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Title: Isaac Watts; his life and writings, his homes and friends
Author: Hood, E. Paxton
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Isaac Watts; his life and writings, his homes and friends" ***
WRITINGS, HIS HOMES AND FRIENDS ***
[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF DR. WATTS.
PRESENTED BY MISS ABNEY TO DR. WILLIAMS’ LIBRARY.]
ISAAC WATTS;
His Life and Writings,
_HIS HOMES AND FRIENDS_.
“Few men have left behind 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.”—_Dr.
Johnson._
“The Independents, as represented by Dr. Watts, have a just
claim to be considered the real founders of modern English
hymnody.”—_Lord Selborne._
LONDON:
THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY,
56, PATERNOSTER ROW; 65, ST. PAUL’S CHURCHYARD;
AND 164, PICCADILLY.
MANCHESTER: CORPORATION STREET. BRIGHTON: WESTERN ROAD.
[Illustration: PREFACE.]
Most men who have left behind them a name so universally honoured and
beloved as that of Isaac Watts have shone in many biographies; he
reverses the rule, and really has more monuments in stone erected to
his memory than there have been readable biographies to record the
transactions of his life.
From time to time it seems necessary and natural to attempt some fresh
record of the memory of honoured men; even the best biographies wear out,
and succeeding ages demand a tribute in harmony with varying impressions
or increased information. The life of Watts was one of the most quiet
and equable of lives; it flowed on in almost unbroken tranquillity and
peace; it was passed in much seclusion, neither his taste nor his health
permitting him to come much personally into the presence of the world.
The authentic incidents of his career, of which we have any record, are,
indeed, very few, yet, such as they are, they should surely be gathered
up, and put into some fitting memorial. Besides this, it is a life always
good to contemplate. Acquaintance seems to lift the reader almost into
that region whose air the good man breathed so freely.
The object of the following pages will be to attempt to do some justice
to the various attributes of his mental character. His fame as a writer
of hymns has, by its very brightness, obscured departments of work which
cost him far more labour. Watts was modest; in every estimate of himself
he disclaimed any title to the rank of a poet; but in truth his powers,
as manifested in his writings, whether we regard him as a preacher,
theologian, or metaphysician, are all equally luminous and instructive.
Beyond all these, a character exalted by seraphic piety and all-embracing
charity makes the narrative of such a life well worthy of the study of
all to whom it is pleasant to contemplate human nature in the finer
proportions of genius, sanctified and illustrated by Divine grace. It is
curious, and almost amusing, to notice that Samuel Johnson quite tamed
down his rugged temper and speech when he wrote the life of Watts. He
speaks of him as one who maintained orthodoxy and charity not only in his
works but in his innermost nature: not a discourteous or disrespectful
word flaws the sketch he has written.
Watts was the Melancthon of his times,—not only in the ranks of
Nonconformity, but within the pale of the Establishment there was no
other mind so resembling the mild and uniform spirit, and graced by
the many-coloured scholarship of the great Reformer. It cannot indeed
be expected that those should know or care for Watts, who are not in
affinity with his mild and temperate, and yet majestic nature. Equally
removed from the servility which would have enslaved, or the fanaticism
which would have inflamed, the portrait of Watts is one which will
be studied to advantage at all times. When Johnson characterized the
philosophical and literary writings of Dr. Watts as “productions which,
when a man sits down to read, he suddenly feels himself constrained to
pray,” he also describes the influence which the reading or the study
of his whole life is calculated to have upon the mind. It is not fertile
in personal incidents, but it has been well remarked that the Christian
biography has other objects—it may be hoped that many other biographies
have higher objects—than that of merely exciting the imagination, or
agitating the mind by the recital of romantic adventures, brilliant
actions, or daring exploits. Watts reminds us of that saying of Richard
Sibbes, that “a Christian must be neither a dead sea nor a raging sea.”
His frequent illnesses, as in the case of Richard Baxter, “set him upon
learning to die, and thus he learned how to live.” For the greater
portion of his life he lived painfully within sight of the world to come;
he hovered on the border-land of life; he is a fine illustration of power
in weakness, and he adds another to the list of those men who surprise us
by the results of amazing industry, plied beneath all the interferences
of sickness, and a weak and fragile frame.
Thanks are due, and are hereby heartily rendered, to the Rev. Herman
Carlyle, LL.B., of Southampton, for permission to engrave the portrait
from the vestry of Above Bar Chapel—it has never been engraved before,
and is believed to be the portrait presented by his pupil, early in
life, to the Rev. John Pinhorne, master of the Southampton Grammar
School; and also to J. Hunter, Esq., of Dr. Williams’ Library, for his
invariable courtesy, and for permission, obtained through him, to use the
portrait formerly the property of Miss Abney, and the bust, of which also
engravings are given in the work.
E. PAXTON HOOD.
[Illustration: CONTENTS.]
CHAP. PAGE
I.—BIRTH AND CHILDHOOD OF ISAAC WATTS 1
II.—IN THE ACADEMY AT STOKE NEWINGTON 15
III.—IN THE HARTOPP FAMILY 32
IV.—PASTOR OF A LONDON CHURCH 40
V.—FIRST PUBLICATION AS A SACRED POET 57
VI.—RESIDENCE IN THE ABNEY FAMILY 75
VII.—HYMNS 84
VIII.—A CIRCLE OF FRIENDS 136
IX.—THE COUNTESS OF HERTFORD AND MRS. ROWE 172
X.—SHIMEI BRADBURY 189
XI.—HIS TIMES 205
XII.—RETURN TO STOKE NEWINGTON 218
XIII.—THE WORLD TO COME 226
XIV.—THE MAN 246
XV.—DEATH AND BURIAL 258
XVI.—SUMMARY AND ESTIMATE OF PROSE WRITINGS 274
[Illustration: ST. MICHAEL’S GAOL, IN WHICH WATTS’ FATHER WAS CONFINED.]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER I.
Birth and Childhood of Isaac Watts.
Isaac Watts was born at Southampton, July 17th, 1674, the same year in
which John Milton died. He was the eldest of nine children, and was named
after his father, Isaac. His father was a truly worthy and respectable
man. In the course of the future years of his very long life, he became
the master of a school of considerable reputation in the town. Dr.
Johnson says it was reported that Watts’ father was a shoemaker. In the
year 1700 Isaac Watts, of 21, French Street, Southampton, was a clothier
or cloth factor; so he is described in legal documents which still exist
in that town; so he is described in another deed of 1719; while in 1736
he is described as “Isaac Watts, of the town and county of Southampton,
gentleman:”[1] this was the year in which he died. At the time, however,
of Isaac’s birth, deep grief was round, and heavy distress over the
household. The father was a Nonconformist, and a deacon of that which is
now the Above Bar Congregational Church in Southampton. It was a cruel
time; the laws were very bitter against Nonconformists, and the traveller
through Southampton in many months of the year 1674-75 might have seen
a respectable young woman, with a child at her breast, sitting on the
steps of the gaol seeking and waiting for admission to her husband. It
was the mother of Watts, and the daughter of Alderman Taunton. Tradition
says, she was French in her lineage, of an exiled Huguenot family, driven
over to England by intolerance and the massacre of St. Bartholomew, in
the reign of Queen Elizabeth. Thus Watts was the child of persecution,
and through all the earliest years of his life his mind must have been
habituated to such impressions and associations as were well calculated
to draw out and give sharpness and distinctness to his convictions. The
old prison remains very nearly the same as when the young mother sat
with her child looking up to the barred room in which her husband was
confined. It stands upon the beach of the sweet Southampton waters, which
then rolled much further in, and almost washed the prison doors. Legend
asserts that it was only a few steps from this spot that Canute fixed his
chair when, in order that he might rebuke the adulation of his courtiers,
he commanded the waves to retire. Perhaps the imprisoned man turned to
the incident, and thought of One who is able to still the noise of the
waves and the tumult of the people, and to say to all billows, “Hitherto
shalt thou come, and no further.” If able to climb to the tower of his
prison, a lovely scene opened to his view: the charming hills of Bittern
on the left; the “sweet fields beyond the swelling floods” opposite, on
the right of the Southampton waters; at his foot the old houses of the
quaint little town, and his own persecuted abode.
The author of “The Christian Life in Song” has not unnaturally conceived
that probably to his mother he was indebted for the lyrical tendencies
in which at a very early period his faith sought to express itself. The
French Huguenots led the way in the utterance of feeling in sweet sacred
hymns; and the grieving young mother might perhaps refresh her faith by
some of the strains of her old people, while little knowing that she
held in her arms one who was to eclipse the fame of Clement Marot in
this particular. As to the imprisonment of the father, a licence had
been issued in 1662 by Charles II., under the signature of Arlington,
allowing “a room or rooms” in the house of Giles Say to be used for
congregational worship, and Mr. Say, himself an exile and refugee from
the persecutions of France, to be “the teacher.” In a short time this
licence of indulgence was withdrawn, and Mr. Say and his chief supporters
were thrown into prison; one of the principal of these, as we have seen,
was Isaac Watts the elder. It was an unpromising commencement to an
illustrious life; and this trouble was no sooner escaped from than it
was renewed. Liberated from prison, Isaac was still a very young child
when his father was imprisoned again on the same charge for six months.
In 1683 he was obliged to flee from home into exile from his family.
Where he passed his time we have no exact information, but for two years
he was living principally in London; and thus the family continued to
pass through a course of domestic suffering until those happier days
came which brought the abdication of the Stuart family and in honour of
which, on the succession of William, we cannot wonder that Isaac Watts
was glad to pour out some of his earliest verses.
Watts sprang from a fairly good family. Alderman Taunton, his grandfather
on his mother’s side, is still remembered in Southampton by his public
benefactions. The grandfather Watts had been engaged in the naval
service, and was commander of a man-of-war in the year 1656 under
Admiral Blake. He appears to have been a man of great courage and many
accomplishments. He had some skill in the lighter recreations of music,
painting, and poetry. A story is told how in the East Indies he had a
personal conflict with a tiger, which followed him into a river; he
grappled with the monster, and got the better in the conflict. In the
Dutch war the vessel he commanded exploded, and thus in the prime of life
he met his end. It has been tenderly remarked that “the grandmother Lois”
is often as influential on the opening mind as “the mother Eunice.” The
widow of the gallant sailor, and grandmother of the poet, had not only
many stories to tell of her husband’s adventures, but seems to have been
remarkably amiable, if she may be judged by the glowing verses in which
her grandson sought to do honour to her memory. She sought to instil into
his mind the lessons of early piety, and exercised an influence over
his early education during the time when trial and grief were strong in
the household of her children. The old people appear to have possessed
considerable property, but it was probably much diminished during those
persecuting times. Such was the stock whence the poet was descended. We
may speak of it as a good strong root, both upon the father’s and upon
the mother’s side. A sap of nobleness and gentleness seems to have given
vitality to both families, and to have left its best influences in their
child.
Isaac Watts the elder was a man of great social worth. In after years his
boarding-school became a most flourishing establishment, and children
were sent to it to receive their training both from America and the West
Indies. There is a document written to his family when he was living
in exile from them, which places his high principles of character, his
prudence and his piety, his strong Protestantism, and his intelligence in
a very remarkable light. He also had a taste for sacred verse, and many
of his pieces have been preserved breathing a saintly meditative spirit.
Mr. Parker, the amanuensis of Dr. Watts, mentions a singular anecdote to
illustrate how his advice was sought by persons of the town on account of
his reputation for wisdom. A person, a stonemason, in Southampton, had a
dream. He had purchased an old building for its materials; previous to
his pulling it down he dreamed that a large stone in the centre of an
arch fell upon him and killed him. Upon asking Mr. Watts his opinion,
he said, “I am not for paying any great regard to dreams, nor yet for
utterly slighting them. If there is such a stone in the building as you
saw in your dream” (which he told him there really was), “my advice to
you is, that you take great care, in taking down the building, to keep
far enough off from it.” The mason resolved to act upon his opinion, but
in an unfortunate moment he forgot his dream, went under the arch, and
the stone fell upon him and crushed him to death.
This good father lived to the advanced age of eighty-five; his son Isaac
was then in his sixty-third year, and only two or three days before his
father’s death addressed to him the following tender and satisfying
letter:—
“NEWINGTON: _February 8th, 1736-37_.
“HONOURED AND DEAR SIR,
“It is now ten days since I heard from you, and learned by my
nephew that you had been recovered from a very threatening
illness. When you are in danger of life, I believe my sister
is afraid to let me know the worst, for fear of affecting me
too much. But as I feel old age daily advancing on myself, I am
endeavouring to be ready for my removal hence; and though it
gives a shock to nature when what has been long dear to one is
taken away, yet reason and religion should teach us to expect
it in these scenes of mortality and a dying world. Blessed be
God for our immortal hopes, through the blood of Jesus, who has
taken away the sting of death! What could such dying creatures
do without the comforts of the Gospel? I hope you feel those
satisfactions of soul on the borders of life which nothing can
give but this Gospel, which you taught us all in our younger
years. May these Divine consolations support your spirits under
all your growing infirmities; and may our blessed Saviour form
your soul to such a holy heavenly frame, that you may wait with
patience amidst the languors of life for a joyful passage into
the land of immortality! May no cares nor pains ruffle nor
afflict your spirit! May you maintain a constant serenity at
heart, and sacred calmness of mind, as one who has long passed
midnight, and is in view of the dawning day! ‘The night is far
spent, the day is at hand!’ Let the garments of light be found
upon us, and let us lift up our heads, for our redemption draws
nigh. Amen.
“I am, dear Sir,
“Your most affectionate obedient Son,
“ISAAC WATTS.”
Troubled as were the early years of his life, the subject of our
biography furnishes one of those rare instances in which the precocity
of infancy was not purchased at the expense of power in maturity; it is
said that before he could speak plainly, when any money was given to him,
he would cry, “A book! a book! buy a book!” He began to learn Latin at
the age of four years, and in the knowledge of this language and in Greek
he made swift progress; it is probable that of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew
he had considerable knowledge while yet a child. He is one of those who
have been said to “lisp in numbers.” His utterances of infant rhyme
are not astonishing, but every biography of him has repeated the story
how, when he was seven years of age, his mother after school-hours one
afternoon offered him a farthing if he would give her some verses, when
he presented her with the well-known couplet:
I write not for a farthing, but to try
How I your farthing writers can outvie.
It was about the same time that, some verses of his falling into the
hands of his mother, she expressed her doubts whether he could have
written them, whereupon he immediately wrote the following acrostic;
and if some of the lines seem to falter, the last two are certainly
remarkable as the expression of a mere child, and have even a kind of
prophecy in them of his future years:
I am a vile polluted lump of earth,
S o I’ve continued ever since my birth;
A lthough Jehovah grace does daily give me,
A s sure this monster Satan will deceive me,
C ome, therefore, Lord, from Satan’s claws relieve me.
W ash me in Thy blood, O Christ,
A nd grace Divine impart,
T hen search and try the corners of my heart,
T hat I in all things may be fit to do
S ervice to Thee, and sing Thy praises too.
It was perhaps from the uncertainty of tuition at home, or from the
youthful student outstripping the attainments of his father, that he
was early sent to the grammar-school at Southampton, of which the Rev.
John Pinhorne was the principal. He was a man of good character and
attainments, rector of All Saints Church in Southampton, prebendary
of Leckford, and vicar of Eling, in the New Forest. The Nonconformist
relations of his young pupil appear to have produced no uncharitable
effect upon the master’s mind. From the first he prophesied the future
eminence and celebrity of the young scholar. He died in 1714, when these
were in their dawn. Watts held him in most reverent and grateful memory,
and illustrated these feelings in a Pindaric Latin ode, which, in its
recapitulation of the classical authors, to whose pages the master had
guided his knowledge, certainly shows at once the abundant scholarship of
the worthy pair.
There, in the grammar-school of the town, in the dark reigns of the
Second Charles and James, the little Puritan was the most diligent and
advanced scholar, the beloved of his master. He very early exhibited
a great proficiency in Latin, Greek, and French. A spare, pale child,
there was perhaps nothing peculiarly prepossessing in his features, if
we except the bright, intense sparkling eye, and the quivering, nervous
expression. There was certainly nothing robust about him, but all the
indications of the future scholar. May we not also say the indications of
the future saint—a little meditative Samuel—of a time in our history of
which we may say “the Word of the Lord was precious in those days, there
was no open vision?”
These first years, when the mind was gathering to itself the many tools
of knowledge, were passed in his father’s house at Southampton—an utterly
different Southampton from that which we see now—a charming little
sequestered town; the gentle river rolled its pleasant and pellucid
waves before it, undisturbed by the iron floating bridge, as the nobler
Southampton Water rolled along between it and the Isle of Wight.
Unsullied by steamboats, it was no depôt for the great navies of the
West, but it must have been a charming country town, its streets almost
overshadowed by the noble trees of the New Forest. The historian and
antiquarian will find no lack of material for observation and suggestion
in Southampton; it is rich in old nooks and reminiscences, and as full of
material for the artist as for the archæologist. Legend and story of St.
Benedict or King Canute, of the knightly Bevis and Ascapart were, we may
be sure, not less fragrant then than they are there to-day. Many of the
old houses are standing; the old town walls, the monuments of the great
Roman road, and the noble bars of the town looked, we may be sure, more
perfect then than now; the neighbourhood in which Watts lived still bears
traces of being the oldest part of the town; other spots, which bear the
marks of nineteenth century improvements in handsome parks and squares
and streets, were then only wide, open fields; and many of the objects
interesting to those who visit English shrines have altogether passed
away. The gaol in which Watts’ father was confined, St. Michael’s Prison,
the old Bull Hall, and the buildings round the old Walnut tree—the town
retains the names of these places, and still conveys some impression of
what they were. The Blue Anchor Postern still exhibits its massive old
masonry, the relics of a building inhabited by King John, and a royal
residence of Henry III. Yet more interesting memories gather in another
part of the town, round the Widows’ Almshouses,[2] founded by Mr.
Thorner, the friend and co-religionist of Watts’ father. The little town,
from being one of the most inconsiderable, has become one of the most
thriving and famous in the empire.
Still, changed as Southampton is during the last two hundred years,
it is not difficult to realize something of its ancient character.
Its counterpart or resemblance may still be found in some of those
small seaport towns of France which have been left to their primitive
isolation by the retreating tides of population. Yet a good many things
in the old town of Southampton remain unchanged. It is full of quaint
nooks and corners, gateways and archways bearing the evident marks of
high antiquity. For a long period Southampton sank into a state of
sequestration and repose; but her early history was something like her
later, and there was a day when in the most palmy and splendid time of
Venice her connection with that great commercial republic was as intimate
as it is now with the Eastern and Western Indies. Its glory dates from
the time of the Conquest; and a circumstance ominous to England in the
landing there of Philip II., of Spain, the husband and ill-adviser of
Mary, is the last instance recorded of its prominence and splendour in
the ancient day. The old parish of All Saints, in which Watts was born,
and the neighbourhood in which his childhood was passed, remain so little
changed as to enable the visitor to carry in his mind a fair picture of
the old lanes and streets, rambling round the old church, in the middle
of the now rudely paved square.
The house in which Watts was born, in French Street, is still standing,
and seems to give the assurance of being much the same, although it
has so far yielded to the indignities of time that one side of it is a
public-house and the other a marine store. It must have been a plain
but roomy, substantial building, standing back with its garden behind
it, full of lofty rooms and rambling nooks and passages. There he first
saw the light, there he passed his play days of childhood; there the
dreamy, studious boy accumulated the first spoils of knowledge; returning
thither after his academical course was closed, there he wrote his first,
and even a considerable number of his hymns; and thither, a celebrated
man, he often came to visit his parents, even when he was an old man. A
fragrant memory of early piety and matured holiness still lingers over
the old place, and consecrates it as one of our English shrines.[3]
In his childhood circumstances happened likely to produce some effect
upon his mind. The memory of the terrible plague of 1665, in which
between one and two thousand persons were swept away, was still fresh
in Southampton for one hundred and fifty years after. The annalists of
the town tell us it did not recover from the state of decay into which
it fell from that dreadful visitation. The shops were all closed, all
who could fled from the town, and the streets were overgrown with grass.
When Watts was six years old the great comet flamed over England, with
which were associated in many minds such dreadful portents, and it no
doubt lent a colour to many of his after most imaginative conceptions.
It was an object of singularly marvellous splendour. Several years after
he seems to have put the memory of the impressions it produced upon him
into the couplets in which he alters Young’s description, and the words
sufficiently show how the surprising spectacle had excited his youthful
fancy:
Who stretched the comet to prodigious size,
And poured his flaming train o’er half the skies?
