the rich dust Peru prepares,\n    Defraud their long projecting cares,\n    And add new treasures to the greedy deep.\n\n    My little skiff that skims the shores,\n    With half a sail and two short oars,\n    Provides me food in gentler waves;\n    But if they gape in watery graves\n    I trust the Eternal Power, whose hand\n      Has swelled the storm on high,\n    To waft my boat and me to land,\n    Or give some angel swift command\n    To bear the drowning sailor to the sky.\u201d\n\nA work like this would be incomplete if it did not attempt some general\nestimate, however feeble, of our author\u2019s works, which are, however, so\nvarious that it is difficult to bring their relation to their author\u2019s\nmind beneath one classification. The remark Dr. Jennings made in his\nfuneral sermon is simply just, when he says he \u201cquestions whether any\nauthor before Dr. Watts ever appeared with a reputation on such a variety\nof subjects as he has, both as a prose writer and a poet. However,\u201d he\nadds, \u201cthis I may venture to say, there is no man now living of whose\nworks so many have been diffused at home and abroad, which are in such\nconstant use, and translated into such a variety of languages, many of\nwhich I doubt not will remain more durable monuments of his great talents\nthan any representation I can make of them, though it were to be graven\non pillars of brass. Thus did he shine as an ingenious man and a scholar.\u201d\n\nThis circumstance of _the variety of his writings_ constitutes them an\nelement of his character: he was more various than intense, acute rather\nthan profound. There are some of his works upon which we need not permit\nourselves to be detained, they illustrate his readiness in turning to\nevery kind of labour which seemed to give the promise of usefulness, for\nusefulness was evidently in everything the object he set before himself.\nRegarded by the immense apparatus now at hand for every kind of mental\nexercise Watts\u2019 labours do some of them seem needless; but regarded from\nhis own age, it appears as if he created, originated, and gave effect\nto almost every department of religious or improving knowledge. If the\nreader looks round the literary horizon of that day, he will learn\nrightly to estimate the benefits conferred by this writer; and these\nworks, the smallest, the most inferior of his mental exercises, were\nnot one of them a mere compilation, they were all the emanations of that\nperpetually active mind, which, whether the body were well or ill, must\nbe employed for some useful object and end. None of his books were made\nout of other books, excepting, indeed, so far as almost every volume must\nimply the knowledge of a subject and the mind of an author; and at the\nsame time it must be said that some of his books for the young have been\ndropped but not surpassed; they might still furnish the best hints and\nthe best arrangements for obtaining and imparting knowledge.\n\nBeing a literary man, Watts falls beneath a class of observations\nwhich are not either necessary or applicable in forming an estimate\nof almost any of his brethren, such as Howe, or Jacomb, or Bradbury,\nor, indeed, any of the writers of his order or day. The _wisdom_ of\nhis mind was remarkable; it was \u201ca city, built four square.\u201d In this\nuseful purpose, which he ever kept before him, whatever charges may be\npreferred against him on the score of the indulgence of fancy (and many\nof his writings reveal how capable he was of such excursions), he kept\nhis mind singularly free from the literary vanities of his times, and\nhis times as singularly illustrate at once the vanity and the glory of\nliterature. If anybody would know what vanities there were, let him take\ndown the volumes of the Athenian Oracle,[48] and he will find few other\nvolumes which will give so lively an impression of the literary folly\nof those times. Old Samuel Wesley, John Wesley\u2019s father, did not disdain\nto contribute largely to those pages; they are affluent in absurdities,\nwhile they have a show of learned ignorance. Select a few; most of the\nessays are in the way of question and answer. \u201cBalaam being a Moabite,\nhow could he understand the ass speaking to him in Hebrew? How came the\ntwo disciples to know Moses and Elias on the mount? I am resolved to go\nround the earth on foot; I desire to know whether my head or my feet will\ntravel the most, and how much the one more than the other? Whether or no\nthere is a vacuum? Whether it is more proper to say the soul contains\nthe body, or the body the soul? Whether the quadrature of the circle be\npossible? Pray, why does _a n d_ not spell _t u m_? _t h e_, _m e d_?\netc. etc. Whether Adam was a giant? How a silkworm lives when it has left\noff eating and is enclosed in its web? Whether it is prudent to live in\na room haunted by spirits? Whether, since mermen and mermaids have more\nof the human shape than other fishes, they may be thought to have more\nreason? Where extinguished fire goes to? Where was the land of Nod? How\nis it the spaniel knows its master\u2019s horse? Whether a finite creature is\ncapable of enduring infinite loss?\u201d etc. etc.\n\nThese volumes, perhaps, constitute the most amazing collection of\nnonsense in our own or any other language; nor are they without a certain\nvalue as illustrating, not only the time, then in possession of men, but\nthe ridiculous way in which they used it. Of course there are questions,\nand many of them, of a more grave and serious character, but for the most\npart they are the very soap-bubbles of the most foppish and foolish\nimaginations, the most undisciplined and frequently prurient and indecent\nfancies. The indulgence in these was quite a phase of the intellectual\nlife of the time. A singular chapter in the curiosities of literature\nand science a reader may find in such volumes as the \u201cPhilosophical\nConferences of France;\u201d[49] and the vanities of theology were quite\nequal to the vanities of literature, as may be seen in the innumerable\nproductions of the time.\n\nWith a mind so disposed to imaginative excursions, it is quite worthy\nof notice that Watts preserved a wise balance of all his powers and\nfaculties; he lived on the confines of the age of the wildest mysticism\nour literature has known. From some words in his works he appears to have\nbeen well acquainted with the writings of Henry More, and also to have\nentertained for them that reverence and respect which assuredly many of\nthem command; but from their singular and erratic fancies he kept himself\nquite free. Very strange are the matters with which we find these old\nmen entertained themselves, affirming \u201cthat God of Himself is a dale of\ndarkness, were it not for the light of the Son;\u201d \u201cthat the star-powers\nare Nature, and the star-circle the mother of all things, from which all\nis, subsists, and moves;\u201d \u201cthat the waters of the world are mad, which\nmakes them rave and run up and down, so as they do in the channels of the\nearth;\u201d \u201cthat they, at last, shall be calcined into crystal;\u201d \u201cthat the\npure blood in man answers to the element of fire in the great world, his\nheart to the earth, his mouth to the Arctic pole; and\u201d\u2014but we will not\nfinish this sublime stretch of metaphysical imagination\u2014\u201cthat there be\ntwo kinds of fires, the one a cold fire and the other hot, and that death\nis a cold fire;\u201d \u201cthat everything has sense, imagination, and a fiducial\nknowledge of God in it\u2014metals, meteors, and plants not excepted.\u201d Also\nthe like pleasant excursions of fancy are found in \u201cParacelsus,\u201d as \u201cthat\nthe stars are, as it were, the phials, or cucurbits, in which meteorical\nsal, sulphur, and mercury are contained, and that the winds are made\nout of these by the ethereal vulcans, are blown forth out of these\nemunctories, as when a man blows or breathes out of his mouth;\u201d \u201cthat\nthe stars are, as it were, the pots in which the archeus, or heavenly\nvulcan, prepares pluvious matter, which, exhaled from thence, first\nappears in the form of clouds, and after condenses to rain;\u201d \u201cthat hail\nand snow are the fruits of the stars, proceeding from them as flowers and\nblossoms from trees;\u201d \u201cthat the lightning and thunder are, as it were,\nthe deciduous fruits of the ethereal stars;\u201d \u201cthat the stars eat and are\nnourished,\u201d etc. etc.\n\nAll this, and a good deal more to the like purpose. Since the beginning\nof the world, men have asked of themselves and others strange questions,\nlike those Southey discovered in Luys de Escobar: \u201cWhen God made dresses\nfor Adam and Eve, how did He get the skins of which those dresses were\nmade, seeing that beasts were not yet killed?\u201d \u201cPerhaps,\u201d says the\nrespondent, \u201cHe made skins on purpose.\u201d \u201cWhy are there three persons in\nthe Trinity rather than four or five?\u201d \u201cSt. Cosmas and St. Damian cut off\na black man\u2019s leg and fastened it on a white man; which will have the\nleg at the resurrection?\u201d \u201cHow did Adam learn Hebrew?\u201d Queer curiosities\nthese, all of which will remind the reader of the madness of Elinora\nMelorina, a lady of Mantua, who, being fully persuaded she was married\nto a king, would kneel down and talk with him, as if he had then been\npresent with his retinue. Nay, if she by any chance found a piece of\nglass upon a dunghill, or if she came upon a piece of oyster-shell or\ntin, or any such thing that would glisten in the sunshine, she would say\nit was a jewel sent from her lord and husband, and upon this account she\nwould fill her cabinet full of this kind of rubbish. The cabinets of the\nmystics, amidst some worthier matter, are full of the kind of rubbish we\nhave quoted above, which, when instanced as solutions of things psychical\nor physical, seem to be as satisfactory as the old story of the foolish\nperson who, riding an ass to the pond to drink by the light of the moon,\nand some clouds intervening, and hiding the moon while the ass was\ndrinking, arrived at the grave conclusion that the ass had swallowed up\nthe moon, and took it clean out of being. When such grave problems and\nquestions are the result of so much of fasting and devotion, they only\nremind us of the question preferred by a monk on one occasion to a higher\nChurch dignitary: \u201cHow many keys did Christ give to Peter?\u201d which brought\nthe satisfactory reply, that \u201che ought to prepare himself by a course of\nphysic for such grave, sweet, and savoury questions!\u201d Illustrative as\nthey are of the literary vanities and follies of the time, follies to\nwhich even scholarly clergymen and eminent writers lent themselves, and\nas illustrating also not only the freedom of Watts from such epidemical\nfoolishness, but the work he did in calling the mind to healthful methods\nof thought, the writer trusts their quotation here may be forgiven.\n\nHe appears to have preserved his mind in great stillness. It is the quiet\nand still mind which is wise and prudent; and, like Henry More, to whom\nwe have referred, his life would repeat what that great man was wont to\nsay, \u201cIn the more peaceful spirit, when it is also a quick and perceptive\none, will always reside those faculties which are to the soul vision and\npower. In the deep and calm mind alone, in a temper clear and serene,\nsuch as is purged from the dregs, and devoid of the more disorderly\ntumults of the body, doth true wisdom or genuine philosophy, as in its\nown proper tower, securely reside.\u201d Hence the first great attribute of\nWatts\u2019 mind is _clearness_.\n\nHe ever kept before him a purpose of _usefulness_, alike in teaching men\nwhat to think about, and how to think about it; indeed, it is simply\ntrue, as Gibbons has remarked, that _perspicuity_ was eminently a feature\nof his intellect; and it must be admitted that upon whatever he speaks\nor writes, he is always clearly to be understood\u2014as we have seen, it was\nby no means a great virtue of his age, or of his contemporaries; and if\nhe discoursed upon the more lofty and difficult subjects of thought or\nphilosophy, they seem to acquire clearness in their passage through his\nmind. He did not crowd words upon each other, and images of every order\nwere used by him, not to add to the splendour of a paragraph, or to set\noff a division, but for the purpose of reflecting light on the reader\u2019s\nmind. He has dwelt himself upon the prime importance of perspicuity.\nIn his \u201cImprovement of the Mind,\u201d he says: \u201cHe that would gain a happy\ntalent for the instruction of others must know how to disentangle and\ndivide his thoughts, if too many are ready to crowd into one paragraph;\nand let him rather speak three sentences distinctly and clearly, which\nthe hearer receives at once with his ears and his soul, than crowd all\nthe thoughts into one sentence, which the hearer has forgotten before\nhe can understand it.\u201d It is a prime virtue in Watts\u2019 style that it\nis clear; it ought to be a chief virtue in every writer. In him it\nillustrated the character of his mind. He seemed even to be impatient\nof the dark and obscure, and he never would permit himself to repose\nnear the absolutely incomprehensible without attempting in some way to\nunderstand it; so, also, as he attempts to express his mind upon any\nsubject, his sentences instantly appear to be the very windows of the\nintellect. And this accounts for that other noticeable characteristic of\nhis style\u2014_its perfect ease_. There was smoothness and grace, the entire\nabsence of the turgid and the bombastic; his sentences flowed along in\nhappy harmony. Very frequently such a style conveys the impression that\na man has nothing to say, when, perhaps, it is by immense labour, and\nby the study of the finest writers, and by conversation, that he has\nattained to that grace and natural ease of manner in which all who listen\nor who read are instantly able to apprehend the meaning. Thus he himself\ntranslates his favourite Horace:\n\n    Smooth be your style, and plain and natural,\n    To strike the sins of Wapping or Whitehall;\n    While others think this easy to attain,\n    Let them but try, and with their utmost pain,\n    They\u2019ll sweat and strive to imitate in vain.