besides; for as her riches were great, her generosity and munificence were in full proportion, her thread of life was drawn out to a great age, even beyond that of the Doctor's, and thus this excellent man through her kindness, and that of her daughter, the present Mrs. Elizabeth Abney, who in a like degree esteemed and honoured him, enjoyed all the benefits and felicities he experienced at his first entrance into this family, till his days were numbered and finished, and, like a shock of corn in its season, he ascended into the regions of perfect and immortal life and joy.' If this quotation (says Dr. Johnson) has appeared long, let it be considered that it comprises an account of six-andthirty years, and those the years of Dr. Watts. From the time of his reception into this family, his life was no otherwise diversified than by successive publications. The series of his works I am not able to deduce; their number, and their variety, shew the intenseness of his industry, and the extent of his capacity. He was one of the first authors that taught the Dissenters to court attention by the graces of language. Whatever they had among them before, whether of learning or acuteness, was commonly obscured and blunted by coarseness, and inelegance of style. He shewed them, that zeal and purity might be expressed and enforced by polished diction. He continued to the end of his life the teacher of a congregation, and no reader of his works can doubt his fidelity or diligence. In the pulpit, though his low stature, which very little exceeded five feet, graced him with no advantages of appearance, yet the gravity and propriety of his utterance made his discourses very efficacious. I once mentioned the reputation which Mr. Foster had gained by his proper delivery to my friend Dr. Hawkesworth, who told me, that in the art of pronunciation he was far inferior to Dr. Watts. Such was his flow of thoughts, and such his promptitude of language, that in the latter part of his life he did not precompose his cursory sermons; but having adjusted the heads, and sketched out some particulars, trusted for success to his extemporary power. He did not endeavour to assist his eloquence by any gesticulations; for, as no corporeal actions have any correspondence with theological truth, he did not see how they could enforce it. At the conclusion of weighty sentences he gave time, by a short pause, for the proper impression. To stated and public instruction he added familiar visits and personal application, and was careful to improve the opportunities which conversation conversation offered, of diffusing and increasing the influence of religion. By his natural temper he was quick of resentment; but, by his established and habitual practice, he was gentle, modest, and inoffensive. His tenderness appeared in his attention to children, and to the poor. To the poor, while he lived in the family of his friend, he allowed the third part of his annual revenue, though the whole was not an hundred a-year; and for children, he condescended to lay aside the scholar, the philosopher, and the wit, to write little poems of devotion, and systems of instruction, adapted to their wants and capacities, from the dawn of reason through its gradations of advance in the morning of life. Every man acquainted with the common principles of human action, will look with veneration on the writer, who is at one time combating Locke, and at another making a catechism for children in their fourth year. A voluntary descent from the dignity of science, is perhaps the hardest lesson that humility can teach. As his mind was capacious, his curiosity excursive, and his industry continual, his writings are very numerous, and his subjects various. With his theological works I am only enough acquainted to admire his meekness of opposition, and his mildness of censure. It was not only in his book, but in his mind, that orthodoxy was united with charity. Of his philosophical pieces, his logic has been received into the universities, and therefore wants no private recommendation: If he owes part of it to Le Clerc, it must be considered that no man, who undertakes merely to methodize or illustrate a system, pretends to be its author. In his metaphysical disquisitions, it was observed by the late learned Mr. Dyer, that he confounded the idea of space with that of empty space, and did not consider, that though space might be without matter, yet matter being extended, could not be without space. Few books have been perused by me with greater pleasure than his "Improvement of the Mind," of which the radical principles may indeed be found in Locke's Conduct of the Understanding;' but they are so expanded and ramified by Watts, as to confer upon him the merit of a work in the highest degree useful and pleasing. Whoever has the care of instructing others, may be charged with deficiency in his duty, if this book is not recommended. I have mentioned his treatises of theology as distinct from his other productions; but the truth is, that whatever he took in hand was, by his incessant solicitude for souls, souls, converted to theology. As piety predominated in his mind, it is diffused over his works: Under his direction, it may be truly said, Theologia Philosophia ancillatur, philosophy is subservient to evangelical instruction; it is difficult to read a page without learning, or at least wishing, to be better. The attention is caught by indirect instruction, and he that sat down only to reason, is on a sudden compelled to pray. It was therefore with great propriety that, in 1728, he received from Edinburgh and Aberdeen an unsolicited diploma, by which he became a doctor of divinity. Academical honours would have more value, if they were always bestowed with equal judgment.' It is not often possible to bestow them with equal propriety; for men like Dr. Watts the Christian world doth not often enjoy. It is, however, a true observation, made by another writer (Mr. Toplady) upon this article, that Learned seminaries would retrieve the departing respectability of their diplomas, were they only presented to (I will not say such men as Dr. Watts, for few such men are in any age to be found; but to) persons of piety, orthodoxy, erudition, and virtue. The presenting such titles to people, who either can pay for them, or whose silly vanity prompts them to have their names ushered in with a sound, without any just qualification in the world beside, exposes the honours of a university to contempt, and the persons who bear them to ridicule. The name of Doctor, though it cannot make a man intuitively learned or wise, should give the world a just expectation not to find him at least either weak or illiterate. 