Is’t at Thy wrath the heavenly monster glares
O’er the pale nations, to announce Thy wars?
The life of Watts had very little in it at any time which related to
the history of the period in which he lived, yet it is impossible not
to notice that these first years of his life at Southampton were among
the most exciting and memorable of the country’s history. What England
was Lord Macaulay has well described in perhaps one of the most charming
chapters of his history—_the State of England at the death of Charles
II._ It was the time of England’s Reign of Terror, and circumstances
were happening, the conversations upon which must have produced a vivid
impression upon the mind of a youth of lively sensibility. The execution
of Algernon Sidney and Lord William Russell, the trial of Richard Baxter,
the rising of Monmouth, the tremendous descent of Jefferies in the Bloody
Assize of the West, the trial of the bishops, the flight of James, the
landing of William at Torbay, and his progress to London; these were
circumstances such as England had never seen before, such as England can
never see again, and they all crowded fast upon each other in the years
of Watts’ boyhood and early youth.
The period of the youth of Watts calls up to the mind a singularly
contradictory range of associations; it was a wild, wicked, and
frivolous time, and yet there were men living then whose names have
adorned, and will ever adorn the literature of our land. Watts was
fourteen years of age when John Bunyan finished his eventful course.
Samuel Wesley, the father of John and Charles, was just leaving his
academy at Stoke Newington and the Dissenters, by whom he had been
educated; Henry More, the singular mystic, preceded Bunyan by one year
to the grave; Ralph Cudworth was accumulating his immense mass of
nebulous scholarship; South was preaching his celebrated sermons, in
which coarseness so frequently “kibes the heels” of wisdom; Robert Boyle
was, with intense ardour, prosecuting his observations and studies in
natural history and science, and blending with equal ardour with them his
devotions to revealed religion and Divine truth; Barrow was pursuing his
ponderous lucubrations; Newton was expounding the system of the universe,
and Locke the system of the mind; Howe was indulging in his seraphic
ardours; Dryden was drawing to the close of an inglorious life, and
writing some of the pieces which have best served his fame; John Evelyn,
the model of an English gentleman, was studying his trees at Wootton, or
penning his entertaining diary at Sayn Court; Samuel Pepys, garrulous and
silly, was writing a history without knowing it, as the Boswell or the
Paul Pry of the court and the town; Lely was flattering a meretricious
taste by his paintings, and Christopher Wren preparing his plans for
rebuilding London.
The persecutions to which the Nonconformists through this period were
exposed of course affected society in Southampton; the avenues to
prosperity and peace seemed to lie only in conformity to the Church of
England. It was then that, in consequence of his great and promising
attainments, his diligence and high character, an offer was made to Watts
by Dr. John Speed, a physician of the town, on the behalf of several
others, to send him to one of the universities, and very handsomely
defray all his expenses there. He did not hesitate for a second, but
respectfully and firmly replied that he was determined to take up his
lot amongst the Dissenters. Two of his early friends, in every way
incomparably his inferiors, conformed, and attained to archiepiscopal
dignities. Yet, in spite of all that he afterwards wrote on the relation
of the civil magistrate to religion, there would seem to have been
little in his faith, feeling, or practice which might not easily have
found a home in the Establishment but for the persecuting spirit of the
time. It was the same year that in his slight, curious autobiographical
memoranda,[4] he mentions concisely how he “fell under considerable
convictions of sin;” in the year following, his entry runs on, “and was
led to trust in Christ, I hope.” In the same year, 1689, he mentions
that he had a great and dangerous sickness; and all these events of his
life, which look so brief and cold to us as we put them down on paper,
were great and crucial events to him, settling the foundations of his
character, probably leading him away from the pursuits of scholarship
as a mere charm and recreation of cultivated taste, to regard it as the
important means by which an entrance might be obtained to everlasting
truths. These events would add to those motives which had determined him
to renounce the idea of university training, and to seek an entrance into
the ministry through the humbler portal of a Dissenting academy.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER II.
In the Academy at Stoke Newington.
The neighbourhood of London, to which Isaac Watts removed from
Southampton for the purpose of completing his studies, and preparing for
the work of the ministry, was Stoke Newington, and in that neighbourhood
he was destined to pass the greater part of his life. It was probably
even then pervaded, as for a long time before and ever since, by an
atmosphere of mild but consistent Nonconformity; the academy in which
he studied was beneath the superintendence of the Rev. Thomas Rowe, the
pastor of the Independent Church assembling in Girdlers’ Hall, in the
City. It was probably one of the most considerable of the time, and
appears to have succeeded to one also well known upon the same spot,
of which the principal was the Rev. Charles Morton. Here studied the
celebrated Daniel Defoe, also originally intended for the Nonconformist
pulpit, as he says in one of his reviews: “It is not often I trouble
you with any of my divinity; the pulpit is none of my office. It was my
disaster first to be set apart for, and then to be set apart from, the
honour of that sacred employ.” The academy had a good reputation, and
the effort which old Samuel Wesley had made to sully its fair fame only
reflected his own dishonour, and left it untarnished.
Charles Morton was one of those obscure but remarkable men in which our
country at that time was so rich. He was descended from a singularly
distinguished family—that of Cardinal Morton, Thomas Morton, Bishop of
Durham, and many other distinguished men. He took his degree of M.A.
at Wadham College, Oxford, and became, and continued until the Act of
Uniformity, rector of Blisland, in Cornwall; after preaching for a short
time at St. Ives he removed to London, and shortly after opened an
academy on Newington Green. Defoe pronounces the highest encomiums upon
him and his method as a tutor; and Samuel Wesley, in the midst of his
bitterness and ungracious flippancy—for he had been maintained on the
foundation under the idea of entering the Nonconformist ministry—ceases
from his abuse to honour the memory of his master; he, however, after
having trained several men who became eminent in their day, teased
by continued persecution, passed over to America; there his fame had
preceded him; there he became pastor of a church in Charlestown, and
Vice-president of Harvard University.[5]
Shortly after the departure of Mr. Morton for America, the academy to
which Watts was consigned was founded by the eminently learned Theophilus
Gale, M.A., the author of that large medley of scholarship “The Court
of the Gentiles.” He also had been deprived of considerable Church
preferments. To his charge the eccentric Philip Lord Wharton committed
the tutorship of his sons; with them he travelled on the Continent,
adding to the stores of his mental wealth, and contracting a friendship
with the learned Bochart. He arrived in the metropolis on his return to
see the city in the flames of the terrible conflagration, but to learn
that the manuscripts he had left in the care of a friend were all saved,
while the house in which they had been preserved was destroyed. His
mind was so largely stored with every kind of learning that his friends
entreated him to settle as a professor of theology, which he did at Stoke
Newington, and there he continued till he died in 1678, at the early age
of forty-nine. He left his personal estate for the education of young men
for the ministry; his library, with the exception of his philosophical
books, to Harvard College. Beneath a tutor so distinguished the interests
of the two academies had probably merged into one. The successor of Mr.
Gale was one of his own students, Thomas Rowe, whom we have already
mentioned. He was the son of the Rev. John Rowe, M.A., ejected from
Westminster Abbey, and who was called to preach the thanksgiving sermon
before the Parliament on the occasion of the destruction of the Spanish
fleet, October 8th, 1656. Thomas Rowe very early entered upon the work of
the ministry. At the age of twenty-one he succeeded his father as pastor
of Girdlers’ Hall in Basinghall Street.
Isaac Watts came to the academy of Stoke Newington in the year 1690; he
was then in his sixteenth year. “Such he was,” says Dr. Johnson, “as
every Christian Church would rejoice to have adopted.”
There was no doubt a rare congeniality of spirit between the tutor and
his illustrious pupil; the native gentleness of the latter found nothing
perhaps in the former to give to it either sharpness or force; indeed,
the name of Thomas Rowe would be lost but for the fame of Watts. The
pupil was nearer to manhood than was implied in his years; he was a
well-informed and richly cultivated scholar when he left his father’s
house, and his modest bearing was such as even a tutor might entrust with
the responsibilities of friendship. Friendship soon matured between
them; the tutor testified that he never on any occasion had to give
his pupil a reproof. His academical exercises show with what diligence
he was applying himself to the work of preparation for the work of his
future life. A sweet and cheerful gravity pervaded his manners and his
studies, and it may be boldly said that in the great universities of
that time there were very few who wrought with so much vigour or to so
much purpose. His Latin essays written at this period “show,” says Dr.
Johnson, “a degree of knowledge both philosophical and theological, such
as very few attain by a much longer course of study.” This verdict of
Johnson is only just. One method adopted by Watts in his studies he has
commended to others in his “Improvement of the Mind,” and it has probably
been often successfully adopted. It was the plan of abridging the works
of the more eminent writers in the various departments of study. Thus
he printed the material more indelibly on his memory; at the same time,
by recasting the thoughts or the information in his own mind, he was
so compelled to analyze and digest that he made the whole matter more
entirely his own mental property. To this practice he alludes when he
says: “Other things also of the like nature may be usefully practised
with regard to the authors which you read—viz., If the method of a book
be irregular, reduce it into form by a little analysis of your own, or by
hints in the margin; if those things are heaped together which should be
separated, you may wisely distinguish and divide them; if several things
relating to the same subject are scattered up and down separately through
the treatise, you may bring them all to one view by references; or if the
matter of a book be really valuable and deserving, you may throw it into
a better method, reduce it to a more logical scheme, or abridge it into
a lesser form. All these practices will have a tendency both to advance
your skill in logic and method, to improve your judgment in general, and
to give you a fuller survey of that subject in particular. When you have
finished the treatise with all your observations upon it, recollect and
determine what real improvements you have made by reading that author.”[6]
There was another plan which reveals the careful student, and to which
Dr. Gibbons refers in his life: “There was another method also which
the doctor adopted, it may be in the time of his preparatory studies,
though of this we are not able to furnish positive evidence, but of which
there is the fullest proof in his further progress of life, namely, that
of interleaving the works of authors, and inserting in the blank pages
additions from other writers on the same subject. I have now by me, the
gift of his brother Mr. Enoch Watts, the ‘Westminster Greek Grammar’
thus interleaved by the doctor, with all he thought proper to collect
from Dr. Busby’s and Mr. Teed’s ‘Greek Grammars,’ engrafted by him into
the supplemental leaves; and I have besides in my possession a present
from the doctor himself, a printed discourse by a considerable writer,
on a controverted point in divinity, interleaved in the same manner, and
much enlarged by insertions in the doctor’s own hand.” Certainly from
hints such as these no writer could seem by his own careful diligence to
be more admirably prepared to write to and counsel young men and others
concerning the improvement of the mind.
Most of the biographers of Watts have referred to his fellow-students.
Several of them were interesting men. “The first genius in the academy,”
to adopt Watts’ own descriptive designation, was Mr. Josiah Hart;
but very speedily after his removal from Mr. Rowe he conformed, and
became chaplain to John Hampden, Esq., the member for Buckinghamshire.
Presently after he became chaplain to his grace the Duke of Bolton, Lord
Lieutenant of Ireland. Such offices furnished very easy opportunities for
advancement in the Church. Before long he became Bishop of Kilmore and
Ardagh; and in 1742 he was translated to the archbishopric of Tuam, with
which was united the bishopric of Enaghdoen, with liberty to retain his
former see of Ardagh; yet he retained friendly relationships with his
old fellow-student, and in the “Lyrics” occurs a free translation of an
epigram of Martial to Cirinus, which seems to intimate that he was not
wanting himself in poetic inspiration:
So smooth your numbers, friend, your verse so sweet,
So sharp the jest, and yet the turn so neat,
That with her Martial, Rome would place Cirine,
Rome would prefer your sense and thought to mine.
Yet modest you decline the public stage,
To fix your friend alone amidst th’ applauding age.
Fifty years after the period of their life as fellow-students we find
the Archbishop writing to Watts, “God grant we may be useful while we
live, and may run clear and with unclouded minds till we come to the very
dregs! I send you my visitation charge to my clergy of Tuam. I submit it
to your judgment. Your old friend and affectionate servant, JOSIAH TUAM.”
If in some part singularly expressed, it gives a not unpleasing idea of
the writer’s character.
Another fellow-student was Mr. John Hughes; but he also, though dedicated
to, and educated for, the Dissenting ministry, upon leaving the academy
soon conformed to the Establishment; he cultivated the lighter studies
of music, poetry, and painting. The Lord Chancellor Cowper, in 1717,
appointed him secretary to the commissions of the peace; and after the
resignation of the Chancellor he was still continued in the same office.
He became a contributor to the “Tatler,” “Spectator,” and “Guardian,” and
he attained to the friendship of some of the most distinguished men of
the age. Addison admired him as a poet, Pope held him in veneration for
his goodness, and Bishop Hoadley honoured him as a friend.
Others of the fellow-students continued stedfast to the principles of
their Dissenting Alma Mater, and became in their way also useful and
remarkable men; among these was Mr. Samuel Say, the fellow-townsman of
Watts, and one year his junior. After a useful course of ministrations he
succeeded Dr. Calamy at Westminster, and continued there until his death.
Through life he was on intimate friendly terms with his fellow-townsman.
Little as we know of him, sufficient is known to give to us the picture
of a thoroughly accomplished man, even with considerable claims to be
regarded as a man of genius; indeed it strikes us, in reviewing the
intercourse of these young men with each other, and their recommendations
of each other, that there was a thoroughness about their attainments; and
that while they were faithful to severer studies they were not indisposed
to those graceful exercises of the mind and fancy which have generally,
but we believe unjustly, been regarded as incompatible with the severity
of the Puritan character. To this indulgence, no doubt, the taste of the
tutor, Mr. Rowe, was favourable. We know that Watts was accomplished
in several departments of taste, although all the exercises which
have come down to us from his college-days are quite of the severer
character—critical, metaphysical, and theological—but his conscience was
probably of that tender order which would esteem it an unfaithfulness
to the object for which he was placed in the academy to turn aside to
pursuits of a lighter and less sacred description. Another fellow-student
of Isaac Watts was Daniel Neal, celebrated as the author of “The History
of the Puritans;” he proved in an eminent degree his call to the work of
the ministry, and after some time spent in travel settled as a pastor in
the metropolis.
It is usual in our day, with the Dissenting academies, to receive no one
as student for the ministry who has not previously qualified himself
by membership with the church which commends him. The practice appears
to have been more liberal in Watts’ day. He was never a member of the
church at Southampton, but in the third year of his residence with Mr.
Rowe he united himself with the church of his tutor, as he enters it in
his memoranda, “I was admitted to Mr. T. Rowe’s church December, 1693.”
This church also, like so many of the Independent churches in the city,
had a very honourable ancestry—as we have previously said, it then held
its meetings in Girdlers’ Hall, Basinghall Street; after the death of
Mr. Rowe it removed to Haberdashers’ Hall, but the church itself appears
to have originated with the eminent William Strong, M.A., still held
in honour by the lovers of old Puritan literature for his folio on the
Covenants. He was a fellow of Katherine Hall, Cambridge, and rector
of More Crichel, in Dorsetshire. This living during the Civil Wars he
was compelled by the Cavaliers to relinquish, and, coming to London,
he became minister of the church assembling in Westminster Abbey, and
subsequently in the House of Lords. It is singular that thus both the
ministers of the congregation in Girdlers’ Hall were originally pastors
of the church in Westminster Abbey. Mr. Strong died in 1654, and was
buried in the Abbey church, but upon the restoration his remains had,
with those of Cromwell, Blake, and Pym, the honour of exhumation. Still,
in the church when Watts became a member of it, lingered some of the old
elements which first composed it; perhaps the most conspicuous of these
was Major-General Goffe, the well-known name of one of the judges of
Charles I.
Such was the church with which Watts held his first communion, and
from which he was only transferred to become the pastor of that over
which he presided for the remainder of his life. It need hardly be said
that whatever interest attached to its memory in connection with the
circumstances which we have recited, his name confers upon it the most
permanent human interest. The union must have strengthened that intimacy
we have already pointed out between himself and his tutor, pastor, and
friend. It is not probable that even at this period Mr. Rowe had the
large scholarship and keen insight into the beauties of the most famous
classics possessed by his pupil, if we may form a judgment from the
Pindaric ode to Mr. Pinhorne, but a quiet mind will often marshal ideas
into order, and give a military usefulness in commanding materials it
could not recruit. Watts was probably never, at any period of his life,
wanting in the accoutrements of discipline; but this was the service
chiefly rendered at the academy, this and the more earnest entrance upon
philosophical and theological studies. We are sure also that he and his
tutor well harmonized in their sense of the duty and the dignity of moral
independence; Watts had already shown himself to be possessed of this by
his entrance into the academy. In his lines “To the much honoured Mr.
Thomas Rowe, the director of my youthful studies,” he says:
I hate these shackles of the mind
Forged by the haughty wise;
Souls were not born to be confined,
And led, like Samson, blind and bound;—
But when his native strength he found
He well avenged his eyes.
I love thy gentle influence, Rowe,
Thy gentle influence like the sun,
Only dissolves the frozen snow,
Then bids our thoughts like rivers flow,
And choose the channels where they run.
And here we may say farewell to the tutor; he lived just long enough
to see his scholar settled in the ministry; but for his companion
pupils he occupied a solitary home; he was never married, and in 1705,
riding through the city on horseback, he was seized with a fit, fell
from his horse, and instantly died. He was one of those men of whom
the world makes little mention, and finds little recorded; he was a
comparatively young man. We have dwelt upon the furniture of his mind,
the attractiveness of his manners, the docility and beauty of his
disposition; to these it may be added that he was also probably possessed
of an engaging manner in the pulpit, as he retained what was then
considered a large congregation to the time of his death.
While referring to the Dissenting academies of those days, it may be
interesting to notice that from one of them in Gloucester, beneath the
tutorship of the Rev. Samuel Jones, two eminent men received their first
training for the ministry of the Church of England, although intended
for the Nonconformist communion—Samuel Butler, the distinguished author
of the “Analogy,” and Bishop of Durham; and Thomas Secker, Bishop of
Oxford, and afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury. The Archbishop probably
found one of his earliest patrons in Dr. Watts, by whom, as the following
letter testifies, he was introduced to the academy. The biographers of
the Archbishop, Dr. Porteus and Dr. Stinton, pass over the Archbishop’s
first studies, as conducted by “one Mr. Jones, who kept an academy at
Gloucester;” but the following letter from Secker, written when about the
age of eighteen to Dr. Watts, gives a very admirable idea of the manner
in which he directed the work of study in the academy:
“GLOUCESTER: _Nov. 18th, 1711_.
“REV. SIR,
“Before I give you an account of the state of our academy,
and those other things you desired me, please to accept of
my hearty thanks for that service you have done me, both in
advising me to prosecute my studies in such an extraordinary
place of education, and in procuring me admittance into it.
I wish my improvements may be answerable to the advantages I
enjoy; but, however that may happen, your kindness has fixed
me in a place where I may be very happy, and spend my time to
good purpose, and where, if I do not, the fault will be all
my own. I am sensible how difficult it is to give a character
of any person or thing, because the most probable guesses we
make very often prove false ones. But, since you are pleased to
desire it, I think myself obliged to give you the best and most
impartial account of matters I can.
“Mr. Jones, then, I take to be a man of real piety, great
learning, and an agreeable temper; one who is very diligent in
instructing all under his care, very well qualified to give
instructions, and whose well-managed familiarity will always
make him respected. He is very strict in keeping good order,
and will effectually preserve his pupils from negligence and
immorality. And accordingly, I believe, there are not many
academies freer in general from those vices than we are. In
particular my bedfellow, Mr. Scott,[7] is one of unfeigned
religion, and a diligent searcher after truth. His genteel
carriage and agreeable disposition gain him the esteem of every
one. Mr. Griffith is more than ordinary serious and grave, and
improves more in everything than one could expect from a man
who seems to be not much under forty; particularly in Greek
and Hebrew he has made a great progress. Mr. Francis and Mr.
Watkins are diligent in study and truly religious. The elder
Mr. Jones, having had a better education than they, will in
all probability make a greater scholar; and his brother is one
of quick parts. Our logic, which we had read once over, is so
contrived as to comprehend all Hereboord, and far the greater
part of Mr. Locke’s Essay, and the Art of Thinking. What Mr.