\n\nAnother attribute, to which Gibbons alludes, in Watts\u2019 style is his\n_dignity_, especially in the use of his metaphors and in the restraint he\nputs upon himself in his most ardent and animated passages. A wise use\nof the passions is a marked characteristic of his writings, as he says,\n\u201cDid the Great God ever appoint statues for His ambassadors to invite\nsinners to His mercy; words of grace written upon brass or marble would\ndo the work almost as well; where the preachers are stone no wonder if\nthe hearers are motionless.\u201d And in a fine passage in which he reprobates\nthe philosophy of the Earl of Shaftesbury, under the name of Rhapsodus,\nwho affirms that neither the fear of future punishment, nor the hope of\nfuture reward, can possibly be called good affections, Watts exclaims:\n\n\u201cGo, dress up all the virtues of human nature in all the beauties of your\noratory, and declaim aloud on the praise of social virtue and the amiable\nqualities of goodness, till your hearts or lungs ache, among the looser\nherds of mankind, and you will ever find, as your _heathen fathers_\nhave done before you, that the wild appetites and passions of men are\ntoo violent to be restrained by such mild and silken language. You may\nas well build up a fence of straw and feathers to resist a cannon-ball,\nor try to quench a flaming granado with a shell of fair water, as hope\nto succeed in these attempts. But an eternal heaven and an eternal\nhell carry a Divine force and power with them. This doctrine, from the\nmouth of Christian preachers, has begun the reformation of multitudes.\nThis Gospel has recovered thousands among the nations from iniquity and\ndeath. They have been awakened by these awful scenes to begin religion,\nand afterwards their virtue has improved itself into superior and more\nrefined principles and habits by Divine grace, and risen to high and\neminent degrees, though not to consummate state. The blessed God knows\nhuman nature better than _Rhapsodus_ doth, and has throughout His Word\nappointed a more proper and more effectual method of address to it by the\npassions of hope and fear, by punishments and rewards.\u201d\n\nHis _ideas_ are large and ample; thoughts thronged through his pages.\nAdmirable as his prose is, he writes still like a poet, and he speaks\nof the value of poetry as not a mere amusement or the embroidery of the\nmind, he says how it \u201cbrightens the fancy with a thousand beautiful\nimages, how it enriches the soul with great and sublime sentiments and\nrefined ideas, and fills the memory with a noble variety of language,\nit teaches the art of describing well, of painting everything to the\nlife, and presenting the pleasing and frightful scenes of nature and\nprovidence, vice and virtue, in their proper charms and horrors; it\nassists the art of persuasion, leads to a pathetic mode of speech and\nwriting, and adds life and beauty to conversation.\u201d\n\nAnd hence his style is so _attractive_; it has often been an enjoyment to\nus to turn over the pages of his prose writings. What a variety of topics\nis presented to us in his interesting inquiry \u201cConcerning Space,\u201d and\nhow interesting his treatment makes the discussion, however abstract the\ntopic. It is the same with his philosophic essays on \u201cInnate Ideas,\u201d and\non the \u201cNature of Substance,\u201d and in that on the \u201cStrength and Weakness\nof Human Reason.\u201d His sermons, we have before said, have not the pomp\nand glow of Jeremy Taylor, but they resemble, and certainly do not fall\ninferior to, those of John Donne, in a quiet metaphysical subtlety and a\nhappy use of images supplied by fancy; but let us select a few:\n\n    THE SOUL AND GOD.\n\n    \u201cMy soul is touched with such a Divine influence that it cannot\n    rest, while God withdraws, _as the needle trembles, and hunts\n    after the living loadstone_.\u201d\n\n    A SENSITIVE HEART.\n\n    \u201cNothing could displease Phronissa (so this good mother\n    is called) more than to hear a jest thrown upon natural\n    infirmities. She thought there was something sacred in misery,\n    and it was not to be touched with a rude hand.\u201d\n\n    IMPULSIVE CHRISTIANS.\n\n    \u201cSuch Christians as these (such who are weak and too much under\n    the influence of their passions) live very much by sudden fits\n    and starts of devotion, without that uniform and steady spring\n    of faith and holiness which would render their religion more\n    even and uniform, more honourable to God and more comfortable\n    to themselves. They are always high on the wing, or else lying\n    moveless on the ground. They are ever in the heights or in the\n    depths, travelling on the bright mountains with the songs of\n    heaven on their lips, or groaning and labouring through the\n    dark valleys, and never walking onward as on an even plain\n    towards heaven.\u201d\n\n    THE FULFILMENT OF DIVINE PREDICTIONS.\n\n    \u201cHow easy it will be for our blessed Lord to make a full\n    accomplishment of all His predictions concerning His kingdom;\n    salvation shall spread through all the tribes and ranks of\n    mankind, as the lightning from heaven in a few moments would\n    communicate a living flame through ten thousand lamps or\n    torches placed in a proper situation and neighbourhood.\u201d\n\nHe had an eminent _power in description_; the following meditation is\na rich illustration of this. The whole meditation is far too long to\nquote\u2014his descriptions of the awakening life of leaves, and birds, and\ninsects\u2014but he closes:\n\n    THE FIRST OF MAY.\n\n    \u201c\u2019Tis a sublime and constant triumph over all the intellectual\n    powers of man, which the great God maintains every moment\n    in these inimitable works of nature, in these impenetrable\n    recesses and all mysteries of Divine art; and the month of\n    May is the most shining season of this triumph. The flags and\n    banners of Almighty wisdom are now displayed round half the\n    globe, and the other half waits the return of the sun to spread\n    the same triumph over the southern world. The very sun in\n    the firmament is God\u2019s prime minister in this wondrous world\n    of beings, and he works with sovereign vigour on the surface\n    of the earth, and spreads his influence deep under the clods\n    to the very root and fibre, moulding them in their proper\n    forms by Divine direction. There is not a plant, nor a leaf,\n    nor one little branching thread above or beneath the ground,\n    which escapes the eye or influence of this beneficent star. An\n    illustrious emblem of the omnipresence and universal activity\n    of the Creator.\u201d\n\nThe following strikes us as very pleasing:\n\n    ON DISTANT THUNDER.\n\n    \u201cWhen we hear the thunder rumbling in some distant quarter\n    of the heavens, we sit calm and serene amidst our business\n    or diversions; we feel no terrors about us, and apprehend no\n    danger. When we see the slender streaks of lightning play afar\n    off in the horizon of an evening sky, we look on and amuse\n    ourselves as with an agreeable spectacle, without the least\n    fear or concern. But lo! the dark cloud rises by degrees; it\n    grows black as night, and big with tempests; it spreads as it\n    rises to the mid-heaven, and now hangs directly over us; the\n    flashes of lightning grow broad and strong, and, like sheets of\n    ruddy fire, they blaze terribly all round the hemisphere. We\n    bar the doors and windows, and every avenue of light, but we\n    bar them all in vain. The flames break in at every cranny, and\n    threaten swift destruction; the thunder follows, bursting from\n    the cloud with sudden and tremendous crashes; the voice of the\n    Lord is redoubled with violence, and overwhelms us with terror;\n    it rattles over our heads as though the whole house was broken\n    down at once with a stroke from heaven, and was tumbling on us\n    amain to bury us in the ruins. Happy the man whose hope in his\n    God composes all his passions amid these storms of nature, and\n    renders his whole deportment peaceful and serene amidst the\n    frights and hurries of weak spirits and unfortified minds.\u201d\n\nMany pages might be filled with such passages in which the compactness\nof the proverb, or the pleasantry of the fancy, or the richness of the\ndescription, is remarkable. It comes out of such characteristics as we\nhave noticed, that he reformed the preaching of his day, especially\nas to the structure of sermons; it was the age of, what he calls very\nfelicitously, \u201cbranching sermons;\u201d and even John Howe, as both Robert\nHall and Henry Rogers[50] have remarked, \u201cfar outwent many of his\nmost extravagant contemporaries in minute and frivolous subdivision;\nwe have sometimes heads arranged rank and file, half a score deep.\u201d\nHenry Rogers continues, \u201cIf any would wish to see the full extent to\nwhich Howe carried this fault, they may look into the \u2018scheme\u2019 (a very\naccurate one), which his publishers prefixed to the first edition of the\n\u2018Delighting in God,\u2019 and by the time the student has thoroughly digested\nand mastered that, he will find little difficulty I apprehend in any of\nthe first books of Euclid.\u201d It was the characteristic of nearly all the\ngreat Puritan preachers before Watts. He speaks of some who would draw\nout a long rank of particulars in the same sermon under one general, and\nrun up the number to eighteenthly! or seven and twentiethly! until they\ncut all their sense into shreds, so that everything they say of anything\nis a new particular; and he says, he has sat under this preaching until\nhe has thought of Ezekiel\u2019s vision in the valley full of bones, \u201cbehold\nthey were very many and very dry.\u201d He adds, \u201cA single rose bush, or a\ndwarf pear, with all their leaves, flowers, and fruit about them, have\nmore beauty and spirit in themselves, and yield more food and pleasure to\nmankind, than the innumerable branches, boughs, and twigs of a long hedge\nof thorns.\u201d In the same manner he satirizes another kind of preaching,\nin which there are no breaks and pauses. \u201cIs there no medium,\u201d he says,\n\u201cbetween a sermon made up of sixty dry particulars, and a long loose\ndeclamation without any distinction of the parts of it? Must a preacher\ndivide his works by the breaks of a minute watch, or let it run on\nincessantly like the flowing stream of sand in the hour-glass?\u201d And thus\nhe inquires, \u201cCan a long purling sound awaken a sleepy conscience? Can\nyou make the arrow wound where it will not stick? Where all the discourse\nvanishes from the remembrance, can you imagine the soul to be profited or\nenriched? When you brush over the closed eyelid with a feather, did you\never find it give light to the blind? have any of your soft harangues,\nyour continued threads of silken eloquence, ever raised the dead?\u201d Very\nhappily he says, \u201cPreachers talk reason and religion to their auditories\nin vain, if they do not make the argument so short as to come within\ntheir grasps, and give a frequent rest to their thoughts; they must\nbreak the Bread of Life into pieces to feed children with it, and part\ntheir discourse into distinct propositions, to give the ignorant a plain\nscheme of any one doctrine, and enable them to comprehend or retain it.\nThe auditors of the first kind of preacher have some confusion in their\nknowledge, the hearers of the last have scarce any knowledge at all.\u201d\n\nThe reader will not fail to notice, in this nervous passage, the happy\nimagery by which the writer gives point to his ideas.\n\nBut that which we have said hitherto refers rather to the style, the\nvehicular frame-work in which Watts set forth his thoughts; it is more\nimportant to enter into the mind and spirit of the man; and, first, no\nattribute seems more remarkable than the seraphic _reverence_ of his\nnature. It is not easy to mention a writer who more distinctly realises\nto the mind one of those six-winged seraphs Isaiah saw, who with twain\ncovered his face, with twain his feet, and with twain stood ready to\nfly; Watts appeared ready for any flight; but reverence, an awful sense\nof the mysterious and inscrutable, governed every movement of his soul.\nThe Unitarians have, with singular audacity, sought to drag him through\nthe Serbonian bog of creedless Christianity.[51] It is a fine remark,\nquoted by Southey, that \u201csuch doubts as troubled him he subdued, not in\na martial posture, but upon his knees.\u201d It is very certain that he had\na large speculative disposition; he approached very near to the veil\nwhich hides from man the incommunicable light; there is not a line in\nhis writings which displays a tendency towards Arianism. Towards the\ndoctrine of Socinianism he does not condescend to give a single glance.\nHis complaint was, and we apprehend it to be a more common one than\neven those who are troubled with it are aware, not that he could not\nbelieve all that is revealed, but that revelation had not conferred\nmore light upon the subjects of even incomprehensible knowledge. But\nhis prayer, his \u201csolemn address to the great and ever-blessed God, upon\nwhat he had written concerning the great and ever-blessed Trinity,\u201d is\ncertainly an extraordinary, a passionate and most humble utterance of\nan ardently devout mind. It is too lengthy for entire quotation, but\nsome of the closing paragraphs will convey the spirit of the entire\npiece, and the whole may be read, if read in the spirit in which it was\nwritten, with profit to every one: \u201cBlessed and faithful God, hast Thou\nnot promised that \u2018the meek Thou wilt guide in judgment, the meek Thou\nwilt teach Thy way?\u2019 Hast Thou not taught us by Isaiah, Thy prophet,\nthat Thou wilt \u2018bring the blind by a way they know not, and wilt lead\nthem in paths which they have not known?\u2019 Hast Thou not informed us by\nthe prophet Hosea, that \u2018if we follow on to know the Lord, then we shall\nknow Him?\u2019 Hath not Thy Son, our Saviour, assured us, that our Heavenly\nFather will give His Holy Spirit to them that ask Him? And is He not\nappointed \u2018to guide us into all truth?