'He continued many years to study and to preach, and to do good by his instruction and example; till at last the infirmities of age disabled him from the more laborious part of his ministerial functions, and, being no longer capable of public duty, he offered to remit the salary appendant to it, but his congregation would not accept the resignation. By degrees his weakness increased, and at last confined him to his chamber and his bed, where he was worn gradually away without pain, till he expired November 25, 1748, in the seventy-fifth year of his age. Few men have left him such purity of character, or such monuments of laborious piety. He has provided instruction for all ages, from those who are lisping their first lessons, to the enlightened readers of Malebranche and Locke; he has left neither corporeal nor spiritual nature unexamined; he has taught the art of reasoning, and the science of the stars. stars. His character, therefore, must be formed from the multiplicity and diversity of his attainments, rather than from any single performance; for it would not be safe to claim for him the highest rank in any single denomination of literary dignity; yet perhaps there was nothing in which he would not have excelled, if he had not divided his powers to different pursuits. As a poet, had he been only a poet, he would probably have stood high among the authors with whom he is now associated; [i. e. among the poets, the lives of whom, almost every body knows, Dr. Johnson has most elegantly written.] For his judgment was exact, and he noted beauties and faults with very nice discernment; his imagination, as the "Dacian Battle" proves, was vigorous and active, and the stores of knowledge were large by which his fancy was to be supplied. His ear was well-tuned, and his diction was elegant and copious. But his devotional poetry is, like that of others, unsatisfactory. The paucity of its topics enforces perpetual repetition, and the sanctity of the matter rejects the ornaments of figurative diction. It is sufficient for Watts to have done better than others, what no man has done well.' This must be read cum grano salis, considering, who wrote this life, and for whose perusal it was chiefly written. That it is impossible for language so to ornament divine truths, as to make them acceptable to an ungodly world, is too serious a fact to be disputed; but that divine truths are without beauty, or the most sublime and enrapturing beauty, can only be affirmed by those who have no spiritual eyes to see, or gracious hearts to enjoy them. Dr. Johnson unhappily wrote for those, who understand the language and the arts of men more than the voice and the things of GOD: Otherwise he too would have confessed, that there is more sublimity, excellence, and glory, of all kinds, in one page of Isaiah, than in all the writings of the poets he collected, or could have collected from the ancient heathen or modern world. A critic, who may be learned in all books but one-I mean the Bible, may affect to smile at such a remark; but nevertheless there is no hazard of breaking truth in making it, that the first poem which ever appeared on earth, I mean that in the 15th chapter of Exodus, has more real majesty, beauty, force, and propriety in it, than all that lying Greece or brutal Rome, or any other country or age, have ever produced; and I may add, it is celebrated by more competent judges, and will last infinitely longer; for it is sung by spirits per fectly fectly enlightened, and will be sung by them throughout eternity. And they sing the song of Moses the servant of GOD, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints, Rev. xv. 3. His poems on other subjects seldom rise higher than might be expected from the amusements of a man of letters, and have different degrees of value as they are more or less laboured, or as the occasion was more or less favourable to invention. He writes too often without regular measures, and too often in blank verse; the rhymes are not always sufficiently correspondent. He is particularly unhappy in coining names expressive of characters. His lines are commonly smooth and easy, and his thoughts always religiously pure; but who is there that, to so much piety and innocence, does not wish for a greater measure of sprightliness and vigour? He is at least one of the few poets with whom youth and ignorance may be safely pleased; and happy will be that reader, whose mind is disposed, by his verses or his prose, to imitate him in all but his nonconformity, to copy his benevolence to man, and his reverence to God." Thus far Doctor Johnson. But, glad as we are to consult brevity in our accounts of gracious persons, in order to admit as many as possible within the prescribed limits of our work, we cannot dismiss this article, without a few edifying additions to the memorial of this excellent man. What some critics have observed upon the most valuable circumstance of his character, which they have been pleased to style, the enthusiasm of his heart, operating on a fanatical creed, which hurried him too often into extravagance and absurdity,' only proves, that they are not blessed with a mind like his, capable of understanding the same intellectual good, and that consequently they are too incompetent to decide upon what is so much above them. Whatever rises in the least degree above earth and sensual comprehension, is to men, who know no happiness (if it deserve the name) but what comes from earth, altogether fanatical, enthusiastic, and absurd. The logic of their decision is, 'We know it not, therefore it is not to be known; we feel no influence of grace, therefore there is none; therefore it is all chimera; therefore we have a right to ridicule.' But, omitting the reflections of men, whose absurdities are more dangerous to themselves than prejudicial to the cause of truth, we subjoin a few of the dying sayings |