Jones dictated to us was but short, containing a clear and
brief account of the matter, references to the places where it
was more fully treated of, and remarks on, or explications of
the authors cited, when need required. At our next lecture we
gave an account both of what the author quoted and our tutor
said, who commonly then gave us a larger explication of it,
and so proceeded to the next thing in order. He took care,
as far as possible, that we understood the sense as well as
remembered the words of what we had read, and that we should
not suffer ourselves to be cheated with obscure terms which had
no meaning. Though he be no great admirer of the old logic,
yet he has taken a great deal of pains both in explaining
and correcting Hereboord, and has for the most part made him
intelligible, or shown that he is not so. The two Mr. Joneses,
Mr. Francis, Mr. Watkins, Mr. Sheldon, and two more gentlemen,
are to begin Jewish Antiquities in a short time. I was designed
for one of their number, but rather chose to read logic once
more; both because I was utterly unacquainted with it when I
came to this place, and because the others having all, except
Mr. Francis, been at other academies, will be obliged to make
more haste than those in a lower class, and consequently cannot
have so good or large accounts of anything, nor so much time
to study every head. We shall have gone through our course in
about four years’ time, which I believe that nobody that once
knows Mr. Jones will think too long.
“I began to learn Hebrew as soon as I came hither, and find
myself able now to construe and give some grammatical account
of about twenty verses in the easier parts of the Bible, after
less than an hour’s preparation. We read every day two verses
apiece in the Hebrew Bible, which we turn into Greek (no one
knowing which his verses shall be, though at first it was
otherwise). And this, with logic, is our morning’s work. Mr.
Jones also began about three months ago some critical lectures,
in order to the exposition you advised him to. The principal
things contained in them are about the antiquity of the Hebrew
language, letters, vowels, the incorruption of the Scriptures,
ancient divisions of the Bible, an account of the Talmud,
Masora, and Cabala. We are at present upon the Septuagint, and
shall proceed after that to the Targumim, and other versions,
etc. Every part is managed with abundance of perspicuity, and
seldom any material thing is omitted that other authors have
said upon the point, though very frequently we have useful
additions of things which are not to be found in them. We have
scarce been upon anything yet but Mr. Jones has had those
writers which are most valued on that head, to which he always
refers us. This is what we first set about in the afternoon,
which being finished we read a chapter in the Greek Testament,
and after that mathematics. We have gone through all that is
commonly taught of algebra and proportion, with the first
six books of Euclid, which is all Mr. Jones designs for the
gentlemen I mentioned above, but he intends to read something
more to the class that comes after them.
“This is our daily employment, which in the morning takes up
about two hours, and something more in the afternoon. Only on
Wednesdays, in the morning, we read Dionysius’s Periegesis,
on which we have notes, mostly geographical, but with some
criticisms intermixed; and in the afternoon we have no lecture
at all. So on Saturday, in the afternoon, we have only a
Thesis, which none but they who have done with logic have any
concern in. We are also just beginning to read Isocrates and
Terence, each twice a week. On the latter our tutor will give
us some notes which he received in a college from Perizonius.
“We are obliged to rise at five of the clock every morning,
and to speak Latin always, except when below stairs amongst
the family. The people where we live are very civil, and the
greatest inconvenience we suffer is, that we fill the house
rather too much, being sixteen in number, besides Mr. Jones.
But I suppose the increase of his academy will oblige him to
move next spring. We pass our time very agreeably betwixt
study and conversation with our tutor, who is always ready to
discourse freely of anything that is useful, and allows us
either then or at lecture all imaginable liberty of making
objections against his opinion, and prosecuting them as far as
we can. In this and everything else he shows himself so much a
gentleman, and manifests so great an affection and tenderness
for his pupils as cannot but command respect and love. I almost
forgot to mention our tutor’s library, which is composed for
the most part of foreign books, which seem to be very well
chosen, and are every day of great advantage to us.
“Thus I have endeavoured, sir, to give you an account of all
that I thought material or observable amongst us. As for my own
part, I apply myself with what diligence I can to everything
which is the subject of our lectures, without preferring one
subject before another; because I see nothing we are engaged in
but what is either necessary or extremely useful for one who
would thoroughly understand those things which most concern
him, or be able to explain them well to others. I hope I have
not spent my time, since I came to this place, without some
small improvement, both in human knowledge and that which is
far better, and I earnestly desire the benefit of your prayers
that God would be pleased to fit me better for His service,
both in this world and the next. This, if you please to afford
me, and your advice with relation to study, or whatever else
you think convenient, must needs be extremely useful, as well
as agreeable, and shall be thankfully received by your most
obliged humble servant,
“THOMAS SECKER.”
Secker’s first communion was with a Dissenting church—the Rev. Timothy
Jollie’s—and he preached his first sermon in a Dissenting meeting-house
at Bolsover, in Derbyshire. He retained his feelings of affectionate
indebtedness to his early friend to the close of Watts’ life.
His term of study closed at Stoke Newington, Watts, still little
more than a youth, returned for some time to his father’s house at
Southampton. Worshipping with the congregation there, under the ministry
of the Rev. Nathaniel Robinson, he felt that the psalmody was far
beneath the beauty and dignity of a Christian service. He was requested
to produce something better, and the following Sabbath the service
was concluded with what is now the first hymn of the first book; and
a stirring hymn it is—as an ascription of praise or worship, and as a
confession of faith it is remarkably comprehensive and complete.
Behold the glories of the Lamb
Amidst His Father’s throne;
Prepare new honours for His name,
And songs before unknown.
Let elders worship at His feet,
The church adore around,
With vials full of odours sweet,
And harps of sweeter sound.
Those are the prayers of the saints,
And these the hymns they raise;
Jesus is kind to our complaints,
He loves to hear our praise.
Eternal Father, who shall look
Into Thy secret will?
Who but the Son shall take the book,
And open every seal?
He shall fulfil Thy great decrees,
The Son deserves it well;
Lo! in His hand the sovereign keys
Of heaven, and death, and hell.
Now to the Lamb that once was slain,
Be endless blessings paid;
Salvation, glory, joy, remain
For ever on Thy head.
Thou hast redeemed our souls with blood,
Hast set the prisoners free;
Hast made us kings and priests to God,
And we shall reign with Thee.
The worlds of nature and of grace
Are put beneath Thy power;
Then shorten these delaying days,
And bring the promised hour.
This is the tradition of the origin of the first hymn. It was received
with great alacrity and joy. It was indeed “a new song.” The young poet
was entreated to produce another, and another. The series extended from
Sabbath to Sabbath, until almost a volume was formed, although their
publication was long delayed. This was the interesting result of his
return to Southampton.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER III.
In the Hartopp Family.
Returning from Southampton, Isaac Watts entered the family of Sir John
Hartopp, the first of those two influential friends whose names will
always be associated with his own; it was October 15th, 1696, he being
then twenty-two years of age, when he went to reside with him. Within
the memory of some of the old inhabitants of Stoke Newington there stood
on the north side of Church Street the remains of a red brick house,
with large casement windows; once they were all handsomely painted,
and bore the arms of Fleetwood, Hartopp, and Cook. But no one of these
later generations saw that old mansion in all its original greatness.
In later years it came to be divided into houses, and parts of it
drifted down from the abode of statesmen to the boarding-school for
young ladies. Still it retained even to its close, traditionary relics
and reminiscences of the old days of its pride and importance. On the
ceilings of its principal rooms were the remains of the arms of the
Lord General Fleetwood; and in the upper part there was a little door
concealed by hangings, through which the persecuted Nonconformist passed
into a place of safety and concealment, in the days of Charles II. The
old house was built towards the close of the reign of Elizabeth, so
that even at the period when it comes before our readers it was ancient.
It was purchased by Charles Fleetwood, Lord General of the army of the
Commonwealth, and under Cromwell one of the Council of State. It is quite
unnecessary here to dwell upon his transient importance and power; he was
one of the last of those remarkable men in that singular interregnum of
our history, and the very last after the resignation of Richard Cromwell
who held some of the shadows of the departed substance of greatness. He
spent the remainder of his days in the mansion of Stoke Newington before
his final departure for Bunhill Fields. To this place, in time succeeded
Sir John Hartopp, by his wife Elizabeth Fleetwood, a grand-daughter of
the General; and to this old red brick building, with its secret chambers
and armorial casements and ceilings, Isaac Watts came as a tutor in the
family.
Sir John Hartopp was not a mere city knight, and indeed city knighthoods
meant much more in those days than now. He was of an old Leicestershire
family of Dalby Parva, in the register books of which place the name
is written Hartrupte. The family was able to trace a very interesting
history back to the time of Richard II.; the baronetcy dated from the
time of James I., and the family received considerable honours from
Charles I., and, what is more to the purpose of the present memoir,
it was in his house that Richard Baxter planned, if he did not partly
write, “The Saint’s Everlasting Rest.” Sir John Hartopp, the friend of
Watts, was born at the commencement of the Civil Wars. In his early
youth the whole of his neighbourhood was alive with marchings and
counter-marchings. Buckminster was the place of the family residence,
and the steeple of the parish church was used as a watch-tower for
reconnoitring. The house was alive and perpetually on the guard against
the incursions of the Cavaliers. Sir Edward Hartopp, the first baronet,
died at the commencement of the Protectorate of Cromwell, and was buried
at Buckminster; his son, the father of Sir John, died a short time
previous to the Restoration, and about this time we find the family
removed to London and settled at Stoke Newington. Sir John became an
eminent Nonconformist; as he cast in his lot among the Independents,
he was a member of the Church of Dr. Owen, with whom he maintained a
very close and intimate friendship; and there is in the library of the
New College, in St. John’s Wood, a volume of the sermons of Owen, very
carefully written down after hearing them, copied, probably for use in
the family, in Sir John’s handwriting. Many of Dr. Owen’s manuscripts
came into his possession upon his decease, and were contributed by him to
the complete collection of the Doctor’s sermons.
Sir John Hartopp was an ardent and active patriot. He was three times
chosen representative for his native county of Leicestershire. In 1671 he
was high sheriff, and he afterwards distinguished himself by his earnest
advocacy of the Bill of Exclusion to bar the Duke of York’s succession
to the throne. He became the subject of much persecution, and paid in
fines apparently the larger portion of £7,000. He died in 1722, when the
affairs of the nation had long, through the active exertions of such
men as he was, settled themselves into comparative tranquillity and
prosperity. Watts preached in his memory his sermon “On the Happiness
of Separate Spirits made Perfect,” and he dwells at some length upon
certain personal characteristics, from which we gather that Sir John
was an accomplished man, with a taste for universal learning, and the
pursuit of knowledge in various forms—mathematics in his younger days,
and astronomy in his old age; keeping alive his early knowledge of Greek
for an intelligent acquaintance with the New Testament, and so late in
life as at the age of fifty entering upon the study of Hebrew. His house
became the refuge of the oppressed, while by some happy disposition
of Providence he himself was saved from those more severe and painful
persecutions to which so many were not only exposed but subjected. His
ardent attachment to Dr. Owen assures us of the temper and character of
his religious convictions, and altogether he shines out before us as one
of those beautiful and luminous examples and illustrations of the men to
whom our country owes so much. So far as we can gather from what is left
on record of him, he appears to have been a true Christian gentleman,
a fine harmonious combination of characteristics blending in him the
severity of high principle with a gentle and tenderly affectionate nature.
Sir John Hartopp, as we have seen, became by marriage connected with
the family of Cromwell; he married Elizabeth, one of the daughters of
the Lord General Fleetwood, and his sister married a son of the old
general—thus there was a double connection. When Fleetwood’s house
was first built in the village of Stoke Newington it must have been
a stately mansion. In his day it was probably divided, and had all
the characteristics of the old mansions of the earlier part of the
seventeenth century. Hither the General retired after the Restoration,
and here, singularly enough, he was permitted to pass his days in
tranquil obscurity. He died while Watts was studying at the adjoining
academy. Watts no doubt knew the old Ironside, for he was on terms of
close intimacy with his son, Smith Fleetwood. Such were some of the
collateral connections of the Hartopp family. And there was another. Sir
Nathaniel Gould, to whom Watts inscribes a poem, who married Frances,
the daughter of Sir John and Lady Hartopp. Such was the circle in which
it appears he moved to and fro with a pleasant and indulged affability.
All of these people were members of the church over which Dr. Owen had
presided, and of which Watts was hereafter, and shortly, to be minister.
It was no doubt owing to the intimacy he sustained with all these
eminent persons, that he by-and-bye received the invitation to become
their pastor, in which relation he preached a funeral sermon, as we have
seen, for Sir John, so also for Lady Hartopp, and Lady Gould, of whom he
remarks, “I would copy a line from that most beautiful elegy of David,
and apply it here with more justice than the Psalmist could to Saul and
Jonathan, ‘Lovely and pleasant were they in their lives, and in their
death they were not divided,’ silent were they and retired from the
world, and unknown except to their intimate friends; humble they were
and averse to public show and noise, nor will I disturb their graves by
making them the subject of public praise.”
It was a house full of daughters and two sons. Two had already gone
to the family vault, and one—born the year of Watts’ entrance into
the family—was soon to follow. But there were nine daughters in the
household; of these two had died before the days of Watts’ residence,
seven survived; these were Helen, and Mary, and Martha, and Elizabeth,
and a second Anne, and Bridget, and Dorothy, and Frances. Was Watts their
tutor? It was a dangerous neighbourhood for a young man, amidst all those
bright glances and radiant young faces in the Puritan household; perhaps
the danger had been greater had there been fewer of them. Fancy indulges
herself in picturing the life of the young student there. As we have
seen, Frances married Sir Nathaniel Gould, and died in 1711, six days
after her mother, Lady Hartopp. The other six daughters all lived and
died unmarried in the family home. How solitary, one thinks, the last of
that bright circle must have felt, dying there in 1764, sixty-two years
after Watts first took up his abode among them.
Isaac Watts entered the family as the tutor of the future baronet, and
many of those pieces which he afterwards gave to the world were the
productions of this time, many of his “Miscellaneous Thoughts,” the
chief portions of his “Logic,” and probably much of his “Improvement
of the Mind.” We have said already he furnishes, like John Calvin and
some others, an instance of a singular prematurity of intelligence, not
however interfering, as is so frequently the case, with future eminence,
usefulness, and advancement.
Here, then, was for some time Watts’ home. He studied hard and
diligently, drawing forth and putting into shape the results of previous
years of scholarship. Behind the house there were extensive gardens and
remarkably fine trees, and especially a noble cedar, said to have been
planted by General Fleetwood, concerning which Robinson tells a singular
story: That long years ago a scythe had been hung up in the fork of the
tree, and was left there unnoticed and untouched until years after it
was discovered, the body of the tree having completely overgrown it and
enclosed the blade so fast that it could not be removed. “And,” says
Robinson, “it is at this day to be seen, the point of the blade on the
one side, and the end on the other.”[8]
The young man to whom Watts was tutor died at the age of thirty-five.
He had succeeded his father in the baronetcy. Watts had given to him a
noble training. Upon the publication of his “Logic” it was dedicated
to him, and the writer reminds him that it had been prepared for him
to assist his early studies. Some of the most animating verses in the
“Lyrics” are addressed to him, and many other scholastic pieces also
were prepared for his pupil while residing at Stoke Newington. Amidst
the shades of its trees were written many of those essays so pleasing
to read now, his “Miscellaneous Thoughts” and “Juvenile Relics.” Here
the young man was indeed training himself as well as teaching his pupil,
when we remember that many, if not most, of his hymns had already been
written at Southampton, and that his “Institutes of Logic” and his whole
method of thought were matured and written here; truly he appears to
have been an industrious athlete. Neither egotism nor egoism seems to
shadow his studies by any morbid self-consciousness, or any wondering
dreams as to what his future destiny might be. He appears to have been
one to whom faith and duty were sufficient. He had found his Saviour, and
he believed; he had his work to do, and he wrought at it like a living
conscience. By-and-by he left the old house which had yet a singular
history. His pupil was very wealthy, and he appears to have given during
his life, and to have left upon his death a maintenance, with the family
mansion, to his six maiden sisters. There they lived, and there they
died; and it is remarkable, as has been already said, that one of them
died in 1764, aged eighty-one, ninety years, as the church register
shows, after the death of a young sister in 1674, the year in which Watts
was born; this, we may be sure, was throughout his life one of the houses
he would frequently revisit, and renew his impressions of youthful days
amidst its elm and cedar shades. Gradually all the members of the family
dropped away, each in turn gathered one by one, till one and all were
re-united in the vaults of Stoke Newington Church. But we are stepping on
too fast for our life of Watts, whose more obvious and active career was
all before him yet.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER IV.
Pastor of a London Church.
Watts preached his first sermon on his birthday, July 17th, 1698; he was
then twenty-four years of age. He probably mingled with his duties as
tutor those of chaplain to the excellent family in which he resided. The
ice once broken, he began to preach constantly. Sir John Hartopp and his
family were members of the church of Dr. Chauncy, in Mark Lane; and it
was, no doubt, greatly in consequence of this friendship that Watts was
invited to become the assistant of the doctor.
It is curious to compare the dearth of chapels and preachers in the
City in the present day with the many remarkable for their importance
at the time when Watts became a pastor. Still a few places stand out,
dating from that time; but, for the most part, all have gone, leaving
only the memories of certain men of remarkable attainments, wit, and
eloquence behind them. To the distinguished circle of ministers, and to
the church which had known, before him, men so eminent, Watts, all but
unknown, brought a name which was to give to them a crowning reputation.
His qualities as a preacher all accounts represent as rather solid
than shining. His sermons were beautiful in their clear harmonious
symmetry of powers, rather than startling. Surely never a man who
poured into his verse so much rich brilliancy of expression—sometimes,
it must be admitted, with questionable rhetorical afflatus and pomp of
utterance—preserved through all that we know of his public teaching so
quiet and equable a flow of language and ideas, so instructive, while
so entirely removed from all that can unduly agitate the spirit. In
Jeremy Taylor we wonder that the poet seems to abandon every ambitious
attempt when he writes verse, while his sermons possess a gorgeous and
overwhelming splendour of diction and imagery. In Watts, on the other
hand, it is equally surprising that so sprightly and splendid a fancy,
so rich a command over sacred verses and images, should express itself
with such calmness and modesty in words intended for the pulpit; but this
was probably of a piece with his whole character. His hymns are often
raptures and ecstasies, but he reserved these for his most private life,
for his own heart, for his closet and study. There was nothing in his
character bustling, prominent, or obtrusive. In an evening conversation
he would shrink as far as possible from taking any prominent part, and
would never in ordinary company lead it. In the home circle, among close
and well-known friends, he shed around himself a genial atmosphere; but
he was too essentially a student and a book-man to be in any high sense
a popular preacher. Eminent and eminently honoured, his greatness was
not of that order which easily finds itself at home in multitudes. His
person was not striking, although we can conceive it to have been very
impressive; and his mode of setting forth all things upon which he wrote
or spoke was so purely thoughtful, demanded so intimate a sympathy with
pensive and meditative moods, and required so close an acquaintance
with high and abstract thoughts, that it is not to be wondered at that
his fame as a preacher and scholar was rather reserved for the intimate
circle than for more extended, not to say vulgar, spheres.
The City of London at present conveys no idea of what it was then; and
what it was very materially affects our estimate of the position of
Watts as one of its Nonconformist ministers. The City of London was the
chief bulwark of English freedom. Happily all the needs and occasions
for what it was in those days have long since passed, and England
itself has greatly become what London was then. The City of that date
calls up the idea of some such spots as the great mediæval cities, the
burgher strongholds of the middle ages. Not many years before it had
been the refuge of the five members whom Charles I. sought to attach
for high treason. It had been committed to the cause of Puritanism,
Protestantism, and William; some of its chief men had become martyrs to
the cause of civil and religious liberty. The governments of Charles
II. and James II. scarcely permitted to active minds and public men a
middle way. Nonconformity was imposed by the exactions of tyranny upon
spiritually minded men. Hence, leaving the fanes and structures then
very pleasantly standing in many a retired close, surrounded by pleasant
trees, sequestered places in the midst of the graves of many generations,
such persons were compelled to assemble for worship where they best
could, in some old guild hall or place of trade, some loft over offices
and warehouses.[9] Most of the congregations we now should consider
small. No company composed of faithful souls meeting for Divine service
beneath the blessing of Him who said, “Where two or three are gathered
together in My name, there am I in the midst of them,”[10] can be held
contemptible; but their congregations were largely composed of persons
who had figured prominently in the great actions of the immediately
preceding years, officers and soldiers of that great army which had
overawed the world by their fame, persons to whom Nonconformity was
no mere negation, but the profession of all that was dearest to human
freedom or to human hopes, men of substance and position, the most
eminent merchants, to whose sense religious and civil liberty were so
closely related that it was impossible to do injustice to the one without
aiming at the heart of the other, and who knew that to injure either was
to hurt the lesser, but still eminent interests of trade and commerce,
and industry, and national prosperity. Nonconformity in the City of
London has grown in representative wealth and importance; but it may be
safely affirmed that it could not show such congregations of noble men as
those which thronged its contemptible meeting-houses in Watts’ day.