\u2019 Have I not sought the gracious\nguidance of thy Good Spirit continually? Am I not truly sensible of my\nown darkness and weakness, my dangerous prejudices on every side, and\nmy utter insufficiency for my own conduct? Wilt Thou leave such a poor\ncreature bewildered among a thousand perplexities, which are raised by\nthe various opinions and contrivances of men, to explain Thy Divine\nTruth? Help me, Heavenly Father, for I am quite tired and weary of these\nhuman explainings, so various and uncertain. When wilt Thou explain it to\nme Thyself, O my God, by the secret and certain dictates of Thy Spirit,\naccording to the intimation of Thy Word? Nor let any pride of reason,\nnor any affectation of novelty, nor any criminal bias whatever, turn my\nheart aside from hearkening to these Divine dictates of Thy Word and Thy\nSpirit. Suffer not any of my native corruptions, nor the vanity of my\nimagination, to cast a mist over my eyes while I am searching after the\nknowledge of Thy mind and will, for my eternal salvation.\n\n\u201cI entreat, O most merciful Father, that Thou wilt not suffer the remnant\nof my short life to be wasted in such endless wanderings in quest of Thee\nand Thy Son Jesus, as a great part of my past days have been; but let\nmy sincere endeavours to know Thee, in all the ways whereby Thou hast\ndiscovered Thyself in Thy Word, be crowned with such success that my\nsoul, being established in every needful truth by Thy Holy Spirit, I may\nspend my remaining life according to the rules of Thy Gospel, and may,\nwith all the holy and happy creation, ascribe glory and honour, wisdom\nand power, to Thee who sittest upon the throne, and to the Lamb for ever\nand ever.\u201d\n\nWe have stated the matter fairly as in relation to Watts\u2019 entireness of\nfaith, but justice has not been done to Watts in relation to that dilemma\nand agitation of public opinion and sentiment which forced him into\ncontroversy. It was not that he himself doubted, neither was it that he\nfor himself approached the confines of a discussion of which it might be\nsaid\u2014\n\n    Dark with excessive light its skirts appear.\n\nArianism was vexing the church in general in England in that age.[52]\nMany of the churches, especially those to which Watts stood related,\nindicated a close proclivity to Arian sentiment. The peculiar spirit of\nthe times had created this degeneracy of sentiment; there was little\nof what we are now accustomed to denominate practical Christianity\u2014the\nactivities created by Methodism were quite unknown. All over the country\nwere Nonconformist churches (nooks of retreat), where some learned,\nscholarly, and philosophical minister was at the head of a class of\nthoughtful minds. Numbers of them seemed to have little to do but to\nthink; the heart did not minister much to the head in many instances. The\nUnitarianism of our day was unknown. It thus represented very much the\nhigh Arian sentiment of reverence to Christ without the acknowledgment\nof His Godhead. The hymns of Watts abound in expressions of praise to\nChrist and to the Holy Spirit. He was called upon to vindicate that which\nhe himself had done; he was called upon to defend that whole scheme of\ndoctrine which accepted the Three Persons in the Divine Godhead. Perhaps\nthe defect in all such efforts is, that the very attempt to embody some\ndoctrines within the forms of the understanding naturally and essentially\ndepraves them. If we say, as we often do, a God understood is no God at\nall\u2014and this remark applies to mere natural religion\u2014the same holds true\nof those higher doctrines of revelation which are the adumbrations of\n\u201cthe light which no man hath seen or can see.\u201d There are doctrines in\nTheology, even as there are doctrines in Science, the demonstration of\nwhich is rather negative than positive. Chemists tell us of an element\nessential to our life\u2014we breathe it every moment; it contributes to\nthe balance of all the powers of the atmosphere; it tames the subtle,\nfiery-tempered oxygen, the wild and vehement hydrogen; it represses,\nallays, and composes, but itself has no colour no odour; it has no active\nproperties, no chemical affections; it is one of the greatest mysteries\nin nature. It is invisible, and yet it proclaims its presence; the\nchemist cannot touch it, but he is sure of its existence. It may well\nfill our minds with awe that we are ever in the presence of such an\nagent, that before it the lamp of science is darkened, like a man with a\ndim light in a room in which he sees phantoms he cannot touch, and hears\nvoices the causes of which he cannot detect, and as he holds up his lamp\nhe is aware of a presence that disturbs him, that will not enter into his\nknowledge, and for which he cannot account. Only he knows that it is.\nSuch is nitrogen. It is thus we apprehend the doctrine of the Trinity.\n\nAll efforts must fail to apprehend the doctrines involved in the idea\nof the Trinity, which insist upon either the idea of personality or\nnumeration, as they are understood by us. Watts, with the Bible in his\nhand, stood on the defensive against the aggressions of Arianism, and\nhaving attempted to unfold the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, he\npublished his further dissertation, \u201cThe Arian Invited to the Orthodox\nFaith; a plain and easy method to lead such as deny the Proper Deity\nof Christ into the belief of that Article.\u201d Those who charge Arianism\nupon Watts can only do so, because throughout the argument he has\nconducted it in a strain of eminent courtesy and charity. He approached\nthe matter in no spirit of disputation, but with a cordial desire to\npromote, if possible, healing and unity; nor do we think that there are\nany indications, in the course of any of his discussions, that his own\nmind or faith was unhinged; but the discussions around him compelled\nhim to direct his attention to questions certainly not uncongenial to\nhis speculative and analytic order of mind. Probably the reader feels\nthat there is a sufficient correspondence between the sense of our own\nspiritual wants and the revelation given to us in the Divine Word to\nmake us feel that the Trinity of Persons in the Godhead is a necessity\nof our moral nature, and that it is a doctrine, as we have already\nintimated, best held, as most satisfactory to the mind and conscience,\nwhen held _im_plicitly rather than _ex_plicitly.\n\nThe claim which the Unitarians put forth to find in Watts one of\nthemselves is not less than audacious and dishonest. It is, however,\nfounded\u2014very ridiculously, we venture to think\u2014upon some expressions\nreported after his death, which implied that he would have been willing,\nhad he been able, to have altered some expressions in his hymns. Truly\nit is amazing that the author could survive the publication of his\nfirst volume forty years, and not alter many barbarisms of metre and\nexpression. It may, perhaps, be partly accounted for from the fact that\nthe copyright of the hymns had passed at once from his hands. We can\nvery well believe there were certain expressions in his hymns he would\nhave been not indisposed to alter, without touching at all upon matters\nof doctrine. It will be time enough for Unitarians to claim Watts when\nthey are able to set aside his last published words, and to reconcile\nthem with that faith which they call theirs, or to account, upon such\nprinciples as they would make him hold, for the sentiments which fell\nfrom his lips when dying.\n\nBut as a study of Watts\u2019 mind, these pieces of his are like all that\nemanated from his pen, characterized by exceeding reverence for the\nsubject he attempted to elucidate, and by charity, respect, and courtesy\ntowards his opponents. Johnson says: \u201cI am only enough acquainted with\nhis theological works to admire his meekness of opposition, and his\nmildness of censure. It was not only in his books, but in his mind, that\northodoxy was united with charity.\u201d Some will, perhaps, almost think\nthat this width of charity in Watts degenerated into a vice; we hope this\nbook has made it evident that he both had strong convictions and knew how\nto act upon them steadily. But his heart was very inclusive in its love.\nIt was not merely that he lived within the shadows of persecution, and\nbelonged to an order whose opinions were only tolerated; he represented\nthe mildest type of Nonconformity. Perhaps we shall surprise some readers\nnot very well acquainted with his writings, by informing them that one\nof the latest efforts of his mind and pen was upon the inquiry, \u201cWhether\nan Establishment is altogether an Impossibility.\u201d This was in his Essay,\npublished in the year 1739, on \u201cCivil Power in Things Sacred.\u201d It is a\nsingular scheme, and the question is discussed with great moderation\nand candour; but it is rather a plea for a system of national education\nthan the establishment of a national religion. He inquires, indeed,\nwhether there might not be established a religion consistent with the\njust liberties of mankind, and practicable with every form of civil\ngovernment. He thinks that officers should be appointed by the State\nto explain and enforce the great duties and sanctions of morality, and\nthat the citizens should be compelled to receive such lessons as are\nunquestionably at the foundation of a national well-being, the welfare,\nstrength, and support of the State, and that such teachers, as public\nbenefactors, should be sustained at the charge of the State.\n\nWatts\u2019 philosophical works exhibit him in the same light as his\ntheological. They are marked by a vivid disposition to analysis and\nspeculation, and by that elevated reverence of thought which appertains\nto all his writings. Instance his \u201cInquiry Concerning Space; whether\nit be Something or Nothing, God or a Creature.\u201d Most minds are quite\nunequal to such discussions, and many regard them as unwise, irreverent,\nand dangerous. They are a kind of intellectual Matterhorn which certain\ndaring spirits assault from age to age\u2014the origin of evil, liberty, and\nnecessity\u2014the nature of substance, and time, and space. It would surely\nbe a dangerous and a doubtful doctrine to teach that such questions are\nonly the territories or hunting-grounds of the bold masters of sceptical\nnegations. It does not derogate from the greatness of Isaac Watts to\nadmit that he was neither a Joseph Butler, a William de Leibnitz,\nnor a Jonathan Edwards; but in his mind such studies became means of\nusefulness. He fashioned Alpenstocks for climbers among those higher\nmountain ranges, through which he had himself travelled. In such studies\na reverent mind may at once enlarge the understanding while learning the\nlimitation of its powers. A wise guide will here, too, guard against the\ndangerous _crevasse_, while he hath himself\n\n                            The secret learned\n    To mix his blood with sunshine, and to take\n    The wind into his pulses.[53]\n\nJohnson quotes a passage from Mr. Dyer, charging Watts with confounding\nthe idea of space with empty space, and that he did not consider that\nthough space might be without matter, yet matter, being extended, could\nnot be without space. But in reply to this, it may be remarked that this\nis the whole question, and extended matter falls rather beneath the\ndenomination of substance. It appears certainly the case that Watts, in\nhis discussion, deals with infinite space, or say, certainly, indefinite\nspace\u2014that is, extension abstracted from phenomena. Such space Sir Isaac\nNewton reverently regarded as the sensorium of God. Newton was so\nessentially reverent even in thought that it was not possible for him to\nindulge an idea which was capable of depraving religious conceptions; but\nall minds, even religious minds, have not been equally reverent. Hence\nsome have gone on to regard space as the immensity of God, as a property\nof God. But it would follow from this that as space is extended, so God,\ntoo, must be extended; and whatever tends to conform God with nature, or\nto place Him in contact with it, in any other way than as in relation\nto His wisdom and His will, is essentially unscriptural, and it is a\ndangerous proclivity below which yawn the fearful gulfs of Pantheism\nand Atheism. In these discussions our writer anticipated many of those\nshadows which in the course of a few years were to project themselves\nover the whole domain of philosophy and theology; and, indeed, only a\nfew years before, in the great work of Spinosa, ominous indications had\nbeen given; and the second part of the \u201cLiving Temple\u201d of John Howe bore\nimmediately upon the coming questions. Watts\u2019 essay penetrates into the\nstronghold of Pantheism. Newton and Pascal, both looking up into the\ninfinite spaces, felt their nature called on to reply to the questions\nsuggested. The silence terrified Pascal; Newton\u2019s calmer nature gathered\nup even infinite space into the great idea, that it was but a mode, or\nattribute, of God. Some such doctrines govern the Essays of Watts: Space,\nhe argues, cannot be God; we cannot indeed conceive that infinite space\never began to be, we have an idea of it as eternal and unchangeable;\naccording to Watts it seems to contain what existence it has in the\nvery idea, nature, or essence of it, which is one attribute of God, and\nwhereby we prove His existence. It appears to be a necessary being and\nhas a sort of self-existence, for we cannot tell how to conceive it not\nto he. It seems to be an impassible, indivisible, immutable essence,\nand therefore according to the ghastly pantheistic philosophy it is\nargued that space is God. This idea Watts concisely set aside, because\nit involves the absurdity of making the blessed God a Being of infinite\nlength, breadth, and depth, and ascribing to Him parts of this nature\nmeasurable by inches, yards, and miles. Perhaps this is not so clear to\nall readers as it was to the writer himself; but the close seems more\nsatisfactory when he says, \u201cStrongest arguments seem to evince this, that\nit must be God, or it must be nothing.\u201d Watts, then, was an Idealist,\nand the remark of Johnson arises from a misapprehension of the drift of\nthe essay. He argues that space is only the shadow cast by substance\u2014we\nare sure that shadow or darkness is a mere nothing, and space is nothing\nbut the absence of body, as shade is the absence of light, and both are\nexplicable without supposing either to be real beings: it is therefore\nmerely an abstract idea, or, as we should say, a \u201cthought-form;\u201d it will\nfollow from this that such an idea of space dissolves one of the charming\nillusions of Pantheism, and that there rises from the midst of this\nuniverse of unidentical being the personality of man.\n\nSome critics have entertained a grim joke at the expense of Watts, that\nhaving annihilated space, he proceeded in the next place to annihilate\nsubstance, anticipating at once Berkeley and Hume. Let it then be\nremembered that he engaged in none of these excursions in a vain or\nPyrrhonistic spirit: his essays were written not to unhinge, but to\nrest and settle and give repose to the mind; indeed he says, \u201cThere\nare mysteries wherein we bewilder and lose ourselves by attempting to\nmake something out of nothing;\u201d substance is one of these. He goes for\nsome distance on the way with Locke, especially in refuting the idea\nthat substance is something real in nature; with Locke he argues that\n\u201call the ideas we have of particular, distinct sort of substances, are\nnothing but several combinations of simple ideas coexistent in such, the\ncause of their union, which makes the whole subsist of itself.\u201d Only\nthen comes in the important question, \u201cwhat is it that supports the\naccidents and qualities of being?\u201d At this point Watts parts company\nwith Locke. His ideas of substance seem to be antagonistic to Locke,\nand dangerously sustaining Spinosa, who taught, as our readers know,\nthat the whole universe, God and this world, may be the same individual\nsubstance\u2014\u201cHow can I be sure that God and the material world have not\none common substance?\u201d But, very singularly, Watts himself in tracing\nthe mistakes upon this matter to their origin, seems to fall into the\nvery error he seeks to explode, the idea of a real, invisible abstract\nor concrete, seems to stand behind all things; he says, the mistakes\nwhich men make arise from the occult quality in the termination of names,\n_ity_ in solidity, _sion_ in extension, which imply a quality without\nincluding the substance; as white_ness_, without including the substance\nor the thing that is white; the word white is concrete, and denotes the\nthing or substance together with the quality, and he says, \u201cWe ought to\nremember that _things_ are made by God, or Nature, _words_ are made by\nman, and sometimes applied in a way not exactly agreeable to what things\nand ideas require.\u201d The object of Watts in his discussion of the idea of\nsubstance, was the same as that in his discussion in the idea of space,\nto disarm Spinozism of its gross and crude ideas of God. But we do not\nfeel that the same success closes the discussion. Perhaps it will be\nsufficient to admit at once that space and substance are both modes of\nDivine operation. Push the inquiry to any extent, and the most absolute\nSpinozist is compelled to halt in some such conclusion. That God is\nextended, that He is a mere infinite extension, is an absurdity; but it\nseems that no injustice is done to the most reverent and infinite thought\nof God by regarding Him as the essential _sub-stans_, the substance as of\nall souls, so of all being.\n\nThat about the philosophic essays which interests us is their freshness,\nand the clear, easily lucid, and charmingly illustrated style in which\nthe doctrines are conveyed. They assuredly are a very happy commentary\nupon Locke, from whom he often separates, as in the essay on \u201cInnate\nIdeas;\u201d he agrees with Locke in the main, and then proceeds to discourse\nupon many simple ideas which are innate in some sense. His essay to prove\nthat the \u201cSoul never Sleeps,\u201d and \u201cOn the Place and Motion of Spirits,\nand the Power of a Spirit to move Matter,\u201d are interesting; that on the\n\u201cDeparting and Separate Soul\u201d is a sublime piece of writing, and on the\n\u201cResurrection of the same Body,\u201d and on the \u201cProduction and Nourishment\nof Plants and Animals.\u201d Few persons now, it may be supposed, even know of\nthe existence of these essays; they seem to us pieces of truly delightful\nreading, most instructive, suggestive, and entertaining, singularly free\nfrom hard and unpleasant lines of dogmatism, full of delightful and\nsuggestive pictures; take the following:\n\n    SUNBEAMS AND STARBEAMS.\n\n    \u201cWhat a surprising work of God is vision, that notwithstanding\n    all these infinite meetings and crossings of starbeams and\n    sunbeams night and day, through all our solar world, there\n    should be such a regular conveyance of light to every eye as to\n    discern each star so distinctly by night, as well as all other\n    objects on earth by day! And this difficulty and wonder will\n    be greatly increased by considering the innumerable double,\n    triple, and tenfold reflections and refractions of sunbeams,\n    or daylight, near our earth, and among the various bodies on\n    the surface of it. Let ten thousand men stand round a large\n    elevated amphitheatre; in the middle of it, on a black plain,\n    let ten thousand white round plates be placed, of two inches\n    diameter, and at two inches distance; every eye must receive\n    many rays of light reflected from every plate, in order to\n    perceive its shape and colour; now, if there were but one ray\n    of light came from each plate, here would be ten thousand\n    rays falling on every single eye, which would make twenty\n    thousand times ten thousand, that is, two hundred millions\n    of rays crossing each other in direct lines in order to make\n    every plate visible to every man. But if we suppose that each\n    plate reflected one hundred rays, which is no unreasonable\n    supposition, this would rise to twenty thousand millions. What\n    an amazing thing is the distinct vision of the shape and colour\n    of each plate by every eye, notwithstanding these confused\n    crossings and rays! What an astonishing composition is the eye\n    in all the coats and all the humours of it, to convey those ten\n    thousand white images, or those millions of rays so distinct\n    to the retina, and to impress and paint them all there! And\n    what further amazement attends us if we follow the image on\n    the retina, conveying itself by the optic nerves into the\n    common sensory without confusion? Can a rational being survey\n    this scene and say there is no God? Can a mind think on this\n    stupendous bodily organ, the eye, and not adore the Wisdom that\n    contrived it?\u201d\n\nAnd the following is not only most interesting, but anticipates, with\nmuch strength, a line of argument important to the sceptical philosophy\nof our own day. The German Buchner binds up his atheistic philosophy\nbetween the two covers of Force and Matter; and many in our own country\nfollow in the same train of singularly forgetful thought: forgetful\nbecause force and matter are really not sufficient to constitute a\nuniverse; the regulative and directive power which controls force and\nmanipulates matter to its will is assuredly as essential a factor as\neither force or matter.[54] Thus Dr. Watts argues in his remarks:\n\n    THE DIRECTION OF MOTION A PROOF OF DEITY.\n\n    \u201cYet, after all, I know it may be replied again, that\n    gravitation is a power which is not limited in its agency by\n    any conceivable distances whatsoever; and therefore, when\n    these starbeams are run out never so far into the infinite\n    void by the force of their emission from the star, yet their\n    gravitation towards the star, or some of the planetary worlds,\n    which sometimes, perhaps, may be nearer to it, has perpetual\n    influence to retard their motion by degrees, even as the\n    motion of a comet is retarded by its gravitation towards the\n    sun, though it flies to such a prodigious distance from the\n    sun, and in time it is stopped and drawn back again and made\n    to return towards its centre. And just so, may we suppose,\n    all the sunbeams and starbeams that ever were emitted, even\n    to the borders of the creation, to have been restrained by\n    degrees by this principle of gravitation till, moving slower\n    and slower, at last they are stopped in their progress and made\n    to return toward their own or some other planetary system.\n    And if so, then there is a perpetual return of the beams of\n    light towards some or other of their bright originals, an\n    everlasting circulation of these lucid atoms, which will hinder\n    this eternal dilation of the bounds of the universe, and at the\n    same time will equally prevent the wasting of the substance\n    of the lucid bodies, the sun or stars. Well, but if this\n    power of restraining and reducing the flight of starbeams be\n    ascribed to this principle of gravitation, let us inquire what\n    is this gravitation, which prevents the universe from such a\n    perpetual waste of light? It cannot be supposed to be any real\n    property or natural power inhering in matter or body, which\n    exerts its influence at so prodigious a distance. I think,\n    therefore, it is generally agreed, and with great reason, that\n    it is properly the influence of a Divine power upon every atom\n    of matter which, in a most exact proportion to its bulk and\n    distance, causes it to gravitate towards all other material\n    beings, and which makes all the bulky beings in the universe,\n    viz., the sun, planets, and stars, attract the bodies that are\n    near them towards themselves. Now this law of nature being\n    settled at first by God the Creator, and being constantly\n    maintained in the course of His providence, it is esteemed\n    as an effect of nature, and has a property of matter, though\n    in truth it is owing to the almighty and all-pervading power\n    of God exerting its incessant dominion and influence through\n    the whole material creation, producing an infinite variety of\n    changes which Ave observe among bodies, confining the universe\n    to its appointed limits, restraining the swift motion of the\n    beams of light, and preserving this vast system of beings from\n    waste and ruin, from desolation and darkness. If there be a\n    world, there is a God; if there be a sun and stars, every ray\n    points to their Creator; not a beam of light from all the lucid\n    globes, but acknowledges its mission from the wisdom and will\n    of God, and feels the restraint of His laws, that it may not\n    be an eternal wanderer. But I call my thoughts to retire from\n    these extravagant rovings beyond the limits of creation. What\n    do these amusements teach us but the inconceivable grandeur,\n    extent, and magnificence of the works and the power of God, the\n    astonishing contrivances of His wisdom, and the poverty, the\n    weakness, and narrowness of our own understandings, all which\n    are lessons well becoming a creature?\u201d\n\nIn the same manner, also, he replies to the modern doctrine of\n_traducianism_ in his remarks on\n\n    CREATION OR CONSERVATION.\n\n    \u201cIt has been a very famous question in the schools, whether\n    conservation be a continual creation, i.e., whether that\n    action, whereby God preserves all creatures in their several\n    ranks and orders of being, is not one continued act of His\n    creating power or influence, as it were, giving being to them\n    every moment? Whether creatures, being formed out of nothing,\n    would relapse again into their first estate of nonentity if\n    they were not, as it were, perpetually reproduced by a creating\n    act of God? How there is one plain and easy argument whereby,\n    perhaps, this controversy may be determined, and it may be\n    proposed in this manner. In whatsoever moment God creates a\n    substance, He must create with it all the properties, modes,\n    and accidents which belong to it in that moment; for in the\n    very moment of creation the creature is all passive, and\n    cannot give itself those modes. Now if God every moment create\n    wicked men and devils, and cause them to exist such as they\n    are, by a continued act of creation, must He not, at the same\n    time, create or give being to all their sinful thoughts and\n    inclinations, and even their most criminal and abominable\n    actions? Must He not create devils, together with the rage and\n    pride, the malice, envy, and blasphemy of their thoughts? Must\n    He not create sinful men in the very acts of lying, perjury,\n    stealing, and adultery, rapine, cruelty, and murder? Must He\n    not form one man with malice in his heart? Another with a false\n    oath on the tongue? A third with a sword in his hand, plunging\n    it into his neighbour\u2019s bosom? Would not these formidable\n    consequences follow from the supposition of God\u2019s conserving\n    providence being a continual act of creation? But surely these\n    ideas seem to be shocking absurdities, whereas, if conservation\n    be really a continued creation, the modes must be created\n    together with their substances every moment, since it is not\n    possible that creatures, who every moment are supposed to be\n    nothing but the immediate products of the Divine will, should\n    be capable in every one of those very moments in which they are\n    produced or created to form their own modes in simultaneous\n    co-existence with their subjects. I own there are difficulties\n    on the other side of the question; but the fear of making God\n    the author of sin has bent my opinion this way. We must always\n    inviolably maintain it for the honour of the blessed God,\n    that all spirits, as they come out of His hand, are created\n    pure and innocent; every sinful act proceeds from themselves,\n    by an abuse of their own freedom of will, or by a voluntary\n    compliance with the corrupt appetites and inclinations of flesh\n    and blood. We must find some better way, therefore, to explain\n    God\u2019s providential conservation of things than by representing\n    it as an act of proper and continual creation, lest we impute\n    all the iniquities of all men and devils, in all ages, to the\n    pure and holy God, who is blessed for evermore.\u201d\n\nThere are two other pieces well worth a study\u2014his remarks on Mr. Locke\u2019s\n\u201cEssay on the Human Understanding,\u201d and a \u201cBrief Scheme of Ontology.