Referring back to those times, entering one of the chapels during the
time of service, we should, perhaps, be astonished and chilled by the
want of animation and ardour, if these are to be tested by the apparent
excitement. Indeed, to our taste, the service must have appeared very
formal and frigid; not merely in the fact that no instrumental music of
any kind would have been tolerated, no response or chant, but, in many
congregations, there was no singing at all. To the stricter Puritan
sensibility this would have been merely intolerable. We have instances of
ministers who were made uncomfortable in their churches, and compelled
to relinquish them, because they desired to introduce some religious
melody; in other instances it was the minister who disapproved such
extravagant piety in his people. The Society of Friends was not alone in
its renunciation of all the adornments and flights of religious song.
Even where singing was indulged, it was Patrick’s or the Scotch version,
or some such literal translation of the words of Scripture. Paraphrases
and more expanded religious sentiments had never been heard of, and were
regarded, when first introduced, as seditious and dangerous innovations,
disturbing the purity of so reasonable a service, which derived all its
life and interest from its most perfect conformity to a spiritual order;
the simple voice of the minister in prayer, and in preaching, meandering
in many instances through roads of uncommon length. We have instances
on record of a prayer itself taking the entire length of that time we
now ordinarily allot to a public service. This state of things in the
congregation must have greatly influenced the religious life of the times
where it existed at all. It became cold, remote, and abstract; not that
there were wanting instances, both of ministers and congregations, who
maintained, in the midst of so much lifelessness, a high spiritual state
and intercourse.
The Nonconformists throughout the country were, in the latter part of
the seventeenth century, for the most part men disposed to social quiet.
They had now recovered in some measure a state of religious tranquillity,
and they were rather interested quietly to preserve what they possessed,
than to attempt any occupation of new ground, either in principle or
in practice. They made few efforts to correct the vices of men, or to
convert them from their life of sin. The round of Nonconformist duty and
piety was a quiet, staid, and respectable service; nothing, we suppose,
could be more unlike the satires so often pronounced upon it. Most of
its ministers were men of considerable scholarly attainments, their minds
fed by the rich and strengthening food to be found in some of the oldest
fathers and the earliest reformers; at the same time they were accustomed
to abstractions and questions, which at once enlarged and strengthened
the understanding. They had no acquaintance with our large varieties of
nature and language; but they were keen observers of _human_ nature, and
they submitted their knowledge to the test and use of daily life. As to
their people, in many instances, no doubt, they were humble, perhaps even
of obscure rank, but this was not always the case. Nonconformity in those
times included others than those we should even call the respectable
middle classes; it represented an order of political opinion quite as
much as religious doctrine and practice, not only as we have seen in
London, but in many districts of the country. Some of the highest and
oldest families formed the staff and stay of congregations. It was a
respectable but cold piety, in many instances with assured tendencies
towards Socinianism and Unitarianism. The Nonconformity into which Watts
came, and with which during the whole of his life he mingled, is quite
removed from that Nonconformity of Methodism and Revivalism which became
the great religious movement of the last century. It was a Nonconformity
educated, solid, rooted in certain principles and assurances, inclining
too exclusively to a life of thought; the religion of intelligent
multitudes who could not conform, especially to what the Church of
England was, in that coarse and intolerant time, when her nets gathered
fish of every sort, among them some chiefly remarkable for their rapacity
and impurity.
It was over one of these old City churches, probably the most famous
of them, that the youthful Isaac Watts was called to preside as the
pastor. The congregation or church contained a number of eminent persons;
its pastors had been eminent men; here a few years before ministered
Joseph Caryl. From the pulpit of this place probably were poured forth
those prelections on the Book of Job, assuredly in more than one sense a
monument to the memory of Patience! Vast and mammoth-like, a megatherium
of books, the most huge commentary ever written, but a structure of
learning, with eloquence and evangelical truth, if large in bulk almost
equal in worth. Over this church, more recently, had presided a greater
man in the person of the mighty John Owen, the friend of Cromwell, and,
during the Protectorate, Vice-Chancellor of Oxford. The place of meeting
was in Mark Lane, and in the congregation there were present some whose
character and lives might a little daunt any preacher, much more a very
youthful one. There were many in that congregation able to carry the
memory back through the days of England’s fiery trials, through the years
of war and of persecution, and the times when the City was alive in its
own defence. They had heard the cry, “To your tents, O Israel!” when,
in an ill-omened hour, Charles I. came to the City; they had seen the
Thames alive with barge and boat as the members were escorted back to
Westminster; some had served in the camp with the Ironsides, and some
had seen Sir Harry Vane hailed to the scaffold; there were officers of
the old Commonwealth army, members of the old Long Parliament, strong
merchants and magistrates who had stood up for the liberties of the City
and of England; there, in that congregation, scattered over the place
were clustering remnants of the immediate members and descendants of
Cromwell’s family, none more remarkable than that most singular woman,
Mrs. Bendish, Bridget Ireton, the grand-daughter of Cromwell, of whom
all contemporaries spoke as hearing just the same relation to her
grandfather in character that Elizabeth bore to Henry VIII.—a woman with
a most remarkable life; there was Charles Fleetwood, her mother’s second
husband; there was Charles Desborough, the brother-in-law to Oliver
Cromwell; there was that fine old English gentleman Sir John Hartopp, and
Lady Hartopp, who was a daughter of Charles Fleetwood, and thus allied
to Mrs. Bendish; there was Lady Vere Wilkinson, and Lady Haversham, a
daughter of the Earl of Anglesey, and the wife of John Thompson Earl of
Haversham; and there, last as we mention them, but far from least in
importance in the life of Watts, Sir Thomas and Lady Abney.
As we have said already, the Independent churches of the City were in
that day greatly composed of such characters as these. Look into any one,
and you will see such persons of rank and influence, although probably
a kind of Cromwell clannishness gave distinctness and importance to
the little church in Mark Lane; there was a respectability and dignity
about those churches in general which we should in these days but little
appreciate. They were snug little spiritual corporations, held together
by several bonds which have ceased to be distinctive now; a strong faith
in certain great first principles in religion; a strong faith also in
certain political principles, quite essential to the freedom of their
faith and their religious life and its usages. Nor can we conceal from
ourselves that there was also a conservative spirit of an aristocratic
flavour; there was nothing in the communion which savoured of our modern
more heterogeneous assemblies: the members were usually persons of strong
character, considerable culture, and thought. Their idea of liberty was
no more cut out after the modern type than was their theology; indeed
both were ideal. If the Harringtons and Sidneys dreamed their republics,
not upon the wild democratic inclusiveness of complete suffrage, the
proclamation of the sanctity of ignorance, and the wisdom of vice, but
upon the models of classical times,—these for the most part idealized the
republic of the saints, and formed their conceptions of church life and
political freedom upon the unattainable standard of the college of the
apostles, and the traditions of the community of the saints. Yet it is
very easy to perceive how, ensconcing themselves in religious life as in
a comfortable arm-chair, while perfectly faithful themselves, they became
the parents of that large declension of such churches to Arianism and the
cognate Socinian ideas which in the later periods of his life vexed the
spirit of Watts, and led his thoughtful philosophic nature into an arena
of mild, but not the less earnest conflict.
Watts, accepting the charge of the church, was ordained over it March
8th, 1702, the day on which King William died. The young minister’s
immediate predecessor was Dr. Isaac Chauncy, who, like most of his
coadjutors in the ministry of that period, was a gentleman of good and
ancient family; originally coming over with the Conqueror, settled
at Yardley, Berkshire, in the time of Elizabeth, and by the drift of
circumstances conducted to considerable eminence among the Puritans and
Nonconformists. The father of Isaac Chauncy had been professor of Greek
in the University of Cambridge, and vicar of Ware, in Hertfordshire.
He took up his testimony for Nonconformity when the “Book of Sports”
was published, commanding him to desist from preaching on the Sabbath
afternoon, that the people of his parish might indulge themselves in
profane amusements; he fell beneath the vengeance of Archbishop Laud,
and was twice cited before the Court of High Commission; he made a
recantation, which he afterwards so regretted and bewailed that he threw
up everything and withdrew to New England. His son Isaac held the living
of Woodborough, in Wiltshire, from whence he was ejected, and after
ministering a short time in Andover came to London, intending to practise
as a physician, when the church in Mark Lane called him to become its
minister; but he was not popular as a preacher, however eminent in other
qualifications.
The congregation had exhibited signs of decline when Watts was called
in, probably as one on whom the eyes of leading Nonconformists were
fixed, especially as the friend of Sir John Hartopp. Although so young,
his knowledge of mathematics, of the classics, of Church history, of
theological science, especially his piety, must have made him already
well known in Nonconformist circles. This knowledge extended back to the
early part of 1698, so that for nearly two years he must have been the
preacher, and it may be presumed very considerably the pastor of the
church before, upon the resignation of Dr. Chauncy, he succeeded him in
his office: the members of this distinguished church must have invited
him with their eyes completely open to all that he was as a preacher
and as a man. But he gave no indications of ability to enforce by his
bodily powers the manifestations of his genius—his health appeared to be
constantly failing. For some months before his ordination he had been
laid aside from preaching, and in search of health had, by the advice
of physicians, visited Bath. And then again we find him for some time
resting at home at his father’s house, now, no doubt, a comfortable
residence, a flourishing school, and released from all the terrors which
had shadowed it in his infancy. And from thence again by physicians we
find him sent to Tunbridge Wells, so that he says, “I was detained from
study and preaching five months by my weakness, except one very short
discourse at Southampton in extreme necessity.” He was of a slight and
most fragile frame throughout his life. His works constitute an amazing
monument of industry. But during the years he had been tutor in Sir John
Hartopp’s family he must have performed these duties in a spirit of
remarkable conscientiousness, for he prepared some of the works which
afterwards delighted and instructed the world, as the necessary means of
the course he was pursuing in the education of the young man, his pupil.
Very remarkably this is the case with his “System of Logic,” which when
it was published many years after was adopted and continued to be until
recently the text-book for the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge; this
appears also to have been the case with his “Scheme of Ontology.” He
refers to many of his writings published at a much later period of his
life, as for the most part the productions of these his earlier years. We
shall have occasion to speak of these again; at present it is sufficient
to refer to this persistency of mental labour and assiduous industry as
not only the sufficient cause for the illness which suspended him from
labour, but the foundation of future years of painful infirmity which
accompanied him through life.
There must have been much about him not only to command respect
but to enchain affection. Long hesitating as to whether he should
accept the proffered pastorate, he had not long entered upon the real
responsibilities of his office before he was again seized with a painful
and alarming illness; almost immediately he was compelled again, in
July, 1702, to renew his rest in Southampton, and then returning to
London he mentions, in the memoranda we have already quoted, that he was
“seized with violent gaundise and colic three weeks after my return to
London, and had a very slow recovery, eight or nine weeks’ illness. From
September 8th, or thereabouts, to November 27th or 28th. This year, viz.,
1702, by slow degrees removed from Newington to Thomas Hollis’s, in the
Minories.”
During a period of about six years Watts appears to have resided in the
family of Sir John Hartopp; in the paragraph above quoted he refers to
his removal to the house of Mr. Hollis, in the Minories. The names of
the places associated with the ministrations or the residence of Watts
and his fellow ministers in the City, sound to our ears now strange and
singularly unromantic and uninteresting; but what they are now we must
not for a moment suppose they resembled then. Even the Minories—now
the last place in which one could wish to reside—lay, at that time,
open and fresh towards the pleasant fields of the east end of London, a
rather distinguished neighbourhood beneath the shadows of the Tower, and
pleasantly refreshed by the breath from the waters of the then really
silvery Thames, whose banks were alive with the songs of watermen. The
Minories or Minoresses—so called from the nuns of the Order of St.
Clair—had once been the region of noble residences; here had been the
residence of Sir Philip Sidney, here his body lay in state. The spot was,
and is, full of interesting memories. The family of the Hollis’s was
from Sheffield, in Yorkshire, and having founded churches in Doncaster
and Rotherham, removing to London, the father of Watts’ friend became
one of the most helpful representatives of Nonconformity in the City,
immediately connected with the church assembling in Pinners’ Hall,
beneath the pastorate of Dr. Jeremiah Hunt. To this place, in consequence
of the narrow and dilapidated state of the building in Mark Lane, Watts
and his people were compelled to remove in the year 1704. Pinners’
Hall had for years been used by Nonconformists, and in their turns
Baxter, Owen, Bates, Manton, and Howe had all preached in it to crowded
congregations, hence the reason, most likely, of the friendship of the
minister and Mr. Hollis.
We have few particulars of Watts in his pastoral work. From the first
days of his pastorate his health was a frequent source of interruption to
his activity. The hymns and poems frequently expressing the experience
of pain, weakness, and weariness are no fancies; they express a very
devout spirit of resignation, with regret, as he expresses it, that
“many other souls are favoured with a more easy habitation, and he hoped
with a better partner, accommodated with engines which have more health
and vigour;” but he instantly recovers his spirits to exclaim, “Shall
I repine then, while I survey whole nations and millions and millions
of mankind that have not a thousand’s part of my blessings?” He was
laid aside by sickness for five months soon after he became assistant
to Dr. Chauncy, 1698; he was the subject of another illness soon after
his settlement in the pastoral charge in 1701; a violent fever seized
him in 1712, his constitution was shattered by it, his nerves weakened
and unstrung, and he prevented from returning to his public work until
October, 1716; we find from his own record that he was confined by
illness in 1729; and many other occasions might be discovered of these
sharp bodily afflictions. Life around him was usually beautiful and
serene; he seems to have possessed a very large revenue of love, but
he unquestionably possessed this “thorn in the flesh,” nor can we doubt
that such experiences to such a faith as his, gave personal meaning to
his hymns. He sung very often as one stretched on a rack, and not the
least of his pains must have been that his incessantly active nature, his
constant design and desire to carry out some purpose or to pursue some
task found itself checked and arrested. Dr. Gibbons quotes a paragraph
from a very beautiful letter to a friend, a minister, in affliction,
through which there runs a vein of true spiritual friendship, and a
pathos which his own experience of trials would very naturally inspire:
“It is my hearty desire for you that your faith may ride out the storms
of temptation, and the anchor of your hope may hold, being fixed within
the veil. There sits Jesus our Forerunner, who sailed over this rough sea
before us, and has given us a chart, even His Word, where the shelves and
rocks, the fierce currents and dangers are well described, and He is our
Pilot, and will conduct us to the shores of happiness. I am persuaded
that in the future state we shall take a sweet review of those scenes
of Providence which have been involved in the thickest darkness, and
trace those footsteps of God when He walked with us through the deepest
waters. This will be a surprising delight, to survey the manifold harmony
of clashing dispensations, and to have those perplexing riddles laid
open to the eyes of our souls, and read the full meaning of them in set
characters of wisdom and grace.”
It is not extraordinary, therefore, that even so early as 1703 the church
relieved Watts by choosing a co-pastor, Mr. Samuel Price, a native of
Wales, but a student from Attercliff, in Yorkshire. As it was necessary
to have a co-pastor, he was chosen upon the express desire and earnest
recommendation of Watts; but many years appear to have passed between
the choice of the church and his ordination as joint pastor, for Watts’
autobiographic memoranda says: “June, 1703, Mr. Samuel Price was chosen
by the church to assist me;” but he was not ordained to the office of
co-pastor until 1713. This relationship continued until it was dissolved
by death. They were colleagues considerably upwards of forty years, and
Price succeeded his beloved and amiable friend, whom he survived about
seven years; he died in 1756, having been connected with the church
fifty-three years. Watts mentions him in his will as his faithful friend
and companion in the ministry, and leaves some little legacy, “as only
a small testimony of his great affection for him, on account of his
services of love during the many harmonious years of their fellowship
in the work of the Gospel.” Watts several times, in the course of the
prefaces and dedications to his published works, refers affectionately
to his colleague; and his colleague when he died expressed a wish that
he might be buried as near as possible to his honoured friend. It may be
incidentally mentioned that he was uncle to the celebrated Dr. Richard
Price.
Although his companion in the ministry neither as a preacher nor man of
letters approached the eminence of Watts, it would seem that he was in
every way acceptable as a preacher and a pastor, “judicious, and useful,
and eminent in his gift of prayer,” says Gibbons. Certainly, the old
place in Mark Lane became too small, for, after a temporary sojourn in
Pinners’ Hall, in 1708 the congregation removed from Mark Lane[11] to
Duke Street, St. Mary Axe.
It had been the site of one of the most celebrated metropolitan
ecclesiastical establishments previous to the Reformation, the Priory
of the Holy Trinity, the founder of which was Matilda, Queen of Henry
I.; it became a huge establishment and enormously wealthy, the richest
convent in England, some have said; rich in lands and ornaments, and
incomparably surpassing all the other priories in the same county. The
prior was always an alderman of London, although, if he happened to be
exceedingly pious, he appointed a substitute to enact temporal matters;
and on solemn days this clerical alderman rode through the city with the
other aldermen, but arrayed in his monastic habit. On the dissolution of
the monasteries this became one of the earliest spoils, and it was given
by Henry VIII. to Sir Thomas Audley, the Speaker of the House of Commons,
and afterwards Lord Chancellor. On the site of the old priory he erected
a splendid mansion, in which he resided until his death in 1544. His
daughter and sole heiress, Margaret, married Thomas, Duke of Norfolk, so
the estate descended to the Howard family, and became the Duke’s place;
he lost his head; passing to his eldest son, he sold it in 1592 to the
mayor, corporation, and citizens of London. This is a singular piece
of history, which Wilson, in his “History of Dissenting Churches,” has
gathered from Strype, Maitland, and Pennant.
In the time of Watts the neighbourhood had scarcely fallen from its
high estate. Time had been since the period of the Reformation when Sir
Francis Walsingham, Sir Thomas Wyatt, and the Earl of Northumberland had
their houses here; and Bury Street derived its name from the abbots of
Bury, who also had a residence on this spot. Since the time of Cromwell,
however, the region had become a kind of _Juden Strasse_. The Jews, who
now form its principal inhabitants, then first settled there. The spot
on which the chapel was built was part of a garden, although removed from
public observation, a necessity laid upon the Nonconformists of that
time, who were compelled to retreat into obscure recesses to escape the
vigilance of prowling informers. The building has now entirely passed
away, but we very well remember it, one of the old square substantial
buildings with its galleries, exactly an ideal conventicle of those
times, one of those in which the Nonconformists seemed to teach that
there was no beauty in architecture which they particularly desired.
The rich furniture and attainments of the ministers’ minds contrasting
singularly with the plain and altogether unornamented and even barn-like
simplicity of the scene of their ministrations: almost the only buildings
which now retain the entirely unornamented architecture of the Puritan
times are those of the members of the Society of Friends. Such was the
building opened in Bury Street, October 3rd, 1708; it is also interesting
to notice that it was erected at the costly sum of £650! In the present
year of the publication of this volume a building has been erected in
the City of London for the same order of communicants as those in Bury
Street, at a cost of £55,000. The two sums are very suggestive of a
comparison and contrast between the Nonconformists of the time of Watts
and of to-day.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER V.
First Publication as a Sacred Poet.