\u201d The\nessay on ontology, like that on logic, is a most interesting handbook\nand guide to thought. Watts thought so clearly that it often seems as if\nhe were only putting things neatly. Sometimes, as in his \u201cPhilosophic\nEssays,\u201d and in his pieces on the Trinity, he is eminently translucent;\nyou see that there is light behind. This is the impression conveyed by\nhis dissertation on \u201cSpace,\u201d \u201cSubstance,\u201d and \u201cConcerning Spirits, their\nPlace and Motion;\u201d but in his Ontology and Logic he is transparent, the\nobjects are brought distinctly into view. When he presents before you\nhis greater thoughts his style is indeed clear, but you feel that it is\nas when \u201cmorning is spread upon the mountains\u201d before sunrise, or as\nwhen evening lingers in the soft and rosy light after sunset, there is\nsomething somewhere behind, some orb of light which spreads out all that\nroseate glow; in his Ontology and Logic he is concise and distinct, as\nwe have said; you may almost call him a neat writer. He has a wonderful\npower of accumulating particulars, a singular felicity in discriminating\nideas. This gives to him a very nice sense of words, as he says, \u201cWe must\nsearch the sense of words. It is for want of this that men quarrel in the\ndark, and that there are so many contentions in the several sciences, and\nespecially in divinity.\u201d His power of discrimination is so nice that it\noften becomes as amusing as it is instructive; regarded thus, his Logic\nis a most interesting book, we suppose quite the most delightful to read\nof any treatise on logic in our language. Of this amusing cumulative\npower let the reader take the following:\n\n    NAMES AND NAMING THINGS.\n\n    \u201cDo not suppose that the natures or essences of things always\n    differ from one another as much as their names do. There are\n    various purposes in human life for which we put very different\n    names on the same thing, or on things whose natures are near\n    akin; and thereby oftentimes, by making a new nominal species,\n    we are ready to deceive ourselves with the idea of another\n    real species of beings, and those whose understandings are\n    led away by the mere sound of words fancy the nature of those\n    things to be very different whose names are so, and judge\n    of them accordingly. I may borrow a remarkable instance for\n    my purpose out of every garden which contains a variety of\n    plants in it. Most of all plants agree in this, that they have\n    a root, a stalk, leaves, buds, blossoms, and seeds: but the\n    gardener ranges them under very different names, as though\n    they were really different kinds of beings, merely because of\n    the different use and service to which they are applied by\n    men, as for instance those plants whose roots are eaten shall\n    appropriate the name of roots to themselves, such as carrots,\n    turnips, radishes, etc. If the leaves are of chief use to us\n    then we call them herbs, as sage, mint, thyme; if the leaves\n    are eaten raw they are termed salad, as lettuce, purslane;\n    if boiled they become pot-herbs, as spinage, coleworts; and\n    some of those same plants which are pot-herbs in one family\n    are salads in another. If the buds are made our food they are\n    called heads or tops; so cabbage heads, heads of asparagus,\n    and artichokes. If the blossom be of most importance we call\n    it a flower, such as daisies, tulips, and carnations, which\n    are the mere blossoms of those plants. If the husks or seeds\n    are eaten they are called the fruits of the ground, as peas,\n    beans, strawberries, etc. If any part of the plant be of known\n    or common use to us in medicine we call it a physical herb, as\n    cardamus, scurvy-grass; but if we count no part useful we call\n    it a weed, and throw it out of the garden; and yet perhaps our\n    next neighbour knows some valuable property and use of it, he\n    plants it in his garden and gives it a title of an herb or a\n    flower. You see here how small is the real distinction of these\n    several plants considered in their general nature as the lesser\n    vegetables, yet what very different ideas we vulgarly form\n    concerning them, and make different species of them, chiefly\n    because of the different names given to them.\u201d\n\nExactly the same characteristics meet us in his Ontology, but here\nthere is yet more of this kind of amusement; its pages are crowded\nwith illustrations. It was perhaps in the nature of the subject that\nhe scarcely mentions a particular for which he does not furnish one or\ntwenty illustrative examples: take his curious discrimination of causes\ninto the deficient, the permissive, and the conditional:\n\n    CLASSIFICATION OF CAUSES.\n\n    \u201c_A deficient cause_ is when the effect owes its existence in\n    a great measure to the absence of something which would have\n    prevented it, so that this may be reckoned a negative rather\n    than a positive cause: the negligence of a gardener, or the\n    want of rain, are the deficient causes of the withering of\n    plants; and the carelessness of the pilot, or the sinking of\n    the tide, is the cause of a ship\u2019s splitting on a rock; the\n    forgetfulness of a message is the cause of a quarrel among\n    friends, or of the punishment of servants; the not bringing a\n    reprieve in time is the cause of a criminal\u2019s being executed;\n    and the want of education is the cause why many a child runs\n    headlong into vice and mischief; the blindness of a man, or the\n    darkness of the night, are the causes of stumbling; a leak in\n    a boat is a deficient cause why the water runs in and the boat\n    sinks; and a hole in a vessel is called a deficient cause why\n    the liquor runs out and is lost. Man is the deficient cause of\n    all his sins of omission, and many of these carry great guilt\n    in them.\n\n    \u201c_A permissive cause_ is that which actually removes\n    impediments, and thus it lets the proper causes operate. Now\n    this sort of cause is either natural or moral. A natural\n    permissive cause removes natural impediments or obstructions,\n    and this may be called a deobstruent cause. So opening the\n    window shutters is the cause of the light entering the room;\n    cleaning the ear may be the cause of a man\u2019s hearing music\n    who was deaf before; breaking down a dam is the cause of the\n    overflowing of water and drowning a town; letting loose a rope\n    is the cause of a ship\u2019s running adrift; leaving off a garment\n    is the cause of a cold and a cough; and cutting the bridle of\n    the tongue may be the cause of speech to the dumb.\n\n    \u201c_Note._\u2014The cause which removes natural impediments may be a\n    proper efficient cause with regard to that removal, yet it is\n    not properly efficient, but merely permissive with regard to\n    the consequences of that removal.\n\n    \u201c_A moral permissive cause_ removes moral impediments, or takes\n    away prohibitions, and gives leave to act: so a master is a\n    permissive cause of his scholars going to play; a general is\n    the same cause of his soldiers plundering a city; and a repeal\n    of a law against foreign silks is the permissive cause why they\n    are worn.\n\n    \u201c_Query._\u2014Was not God\u2019s permission of Satan to afflict Job\n    rather natural than moral, since his mischievous actions did\n    not become lawful thereby, and since it is now become his\n    nature to do mischief where he has no natural restraint?\n\n    \u201c_A condition_ has been usually caused _causa sine qu\u00e2 non_,\n    or a cause without which the effect is not produced. It is\n    generally applied to something which is requisite in order to\n    the effect, though it hath not a proper actual influence in\n    producing that effect. Daylight is a condition of ploughing,\n    sowing, and reaping; darkness is a condition of our seeing\n    stars and glowworms; clearness of the stream is the condition\n    of our spying sand and pebbles at the bottom of it; being well\n    dressed with a head uncovered is a condition of a man\u2019s coming\n    into the presence of a king; and paying a peppercorn yearly is\n    the condition of enjoying an estate. How far the perfect idea\n    of the word condition, in the civil law, may differ from this\n    representation is not my present work to determine.\n\n    \u201c_Note._\u2014These three last causes may possibly be all ranked\n    under the general name of conditions, but I think it more\n    proper to distinguish them into their different kinds of\n    causality.\u201d\n\n    We perhaps repeat ourselves in these last remarks, for all\n    is an illustration of that perspicuity which we mentioned as\n    Watts\u2019 first characteristic; but in him perspicuity was not\n    the attribute of a small mind, or a limited range of vision;\n    perspicuous speech is the natural instrument of perspicuous\n    thought: how can that man express himself clearly who does\n    not see clearly? Hence dark language must be the companion\n    of dark vision; but the perspicuity of a child amongst its\n    playthings, in its playground or its garden is one thing,\n    and the perspicuity of the pilot of a vessel, or a gifted\n    astronomer, is quite another. However wide or vast the subjects\n    upon which Watts wrote, it seemed he had cleared thought in\n    his own mind, by the clearness with which speech served him in\n    making the things in his own mind the property of others; and\n    upon whatsoever he wrote there was always the same suffusing\n    light of the devoutness of the spiritual mind. Here is no\n    flippancy; here are no impertinent epigrams, no hard words\n    even for opponents; we have to search a long way through his\n    works before we find an expression of severity, we will not say\n    of contempt\u2014perhaps there are such\u2014but we are sure they will\n    only be used of those who, by some abandonment of sentiment,\n    had separated themselves from the common feeling of mankind.\n    Yet there was considerable nervousness in his speech, he\n    was a great preacher, he commanded attention; judging from\n    the testimony of Johnson, he must have been, to cultivated\n    minds, one of the most distinguished preachers of his day:\n    his enunciation was clear, forcible, and distinct, and what\n    was wanting to an imposing presence was made up from the\n    earnestness of the manner, the calm luminousness, elevation,\n    and we would even say, the sustained but subdued vehemence of\n    his diction. His sermon on the \u201cReformation of Manners,\u201d to\n    which Southey has referred, not in his life of Watts but in one\n    of the volumes of his \u201cCommon-place Book,\u201d as \u201can extraordinary\n    piece,\u201d is an illustration of this. It was preached at the time\n    when we were in conflict with Louis XIV. He gives the following\n    side-glance to the wars in Flanders, and on the borders of the\n    Rhine, and he refers to the importance, not only of fighting\n    the enemy abroad, but resisting vice at home. He exclaims, in a\n    remarkable passage:\n\n    \u201cBut was there ever any war without danger, or victory\n    without courage? Besides, the perils you run here are almost\n    infinitely less than those which attend the wars of nations,\n    where the cause is not half so Divine. The fields of battle\n    in Flanders, and almost all over Europe, have drunk up the\n    blood of millions, and have furnished graves for large armies;\n    but it can hardly be said that _you_ have hitherto \u2018resisted\n    unto blood striving against sin.\u2019 In a war of more than twelve\n    years\u2019 continuance (_i.e._, against vice at home) there has\n    but one man fallen. The providence of God has put helmets of\n    salvation upon your heads. Some of you can relate wonders of\n    deliverance to safety when you have been beset by numbers,\n    and their rage has kindled into resolutions of revenge; the\n    Lord has taken away their courage in a moment, the \u2018men of\n    might have not found their hands;\u2019 thus He has caused \u2018the\n    wrath of man to praise Him, and the remainder of wrath He hath\n    restrained.\u2019[55] Read over this psalm, and with Divine valour\n    pursue the fight. But if your life should be lost in such a\n    cause as this, it will be esteemed martyrdom in the sight of\n    God, and shall be thus written down in the book of the wars of\n    the Lord. Believe me, these red lines will look well in the\n    records of heaven, when the judgment shall be set, and the\n    books opened in the face of men and angels.\u201d\n\n_Watts in the pulpit_ ought to furnish the subject for a distinct\nchapter\u2014it must fall into this feeble attempt to realize the man\u2019s mind\nin his works. His sermons were evidently carefully prepared and admirably\narranged; it was not possible for him to speak without thought, but he\nused very few notes in the pulpit, preparing carefully so that the mind\nand memory were fully charged, giving to such a mind as his freedom,\ninstantaneous propriety, and fulness of expression; many men who exhibit\nfulness of wisdom, both in thought and language, in the study, find all\nfail them when they come to speak in public. On every hand we hear that\nthis was not the case with Watts, and that his deliverances in public\ncorresponded to his great powers in the study; and his sermons are of\nthat nature that they assure us if the delivery corresponded to the\nstrength of the matter and the felicity and harmony of the composition,\nthey must have been very impressive. As some of the great sermons of\nJeremy Taylor appear to have been prepared to preach when he was in\nexile at the Golden Grove in Wales, in the drawing-room of Lord Vaughan,\nso some of Watts\u2019 sermons were prepared for delivery at the evening\nworship at Theobalds; one of the noblest of these is a commanding piece\non the Scale of Blessedness, or Blessed Saints, Blessed Saviour, Blessed\nTrinity. In this subduing sermon occurs one of the passages which excited\nthe wrath of Thomas Bradbury, and to which we have referred. Here it\nis; the note is evidently intended to justify himself from his coarse\nassailant, although he does not say so.\n\n    A SCALE OF BLESSEDNESS.\n\n    \u201cCan we ever imagine that Moses the meek, the friend of God,\n    who was, as it were, His confidant on earth, His faithful\n    prophet to institute a new religion, and establish a new\n    Church in the world, who, for God\u2019s sake, endured forty years\n    of banishment, and had forty years\u2019 fatigue in a wilderness;\n    who saw God on earth face to face, and the shine was left upon\n    his countenance: can we suppose that this man has taken his\n    seat no nearer to God in Paradise than Samson and Jephthah,\n    those rash champions, those rude and bloody ministers of\n    Providence?