The fact that the first work published by Watts was the “Sacred Lyrics”
may justify this early estimate of his character as a sacred poet. It
is probable, nay it is certain, that the time bestowed by Watts upon
poetry was very slight and insignificant compared with that which he
devoted to the graver pursuits of life, and the various studies connected
with philosophy, theology, preaching, and education. He first, however,
appeared in print as the author of the “Horæ Lyricæ,” the Lyrical
Poems: and Dr. Johnson judges that they entitled him to an honourable
place amongst our English poets. Watts himself thought very modestly
of his claims in this way, and speaks concerning his own compositions
in the humblest language. “I make no pretences,” he says, “to the name
of a poet, or a polite writer in an age wherein so many superior souls
shine in their works through the nation.” In many of his hymns he
unquestionably deserves the highest honour: but for the most part it
is not in the lyrics we are to seek, as we certainly shall not find,
the noblest illustrations of his poetical genius; nor, perhaps, is it
probable that we should turn to them with much interest or expectation
but that they are the production of Dr. Watts, and that he was the
author of those hymns so dear to the Church of Christ, and the “Divine
and Moral Songs for Children.” In all our judgments and criticisms upon
Watts as a poet, two things must be borne in mind: first, as we have seen
above, that he not only disclaimed the character himself, but proved his
sincerity by regarding it only as the recreation of grave and serious
studies, and the very natural occupation of a man of fine taste and
largely cultivated sensibility; and next, we must remember, that the
poetry of the age in which he lived was artificial, formed for the most
part upon classical models, whose rules were very greatly inapplicable to
English verse. The sweetest and most perfect poet in any near approach to
those times was Oliver Goldsmith, and he was the writer least imbued with
classical lore, and the one who left all classical rules and allusions
furthest behind him, content to express himself in simple and pleasing
English. Johnson was a poet, and Joseph Addison, but although so much
more ambitious and devoted to the pursuit, they neither of them have
produced sentiments or expressions which charm us more than those we find
in the productions of Watts. Thomas Gray was a poet, but only in two or
three instances did the simplicity and purity of the English language,
and the simple metre, succeed in winning him from the trammels of
classical formularies. Indeed there was something ludicrous in the poetry
of the time; and the great genius of Pope, which really was equal to
anything in verse, seemed almost to struggle in vain against the pedantic
rules he imposed upon himself. It was the age of fantastic ornament and
of formal symmetry, of artificial gardening, of trimmed yews, when even
Nature herself in her trees, hedgerows, and flower-beds was made to look
ridiculous. A sort of tulip-mania, a false admiration in colour and in
form, took possession not merely of the speculators in the market, but
of the devotees of the fine arts. Years passed on before English poetry
liberated itself from these false trammels, and the first great English
writer who subsequently gave freedom and freshness, a combination of
sublimity and simplicity to English verse, was William Cowper.
We must separate and distinguish between Watts as a poet, the author
of the “Lyrics,” and Watts as a hymnologist, and the author of those
pieces which, as they have been, so we trust they will continue to be,
a precious legacy of the Church, and the expression of its deepest,
highest, and tenderest emotions. In a letter to the “Gentleman’s
Magazine,” when his judgment was appealed to for a poetical decision, he
said, “Though I have sported with rhyme as an amusement in younger life,
and published some religious composures to assist the worship of God, yet
I never set myself up among the numerous competitors for a poet of the
age, much less have I presumed to become their judge.” There is a writer
of one or two immortal hymns in our language who sometimes suggests a
comparison with Dr. Watts. Watts was capable of poetry. He was not only
a poet in his hymns, but a poetic nature often broke through the turgid
pindarics he adopted as the vehicle of his expressions. But Ken was no
poet at all, and yet, unlike Watts, who disclaimed the character, this
was Ken’s one vanity. A writer in the “Quarterly Review,” which may be
accepted here as an unexceptionable umpire, says, “If there was any
vanity in the good man’s heart, it would seem to have been on the subject
of his poetical skill. He expresses, indeed, a belief that his verses are
open to the assaults of criticism, but he must have thought something
of them, for he left them for publication, and they fill four thick
volumes. The contrast is strange between the clear, free, harmonious
flow of his prose, and the barbarous, cramped, pedantic language, the
harsh dissonance, the extravagant conceits, which disfigure the great
mass of his verses. Mr. Anderson has tried the ingenious experiment
of reducing some passages from metre to prose, and no doubt they gain
considerably! But there is no getting over the fact that these four
volumes are altogether a mistake.”[12] Such a criticism as this can never
be pronounced on Watts, but it is yet true that some of the vices of Ken
disfigure the pages of the “Horæ Lyricæ,” and they are traceable to the
same cause—the forsaking simplicity and nature, and following artificial
models and straining after affected diction.
He was essentially a hymn writer, and among the lyrics the most beautiful
and effective pieces are those which either are hymns or approach nearest
to that order of composition. The modern reader will be impatient of
the frequent apostrophe, and, although “personification, that is, the
transformation of the qualities of the mind, and abstract ideas, and
general notions into living embodiments,” has ever been regarded as one
of the noblest exercises and proofs of the poetic faculty, we suppose few
will be disposed to regard Watts’ excursions in this way with favour. He
possessed this power in an eminent degree: instantaneously, apparently, a
sentiment became an image, and the image pointed to a tender and pathetic
treatment. His elegy on the death of William III. has often been cited as
a fine piece of elegiac personification; should it seem extravagant to
the reader, it would scarcely seem so to Lord Macaulay; and it must be
remembered that Dr. Watts was one who regarded himself and the nation as
profoundly indebted, surely not unnaturally, for freedom and prosperity
to the arms and government of the deceased king. He was young when he
wrote these verses. William, as we have said, died the day on which Watts
was ordained to the work of the ministry, 1702. The verses present a
picture of the illustrious hero lying in state, surrounded by the weeping
arts and graces of society. Dr. Gibbons, not inappropriately, speaks of
the piece as “the largest constellation of personifications occurring
amongst the Doctor’s Odes:”
Preserve, O venerable pile,
Inviolate thy sacred trust;
To thy cold arms the British isle,
Weeping, commits her richest dust.
Rest his dear sword beneath his head;
Round him his faithful arms shall stand:
Fix his bright ensigns on his bed,
The guards and honours of our land.
High o’er the grave _Religion_ set
In solemn guise; pronounce the ground
Sacred, to bar unhallowed feet,
And plant her guardian virtues round.
Fair _Liberty_, in sables drest,
Write his loved name upon his urn;
William, the scourge of tyrants past,
And awe of princes yet unborn.
Sweet _Peace_, his sacred relics keep,
With olives blooming round her head,
And stretch her wings across the deep
To bless the nations with the shade.
Stand on the pile, immortal _Fame_,
Broad stars adorn thy brightest robe;
Thy thousand voices sound his name
In silver accents round the globe.
_Flattery_ shall faint beneath the sound,
While hoary _Truth_ inspires the song;
_Envy_ grow pale, and bite the ground,
And _Slander_ gnaw her forky tongue.
Night and the grave, remove your gloom;
Darkness becomes the vulgar dead;
But glory bids the royal tomb
Disdain the horrors of a shade.
_Glory_ with all her lamps shall burn,
And watch the warrior’s sleeping clay,
Till the last trumpet rouse his urn,
To aid the triumphs of the day.
But he had a simpler manner, and even in his stronger expressions rose to
the majesty of simple strength, as in the following:
LAUNCHING INTO ETERNITY.
It was a brave attempt! advent’rous he,
Who in the first ship broke the unknown sea:
And leaving his dear native shores behind,
Trusted his life to the licentious wind.
I see the surging brine: the tempest raves:
He on the pine-plank rides across the waves,
Exulting on the edge of thousand gaping graves:
He steers the winged boat, and shifts the sails,
Conquers the flood, and manages the gales.
Such is the soul that leaves this mortal land,
Fearless when the great Master gives command.
Death is the storm: she smiles to hear it roar,
And bids the tempest waft her from the shore:
Then with a skilful helm she sweeps the seas,
And manages the raging storm with ease:
(Her faith can govern death) she spreads her wings
Wide to the wind, and as she sails she sings,
And loses by degrees the sight of mortal things.
As the shores lessen, so her joys arise,
The waves roll gentler, and the tempest dies,
Now vast eternity fills all her sight,
She floats on the broad deep with infinite delight,
The seas for ever calm, the skies for ever bright.
The weight and grandeur of his thoughts, the radiance of his perception,
the far-reaching, remote grandeur of the objects of his verse, must
always be taken into account, pondered, and allowed an adequate influence
over the reader’s mind, whenever attempts are made to estimate what he
was as a sacred poet. Not the less was his mind in ready accord with
objects of Nature. He had seen, probably, little of Nature in her more
grand and exciting moods. Men like him, horn to London life, and only
occasionally escaping thence to some near and quiet watering-place, saw
little of those ample pages which, in our own or other lands, are now
unrolled to almost every designing eye. But his verses abundantly show
with what perfect sympathy every object touched him, how all the smaller
or greater things of Nature impressed the subtle sense within him, and
awoke the mystery and the awe. The following lines, not composed as a
hymn, but included in his “Miscellaneous Thoughts,” have always seemed to
us very cogently to illustrate this:
My God, I love, and I adore;
But souls that love would know Thee more.
Wilt Thou for ever hide, and stand
Behind the labours of Thy hand?
Thy hand unseen sustains the poles
On which this huge creation rolls:
The starry arch proclaims Thy power,
Thy pencil glows in every flower;
In thousand shapes and colours rise
Thy painted wonders to our eyes;
While beasts and birds, with labouring throats,
Teach us a God in thousand notes,
The meanest pin in Nature’s frame
Marks out some letter of Thy name.
Where sense can reach, or fancy rove,
From hill to hill, from field to grove,
Across the waves, around the sky,
There’s not a spot, or deep or high,
Where the Creator has not trod,
And left the footstep of a God.
And in the same strain, with what strength and majesty he sweeps every
chord of Nature in his sublime version of the 148th Psalm:
Loud hallelujahs to the Lord.
The strong nervousness of his expression, the passionate personification
(always the mark of a great poet) with which his verses abound,
sometimes, but more especially in his lyrics, give the appearance of
inflation to his expressions. But when attempting to describe adequate
themes, they only fitly represent the subject, as in the following fine
description of the glory of God in the clouds:
Thy hand, how wide it spreads the sky!
How glorious to behold!
Tinged with a blue of heavenly dye,
And starred with sparkling gold.
There Thou canst bid the globes of light
Their endless circles run;
Where the pale planet rules the night,
And day obeys the sun.
The noisy winds stand ready there
Thy orders to obey;
With sounding wings they sweep the air,
To make Thy chariot way.
There like a trumpet loud and strong,
Thy thunder shakes our coast;
While the red lightnings wave along,
The banners of Thy host.
On the thin air, without a prop,
Hang fruitful showers around;
At Thy command they sink, and drop
Their fatness to the ground.
Strong exception has been taken to Watts’ verse, on the score of its
frequent, almost passionate, expression of Divine love; in this he
frequently writes like Madame Guyon, or like some of those old monastic
spirits who passed their days in cloisters; and Watts’ life was almost
as cloisteral as that of a monk. Unlike his amiable friend, Philip
Doddridge, he was never diverted from any of the solemn pursuits of his
life by the claims of human passion or affection, although there are
not wanting verses which, perhaps, show that he had not been altogether
insensible to female charms:
Virgins, who roll your artful eyes,
And shoot delicious danger thence;
Swiftly the lovely lightning flies,
And melts our reason down to sense.
But perhaps his poem “Few Happy Matches,” reveals some reason why his
timid spirit refused to seek its happiness in matrimonial chains, and so
he turned to the higher affections, singing—
Life is a pain without Thy love;
Who can ever bear to be
Cursed with immortality,
Among the stars, but far from Thee?
But the author of many of these hymns must often have been wafted away
with a true mystic ecstasy. The warmth of this rapture has been objected
to; the objection lies, also, against the works of most of the great
mystics.
My God, the spring of all my joys,
is one of countless illustrations—
My God, my life, my love,
To Thee, to Thee, I call.
or—
Dearest of all the names above.
In such as these, if the reader feels unable to rise to them amidst the
delights of family joys—wife, and children, and society—let him remember
how Watts lived, his solitary nights, in a family where, no doubt, his
presence was a charm and blessing, but in which he must have been to
himself, comparatively, lonely as a monk, feeding his mind with thoughts
until they became passions and ecstasies to him, and even found their
vent in such words as the following:
His charm shall make my numbers flow,
And hold the falling floods;
While silence sits on every bough,
And bends the listening woods.
I’ll carve our passion on the bark;
And every wounded tree
Shall drop and hear some mystic mark
That Jesus died for me.
The swains shall wonder when they read,
Inscribed on all the grove,
That Heaven itself came down and bled
To win a mortal’s love.
To this same order of sacred personification also belong those verses,
which are certainly remarkable, and when properly apprehended among the
most tenderly antithetical in our language, on the Death of Moses:
Sweet was the journey to the sky
The wondrous prophet tried;
“Climb up the mount,” said God, “and die;”
The prophet climbed and died.
Softly his fainting head he lay
Upon his Maker’s breast;
His Maker kissed his soul away,
And laid his flesh to rest.
In God’s own arms he left the breath
That God’s own Spirit gave;
His was the noblest road to death,
And his the sweetest grave.
And while remarking upon the poet, we may notice that many of his pieces
reflect that quiet scholarly spirit of the age, in which not only Watts,
but so many other writers delighted to indulge; that Seneca-like musing
and moralizing, that contented dreaming beneath umbrageous woods and by
the side of purling streams. It has been said that Samuel Rogers, in
his “Human Life,” portrays the Twickenham side of existence. The Stoke
Newington side was very much like it, certainly wholly unlike the stir
and heat of the vivid passions, the painful introspections, and diseased
musings, which have forced their way into modern poetry. If Watts
described or dealt with these it was not in his verse, although many of
his prose writings seem to reveal that he was not ignorant of them; such
is his often quoted piece:
TRUE RICHES.
I am not concerned to know
What, to-morrow, fate will do:
’Tis enough that I can say,
I’ve possessed myself to-day:
Then, if haply midnight death
Seize my flesh, and stop my breath,
Yet to-morrow I shall be
Heir to the best part of me.
Glittering stones, and golden things,
Wealth and honours that have wings,
Ever fluttering to be gone,
I could never call my own:
Riches that the world bestows,
She can take, and I can lose;
But the treasures that are mine
Lie afar beyond her line.
When I view my spacious soul,
And survey myself a whole,
And enjoy myself alone,
I’m a kingdom of my own.
I’ve a mighty part within
That the world hath never seen,
Rich as Eden’s happy ground,
And with choicer plenty crowned.
Here on all the shining boughs
Knowledge fair and useful grows;
On the same young flow’ry tree
All the seasons you may see;
Notions in the bloom of light,
Just disclosing to the sight;
Here are thoughts of larger growth,
Rip’ning into solid truth;
Fruits refined, of noble taste;
Seraphs feed on such repast.
Here, in a green and shady grove,
Streams of pleasure mix with love:
There, beneath the smiling skies,
Hills of contemplation rise;
Now, upon some shining top,
Angels light, and call me up;
I rejoice to raise my feet,
Both rejoice when there we meet.
There are endless beauties more
Earth hath no resemblance for;
Nothing like them round the pole,
Nothing can describe the soul.
’Tis a region half unknown,
That has treasures of its own,
More remote from public view
Than the bowels of Peru;
Broader ’tis, and brighter far,
Than the golden Indies are;
Ships that trace the watery stage
Cannot coast it in an age;
Harts, or horses, strong and fleet,
Had they wings to help their feet,
Could not run it half-way o’er
In ten thousand days or more.
Yet the silly wand’ring mind,
Loath to be too much confined,
Roves and takes her daily tours,
Coasting round the narrow shores—
Narrow shores of flesh and sense,
Picking shells and pebbles thence:
Or she sits at Fancy’s door,
Calling shapes and shadows to her;
Foreign visits still receiving,
And to herself a stranger living.
Never, never would she buy
Indian dust, or Tyrian dye;
Never trade abroad for more,
If she saw her native store:
If her inward worth were known,
She might ever live alone.
Nor, much in the same vein, was he indisposed occasionally for a gentle
kind of satire, as in the following vigorous paraphrase, which some
readers may perhaps be surprised to find falling from the pen of Watts.
“When I meet with persons,” he says, “of a worldly character, they bring
to my mind some scraps of Horace:”
“Nos numerus sumus, et fruges consumere nati,
Alcinoique juventus
Cui pulchrum fuit in medios dormire dies,” etc.
PARAPHRASE.
There are a number of us creep
Into this world, to eat and sleep;
And know no reason why they’re born,
But merely to consume the corn,
Devour the cattle, fowl, and fish,
And leave behind an empty dish.
The crows and ravens do the same,
Unlucky birds of hateful name;
Ravens or crows might fill their places,
And swallow corn and carcases.
Then if their tombstone, when they die,
Ben’t taught to flatter and to lie,
There’s nothing better will be said,
Than that “They’ve eat up all their bread,
Drank up their drink, and gone to bed.”
And the following verses are surely very pleasing to the discontented and
unquiet:
’Tis a dull circle that we tread,
Just from the window to the bed,
To rise to see, and to be seen,
Graze on the world awhile, and then
We yawn, and stretch to sleep again.
But Fancy, that uneasy guest,
Still holds a longing in our breast:
She finds or frames vexations still,
Herself the greatest plague we feel.
We take great pleasure in our pain,
And make a mountain of a grain,
Assume the load, and pant and sweat
Beneath th’ imaginary weight.
With our dear selves we live at strife,
While the most constant scenes of life
From peevish humours are not free;
Still we affect variety:
Rather than pass an easy day,
We fret and chide the hours away,
Grow weary of this circling sun,
And vex that he should ever run
The same old track; and still, and still
Rise red behind yon eastern hill,
And chide the moon that darts her light
Through the same casement every night.
We shift our chambers and our homes,
To dwell where trouble never comes:
Sylvia has left the city crowd,
Against the court exclaims aloud,
Flies to the woods; a hermit saint!
She loathes her patches, pins and paint,
Dear diamonds from her neck are torn;
But humour, that eternal thorn,
Sticks in her heart: she’s hurried still,
’Twixt her wild passions and her will:
Haunted and hagged where’er she roves,
By purling streams, and silent groves,
Or with her furies, or her loves.
Then our native land we hate,
Too cold, too windy, or too wet;
Change the thick climate, and repair
To France or Italy for air.
Happy the soul that virtue shows
To fix the place of her repose,
Needless to move; for she can dwell
In her old grandsire’s hall as well.
Virtue that never loves to roam,
But sweetly hides herself at home.
And easy on a native throne
Of humble turf sits gently down.
Without claiming then for Watts a pre-eminent place among those who are
called poets, these citations will be sufficient to show that however
he might disclaim the dignity, he deserved the designation. And there
are poets whose eminence is in general more unquestioned, who deserve it
less. He was unjust to himself in this particular; verse and rhyme fell
from him easily, happily, naturally. Perhaps he succeeded least when he
most ambitiously attempted; but he had a remarkable and pleasant power
of instantly translating some sentiment which crossed his mind from the
classics into English verse, as in those well-known lines,—
Seize upon truth where’er ’tis found,
On Christian, or on heathen ground.
Amongst your friends, amongst your foes,
The flower’s divine where’er it grows,
Neglect the prickle and assume the rose.
In which he elevates the sentiment of Virgil,—
“Fas est ab hoste doceri.”
Referring to his translations, it has been very justly said that he
seldom translates or imitates a heathen poet but he either makes him
a Christian in the end, or shows his deficiency in not being one.
He consistently maintained throughout his writings, as a poet, the
determination expressed in the lines—
Thy name, Almighty Sire, and Thine,
Jesus, where His full glories shine,
Shall consecrate my lays.[13]
His familiar method of remembering the signs of the Zodiac is an
illustration of the rapid and neat way in which he could bind up
knowledge in a verse:
The ram, the bull, the heavenly twins,
And next the crab the lion shines,
The virgin and the scales;
The archer, scorpion, and the goat,
The man that holds the water-pot,
The fish with glittering tails.
And his receipt for the orderly conduct of Divine worship, for sustaining
a mental effort in prayer, is useful, beautiful, and perfect:
Call upon God, adore, confess,
Petition, plead, and then declare
You are the Lord’s, give thanks and bless,
And let Amen confirm the prayer.
The devout purpose which ruled and governed the whole life of Watts is
of course manifest in his poems. Such as he is, he is always a sacred
poet; he never forgets that his life has been consecrated and set apart
to religious teaching and to the promulgation of useful knowledge; his
moralities are recreation, never mere dreams; and if he never attempts
the great flights of poetry in epic or dramatic writing, we may remember
that in this, as in his yet more sacred pieces, he was a lyrist, and
reserved all his greater efforts for his work in the ministry, seeking
thus to make more sweet and serviceable the whole service of the House of
God.
Throughout these remarks we have left it to be inferred that the
verse-making, great as was the fame it procured the author, was regarded
by him merely as the _accident_ of his work; at the same time his nature
seems to have been truly in sympathy with all those impulses derived
from external scenery, calculated to stir a poetic sensibility. We fancy
his modest nature would almost have assented, without a rejoinder, even
to some of the very severe criticisms which modern fastidiousness has
pronounced upon him; but Dr. Gibbons assures us how swiftly and instantly
his spirit caught every impression of natural scenery and life; how he
delighted in the rural verdure, or the waving harvest-field, or the
resounding grove; how his nature was awed almost equally by the wonderful
and subtle labours of the industrious bee, or the sun walking through
the heavens in the greatness of his strength. In his lyrics, classical
forms, perhaps, rather hampered than aided him; he was fascinated by the
majestic roll of the Pindaric Greek; but from this fault the best of his
hymns are entirely free.
We have dwelt thus at length upon some of the characteristics of Watts’
verse, feeling that criticism upon it is far from exhausted; and that,
amidst its various representatives in our language, in spite of that
modern contempt which is creeping even into the circles of those who
profess to hold his faith and follow in his footsteps, he still deserves
to retain a place in the history of English poetry. We have referred
rather to those more striking and obvious marks of his genius; but
we must still prefer him in his more quiet and subdued strains of
devotion, those peaceful, pensive lines with which his works abound. It
is equally certain that he wrote a number of verses and lines perfectly
indefensible on the score of good taste: this is the more remarkable,
because his taste does seem to have been cultivated to the highest pitch
of excellence; and his mind was remarkable, not merely for the plenitude
of its ideas, but for the easy elegance with which he ordinarily gave
expression to them. However this may be, their bad taste and strange
conceits have not greatly repressed the reverence with which we regard
the works of George Herbert or of Henry Vaughan; nor does the frequent
turgidity of Milton much interfere with the admiration and awe with which
we read most of his poems.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: ABNEY HOUSE, STOKE NEWINGTON.]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER VI.
Residence in the Abney family.
It was at that period of Watts’ life, when he felt in a very especial
manner his loneliness, and fever and infirmity were reducing him to a
painful sense of abiding weakness, that Sir Thomas and Lady Abney invited
him to spend a week with them at their magnificent house of Theobalds,
in Hertfordshire. He accepted the invitation, and the hosts and their
guest seemed to have been so mutually pleased with each other that Watts
continued in the family until his death, a period of thirty-six years.
Watts must have then been about thirty-eight years of age. Johnson
remarks upon this friendship that “it was a state in which the notions of
patronage and dependence were overpowered by the perception of reciprocal
benefits; it deserves a particular memorial;” and he refers to Dr.
Gibbons’ interesting account, which is, indeed, one of the most pleasant
pieces of his biography, and compels the wish that he had more frequently
broken the monotony of the book by pages so pleasing. The event was one
of those kind providences which those who watch the lives of eminent men,
who have served their generation and the cause of God, will not fail
to perceive. Think of the solitary student, the shrinking, sensitive
man, the modest and fearful spirit who could not command service, and
recoiled from giving trouble, how fearfully life might have dragged
along through a few years of languor and pain, unequal to much service,
unable to gather round him any, or but few, of the comforts of life,
suddenly transferred to all the affluent comforts of this magnificent
abode, to its rooms, capacious and luxurious, the abode of order, and
harmony, and holiness, not only a pious household, but entirely after
the type favoured by the thoughtful guest. There were the rich rural
scenes, the delightful garden, the spreading lawn, and the fragrant and
embowered recess, all wooing the body back to health and the heart to
peace; and although a few years after his entrance into the household Sir
Thomas Abney dies, yet the guest cannot be permitted to depart. The same
affection and respect are continued by Lady Abney and her daughter. Lady
Abney was the sister of the chief friend of Watts’ younger days, Thomas
Gunston; her wealth was very great, and, says Gibbons, “her generosity
and munificence in full proportion.” There must have been a pleasant
fellowship and community of tastes, certainly a fitting harmony of
character; reminding us of Robert Boyle with his sister Lady Ranelagh, or
William Cowper with Mary Unwin; such relationships are very beautiful in
their serene, unselfish character. Beneath the roof of Lady Abney Watts
died. Within two months of his departure to Bunhill Fields, she was taken
to her resting-place in the vaults of Stoke Newington Church. But the
family in which Dr. Watts was for more than half his life an honoured
guest merits some more particular mention.
Sir Thomas Abney was descended from an ancient and respectable family in
Derbyshire. His father was James Abney, Esq., of Wilsley, whose ancestors
had enjoyed that estate upwards of five hundred years. The son came
to the City of London, and appears to have passed through the honours
of Alderman, Sheriff, and Lord Mayor. For the services he rendered to
King William he received the honour of knighthood, and was chosen chief
magistrate some years before his turn. He appears to have had in those
troublesome times great influence in the City, though holding at that
time a strong opinion adverse to the Stuarts. He was chosen in 1701 to
represent it in Parliament; he was a director of the Bank, and president
of St. Thomas’ Hospital; and when, upon the death of the exiled James,
the King of France, Louis XIV., caused the Pretender to be proclaimed
at St. Germains King of Great Britain, and by the recall of the Earl
of Macclesfield war seemed to be unavoidable, Sir Thomas Abney, in the
Court of Common Council, proposed, in opposition to the majority of his
brethren on the bench, an address to William III., declaring that they
would support him against France and the Pretender: it was carried and
transmitted to the King, who was then on the Continent. It is impossible
now to estimate the vigour this imparted to the King’s affairs—it was the
note which roused the nation. It was said that this act of Sir Thomas
Abney served the cause of the King more than if he had raised for him a
million of money.
It is a singular circumstance that although Watts received such marks
of favour from the Abney family, Sir Thomas and Lady Abney do not
appear to have, in the first days of their acquaintance, belonged to
the church of which Watts was pastor. Sir Thomas was a member of that
church during the pastorate of Mr. Caryl, whose daughter was his first
wife. After Mr. Caryl’s death he united himself with the church of which
John Howe was the minister. Nonconformists were at that time, as they
have been frequently since, Lord Mayors of the City, usually complying
by occasional conformity so far as to attend one part of the Sunday
at church, the other at their own place of worship. When Sir Humphrey
Edwin, who was a member of Pinners’ Hall congregation, was Mayor, he
very unwisely caused the regalia of the City to be carried to his
meeting-house, and it created a vehement storm.
But it is remarkable that Mr. Milner, usually very accurate, in his
life of Dr. Watts quotes a paragraph from “The Shortest Way with the
Dissenters,” speaking of it as a piece of High Church vituperation,
apparently unaware that this was the very production of Defoe, the satire
for which he was put in the pillory; Mr. Milner, misled by the heartiness
of the composition, like many of Defoe’s day, came to the conclusion
that it was the work of an enemy to those whose interests the pamphlet
was intended to serve. The paragraph points immediately to Sir Thomas
and his friend Watts, as the reader will perceive by the designations
italicized: “But a lady, Queen Anne, now sits on the throne, who though
sprung from that blood which ye and your forefathers spilt before the
palace-gates, puts on a temper of forgiveness, and, in compassion to your
consciences, is not willing that you should lose the hopes of heaven by
purchasing here on earth. She would have no more Sir Humphreys tempt the
justice of God, by falling from his true worship and giving ear to the
cat-calls and back-pipes at St. Paul’s; would have your _Sir Thomas’s_
keep to their primitive text, and not venture damnation to play at long
spoon and custard for a transitory twelvemonth; and would have your _Sir
Tom_ sing psalms at Highgate Hill, and split texts of Scripture _with
his diminutive figure of a chaplain_, without running the hazard of
qualifying himself to be called a handsome man for riding on horseback
before the City trainbands.”
It may be noticed now how much the interest of King William and the
Hanover succession to the throne of England were served by the Protestant
dissenters of the City of London, and by no one more than by Sir Thomas
Abney. He lived to a good old age, dying at his house at Theobalds in the
year 1722. Nor can we wonder that his friend should pay a high tribute to
his memory in a funeral sermon, and seek to give it a more durable place
in a sketch in his “Miscellaneous Thoughts.”
Theobalds was a fine old palace, and has been celebrated in the verses
of poets and the pages of novelists, and the memoirs of historians; but
no biography of Watts gives any specific account of the magnificent old
building in which he spent the greater number of the years of his life.
It was as much Watts’ home as if it had been his own property; and he
was in the habit of saying his poetical contributions would have been
much more numerous had he, in his early life, been privileged with the
means of retirement among such shades and gardens, and ample grounds.
Theobalds was, and had been, everything that could excite the memory,
or stir or soothe and lull the imagination. Situated a little more than
a mile from Cheshunt, in Hertfordshire, and within an easy ride from
the metropolis, on the borders of Enfield Chase, it possessed a very
remarkable history; it had been the favourite residence of the mighty
Cecil, Lord Burleigh; to this place he fled with eagerness to enjoy his
short intervals of leisure; amidst its shades he planned and plotted
schemes in which the whole future of England’s history was interested;
he laid out immense sums of money upon the grand pile, and kept up
great state with extraordinary magnificence, while he might be seen
ambling along upon a mule through the groves of his magnificent domains,
overlooking his workmen or the parties of pleasure he had gathered around
him. Here, at this old house, Queen Elizabeth had repeatedly rested in
the course of her great progresses. Here, when Burleigh and his mistress
had both passed away, came James I., and held his masques, written by Ben
Jonson, and enjoyed his pleasures. It was in his reign that it was given
up by the Earl of Salisbury to Queen Anne of Denmark, amidst such strange
pageantries of most intemperate folly that Sir John Harington writes,
contrasting the days of James I. with what he remembered of the same
place in the days of Queen Elizabeth, “I never did see such lack of good
order, discretion, and sobriety, as I have now done.”
In Watts’ day there was living in the neighbouring village of Cheshunt
that remarkable man, also a member of Watts’ church. Richard Cromwell,
although, somewhat to shroud himself in obscurity, he usually went by the
name of Mr. Clarke. An eminent novelist[14] has woven into his fiction
very naturally one of the most striking incidents of his story from the
casual meeting of his hero and the son of the Protector on this very
spot, when Cromwell became his host and entertainer. Richard Cromwell
died probably before Watts became a constant resident at Theobalds; and
indeed Cromwell removed from Cheshunt some time before his death.
Cheshunt churchyard once contained a number of inscriptions upon the
tombs from the pen of the poet; most of them have probably long been
obliterated, but two or three have been snatched from oblivion; an
inscription for the tomb of Thomas Pickard, Esq., citizen of London, who
died suddenly, probably a member of Watts’ church:
A soul prepared needs no delays,
The summons comes, the saint obeys;
Swift was his flight and short the road,
He closed his eyes and saw his God.
His flesh rests here till Jesus come
And claims the treasure from the tomb.
Another epitaph:
Beneath this stone Death’s prisoner lies.
That stone shall move, the prisoner rise
When Jesus with Almighty word
Calls His dead saints to meet their Lord.
The following lines were not long since in existence, written upon a
ceiling dial at a western window of Theobalds:
Little sun upon the ceiling
Ever moving, ever stealing
Moments, minutes, hours away;
May no shade forbid thy shining
While the heavenly sun declining
Calls us to improve the day.
There was another, indeed there appear to have been several; it was the
taste of the times to line the avenues with these moralities in verse:
Thus steal the silent hours away,
The sun thus hastes to reach the sea,
And men to mingle with their clay.
Thus light and shade divide the year,
Thus till the last great day appear
And shut the starry theatre.
If we are able to discriminate Watts in his various abodes here and at
Stoke Newington, certainly it is not his biographers we have to thank for
it. They have jumbled up his residences in a very heterogeneous fashion,
and leave us very much in doubt whether their descriptions of his rooms
apply to his earlier or later abode. Assuredly he lived in a mansion
large enough for him. One of the smallest of mortals, he had one of the
largest homes. We can readily believe that good Sir Thomas was very well
pleased from such a pile to deliver up a suite of apartments to such a
guest. His own rooms were a kind of true literary hermitage, adorned with
paintings from his own pencil, and his collection of portraits of eminent
persons he had known, or great contemporaries he admired; at the entrance
of his study on the outside were the fine lines from the first book of
Horace’s satires, in which he denounces the faithless friend: “He who
reviles his absent friend, who does not defend him while another defames
him, who aims at the groundless jeers of people, and the reputation of a
wit, who can feign things not seen, who cannot keep secrets, he is the
rancorous man.” The spaces within, where there were no shelves, were
filled up with prints of distinguished friends, or eminent persons. Of
course, there was a spacious old Elizabethan fireplace, panelled on
either side, and in each panel an inscription from the beloved Horace. On
the one side:
Locus est pluribus umbris.
And on the other:
Quis me dolorum propria dignabitor umbra.
There we are permitted to fancy him. Such were his haunts among those
pleasant and sequestered shades, and such was his home. His rooms well
arranged and tasteful, as one biographer has depicted them. The lute and
the telescope on the same table with the Bible, a treatise on logic in
one hand, and hymns and spiritual songs in the other. Few writers in our
language seem to suggest a finer illustration of the mingled powers of
faith and reason.
With so small a family what a silent household it must have seemed,
sustained in its grand and memorable stateliness. There passed what we
may believe to have been the happiest years of Watts’ life, amidst scenes
inviting to rest, and with little to disturb the equanimity of his quiet
spirit, receiving and reflecting its own peace, peace not to be disturbed
even by much bodily restlessness and pain. Those numerous allusions in
his hymns to the wakeful hours of night were not mere poetic fancies,
“the comforts of my nights” were not unneeded; for many years he knew
little of sleep, except such as could be obtained by medicine; intense
mental application, working upon a weak and nervous constitution, brought
about the consequences of insomnia, or sleeplessness yet his mind seems
to have been too calm, too equally balanced, and too completely under
the control of highest principles, ever to know such agitations as shake
to their centre some poetic natures. Even public agitations did hot
disturb him much. Almost the severest trial he knew was the vehement and
intolerant persecution he sustained from the tongue and pen of Thomas
Bradbury; but to him we may refer in subsequent pages.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER VII.
Hymns.
So early as the year 1700 Watts’ brother, Mr. Enoch Watts, wrote a letter
to him from Southampton, urging upon him the publication of his hymns. It
sets not only the mind of the writer as a member of the Doctor’s family
in a favourable light, as well as it expresses the probable general
feeling of desire for some hymns suitable for Divine service. We quote it
here:
“SOUTHAMPTON: _March, 1700_.
“DEAR BROTHER,—
“In your last you discovered an inclination to oblige the world
by showing it your hymns in print, and I heartily wish, as well
for the satisfaction of the public as myself, that you were
something more than inclinable thereunto. I have frequently
importuned you to it before now, and your invention has often
furnished you with some modest reply to the contrary, as if
what I urge was only the effect of a rash and inconsiderate
fondness to a brother; but you will have other thoughts of the
matter when I first assure you that that affection, which is
inseparable from our near relationship, would have had in me
a very different operation, for instead of pressing you to
publish, I should with my last efforts have endeavoured the
concealment of them, if my best judgment did not direct me to
believe it highly conducing to a general benefit, without the
least particular disadvantage to yourself. This latter I need
not have mentioned, for I am very confident whoever has the
happiness of reading your hymns (unless he be either sot or
atheist) will have a very favourable opinion of their author;
so that, at the same time you contribute to the universal
advantage, you will procure the esteem of men the most
judicious and sensible. In the second place, you may please to
consider how very mean the performers in this kind of poetry
appear in the pieces already extant. Some ancient ones I have
seen in my time, who flourished in Hopkins and Sternhold’s
reign; but Mason now reduces this kind of writing to a sort of
yawning indifferency, and honest Barton chimes us asleep. There
is, therefore, a great need of a pen, vigorous and lively as
yours, to quicken and revive the dying devotion of the age, to
which nothing can afford such assistance as poetry, contrived
on purpose to elevate us even above ourselves. To what may we
impute the prevalency of the songs, filled with the fabulous
divinity of the ancient fathers, on our passions? Is it, think
you, only owing to a natural propensity in us to be in love
with fable, and averse to truth in her native plainness? I
presume it may partly be ascribed to this, that as romance has
more need of artifice than truth to set it off, so it generally
has such an abundance more, that it seldom fails of affecting
us by making new and agreeable impressions. Yours now is the
old truth, stripped of its ragged ornaments, and appears, if we
may say so, younger by ages, in a new and fashionable dress,
which is commonly tempting.
“And as for those modern gentlemen who have lately exhibited
their version of the Psalms, all of them I have not seen I
confess, and, perhaps, it would not be worth while to do it
unless I had a mind to play the critic, which you know is
not my talent, but those I have read confess to me a vast
difference to yours, though they are done by persons of no mean
credit. Dr. Patrick most certainly has the report of a very
learned man, and, they say, understands the Hebrew extremely
well, which, indeed, capacitates him for a translator, but he
is thereby never the more enabled to versify. Tate and Brady
still keep near the same pace. I know not what sober beast
they ride (one that will be content to carry double), but I am
sure it is no Pegasus: there is in them a mighty deficiency
of that life and soul which is necessary to raise our fancies
and kindle and fire our passions, and something or other they
have to allege against the rest of adventurers; but I have
been persuaded a great while since, that were David to speak
English, he would choose to make use of your style. If what I
have said seems to have no weight with you, yet you cannot be
ignorant what a load of scandal lies on the Dissenters, only
for their imagined aversion to poetry. You remember what Dr.
Speed says:
So far hath schism prevailed they hate to see
Our lines and words in couplings to agree,
It looks too like abhorred conformity:
A hymn so soft, so smooth, so neatly drest,
Savours of human learning and the beast.
And, perhaps, it has been thought there were some grounds
for his aspersion from the admired poems of Ben. Keach, John
Bunyan, etc., all flat and dull as they are; nay, I am much out
if the latter has not formerly made much more ravishing music
with his hammer and brass kettle.
“Now when you are exposed to the public view these calumnies
will immediately vanish, which, methinks, should be a motive
not the least considerable. And now we are talking of music,
I have a crotchet in my brain, which makes me imagine, that
as chords and discords equally please heavy-eared people,
so the best divine poems will no more inspire the rude and
illiterate than the meanest rhymes, which may in some measure
give you satisfaction, in that fear you discover, _ne in rude
vulgus cadant_, and you must allow them to be tasteless to many
people, tolerable to some, but to those few who know their
beauties, to be very pleasant and desirable; and, lastly, if I
do not speak reason, I will at present take my leave of you,
and only desire you to hear what your ingenious acquaintance
in London say to the point, for I doubt not you have many
solicitors there, whose judgments are much more solid than
mine. I pray God Almighty have you in His good keeping, and
desire you to believe me, my dear brother,
“Your most affectionate kinsman and friend,
“ENOCH WATTS.”
But notwithstanding this and other solicitations, the first edition was
not published until 1707. The copyright of the hymns was sold to Mr.
Lawrence, the publisher, for £10; about half a century before the same
sum was given to Milton for his “Paradise Lost;” the volume instantly
obtained a very large acceptance, and he then directed his attention to
his version of the Psalms; this was only completed by him during the
painful and distressing illness from which he suffered about 1712 and the
following years, but the Psalms were not published until the year 1719.
“Dr. Watts,” says James Montgomery, in his introduction to the “Christian
Psalmist,” “may almost be called the inventor of hymns in our language,
for he so far departed from all precedent that few of his compositions
resemble those of his forerunners, while he so far established a
precedent to all his successors that none have departed from it otherwise
than according to the peculiar turn of mind in the writer, and the style
of expressing Christian truths employed by the denomination to which
he belonged.” And, again, he says, “We come to the greatest name among
hymn-writers, for we hesitate not to give that praise to Dr. Isaac Watts,
since it has pleased God to confer upon him, though one of the least of
the poets of this country, more glory than upon the greatest either of
that or of any other, by making his ‘Divine Songs’ a more abundant and
universal blessing than the verses of any uninspired penman that ever
lived. In his ‘Psalms and Hymns’ (for they must be classed together)
he has embraced a compass and variety of subjects which include and
illustrate every truth of revelation, throw light upon every secret
movement of the human heart, whether of sin, nature, or grace, and
describe every kind of trial, temptation, conflict, doubt, fear, and
grief, as well as the faith, hope, charity, the love, joy, peace, labour,
and patience of the Christian in all stages of his course on earth,
together with the terrors of the Lord, the glories of the Redeemer, and
the comforts of the Holy Spirit, to urge, allure, and strengthen him by
the way. There is in the pages of this evangelist a word in season for
every one who needs it, in whatever circumstances he may require counsel,
consolation, reproof, or instruction. We say this without reserve of
the materials of his hymns; had their execution only been correspondent
with the preciousness of these, we should have had a Christian Psalmist
in England next (and that only in date, not in dignity) to the ‘Sweet
Singer of Israel.’ Nor is this so bold a word as it may seem. Dr. Watts’
hymns are full of ‘the glorious Gospel of the blessed God;’ his themes,
therefore, are much more illustrious than those of the son of Jesse, who
only knew ‘the power and glory’ of Jehovah as he had ‘seen them in the
sanctuary,’ which was but the shadow of the New Testament Church, as the
face of Moses holding communion with God was brighter than the veil he
cast over it when conversing with his countrymen.”