[56] Or can we think that St. Paul, the greatest\n    of the apostles, \u2018who laboured more than they all,\u2019 and \u2018was\n    in sufferings\u2019 more abundant than the rest; who spent a long\n    life in daily services and deaths for the sake of Christ, is\n    not fitted for, and advanced to a rank of blessedness superior\n    to that of the crucified thief, who became a Christian but a\n    few moments at the end of a life of impiety and plunder? Can I\n    persuade myself that a holy man, who has known much of God in\n    this world, and spent his age on earth in contemplation of the\n    Divine excellences, who has acquired a great degree of nearness\n    to God in devotion, and has served Him, and suffered for Him,\n    even to old age and martyrdom, with a sprightly and faithful\n    zeal: can I believe that this man, who has been trained up all\n    his life to converse with God, and is fitted to receive Divine\n    communications above his fellows, shall dwell no nearer to God\n    hereafter, and share no larger a degree of blessedness, than\n    the little babe who has just entered into this world to die out\n    of it, and who is saved, so far as we know, merely by spreading\n    the veil of the covenant grace, drawn over it by the hand of\n    the parent\u2019s faith? Can it be that the Great Judge who \u2018cometh\n    and His reward is with Him, to render to every one according\n    to his works,\u2019 will make no distinction between Moses and\n    Samson, between the apostle and the thief, between the aged\n    martyr and the infant, in the world to come? And yet, after\n    all, it may be matter of inquiry, whether the meanest saint\n    among the sons of Adam has not some sort of privilege above any\n    rank of angels by being of a kindred nature to our Emmanuel, to\n    Jesus the Son of God.\u201d\n\nAnd the following is a fine passage on the Trinity, which may be\nread with pleasure, although some years after he says that \u201cit is a\nwarmer effort of the imagination than riper years would indulge. What\ndistinctions there may be in this one Spirit I know not; I am _fully\nestablished in the belief of the Deity of the Blessed Three_, though I\nknow not the manner of the explication.\u201d\n\n    THE TRINITY.\n\n    \u201cThe Father is so intimately near the Son and Spirit, that no\n    finite or created natures or unions can give a just resemblance\n    of it. We talk of the union of the sun and his beams, of a\n    tree and its branches: but these are but poor images and faint\n    shadows of this mystery, though they are some of the best that\n    I know. The union of the soul and the body is, in my esteem,\n    still farther from the point, because their natures are so\n    widely different. In vain we search through all the creation to\n    find a complete similitude of the Creator.\n\n    \u201cAnd in vain may we run through all parts and powers of\n    nature and art, to seek a full resemblance of the mutual\n    propensity and love of the Blessed Three towards each other.\n    Mathematicians, indeed, talk of the perpetual tendencies and\n    infinite approximations of two or more lines on the same\n    surface, which yet never can entirely concur in one line: and\n    if we should say that the Three Persons of the Trinity, by\n    mutual indwelling and love, approach each other infinitely in\n    one Divine nature, and yet lose not their distinct personality,\n    it would be but an obscure account of this sublime mystery.\n    But this we are sure of, that for three Divine Persons to be\n    so inconceivably near one another in the original and eternal\n    spring of love, goodness, and pleasure, must produce infinite\n    delight. In order to illustrate the happiness of the Sacred\n    Three, may we not suppose something of society necessary to\n    the perfection of happiness in all intellectual nature? To\n    know and be known, to love and to be beloved, are, perhaps,\n    such essential ingredients of complete felicity that it cannot\n    subsist without them. And it may be doubted whether such mutual\n    knowledge and love, as seems requisite for this end, can be\n    found in a nature absolutely simple in all respects. May we\n    not then suppose that some distinctions in the Divine Being\n    are of eternal necessity, in order to complete the blessedness\n    of Godhead? Such a distinction as may admit, as a great man\n    expresses it, of delicious society. \u2018We, for our parts, cannot\n    but hereby have in our minds a more gustful idea of a blessed\n    state, than we can conceive in mere eternal solitude.\u2019\n\n    \u201cAnd if this be true, then the three differences, which we call\n    personal distinctions, in the nature of God, are as absolutely\n    necessary as His blessedness, as His being, or any of His\n    perfections. And then we may return to the words of my text,\n    and boldly infer, that if the man is blessed who is chosen by\n    the free and sovereign grace of God, and caused to approach,\n    or draw near Him, what immense and unknown blessedness belongs\n    to each Divine Person, to all the Sacred Three, who are by\n    nature and unchangeable necessity so near, so united, so much\n    one, that the least moment\u2019s separation seems to be infinitely\n    impossible, and, then we may venture to say, it is not to be\n    conceived: and the blessedness is conceivable by none but God!\n\n    \u201cThis is a nobler union and a more intense pleasure than _the\n    Man_ Jesus Christ knows or feels, or can conceive, for He is\n    a creature. These are glories too Divine and dazzling for\n    the weak eye of our understanding, too bright for the eye of\n    angels, those morning stars; and they, and we, must fall down\n    together, alike overwhelmed with them, and alike confounded.\n    These are flights that tire souls of the strongest wing, and\n    finite minds faint in the infinite pursuit; these are depths\n    where our tallest thoughts sink and drown; we are lost in this\n    ocean of being and blessedness that has no limit on either\n    side, no surface, no bottom, no shore. The nearness of the\n    Divine Persons to each other, and the unspeakable relish of\n    their unbounded pleasures, are too vast ideas for our bounded\n    minds to entertain. It is one infinite transport that runs\n    through the Father, Son, and Spirit, without beginning, and\n    without end, with boundless variety, yet ever perfect and\n    ever present without change, and without degree; and all this\n    because they are so near to one another, and so much one with\n    God.\n\n    \u201cBut when we have fatigued our spirits and put them to the\n    utmost stretch, we must lie down and rest, and confess the\n    great incomprehensible. How far this sublime transport of joy\n    is varied in each subsistence; how far their mutual knowledge\n    of each other\u2019s properties, or their mutual delight in each\n    other\u2019s love, is distinct in each Person, is a secret too high\n    for the present determination of our language and our thoughts:\n    it commands our judgment in silence, and our whole souls into\n    wonder and adoration.\u201d\n\nHe frequently indulged in a warmth of expression; he did not disdain\nornament, although all was held in a wise check, and indeed with a severe\nrein, and his sermons were not less practical than beautiful. They abound\nin such passages as the following, in which he so sweetly and mildly\nexpostulates with\n\n    CENSORIOUS CHRISTIANS.\n\n    \u201cBe not too severe in your censures, you who have been kept\n    from temptation, but pity others who are fallen, and mourn\n    over their fall. Do not think or say the worst things you\n    can of those who have been taken in the snare of Satan, and\n    been betrayed into some grosser iniquities. When you see them\n    grieved and ashamed of their own follies, and bowed down\n    under much heaviness, take occasion then to speak a softening\n    and a healing word. Speak for them kindly, and speak to them\n    tenderly. \u2018Have compassion of them, lest they be swallowed\n    up of over much sorrow.\u2019 And remember, too, O censorious\n    Christian, that thou art also in the body. It is rich grace\n    that has kept thee hitherto, and the same God, who for wise\n    ends has suffered thy brother to fall, may punish thy severity\n    and reproachful language by withholding His grace from thee\n    in the next hour of temptation, and then thy own fall and\n    guilt shall upbraid thee with inward and bitter reflections,\n    for thy sharp censures of thy weak and tempted brother. This\n    life is the only time wherein we can pity the infirmities of\n    our brethren, and bear their burdens. This law of Christ must\n    be fulfilled in this world, for there is no room for it in\n    the next: \u2018Wherefore bear ye one another\u2019s burdens, and so\n    fulfil ye the law of Christ.\u2019 This world is the only place\n    where different opinions and doctrines are found amongst the\n    saints; disagreeing forms of devotion, and sects, and parties,\n    have no place on high: none of these things can interrupt\n    the worship or the peace of heaven. See to it then, that you\n    practise this grace of charity here, and love thy brother, and\n    receive him into thy heart in holy fellowship, though he may be\n    weak in faith, and though he may observe days and times, and\n    may feed upon herbs, and indulge some superstitious follies\n    while thou art strong in faith, and well acquainted with the\n    liberty of the Gospel. Let not little things provoke you to\n    divide communions on earth: but by this sort of charity, and\n    a Catholic spirit, honour the Saviour and His Church here in\n    this world; for since there are no parties, nor sects, nor\n    contrary sentiments among the Church in heaven, this Christian\n    virtue can never find any room for exercise there. This kind of\n    charity ends with death.\u201d\n\nBut such delineations as these might be pursued to a great length, and\nwe have scarcely dwelt at all upon that aspect of his public teaching\nwhich the last quotation instantly suggests, its eminent practical\ncharacter; his discourses on \u201cChristian Morality,\u201d his beautiful\ndiscourse on \u201cHumility,\u201d for which he received the hearty thanks of the\nBishop of London; his \u201cCaveat against Infidelity,\u201d his \u201cGuide to Prayer;\u201d\nsummarily, it may be said, he touched everything with an exquisite\ndelicacy of conscience, and with the elevation of a saint. His mind\ncannot be summed in one attribute, neither his piety, nor his genius can\nbe said to find an adequate illustration in one work; he was one of a\nrace of men of whom, indeed, the history of the literature of those times\nfurnishes many illustrations, whose learning and labours were alike vast;\nthey must have caught the earliest daybeam, and trimmed the lamp far\nbeyond the hours of midnight, pursuing their industrious toil, devouring\nlibraries. Their works formed a library; they had not the necessities of\nour times to call them away, nor was it the age of magazines and reviews,\nand the lighter shallops of literature. The age immediately preceding\nthat of Watts, and his own age, present to us the forms of many men,\nwho in some sheltered nook passed a life unprofitable\u2014ought we to say\ninglorious?\u2014satisfied with the spoils of learning, they lived a life of\nbarrenness; they sought wisdom for her own sake, neither for the use it\nenabled them to confer on others, or the fame it conferred on themselves;\nor, if they published, it was not so much from the benevolent idea of\nthe transfusion of knowledge, but really from their interest only in\ntheir own idea. These were the men and those the times which may be best\ndescribed in the words of Milton:\n\n    Whose lamp at midnight hour\n    Is seen in some high lonely tower,\n    Where he may oft outwatch the Bear\n    With thrice great Hermes, or unsphere\n    The spirit of Plato, to unfold\n    What worlds or what vast regions hold\n    The immortal mind that hath forsook\n    Her mansion in this fleshly nook.\n\nBut to this order of mind Watts added that which altogether changed it;\nhe possessed in an eminent degree the love of books and thought, lofty\nimaginations, and excursions through the far-off continents of knowledge;\nbut he added to the volitions of genius, and the accumulations of the\nscholar, the doing \u201call for the glory of God;\u201d few lives so useful and\neven so obvious seem to have been so sanctified from every human passion\nand selfish isolation; and hence with powers which might have found\ntheir gratification had he chosen to move like some remote and solitary\nplanet in an unilluminating orb, he preferred rather to be a satellite,\nshedding a useful lustre on his serene way, and in the language of a\nwell-known writer, \u201csinging while he shone.\u201d The amiable critic to whom\nwe have already referred says that the whole lesson of Watts\u2019 life might\nbe condensed into the apostolic injunction, \u201cStudy to be quiet and mind\nyour own business;\u201d and the estimate is greatly true. He was a firm\nNonconformist, but he was no agitator; he lived and wrought laboriously\nin his vocation, and that vocation was to bring about \u201cthe union of\nmental culture and vital piety.\u201d As he did not write pamphlets to expose\nthe evils of the hierarchy, or the defects of his own ecclesiastical\nsystem, so neither did he attempt to rebuke in print such assailants as\nBradbury. He was the first in England who set the Gospel to music; and\nmany who knew not the meaning of the words yet found their hearts melted\nby the melody of genius. There is a saintly dignity and peaceful purity\nabout his life which it is not invidious to say gives to him, even in\nwriters of his own order, a high pre-eminence. He seems to have been one\nwhom \u201cthe peace of God which passeth all understanding\u201d kept. And surely\nhe has won a place in the universal Church\u2014no Church repudiates him; his\neulogy has been pronounced, and his life recorded, by Samuel Johnson, and\nRobert Southey, and Josiah Conder. If his hymns crowd the \u201cCongregational\nHymn Book,\u201d they are to be found in the \u201cHymns Ancient and Modern;\u201d and,\nas we have seen, his monument adorns not only the \u201cconventicle\u201d but the\ncathedral.