His attention was very early awakened to the importance and necessity
for some improvement in this department of Divine service. Our readers
will remember that after he had closed his academical studies at Stoke
Newington, before he entered on the ministry, he returned home and lived
during the years 1695 and 1696 in the old house with his father; he
devoted those years, the twenty-first and twenty-second of his life, to
systematic reading, meditation, and prayer; and during those years he
appears to have composed the greater number of his hymns. Thus, if they
are among the first effusions of his poet’s pen, they are among the best,
and in this circumstance they resemble the first and chief volume of
one of his successors in the art of sacred poetry in our own day, John
Keble, whose “Christian Year” was the production of his earliest manhood,
and all whose subsequent efforts in verse seem to be a vain striving to
overtake the beauty and harmony of his first performances. Many of Watts’
later hymns are very noble and beautiful, but the greater number appear
to have been composed in those early Southampton days. Dr. Gibbons says,
“Mr. John Morgan, a minister of very respectable character now living
at Romsey, Hants, has sent me the following information: ‘The occasion
of the Doctor’s hymns was this, as I had the account from his worthy
fellow-labourer and colleague, the Rev. Mr. Price, in whose family I
dwelt above fifty years ago. The hymns which were sung at the Dissenting
meeting at Southampton were so little to the gust of Mr. Watts, that he
could not forbear complaining of them to his father. The father bid him
try what he could do to mend the matter. He did, and had such success
in his first essay that a second hymn was earnestly desired of him, and
then a third, and fourth, etc., till in process of time there was such a
number of them as to make up a volume.’”
It is remarkable that in England the power of the popular hymn was so
late in discovering itself. It does not appear to have been known here
in the old Roman Catholic days as assuredly it was in other countries,
while in Germany the Reformation was born and brought forth amidst the
chanting of noble and triumphant hymns. It appears to be impossible
to realise the services of the Church without the hymn. Canon Liddon,
curiously analyzing the texts of several of the Pauline Epistles, seems
to demonstrate that those “faithful sayings” quoted by the apostle as the
embodiment of the belief of the Church, were apostolic hymns sung in the
Redeemer’s honour. And certainly the early Church expressed its faith and
its best aspirations in hymns. Of this we have many and very beautiful
illustrations; as we descend from that time along the line of the ages,
the great Divine truths united themselves to experiences and hopes in the
hearts of many, and as we read the great hymns of the Church we behold
her travelling along as beneath a series of triumphal arches reared
out of the service of sacred song, expressing the emotion of multitudes
of spirits. For the history of holy hymns is really the history of the
Church. Our sacred hooks carry us back, indeed, to the airs of Palestine;
the voices of the soul strong, intuitional, and clear, rising from the
sands of Arabia; from the tabernacle in Shiloh, from the forests of
Lebanon, from Moses and David, from Asaph to the sons of Korah, from the
majestic antiphones of the temple; the murmur of captives by Babylonish
streams; and then rich and strong the raptures of the apostles, touched
from the altar flame of heaven, they were not less than sacred hymns; and
from their times what gushes and wails of sacred song come sounding to
us, clear and shrill, over the roar of persecuting multitudes, or from
desert caves or the lonely Churches of the catacombs! The rich hymns of
the early Fathers are still amongst the most treasured legacies of the
Church. Christian hymnology is the treasure-house into which all the best
devotions of the men “of whom the world was not worthy,” exiled kings,
bishops, confessors, and seers, and souls of lowlier state, have been
poured, giving to us in some instances the doxology of a life-time, and
associating through all ages the martyr’s or the musician’s name with
that one particular chord. We have no collection yet, at all such as we
desire to see, in which the varied tones of human hearts through all
times are collected; the surges of old cathedral aisles; low, thrilling
tones of old monks; thunder-peals of the wild, old, rugged people; chants
of the ancient martyrs at the stake; the glorious and wonderful hymns of
the Greek Church; the treasuries of Latin hymns, and even many of the
more popular of the great vernacular German chants. For the hymns of the
Church are the lamps of the Church; they are the myriad lights which
stream through the darkness of the dark centuries, and they furnish the
fresher beam of the new illumination, lighting the shrines and altars
and chapels of modern times. What is a hymn? St. Augustine has, in a
well-known passage, defined a hymn to have necessarily a threefold
function. It must be praise; it must be praise to God; it must be praise
in the form of song. These limitations, essential as they seem, would
perhaps curtail many of our selections. We should then have to exclude
much of that meditative devotion with which our best books abound; much
also of that too painful and curious self-anatomy which many of our
best hymn-writers permit their strains to exhibit. Yet we are very far
from thinking that to be the test of sacred song which Augustine has
supplied, and with which a very able writer in the “Quarterly Review,”
in an article on hymnology, has quoted with approbation.[15] This test,
applied to the great hymnals and hymnologists of the Church of the
middle ages, would, we apprehend, be quite a failure. It is true that
praise, and praise to God, and praise to God through Christ, in the
form of song, should be the grand criterion for the structure of sacred
verses for the use of congregations; but to what extent should these be
mixed with the strains of simple devotion, the dwelling of the spirit
upon the perfections of the Almighty; and with confession, the laying
bare of the heart—its wants and its woes—in no morbid tone or strain,
before the Divine and searching eye? Our impression surely is that hymns
should represent all that the spirit desires to express in its moods of
praise and prayer. By a more earnest appeal to the senses, the soul is
opened; and it has been well said that so closely and mystically knit
together are our higher and lower natures, that to neglect the one is to
neglect the other. In prayer—the long, earnest, extemporaneous prayer—the
spirit becomes abstracted, and, perhaps, even in the highest states, in
the most subduing states of ecstacy, there are few of the congregation
who rise as the preacher rises, or rest as he rests. The hymn, in its
throbbings and tremulous and pendulous vibrations, breaks through the
monotony and _ennui_ the body imposes on the soul, and, therefore, we
are quite away from that increasing number in our more immediate midst
who are indisposed to avail themselves of the bursts of sensuous song.
We remember that it is not long since grave exception was taken by some
among us to the singing—
There is a land of pure delight,
on the ground that it contains no recognition of, or praise to, the
Redeemer. But, surely, as long as beautiful sights and beautiful sounds,
the solemn gloom and glory of the everlasting hills, and the endlessness
of the pure sky are to be apprehended by men, so long it must be not
only a desirable, but an imperative thing, that they should all be
transferred to the keys of the Christian organ and of Christian speech.
We are not unaware of the danger of the defence of æsthetic beauty, to
spiritual Christianity, but a wise and balanced nature will know how far
to advance and when to stop, and we quite believe that our doxologies,
and thanksgivings, and moments of Christian fervour should lay under
contribution every faculty of the soul, and that each faculty may be
moved by a Divine affection, speak to the heart’s inner chambers, and
relate them to the most consecrated heights.
For song being a natural expression of inflamed emotion, man must
become an unnatural creature if he disdain to sing, and those who cannot
themselves sing do not therefore always the less delight in the happy
jubilant expressions attained by others; for man, happily, can enjoy that
to which he cannot attain, and in this consists one of the great moving
powers of his soul. Unconverted people sing. They have airs and melodies
wafted from the ground of the nature in which they live and have their
being; and when they learn and feel their heritage of salvation and
immortality, the joy in God through Jesus Christ demands its appropriate
expression in suitable elevated strains and tones. And Christians feel
their unity, not so much in reading or in preaching as in those great
expressions which rise above the colder forms of the understanding, and
touch each other at the centre of some great affection of faith or hope.
It is, we must think, to Protestantism that the Church is indebted for
the ample and sweeping robes of spiritual melody. Papists indignantly
deny this. Cardinal Wiseman has told us in a well-known article, that
Protestantism is essentially undevotional. Our devotional practices and
services might be improved and increased; but for the multitudes of its
hymnologists, and the multitude of their songs, and for the fulness and
the fervour of those same songs Protestantism seems to leave Western and
Eastern Churches far behind. Although some of our spiritual airs and
aspirations need the hallowing touch of time before they can receive the
consecration of affection which crowns the words of Basil, and the hymns
of Ambrose, and the chants of Gregory.
Thus, the history of the hymn, and of hymns from the earliest ages, their
originals, their writers, their associations, would form one of the most
charming chapters of Church history. To read how the great hymns grew,
what study of Church history can be more delightfully entertaining?
Down the long line of the ages the hymns pass on, and they, more than
the creeds of councils and the clangour of warriors, seem to shape the
spandrels from whence leap up the great arches of the Church. The great
Church hymns, by these greatly its unity of faith is proclaimed. In what
simple incidents many of the chords arose. That is a very sweet, solemn,
pathetic line in our wonderful Burial Service, “In the midst of life we
are in death”—in fact, it seems to be the adaptation of the first line of
the rare old Latin hymn, the “Media Vita,” composed by Notker Balbulus,
born of a noble family of Zurich. He attained to great eminence at St.
Gall by his learning and skill in music and poetry, and his knowledge of
the Holy Scriptures. No one ever saw him, say the old stories of him, but
he was reading, writing, or praying. The faint sound of a mill-wheel near
his abbey, moved him to compose a beautiful air to some pious verses, and
looking down into a deep gulf, and the danger incurred by some labourer
in building a bridge over the abyss, suggested the celebrated hymn, the
“Media Vita.” What a singular and interesting history there is in the
hymn, “Jerusalem, my happy home.” Through what generations of variations
it has passed!
The history of hymns, from the earliest to the latest times, furnishes
one of the most interesting chapters in the history of the Church. In
the hymn the spirit seems to bound into a higher life, and expressions
which are scarcely admitted in cold conversation, which almost seem like
exaggerations in an essay, or inflated even in a sermon, are felt to be
a sweet, fitting, and natural utterance; in some happy moment a nature
gifted by genius, subdued by sorrow, but lifted up to a region of serene
vision and glowing consolation, found itself caught and compelled to
utter an experience which to itself was not always abiding, but which
often became afterwards an exceeding joy to it to remember, and which
the Church at large retained as the expression of what it believed, and
desired yet more fervently to believe through all subsequent ages. Thus
the great hymns grew, and the Church has never been without them. Thus
many of the portions of the Common Prayer Book of the Church of England
and many of its collects are “the golden fruit in a network of silver;”
and we in the present day are singing hymns of the holy men of old, who
were moved by the Divine Spirit to utter forth the words of prayer and
praise. In his Life of Dr. Watts, Dr. Johnson has many remarks which
have been the subjects of criticism and exception, but in none are his
remarks more open to exception than when he says that “his religious
poetry is unsatisfactory.” “The paucity of its topics,” he continues,
“forces perpetual repetition, and the sanctity of the matter rejects the
ornaments of figurative diction; it is sufficient for Watts to have done
better than others what no man has done well.” If this is kindly said,
still it is not true; perhaps Johnson was confining his observation,
which he ought not to have done, to sacred poetry as belonging to
that order represented by Milton or Phineas Fletcher; and yet this
could scarcely be the case; and if he referred to his productions as a
hymn-writer, then, through the long ages past, men innumerable had done
well, as many a noble Latin and German hymn abundantly shows. In the
first ages of the Church, the whole city of Milan was alive with hymns,
and Augustine tells us how his soul was moved by the power of sacred
psalms; the passage is well worth remembering. “The hymns and songs of
the Church,” he says, “move my soul intensely; by the truth distilled by
them into my heart the flame of piety was kindled, and my tears flowed
for joy. The practice of singing had been of no long standing in Milan,
it began about the year when Justinian persecuted Ambrose; the pious
people, watched in the church, prepared to die with their pastor; there
my mother sustained an eminent part in watching and praying; then hymns
and psalms, after the manner of the East, were sung, with a view of
preserving the people from weariness; and thence the custom has spread
through Christian Churches.” Johnson was a pious man, the truth as it is
in Jesus was held by him very heartily, but we are compelled to believe
that, with all his amazing knowledge, he had not seen the innumerable
hymns which through the successive ages had rained down their beautiful
influences on the Church.
Luther, as is well known, ushered in his great Reformation with a voice
of joy and singing. There is a pretty little anecdote telling how one day
he stood at his window and heard a blind beggar sing. It was something
about the grace of God, and it brought tears into his eyes, and then the
good thought rushed into his soul, and it wrought its results there. “If
_I_ could only make gospel songs which would spread of themselves among
the people.” And he did so. The songs were fashioned, and flew abroad
like singing birds—“like a lark singing towards heaven’s gate,” says one
writer; “the song shot upward, and poured far and wide over the fields
and villages; and though the snare of the fowler sometimes captured the
preacher, and military mobs dispersed the congregation—like the little
minstrel among the clouds, too happy to be silenced, too airy to be
caught, and too high to dread man’s artillery—the little song filled all
the air with New Testament music, with words such as ‘Jesus,’ ‘Believe
and be saved,’ ‘Gospel,’ ‘Grace,’ ‘Come unto Me,’ ‘Worthy is the Lamb
that was slain,’ and thus they became the passwords and watchwords of the
Church.”[16]
Watts has been styled the Marot of England; he must receive far higher
praise than could be implied by this designation; but there are
resemblances between the two. Clement Marot was the favourite poet of
Francis I. of France; Bayle ascribes to him the invention of modern
metrical psalmody. He was a free and even profane writer, but Vatable,
the Hebrew professor, suggested to him the translation of the Psalms
into French verse. He did so, or rather he translated fifty-two Psalms
“from the Hebrew into French rhyme.” They quite took the taste of Paris;
they found universal reception, and became favourites with Francis I.,
who sent a copy to Charles V. Most of the pieces were set and sung to
the tunes of the gay ballads of that day. They were quite the favourites
of the court of Henry II. and Catherine de Medicis, especially they
became the favourites of the Huguenot party; Marot, it is said, had
himself belonged to the party of the Reformation. Ere long, however, the
dangerous tendency of the pieces was perceived by the Sorbonne, the book
was denounced; Marot fled to Turin, where he closed in poverty a life
which had passed in singular vicissitudes, but which only just before
had been sunned in the rays of the courtly magnificence of Paris in that
splendid time. Marot’s small collection was completed by Theodore Beza,
and the pieces continued long in use among the Reformed Churches; some,
we believe, are, with many additions, still sung.
Our chief concern at present is with our own country, but the other
reforming peoples of Europe appear to have preceded us in this holy art,
although some indications are given of the existence of a very hearty
and earnest religious song; in the Zurich Letters, published by the
Parker Society, we find, even so early as 1560, the following letter from
Bishop Jewel to Peter Martyr; he says: “Religion is now somewhat more
established than it was; the people are everywhere exceedingly inclined
to the better part; the practice of joining in church music has very much
conduced to this; for as soon as they had commenced singing in public
in one little church in London, immediately, not only the churches in
the neighbourhood, but even the towns far distant, began to vie with
each other in practice. You may sometimes see at St. Paul’s Cross, after
the service, 6,000 persons, old and young, of both sexes, all singing
together and praising God. This sadly annoys the mass priests and the
devil, for they perceive that by this means the sacred discourses sink
more deeply into the minds of men, and that their kingdom is weakened and
shaken at almost every note.”
As time went along in our country, there appeared a race of poets of the
highest order; we need scarcely mention such names as Quarles, Vaughan,
Herbert, Jeremy Taylor, Richard Baxter, John Norris, Thomas Ken, and with
these names we certainly ought to include John Milton, who attempted a
version of several of the Psalms, one of which is a great favourite with
us to this day. Poets not remarkable for sanctity, like John Dryden, were
compelled to the service of sacred song, as in the instance of his fine
hymn,
Creator, Spirit, by whose aid.
Richard Baxter leaves a beautiful testimony as to the power of sacred
hymns over himself; he says, “For myself I confess that harmony and
melody are the pleasure and elevation of my soul; I have made psalms of
praise in the holy assembly the chief delightful exercise of my religion
and my life, and have helped to bear down all the objections which I have
heard against church music and against the 149th and 150th Psalms. It was
not the least comfort I had in the converse with my late dear wife, that
our first in the morning and last at night was a psalm of praise, till
the hearing of others interrupted it. Let those that savour not melody
leave others to their different appetites, and be content to be so far
strangers to their delights.”
With all this it is singular that an amazing prejudice existed until the
time of Watts against the indulgence of congregational psalmody. Josiah
Conder simply expressed the fact, when he says, “Watts was the first who
succeeded in overcoming the prejudice which opposed the introduction
of hymns into our public worship.” It is quite remarkable that the
prejudice against congregational singing was quite as great with many
of our English Churches as amongst the Papists themselves; among the
Presbyterians especially, this prejudice obtained a considerable hold and
lingered long. “No English Luther,” says Conder, “had risen to breathe
the living spirit of evangelical devotion into heart-stirring verse
adapted to the minds and feelings of the people. Are we to suppose the
want was not felt, or was there anything in the aristocratic genius of
the Presbyterian polity that forbade or repressed the free expression of
devotion in the songs of the sanctuary?”[17]
It was about the time that Isaac Watts came to London that some of the
assemblies of the saints were shaken by the innovation, of singing. The
Baptists appear to have been most indisposed to the doubtful practice;
and in the church of the well-known Benjamin Keach, of Southwark, the
pastoral ancestor of Charles Spurgeon, when the pastor, after long
argument and effort, established singing, a minority withdrew and “took
refuge in a songless sanctuary,” in which the melody within the heart
might be in no danger of disturbance from the perturbations of song.[18]
The Society of Friends was not alone in regarding with distaste all the
exercises of song in the house of the Lord. Those who are interested
in the curious literature of that time may easily discover pamphlets
and lectures which show “great searchings of heart” upon the question
“whether Christ, as Mediator of the New Covenant, hath commanded His
churches under the Gospel in all their assemblies to sing the Psalms
of David, as translated into metre and musical rhyme, with tunable and
conjoined voices of all the people together, as a Church ordinance, or
any other song or hymn that are so composed to be sung in rhyme by a
prelimited and set form of words?” The dispute was mainly confined to
the Baptist churches. But in 1708 one of the Eastcheap lectures, in a
discourse by Thomas Reynolds, replied to the “objections of singing.” A
few years before the controversy had run strong and high. Isaac Marlow
very angrily maintained the ordinary songless usage, in the year 1696, in
his “Truth Soberly Defined” and in the “Controversies of Singing Brought
to an End.” Benjamin Keach seems to have been the first to lead on in
this suspicious diversion by the publication of his “Breach Repaired in
God’s Worship; or, Singing of Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs, proved
to be an Holy Ordinance of Jesus Christ.” This appeared in 1691.[19]
The controversy is forgotten now, except by those who explore the more
curious nooks and corners of Church history. Among the followers of
Christ the Quakers are the only people who have consistently maintained
their first profession, a profession, however, in which they do not
imitate their founder, George Fox, of whom we especially read that he
sometimes led his services with singing.
It was into this state of things that Isaac Watts was introduced. “I
almost think,” says Alexander Knox, “that he was providentially appointed
to furnish the revived movement of associated piety, which Divine
Wisdom foresaw would take place in England in the 18th century, with an
unexampled stock of materials for that department, which alone needed
to be provided for, of their joint worship. Examine his poetry, and you
will find that, though ability to converse with God in solitude is not
absolutely overlooked, the sheet-anchor is what he calls the sanctuary.
In particular in the Psalms you will find him generally applying to
Christian assemblies what David said of the Temple services, as if
public ordinances occupied the same supreme place in the inward and
spiritual as in the outward and carnal dispensation.” This judgment of
Knox is curiously involved, and its latter portion seems to contradict
its former. Acquaintance with Watts’ hymns will show that Knox was quite
wrong, that Watts by no means overlooked the inward and the spiritual;
but his object seems to have been to provide a congregational, joint, and
united service. And for this it does seem as if he in an especial manner
was raised up by the providence of God; and this becomes more evident as
we notice how it is from his day, and apparently very greatly from the
method he created that the popular hymnology of our country, which is
now surely—may we not dare to say?—the noblest, of any church or of any
nation in the world, dates its true original.
We have claimed for Watts already a far higher rank than is implied by
the Marot of England, but it is certain that exception will be taken to
our judgment when we say that no other writer of this order approaches
near to him in the elevation, not merely of expression, but of sentiment;
the very grandeur, the majesty of his epithets, the inflamed utterances
may be to some more quiet natures a ground of exception. To them they
seem sometimes to be open to the charge of inflation. Yet every order and
variety of expression, from the loud swelling jubilant rapture to the
softest and sweetest strains of tenderness, find fitting utterance in
them.