\n\nAges differ, and men differ with their age. This is the place neither to\ncompare nor to contrast; but in an eminent sense Watts appears to have\nfulfilled himself. He drank deep from every kind of learning: we have\nseen that he wrote upon every kind of subject; and although it is the\nfashion now to pass him by, and even to underrate many of those pieces in\nprose and verse which were long held as the most cherished heirlooms of\nthe Church, we shall have to search long and far to discover a more ample\nand consecrated intelligence, a more conscientious and laborious worker,\nthan the mild, the modest, yet majestic hermit, philosopher, and sweet\nsinger of Theobalds and Stoke Newington.\n\n[Illustration: MONUMENT OF DR. WATTS IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY.]\n\n\n\n\nFOOTNOTES\n\n\n[1] \u201cDr. Isaac Watts,\u201d a Lecture by Hermann Carlyle, LL.B., seventh\nminister of the church of which Dr. Watts\u2019 father was for forty-eight\nyears a deacon.\n\n[2] It is interesting to remember that Isaac Watts the elder was the\nfirst local trustee to Robert Thorner\u2019s munificent bequest, which is now\nthe grandest of all the Southampton charities, and has made the name of\nThorner in that town a household word.\n\n[3] The soil of Southampton seems to have been favourable to the\nproduction of the lyrical faculty, although it is not probable that many\nof those whose hearts have been stirred by the holy strains of Watts have\nbeen acquainted with the melodies of one of the most national of English\nsong-writers, the laureate of sailors, also a townsman of Southampton,\nThomas Dibden.\n\n[4] See Appendix.\n\n[5] Walter Wilson\u2019s \u201cLife of Defoe,\u201d vol. i. pp. 26, 27.\n\n[6] \u201cThe Improvement of the Mind,\u201d chap. iv. of \u201cBooks and Reading.\u201d\n\n[7] Afterwards, says Dr. Gibbons, Dr. Daniel Scott. He was a very\nlearned and amiable man. After he had studied under Mr. Jones he removed\nto Utrecht for further education; there he took the degree of doctor\nof laws. In the year 1741 he published a new version of St. Matthew\u2019s\nGospel, with critical notes, and an examination of Dr. Mills\u2019 various\nreadings. He published, also, in the year 1745, an \u201cAppendix to H.\nStephens\u2019 Greek Lexicon,\u201d in two volumes.\n\n[8] \u201cHistory and Antiquities of Stoke Newington.\u201d By William Robinson,\nLL.D., F.S.A.\n\n[9] The interested reader consulting that singular monument of patient\nand painstaking industry, \u201cThe History and Antiquities of Dissenting\nChurches and Meeting-Houses in London, Westminster, and Southwark,\u201d by\nWalter Wilson, will probably feel astonishment, not less at their number\nthan at the singular places in which they assembled.\n\n[10] Matt. xviii. 20.\n\n[11] Originally Mart Lane.\n\n[12] \u201cQuarterly Review,\u201d vol. lxxxix. pp. 303, 304.\n\n[13] \u201cOde to Mr. Pinhorne.\u201d Translated by Dr. Gibbons.\n\n[14] Lord Lytton, in \u201cDevereux.\u201d\n\n[15] \u201cQuarterly Review,\u201d No. 222, April, 1862. Art. Hymnology.\n\n[16] \u201cBritish and Foreign Evangelical Review,\u201d 1865.\n\n[17] \u201cThe Poet of the Sanctuary,\u201d etc. By Josiah Conder. 1857.\n\n[18] \u201cThe Psalter and the Hymn Book.\u201d Three Lectures by James Hamilton.\n\n[19] See Crosbie\u2019s \u201cHistory of the English Baptists\u201d (1740), vol. iii.\n\n[20] \u201cQuarterly Review,\u201d vol. xxxviii. Art. Psalmody.\n\n[21] \u201cLetter to Rev. S. F. Macdonald,\u201d by James Martineau, 1859.\n\n[22] \u201cOld Town Folk,\u201d chap. iii.\n\n[23] For illustrations of this, see \u201cA Letter to the Rev. Mr. \u2e3a or a\nGnat destroying the Little Arian Foxes among the Vines,\u201d and part of the\n\u201cRemains of Dr. Watts\u2019 Clear\u2019d from the Leaves and Rags of Arianism.\u201d\n\n[24] See this idea illustrated in \u201cAn Essay on the Book of Psalms,\u201d by\nMary Anne Schimmelpenninck, 1825, and \u201cAn Essay on the Literature of the\nBook of Psalms,\u201d in the \u201cPreachers\u2019 Lantern,\u201d vol. ii. p. 558.\n\n[25] Lord Barrington\u2019s \u201cTheological Works,\u201d 3 vols.\n\n[26] \u201cBiog. Brit.\u201d Article, Barrington.\n\n[27] Dr. Southey, remarking on this incident, says: \u201cThe hymn, indeed,\nwas likely to have this effect upon an assembly whose minds were under\nthe immediate impression produced by a pathetic preacher.\u201d They were\nthose well-known words:\n\n    Give me the wings of faith to rise\n      Within the veil, and see\n    The saints above, how great their joys,\n      How bright their glories be.\n\n    Once they were mourning here below,\n      And wet their couch with tears,\n    They wrestled hard, as we do now,\n      With sins, and doubts, and fears.\n\n    I ask them whence their victory came;\n      They with united breath\n    Ascribe their conquest to the Lamb,\n      Their triumph to His death.\n\n    They marked the footsteps that He trod,\n      His zeal inspired their breast;\n    And, following their Incarnate God,\n      Possess the promised rest.\n\n    Our glorious Leader claims our praise\n      For His own pattern given,\n    While the long cloud of witnesses\n      Show the same path to heaven.\n\n[28] See an admirable and interesting summary of Doddridge\u2019s Life and\nCharacter,\u2014\u201cPhilip Doddridge:\u201d \u201cNorth British Review.\u201d\n\n[29] Glover\u2019s \u201cLeonidas,\u201d a poem scarcely ever read or referred to now,\nbut which created considerable interest on its publication, and for some\ntime held a conspicuous place in English poetry.\n\n[30] Mr. Waller\u2019s lines, to which her ladyship refers, are at the\nconclusion of his Divine Poems:\n\n    The soul\u2019s dark cottage, battered and decayed,\n    Lets in new light through chinks that time has made:\n    Stronger by weakness wiser men become,\n    As they draw near to their eternal home:\n    Leaving the old, both worlds at once they view,\n    That stand upon the threshold of the new.\n\nThe verses of Dr. Watts which her ladyship intends is the poem in his\n\u201cHor\u00e6 Lyric\u00e6,\u201d entitled \u201cA Sight of Heaven in Sickness.\u201d\n\n[31] \u201cDaniel Defoe, His Life and Recently Discovered Writings.\u201d By\nWilliam Lee. 3 vols.\n\n[32] See \u201cMemoirs of the Life and Times of Daniel Defoe,\u201d etc. By Walter\nWilson, Esq.\n\n[33] See the whole of this in the \u201cPosthumous Works of the late learned\nand Rev. Isaac Watts,\u201d 1779.\n\n[34] See an interesting table of \u201cMemorable Affairs in my Life and\nCoincidents,\u201d in Watts\u2019 writing, in Appendix to this volume.\n\n[35] See \u201cHistory of England,\u201d by Earl Stanhope, vol. i. chap. 1.\n\n[36] Lord Macaulay says: \u201cThere was considerable excitement, but it was\nallayed by a temperate and artful letter to the clergy, the work, in all\nprobability, of Bishop Gibson, who stood high in the favour of Walpole,\nand shortly after became minister for ecclesiastical affairs.\u201d\n\n[37] Essay on \u201cPopular Ignorance.\u201d\n\n[38] See the \u201cClapham Sect.\u201d Sir James Stephen\u2019s Essays in\n\u201cEcclesiastical Biography.\u201d\n\n[39] \u201cMemorials, etc. etc. of the late W. M. Bunting.\u201d\n\n[40] Doddridge\u2019s \u201cLife and Correspondence,\u201d vol. iv. p. 520.\n\n[41] \u201cWithout question we must affirm that Body is the necessary means\nof bringing Mind into relationship with space and extension, and so of\ngiving it _Place_, very plainly a disembodied spirit, or we ought rather\nto say, an unembodied spirit, or sheer mind, is NOWHERE.\u201d\u2014Isaac Taylor\u2019s\n\u201cPhysical Theory of Another Life,\u201d chap. ii.\n\n[42] See Preface to the second vol. of \u201cWorld to Come,\u201d Octavo edition.\n\n[43] 1 Cor. i. 26.\n\n[44] So says Mr. Carlyle, in one of the most interesting little documents\nin connection with the life of Watts ever published, the little pamphlet\nto which we have already referred.\n\n[45] Montgomery on the Cholera Mount of Sheffield.\n\n[46] \u201cMemorials, Historical, Descriptive, Poetical and Pictorial,\nCommemorative of the Inauguration of the Statue to Dr. Isaac Watts, in\nthe Western Park, Southampton, by the Earl of Shaftesbury, July 17th,\n1861.\u201d See also \u201cThe Proceedings connected with the Inauguration of the\nMemorial Statue to Dr. Isaac Watts, at Southampton, July 17th, 1861.\u201d\n\n[47] \u201cThere is also perhaps more method and clearness in the logic of\nWatts than in that of Arnauld. The good English sense\u2014the business\nfaculty\u2014that of practical life, repeats itself here in the highest\ndegree; whilst the speculative mind of a tolerably scholarly theologian\nis yet more full in _the art of thinking_. Now Watts is complete without\nbeing extravagant; he has touched very adequately all that is necessary,\nand he always stops at the very precise point where depth might have\ninjured transparency.\u201d\n\n[48] \u201cThe Athenian Oracle, being an entire collection of all the valuable\nQuestions and Answers in the old Athenian Mercurys, intermixed with many\ncases in Divinity, History, Philosophy, Mathematics, Love, and Poetry,\nand never before Published,\u201d etc. 4 vols. Printed for Andrew Bell, at the\nCross Keys.\n\n\u201cAthenian Sport; or, Two Thousand Paradoxes Merrily Argued, by a Member\nof the Athenian Society.\u201d\n\n\u201cMemoirs for the Ingenious; containing several Curious Observations in\nPhilosophy, Mathematics, Physic, Philology, and other Arts and Sciences,\nin Miscellaneous Letters.\u201d Printed for H. Rhodes, and for J. Harris, at\nthe Arrow, in the Poultry.\n\n[49] \u201cAnother Collection of Philosophical Conferences of the French\nVirtuosi, upon Questions of all sorts for the Improving of Natural\nKnowledge, made in the Assembly of the Beaux Esprit of Paris, by the most\ningenious persons of that nation, rendered into English.\u201d Sold at the\nGeorge, in Fleet Street, and the Mitre, Middle Temple, 1665.\n\n[50] Rogers\u2019 \u201cLife of Howe,\u201d p. 476.\n\n[51] The matter, we suppose, is long since set at rest; it may be very\ndistinctly set at rest by a study of Watts\u2019 works, discussing the great\nquestion of the Trinity. \u201cWatts not a Socinian,\u201d by the Rev. S. Palmer,\nputs the matter in a popular and concise form; but when his monument was\nerected in Southampton, a lecture was delivered and published on \u201cHis\nLife, Character, and Religious Opinions,\u201d by the Rev. Edmund Kell, M.A.,\nF.S.A., the late Unitarian minister of Southampton, in which the old\nexploded dishonest statements were all reiterated.\n\n[52] This is illustrated and manifest by the writings of Waterland, which\nare almost contemporary with the discussions of Watts.\n\n[53] J. R. Lowell.\n\n[54] This matter has been well argued against the Atheistic view, in a\nvery interesting little pamphlet, \u201cCroll on the Conservation of Force.\u201d\n\n[55] Psalm lxxvi. 5, 10.\n\n[56] \u201cThese expressions may be sufficiently justified if we consider\nJephthah\u2019s rash vow of sacrifice, which fell upon his only child; and\nSamson\u2019s rude or unbecoming conduct in his amours with the Philistine\nwoman at Timnath, the harlot at Gaza, and his Delilah at Sorek; his\nbloody quarrels and his manner of life. The learned and pious Dr. Owen,\nas I have been often informed by his intimate friend, Sir John Hartopp,\ncalled him a rude believer. He might have strong faith of miracles, but a\nsmall share of that faith which purifies the heart.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nTABLE OF COINCIDENTS.\n\n\n_Mention has been made in p. 14 of a curious Autobiographical Table\nprepared by Dr. Watts of the chief incidents in his life, together with\ncontemporaneous events of public interest. We give a fac-simile of the\nfirst page, and the contents of the remainder._\n\n[Illustration]\n\n           COINCIDENTS.                   MEMORANDA.\n\n  1693: July 13: Grandmo.     I was admitted to Mr. T. Rows\n          Watts dyed            Church.                          Dec. 1693\n\n                              I went into y\u1d49 Country            June. 1694\n\n                              Dwelt at my father\u2019s house\n                                2 years & \u00bc.\n\n                              Came to S\u02b3 John Hartopp\u2019s to\n                                be a Tutor to his Son at\n                                Newington                    Oct. 15. 1696\n\n  1697. Jun. 11: Grandfa.\n          Tanton dyed\n\n        12 Cousin Isaac       Began to preach, after I had\n          Watts dyed            pursued University Studys\n                                above 8 years.              July. 17. 1698\n\n  1697 Peace at Reswic        Went to Southampton and\n         concluded              preached there severall times\n                                in a visit to my friends.       Aug\u1d57: 1698.\n\n  1698/9 Cousin John          Preacht as Dr. Chanceys\n    Chapm\u0101 of Portsm dyed       Assistant in y\u1d49 Church at\n                                Mark Lane, & a little after\n                                that my fever and weakness\n                                began.                         Feb. 1698/9\n\n  1699/1700 Feb: M\u02b3 W\u1d50 Adams  Paid another Visit to Southampton\n              dyed              of 5 weeks.                      July 1699\n\n  1700. March 30. Grandmo.    Another.                           June 1700\n          Tanton [died.]\n\n        May 22. M\u02b3 John Pook  Went to y\u1d49 Bath by y\u1d49 advice\n                                of Physicians.               June. 9. 1701.\n        Nov\u02b3: 11: M\u02b3 Tho.\n          Gunston\n                              From y\u1d49 Bath to Southampton       July. 1701\n                              Thence to Tunbridge.             Sept 3 1701.\n                              returned to Newington                 Nov. 3:\n                              & to preaching at Mark Lane.       Nov: 1701\n\n                              So y\u1d57 I was detained from Study & preaching\n                                5 o/m by my Weakness. Except one very\n                                short discourse at Southto. in extreme\n                                necessity.\n\n                              Dr. Chancy having left his people,\n                                Aprill 1701. & I being returned to\n                                preach among \u2019em, they Call\u2019d me to\n                                y\u1d49 Pastorall office.       Jan. 15. 1701/2\n\n  1702 March 8th, Morning:          Accepted it                 March 8\u2e3a\n         King W\u1d50 dyed         & was ordained              March 18. 1701/2\n\n                              Visited my friends at Southampton July. 1702.\n\n                              Seizd w\u1d57\u02b0 violent Jaundice    from Sept\u02b3 8 or\n                                & Cholic 3 weeks after my   thereabout to\n                                return to London & had a    Nov\u02b3 27 or 8\n                                very slow recovery\u20148 or 9\n                                weeks Illness\n\n                              This year (viz) 1702 by Slow degrees\n                                removed from Newington to M\u02b3 Tho:\n                                Hollis\u2019s in the Minories.              1702\n\n  Mrs. Owen Dr Owen\u2019s         June\u2014M\u02b3 Sam\u02e1\u02e1 Price was chosen by y\u1d49\n    Widow dyed Jan\u02b8. 18:        Church to assist me in preaching       1703\n     1703/4\n\n                              Aug\u1d57 I went to Tunbridge and stayd there 7\n                                weeks with scarce any benefitt, for the\n                                waters thro some defect of my stomach\n                                did not digest well.\n\n  1703 Nov\u02b3 26 Friday night   Dec\u02b3: after having intermitted in a great\n    and Saturday morning,       measure a method of study and pursuit of\n    the Great and Dreadfull     Learning, 4 years, by reas\u014d of my great\n    Storm                       indispositions of body and weakness of head\n                                (excep\u1d57 w: was of absolute necessity for my\n                                Constant preaching) & being not satisfyd to\n                                live so any longer, after due considerati\u014d\n                                & prayer, I took a boy to read to me &\n                                write for me, whereby my studies are much\n                                assisted.                        Dec\u02b3 1703\n\n                              Visited my friends at Southto.      May 1704\n\n  Aug\u1d57: 31. 1704 Bro:         Remov\u2019d our Meeting place to pinners\n    Richard marryd              hall and began expositions of\n                                Scripture.                       June 1704\n\n  Br. Joseph Brandley my      Visited Southton                   July 1705\n    first serv\u1d57 went away\n    Dec\u02b3 1704: & Edwd.\n    Hitchin came\n\n                              Published my Poems                 Dec\u02b3 1705\n\n  Aug\u1d57 1705 M\u02b3 Tho: Rowe\n    my Tutor dyed\n\n  M\u02b3 Benoni Rowe my           Went to Southton May. 18\u1d57\u02b0 1706 returned\n     intimate friend dyed      ag\u207f w\u1d57\u02b0 but small recruit of health.\n     Ap\u02e1\u02e1: 1706                                                   July 5\u1d57\u02b0\n\n  Bro: Thomas marry\u2019d,\n    May 9\u1d57\u02b0: 1706\n                              went to Tunbridge Aug\u1d57 8\u1d57\u02b0: Returned much\n                                stronger Aug\u1d57 30.\n                              Publisht essay against\n                                Uncharitableness Ap\u02e1\u02e1 1707.\n                              Went to Southton July, returned July Went\n                              to Tunbridg: Aug\u1d57: returned Sep\u1d57 3\u1d48\n\n  Union of E & Scot: May      All this Year my health has been encouraging\n    1\u02e2\u1d57 1707\n\n  This year y\u1d49 French         Publisht my Hymns & Sp\u02e1\u02e1 Songs July 1707\n    prophetts made a great    Overturned in a coach without hurt. Oct. 5.\n    noise in our nation,        1707\n    and drew in M\u02b3 Lacy,      Preached a reformation Serm\u014d: Oct. 6. 1707,\n    Sir R. Bulckley &c. 200     and printed it\n    or more had\n    y\u1d49 agitations, 40 had y\u1d49\n    inspiration\u2014Provd a\n    delusion of Satan at\n    Birmingh\u0101 Feb 3 or 4\u1d57\u02b0\n    1707/8\n\n  Sister Sarah marryed.       Went to Southto\u207f\u2014and afterward to Tunbr:\n    Feb: 1707/8                 Aug\u1d57 1708\n\n  Pretender\u2019s invasion        Removed our Meeting place to Bury Street\n    disappointed. March:        Sep\u02b3 29: 1708.\n    1708\n\n  May 25 1708 The Prophetts   Printed 2\u1d48 Edition of Hymns & 2\u1d48 ed: of\n    disappointed by M\u02b3 Eams     Poems: Ap\u02e1\u02e1 & May 1709.\n    not rising fr\u014d the Dead\n\n  Terrible long snowy winter\n    1708/9\n\n  Bro R: came to settle in    Went to Southton: June: Tunbridg. Aug\u1d57 1709\n    Lond\u014d: Oct 7 1709\n\n  Mar: 1 1709/10 y\u1d49 Mob rose  Edw\u1d48 Hitchen my Serv\u1d57 went away Dec\u02b3: 31.\n    & pulled down y\u1d49 pews     I bought a horse for my health Ap\u02e1\u02e1: 1710\n    and gallerys of 6         I rode down to Southton, & back ag\u207f June &\n    meeting houses (viz)        according to y\u1d49 acco\u1d57\u1d57: I kept I rode above\n    M\u02b3 Burgess, M\u02b3 Bradbury,    800 mile fr\u014d Ap\u02e1\u02e1 13\u1d57\u02b0 to Sep\u02b3 28\u1d57\u02b0\n    M\u02b3 Earle, M\u02b3 Wright, M\u02b3   I removed from M\u02b3. Hollis\u2019s & went to live\n    Hamilton, & M\u02b3 Chr:         w\u1d57\u02b0 M\u02b3 Bowes att Dec. 30\u1d57\u02b0 & John Merchant\n    Taylor but were             my Serv\u1d57: came to me\n    dispersed by y\u1d49 Guards    Went to Southton June, returned July\n    under Capt: Horsey at 1\n    or 2 in y\u1d49 morning.\n\n  M\u02b3 Arthur Shallot sen\u02b3      Went to Tunbridge Aug\u1d57: returned 7 Sep\u02b3\n    dyed: 4\u1d57\u02b0 Feb 1710/11       being under a disorder of my stomach,\n    and M\u02b3 Tho: Hunt            and freq\u1d57 pains of y\u1d49 head. Found some\n    merchant & his wife         relief at Tunbr: waters.\n    dyed about y\u1d49 same time.\n\n  M\u02b3\u02e2 Ann Pickford dyed\n    Ap\u02e1\u02e1: 7\u1d57\u02b0 1711.\n\n  My Lady Hartopp dyed\n    Nov\u02b3: 9\u1d57\u02b0: & M\u02b3\u02e2\n    Gould, Nov\u02b3 15\u1d57\u02b0 1711.\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nINDEX.\n\n\n  Abney House, old, 223\n    Sir Thomas, 76\n\n  Academy at Gloucester, the, 25\n    at Stoke Newington, 15\n\n  Acrostic, an, 7\n\n  Anecdotes\u2014Blind woman and Watts\u2019 hymns, the, 134;\n    Bradbury and Burnet, 191;\n    Bradbury and Dr. Watts, 193;\n    death of an aged minister, 113;\n    Derby (Earl) and the blind woman, 134;\n    dying Webster, the, 134;\n    giant and pigmy, 248;\n    of Luther, 97;\n    sceptic defeated, the, 146;\n    stonemason\u2019s dream, the, 5;\n    text for Queen Anne, a, 202;\n    \u201cThat the great Dr. Watts?\u201d 247;\n    Watts\u2019 (W)_hims_, 193;\n    \u201cWhat think you of death?\u201d 269;\n    Whitefield and Watts, 261\n\n  Anne\u2019s reign, close of Queen, 209\n\n  Arianism of Watts\u2019 day, the, 311\n\n  Artificial poetry, 58\n\n  Atonement, the poet of the, 108\n\n  Atterbury, Bishop, 210\n\n  Augustine, St., on the songs of the Church, 97\n\n\n  Barbauld, Mrs., _quo._, 186\n\n  Barrington, Lord, 144\n    letter to Watts, 147\n\n  Baxter on sacred hymns, 100\n\n  Bendish, Mrs., 136\n\n  Birth and childhood of Watts, 1\n\n  Blair\u2019s \u201cGrave,\u201d 215\n\n  Bookmen, the age of great, 339\n\n  Bradbury, Thomas, 189, 190;\n    and Bishop Burnet, 191;\n    and Dr. Watts, 192;\n    characteristics, 202;\n    Defoe\u2019s reproof to, 189;\n    political preacher, 190\n\n  Bunhill Fields, its associations, 265\n\n  Bunting, W. M., _quo._, 223\n\n\n  Carey\u2019s tombstone, inscription, 134\n\n  Carter, Mrs. Elizabeth, 180\n\n  Caryl\u2019s \u201cBook of Job,\u201d 46\n\n  Catechism, Watts\u2019, 141\n\n  Cedar tree and the scythe, the, 37\n\n  Character of Watts, 248\n\n  Chauncy, Dr. Isaac, 48\n\n  Christ, Psalms restored to, 129\n\n  Classical sentiment, translation, 71\n\n  Coincidents, table of (_see_ Appendix)\n\n  Collins, Antony, and Lord Barrington, 146\n\n  Comet, lines on a, 12\n\n  Conder, Josiah, _quo._, 100\n\n  Controversy between Watts and Bradbury, 194-201\n\n  Countess of Hertford and Mrs. Rowe, 172;\n    and the Rise and Progress of Religion, 167\n\n  Coward, William, 142\n\n  Critics, hostile, 111\n\n  Cromwell, Richard, 80\n\n  Crucial events, 14\n\n\n  Daughters, a group of, 36\n\n  Death, 259\n\n  Defoe in the pillory, 208;\n    quoted, 15\n\n  Derby, Earl, and the blind woman, 134\n\n  Devotion the attribute of Watts\u2019 hymns, 113\n\n  Dissenters, Shortest way with, 78\n\n  Doddridge, Dr. Philip, 151\n\n  Dying, 262\n\n\n  Elegy, a lovely, 36\n\n  England in the times of the last Stuarts, 12\n\n  England\u2019s history, happiest period of, 206\n\n  English hymnology, 99\n\n  Epigram, an, 174, 255\n\n  Erskine, Ralph, and Watts\u2019 hymns, 122\n\n  Expression, fervour of, 65\n\n\n  Faith, expressions of personal, 117\n\n  Family, in the Hartopp, 32\n    last of the Hartopp, 38\n\n  Father, imprisonment of Watts\u2019, 1\n\n  Fleetwood, General, 35\n\n  Foster, John, _quo._, 215\n\n  Friend, letter to an afflicted, 53\n\n  Friends, Watts\u2019, 136\n\n  Fuller, Thomas, on death, 260\n\n\n  Gale, Theophilus, 16\n\n  Gardiner, Colonel, 166\n\n  Gibbons, Dr., _quo._, 53, 54, 89, 256, 260, 261\n\n  Girdlers\u2019 Hall church, 22\n\n  Gloucester academy, the, 25\n\n  Glover\u2019s \u201cLeonidas,\u201d 175\n\n  Grandfather and grandmother of Watts, 4\n\n  Gunston, Thomas, 220\n\n\n  Harris, Robert, _quo._, 257\n\n  Hart, Josiah, 20\n\n  Hartopp, Sir John, 33;\n    daughters of, 36\n\n  Hartopps, last of the, 38\n\n  Hertford, Countess of, 172;\n    friendship with Watts, 174;\n    letters, character of, 173;\n    letters to Watts, 167, 174, 176, 179, 181, 182;\n    modesty, 182;\n    poetry, 177, 184\n\n  Hervey, James, 148;\n    letter to Watts, 150\n\n  Hollis family, the, 51\n\n  \u201cHor\u00e6 Lyric\u00e6,\u201d 57\n\n  House in French Street, the old, 11;\n    old Abney, 223;\n    Stoke Newington, 32;\n    Theobalds, 79\n\n  Hughes, John, 20\n\n  Hymns, Apostolic, 90\n\n  Hymn, Augustine\u2019s definition of a, 92;\n    origin of Watts\u2019 first, 30;\n    ? what is a, 93\n\n  Hymnology, Christian, 91;\n    English, 99\n\n\n  Industry, mental, 50;\n    of Watts, 249\n\n\n  Johnson, Dr., _quo._, 17, 18, 75, 96, 313\n\n  Jones, Rev. Samuel, 25\n\n  Jennings, Dr., _quo._, 272\n\n\n  Keble\u2019s \u201cChristian Year,\u201d 89;\n    criticism of Watts\u2019 poetry, 103\n\n  Ken, Bishop, and Watts contrasted, 59\n\n  Kennedy, Dr., _quo._, 111\n\n  Kentish petition, the, 207\n\n  Knox, A., criticism on Watts, 102\n\n\n  Latin, thinking in, 105\n\n  Letters\u2014Countess of Hertford to Watts, 167, 174, 176, 179, 181, 182;\n    Doddridge to Watts, 164;\n    Doddridge\u2019s dedicatory, 155;\n    Hervey to Watts, 150;\n    Jewel to Peter Martyr, 99;\n    Lord Barrington to Watts, 147;\n    of Enoch Watts, 84;\n    Secker to Watts, 25;\n    to Amsterdam, 160;\n    to an afflicted friend, 53;\n    to Bradbury, 195, 197;\n    to Doddridge, 153:\n    to Samuel Say, 141;\n    to Thomas Rosewell, 139;\n    Watts to his father, 6\n\n  Liddon, Canon, _quo._, 90\n\n  Lispings in numbers, 7\n\n  Logan and Doddridge, 162\n\n  London in Watts\u2019 day, 42\n\n  Luther\u2019s songs, 97\n\n\n  Macaulay, Lord, _quo._, 211\n\n  Mansion, an old family, 32\n\n  Mark Lane chapel, 54;\n    the church in, 46\n\n  Marot, Clement, 98\n\n  Martineau, James, _quo._, 106\n\n  \u201cMedia Vita,\u201d the, 95\n\n  Messianic version of the Psalms, 126\n\n  Mind of Watts, seraphic, 308\n\n  Minories, the, 51\n\n  Modesty of Watts, 132\n\n  Montgomery\u2019s estimate of Watts\u2019 hymns, 88\n\n  Monument to Watts, 271\n\n  Morton, Rev. Charles, 16\n\n  Motto, a, 203\n\n  Mystic, Watts a, 109\n\n\n  Nature, Watts\u2019 love of, 63\n\n  Nights, sleepless, 83\n\n  Nonconformist, a political, 190\n    service, early, 43\n\n  Nonconformists of old London, 45\n\n\n  Papacy, Watts\u2019 antipathy to, 211\n\n  Parentage of Watts, 3\n\n  Parker, Mr., _quo_., 264, 265\n\n  Pastor, a youthful, 49\n\n  Pastor of a London church, 40\n\n  Persecution, the child of, 2\n\n  Personal appearance of Watts, 233\n\n  Personification, a definition of, 60\n\n  Personifications, a constellation of, 61\n\n  Perspicuity of Watts, 329\n\n  Philosophical works of Watts, 315\n\n  Physical theory of another life, 233\n\n  Pinhorne, Rev. John, 8\n\n  Poetry of Watts\u2019 time, 58\n\n  Poets, imperfections of, 105\n\n  Polhill, David, 207\n\n  Pope, a criticism on, 175\n\n  Portrait of Watts, a, 224\n\n  Prayer, a beautiful, 309\n\n  Preacher, Watts as a, 40\n\n  Precocity, 7\n\n  Price, Samuel, 54\n\n  Prose writings, Estimate and summary, 273\n\n  Psalmless churches, 101\n\n  Psalms, Watts\u2019, 126\n\n  Pupil, Watts\u2019, 38\n\n  Puritan reminiscence, 43\n\n\n  \u201cQuarterly Review,\u201d _quo_., 59\n\n\n  Relic, an interesting, 270\n\n  Resignation in sorrow, 173\n    Watts\u2019, 260\n\n  Rise and Progress of Religion, etc., 155, 162\n\n  Rogers, Henry, _quo_., 306\n\n  Rogers, Samuel, \u201cHuman Life,\u201d characterized, 67\n\n  Rosewell, Samuel, death of, 138\n    letter to, 139\n\n  Rowe, Mrs., 173, 187\n    and Dr. Watts, 185\n\n  Rowe, Thomas, 17, 24\n\n\n  Sacheverell mob, doings of the, 209\n\n  Saltzburgers, the, 213\n\n  Say, Samuel, 21, 140\n\n  Schism Bill, the, 209\n\n  Scott, Dr. Daniel, 26\n\n  Selborne, Lord, _quo._, 122\n\n  Secker, Archbishop, 25\n\n  Sermons, branching, 306;\n    satirized by Watts, 306\n\n  Shimei Bradbury, 189\n\n  Shower, John, 138\n\n  Singing controversy, the, 101\n\n  Southampton gaol, 2;\n    of Watts\u2019 day, 9;\n    plague at, 11\n\n  Southey, Dr., _quo._, 165\n\n  Spirit, a meek and quiet, 199\n\n  Stoke Newington, 218;\n    side of life, 67;\n    the old house at, 32\n\n  Storm of 1703, the great, 208\n\n  Students, Watts\u2019 fellow, 19\n\n  Study, methods of, 18;\n    Watts\u2019, 82\n\n  Suburb, an old London, 55\n\n\n  Theobalds, the old house at, 79\n\n  Theological works of Watts, 313\n\n  Theology, nature of Watts\u2019, 109\n\n  Thomson _quo._, 172\n\n  Times of Watts, 206\n\n  Tunbridge Wells, 250\n\n  Tutor, Watts as a, 37\n\n\n  Unitarians and Watts, the, 106, 313\n\n\n  Verse, a perfect, 104\n\n  Verse, the accident of Watts\u2019 life, 73\n\n  Verses, satiric, 69\n\n\n  Waller _quo._, 176\n\n  Walsh and Fletcher, death of, 259\n\n  Watchwords and Creeds, 115\n\n  Well, Watts\u2019, 257\n\n  Wesley, Charles, and Watts contrasted, 124\n\n  \u201cWesleyan Magazine\u201d _quo._, 107\n\n  Wesleys\u2019 Obligations to Watts, the, 123\n\n  Words, dying, 262\n\n  \u201cWorld to Come\u201d criticised, 226\n\n\n  Young, Dr., 216;\n    _quo._, 186\n\n\n  Zodiac, signs of the, 72.\n\n\nLONDON: PARDON AND SON, PRINTERS, PATERNOSTER ROW.","title":"Isaac Watts; his life and writings, his homes and friends","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":104904}