The efforts he made to create a sacred congregational psalmody exposed
him, as we know, in his own times to obloquy, singular as it seems, even
to contempt, and this contempt has been renewed in our own day. In a
paper, understood to be from the pen of John Keble, in the “Quarterly
Review,” it is said, “Watts was an excellent man, a strong reasoner, of
undoubted piety, and perhaps—a rarer virtue—of true Christian charity;
but in our opinion he laboured under irreparable deficiency for the task
he undertook—_he was not a poet!_ He had a great command of Scriptural
language, and an extraordinary facility of versification; but his piety
may induce us to make excuses for his poetry—_his poetry will do little
to excite dormant piety_.” The writer then goes on to remark upon the
rude, homely, and unequal strains of Watts, there follows something
like a history of psalmody in England, but not another word about our
author.[20] George Macdonald, the novelist, has condescended to sneer
at Watts and to travesty his verses, while another writer in a fierce
attack upon evangelicalism—the predominance of which in Watts’ verses we
presume to be the spring of the hatred they often inspire—informs us that
“most of Dr. Watts’ hymns are doggerel;” and after quoting some passages
he considers to deserve this appellation—and which some of them do—he
closes by saying, “These may possibly be poetry, but if they are, it is
extremely plain that ‘Paradise Lost’ and ‘In Memoriam’ are not poetry.”
Thus by many it has come to be settled that Watts must take a very low
place in English literature, if, indeed, he can be considered in any
sense worthy of a place at all. Let us see how the case stands. The man
who has no sympathy with Nature is not to be expected to find beauty or
melody in the poetry of Burns or Wordsworth. Men who have no sympathy
with evangelical truth can scarcely be expected to have much admiration
for Watts; yet the gifted nobleman, who was the Mecænas of the past
age, was not an indifferent critic, and when called on to cite the most
perfect verse in the language he immediately instanced
There shall I bathe my weary soul
In seas of heavenly rest,
And not a wave of trouble roll
Across my peaceful breast.
A friend who, to his other attainments adds those of scholar and a
critic, suggests how interesting it would be to analyze the verses
of Watts, for the purpose of noting how often he evidently thought
in foreign languages, and especially the Latin, with which he was so
familiar; and hence we have lines which, while to some readers they
appear to be doggerel, are indeed illustrations that he was using words
in their real etymological sense, and thus imparting to his verse a
singular beauty; thus:
How _decent_ and how wise,
How glorious to behold,
Beyond the pomp that charms the eyes
And rites adorned with gold.
Thus, again, of God:
He sits on no _precarious_ throne,
Nor borrows leave to be.
And thus again:
Let every creature rise and bring
_Peculiar_ honours to our King.
Every poet is to be judged by what he is on the average. Homer has been
said to nod; Milton is frequently very turgid, and innumerable passages
sink quite below the usual sustained magnificence of the poem; in
Shakespeare there are lines, conceits, and redundances which all good
taste would wish away. The reader who judged of Keble’s capacity for
poetry by his version of the Psalms, or many of his later pieces, would
not form a very lofty estimate of his powers. And there are many more
expressions and passages than we shall care to count among the psalms
and hymns of Watts which are wholly indefensible by any standard of good
taste, good sense, or good theology. Upon these, critics, like those to
whom we have referred, have pounced, these they have quoted, and to the
crowds of passages sublime or pathetic, strong or tender, they have most
adroitly closed their eyes or their ears.
Watts has suffered in many ways. Accused by one class of critics of bad
taste, and sneered at for the absence of poetic gifts by another class,
his theology has been called in question as leaning towards heresy.
How this charge could ever have been made by any man who had read for
himself Watts’ hymns passes all our conception. But the Unitarians, with
a mendacity singularly their own, have in many instances taken his hymns
and garbled them to suit their own theology. The Unitarians are clever
at taking possession of other people’s property, their churches, their
endowments, their books, their great names, and, in Watts’ instance,
their hymns. We have even seen the _Te Deum_ adapted to a Unitarian
service. The Unitarians are regarded as an exceedingly moral people, and
it has often been supposed that what they lack in doctrine they make
up in duty, but it is quite true that they are singularly dishonest;
and the most eminent Unitarian minister in England in our day, the Rev.
James Martineau, does not hesitate to charge such dishonesty upon his
community; he shows how the term Unitarian has to be kept out of sight
in order that certain property may be obtained. He says, “How could
an organization with a doctrinal name upon its face, the Unitarian
Association, go into court and plead our right to our chapels, on the
ground of their doctrinal neutrality? Accordingly, another association
had to be got up specially for the purpose, the Presbyterian Association,
in order to evade the inconsistency; and I know it to have been the
opinion of the two founders of the Unitarian Association that they
committed a disastrous mistake in giving a doctrinal name to the
society.” And he says to Mr. Macdonald, to whom he is writing, “Upon
what ground can you claim a rightful succession, as you have so nobly
done, to Matthew Henry and the founders of Crook Street, if you place
the essence of your Church in doctrines which he did not hold!”[21] And
thus Unitarians have constructed a science of equivocations, and tread a
plank of double meanings; it expunges the term Unitarian as designative
of their creed, and it takes the words representative of the creed of
the great Church through all ages, and, reversing the miracle of our
Lord, they use them as vessels in which the wine is turned into water.
This is the principle which has governed in Unitarian hymn-books. The
selection of many of the hymns from Watts, even his sacramental hymns,
have in several instances not been permitted to pass unmutilated; and
then, putting the top stone upon the column of injustice, the further
indignity, amounting to insolence, of claiming him as a Unitarian.
It is a curious thing to find a writer in the “Wesleyan Magazine” for
1831 boasting that none of the Wesleyan hymns have ever been used for
the purpose of Unitarian or Socinian worship, while Watts’ have been
thus frequently employed. The writer admits that in such instances they
have been altered, but says that “Charles Wesley’s hymns are made of too
unbending materials ever to be adapted to Socinian worship.” He was quite
mistaken in the fact, they have often been “bent” for this purpose; but
it is the very peculiarity of Watts that he rises to the pre-existent and
uncreated realms of majesty, of which our Lord speaks as “the glory I had
with Thee before the world was.” It would be interesting to know how any
Socinian or Unitarian could “bend” that magnificent hymn,
Ere the blue heavens were stretched abroad,
From everlasting was the Word:
With God He was; the Word was God,
And must divinely be adored.
By His own power were all things made;
By Him supported all things stand;
He is the whole creation’s Head,
And angels fly at His command.
Ere sin was born or Satan fell,
He led the host of morning stars:
Thy generations who can tell,
Or count the number of Thy years?
But lo! He leaves those heav’nly forms,
The Word descends and dwells in clay,
That He may hold converse with worms,
Dressed in such feeble flesh as they.
Mortals with joy beheld His face,
The Eternal Father’s only Son;
How full of truth! how full of grace!
When through His eyes the Godhead shone.
Archangels leave their high abode
To learn new myst’ries here, and tell
The loves of our descending God,
The glories of Immanuel.
But, indeed, the sum of the matter is that the theology—the evangelical
theology of Watts’ hymns—is the chief reason of the exception taken to
the poetry. He is in a very eminent sense the poet of the Atonement; he
saw the infinite meanings in that great expression “the blood of Jesus
Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin.” We have heard some quote and
speak of what they have called that dreadful verse!—
Blood hath a voice to pierce the skies,
Revenge the blood of Abel cries;
But the dear stream, when Christ was slain,
Speaks peace as loud from every vein!
He saw infinite attributes in the Incarnation of Jesus Christ, God
manifested in the flesh, and he saw infinite consequences involved
in the sacrifice of Christ. It was all to him “the wisdom of God in a
mystery,” it was all the great power of God. Thus we have called him
the evangelical poet, the poet of the Atonement. Hence those who have a
distaste for his doctrine will dislike his verse.
It was the nature of Watts’ theology that it entered more into the
heavenly places, the timeless, and the unconditioned purposes of the
Infinite and Eternal Mind. He was a student, a real and a hard student,
and the speculations of his intellect whenever he betook himself to
verse, presented themselves to his mind suffused in the glowing but
ineffable lights of eternity; he seemed to be fond of revolving eternal
truths. We hope not to be misunderstood if we speak of him as a mystic.
Although in his prose writings so little of the mystic appears, in his
hymns he is perpetually moving amidst the adumbrations of uncreated mind.
What an illustration of this is in that extraordinary hymn,
Lord we are blind, we mortals blind.
Much of the mystic spirit which pervades his verse is perceptible in the
fine paradox in the following expressions of the last verse:
The Lord of Glory builds His seat
Of gems unsufferably bright;
And lays beneath His sacred feet
Substantial beams of gloomy night!
It is quite vain work to argue with those who take exception to these
expressions. If they are not felt they will not be seen. If we say Watts
was a mystic, the expression will astonish some of our readers. The hard
abstract lines of cold creeds, and bodies of theology, suddenly in his
verse flashed out radiant and visible as planets in southern heavens;
and his words expressing truths which seem cold in the creed of Calvin
or the rigid framework of the confessions and catechisms of Puritanism,
became like wings of ardent fire, tipped with seraphic light. There was
even an oriental splendour about his expressions. He was mighty in the
Scriptures, and we believe it will not be possible to find a verse or
phrase which is not justified by Scriptural expression. His verse—the
verse of the man who has been claimed as a Unitarian—was incessantly
struggling up to express in glowing metre those sublime flights of
thought which have always been at once the prevailing glory and gloom of
what is called the Calvinistic theology. We note this in such pieces as
What equal honours shall we bring
To Thee, O Lord, our God, the Lamb?
Since all the notes that angels sing
Are far inferior to Thy name.
Or,
When I survey the wondrous cross
On which the Prince of Glory died,
My richest gain I count but loss,
And pour contempt on all my pride.
Or,
Up to the fields where angels lie,
And living waters gently roll,
Pain would my thoughts leap out and fly,
But sin hangs heavy on my soul.
Thy wondrous blood, dear dying Christ,
Can make this load of guilt remove,
And Thou canst hear me where Thou flyest,
On Thy kind wings, celestial Dove!
Or,
Descend from heaven, immortal Dove,
Stoop down and take us on Thy wings,
And mount and hear us far above
The reach of these inferior things.
Or the hymn commencing
Oh the delights! the heavenly joys!
Or that,
Now to the Lord a noble song!
Watts, we have said, has suffered in many ways. No hymns, we will be
bound to say, in our language have suffered so much from garbling and
mangling; many of them have passed through a perfect martyrdom of
maltreatment. Dr. Kennedy, of Shrewsbury, in his “Hymnologia Christiana,”
will not admit “When I can read my title clear” to be a hymn, because
it is gravely wrong in doctrine; and “There is a land of pure delight”
is not admitted, because it is seriously faulty in style. But if an
impartial reader should desire to sum up the great merits of Watts, it
will perhaps be found that there is no doctrine of the great Christian
creed and no great Christian emotion which does not find happy and
frequently most faultless expression. His hymns of _Praise to God_, are
frequently among the most noble in our language; for instance:
Sing to the Lord who built the skies,
The Lord that reared this stately frame;
Let all the nation sound His praise,
And lands unknown repeat His name.
He formed the seas, He formed the hills,
Made every drop, and every dust,
Nature and time, with all her wheels,
And pushed them into motion first.
Now from His high imperial throne
He looks far down upon the spheres;
He bids the shining orbs roll on,
And round He turns the hasty years.
Thus shall this moving engine last
Till all His saints are gathered in,
Then for the trumpet’s dreadful blast,
To shake it all to dust again!
Yet, when the sound shall tear the skies,
And lightning burn the globe below,
Saints, you may lift your joyful eyes,
There’s a new heaven and earth for you.
He was fond of singing _the uncreated glories of the Son of God_, His
official and mediatorial Majesty, as in that complete and glowing hymn,
Join all the glorious names.
Or,
Go worship at Immanuel’s feet.
He had to vindicate himself during his life for the use of doxologies, or
hymns of _praise to the Holy Spirit_, as in
Eternal Spirit, we confess
And sing the wonders of Thy grace.
Or the invocation,
Come, Holy Spirit, heavenly Dove!
There is an intense and immediate objectiveness about Watts’ hymns;
praise, like a clear and glowing firmament, encompasses them all, and
the objects of adoration revolve, like the firmamental lights, clear and
distinct to the vision; they are often interior and meditative, but they
never indicate a merely morbid introspection; they seem to glow in the
light of the objects of their adoration: again and again we are impressed
by their reverent effulgence. They are not the singular rapture over the
worshipper’s own state of feeling, they are not even rapture so much
on account of what is seen; they are praise and honour to the objects
themselves, and they have indeed to be perverted before they can express
any other sentiments than those they originally utter.
Few writers more affectingly set forth _the death of Christ_:
He dies! the Friend of sinners dies!
Lo! Salem’s daughters weep around;
A solemn darkness veils the skies,
A sudden trembling shakes the ground.
Break off your tears, ye saints, and tell
How high our great Deliverer reigns;
Sing how He spoiled the hosts of hell,
And led the monster Death in chains.
Say, “Live for ever, wondrous King!
Born to redeem and strong to save;”
Then ask the monster, “Where’s thy sting?”
And “Where’s thy victory, boasting grave?”
The hymn, indeed, contains some weak lines, but the first and the three
last verses have even great dramatic vigour and strength.
But hymns are not always to shine with splendid lights, _they are to
soothe and comfort_; hence such words as—
Come hither, all ye weary souls.
We remember a venerable minister eighty-eight years of age, who filled
a conspicuous place in the Church of his day; while he was dying his
daughter said to him:
Jesus can make a dying bed
As soft as downy pillows are,
While on His breast I lean _my_ head,
And breathe my life out sweetly there.
The old man listened as well as he could to the verse, then turned his
head on the pillow, repeated the words “_my_ head,” and so died. Perhaps
some critic would remark that the versification is slightly inaccordant
or defective, but its tenderness has propitiated many a dying pang.
_Devotion_ is the eminent attribute of these hymns,—ardent, inflamed
rapture of holiness. Well has it been said “to elevate to poetic
altitudes;” every truth in Christian experience and revealed religion
needs the strength and sweep of an aquiline pinion; and this is what
Isaac Watts has done; he has taken almost every topic which exercises the
understanding and the heart of the believer, and has not only given to it
a devotional aspect, but has wedded it to immortal numbers; and whilst
there is little to which he has not shown himself equal, there is nothing
he has done for mere effect. Rapt, yet adoring, sometimes up among the
thunder-clouds, yet most reverential in his highest range, the “good
matter” is in a song, and the sweet singer is upborne as on the wings of
eagles; but even from that triumphal car, and when nearest the home of
the Seraphim, we are comforted to find descending lowly lamentations and
confessions of sin—new music, no doubt, but the words with which we have
been long familiar in the house of our pilgrimage.
Religion never was designed
To make our pleasures less.
Thou art the sea of love
Where all my pleasures roll,
The circle where my passions move,
And centre of my soul.
To Thee my spirits fly
With infinite desire,
And yet how far from Thee I lie!
Dear Jesus, raise me higher.
I cannot bear Thy absence, Lord,
My life expires if Thou depart;
Be thou, my heart, still near my God,
And Thou, my God, be near my heart.
Such are the streams of devotion on which we are borne in the verses of
Watts.
Some of his hymns are like _collects_, the compact, comforting little
_watchwords and creeds of the Church_—
Firm as the earth Thy Gospel stands.
Or—
Our God, how firm His promise stands.
Sometimes we have a fine _bold trumpet-like tone of Faith_:
Begin, my tongue, some heavenly theme,
And speak some boundless thing;
The mighty works, or mightier name
Of our eternal King.
His very word of grace is strong
As that which built the skies;
The Voice that rolls the stars along
Speaks all the promises.
He said, “Let the wide heaven be spread,”
And heaven was stretched abroad:
“Abra’m, I’ll be thy God,” He said,
And He _was_ Abra’m’s God.
How well he has expressed the _depths of contrition_ in his version of
the 51st Psalm, what plaintive compassion—
O Thou that hear’st when sinners cry!
And equally well he has depicted the _happiness_ and _serenity_ of “a
heart sprinkled from an evil conscience:”
O happy soul that lives on high!
Or—
Lord, how secure and blest are they
Who feel the joys of pardoned sin.
Then how vigorously his notes rouse and stir to the activities of the
_Christian life_:
Are we the soldiers of the cross,
The followers of the Lamb?
Or—
Stand up, my soul, shake off thy fears!
The _patriotic lyrics_ and hymns of Watts have sounded, how in his day
they throbbed, with that pulse of prayer for our country:
Shine, mighty God! on Britain shine
With beams of heavenly grace;
Reveal Thy power through all our coasts,
And show Thy smiling face.
Amidst our isle, exalted high,
Do Thou our glory stand;
And, like a wall of guardian fire,
Surround the favoured land.
And when the Americans held their great “Thanksgiving Day,” Watts’ hymn,
always sung to the venerable old tune of St. Martin’s, was, as Mrs. Stowe
tells us, the national hymn of the Puritans.[22]
Let children hear the mighty deeds
Which God performed of old,
Which in our younger years we saw,
And which our fathers told.
Our lips shall tell them to our sons,
And they again to theirs,
That generations yet unborn
May teach them to their heirs.
The extent to which the verses of Watts entered into all the incidents of
the social life of the United States is well illustrated in the “Pearl
of Orr’s Island:” in a very striking and pathetic manner the following
stanzas often interlace the conversations of that charming story:
Our God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come,
Our shelter from the stormy blast,
And our eternal home.
Under the shadow of Thy throne
Thy saints have dwelt secure:
Sufficient is Thine arm alone,
And our defence is sure.
Before the hills in order stood,
Or earth received her frame,
From everlasting Thou art God,
To endless years the same.
Thy word commands our flesh to dust—
“Return, ye sons of men;”
All nations rose from earth at first,
And turn to earth again.
A thousand ages in Thy sight
Are like an evening gone;
Short as the watch that ends the night
Before the rising sun.
The busy tribes of flesh and blood,
With all their lives and cares,
Are carried downwards by the flood,
And lost in following years.
Time, like an ever-rolling stream,
Bears all its sons away;
They fly, forgotten, as a dream
Dies at the opening day.
Like flowery fields the nations stand,
Pleased with the morning light;
The flowers beneath the mower’s hand
Lie withering ere ’tis night.
Our God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come,
Be Thou our guard while troubles last,
And our eternal home.
And we are reminded that this grand hymn, which we have heard sung in
barns and meeting-houses, in kirks and cathedrals, also comes with tender
pathos in one of the affecting scenes of Charlotte Brontë.
What grand expressions of _personal faith_ abound among these verses,
what a radiant casting back of the blunted arrows of doubt and unbelief!
Questions and doubts are heard no more;
Let Christ and joy be all our theme;
His Spirit seals His Gospel sure,
To every soul that trusts in Him.
Learning and wit may cease their strife,
When miracles with glory shine;
The Voice that calls the dead to life
Must be almighty and Divine.
What faith in the _Saviour’s glorious resurrection and second advent_!—
With joy we tell this scoffing age,
He that was dead hath left His tomb;
He lives above their utmost rage,
And we are waiting till He come.
_Sabbath songs_, songs for the social service at the close of the day,
songs for every variety of Christian ordinance, songs especially for
the Lord’s Supper, songs of grief as the soul realises the death of the
Redeemer, songs of rapture as the salvation becomes apprehensible—
Salvation! O the joyful sound!
Or—
Plunged in a gulf of dark despair.
The first _Elegies_ in our language are among Watts’ hymns. When early
manhood has been smitten down in its green prime, how finely swells aloft
that grand elegy with its triumphant close, the paraphrase of the text,
“He weakened my strength in the way. He shortened my days:”
It is the Lord our Saviour’s hand
Weakens our strength amidst the race:
Disease and death at His command
Arrest us and cut short our days.
Spare us, O Lord, aloud we pray,
Nor let our sun go down at noon;
Thy years are one eternal day,
And must Thy children die so soon?
Yet in the midst of death and grief,
This thought our sorrow shall assuage,
“Our Father and our Saviour live;
Christ is the same through every age.”
Before Thy face Thy church shall live,
And on Thy throne Thy children reign:
This dying world shall they survive,
And the dead saints be raised again.
And when some form more than ordinarily venerable or beautiful, holy or
beloved, has been lowered into its resting-place, while they laid wreaths
of camellias and evergreens on the coffin, uprose that wonderful elegy:
Hear what the Voice from heaven proclaims
For all the pious dead!
Sweet is the savour of their names,
And soft their sleeping bed.
And how often, in similar circumstances, that other sweet requiem:
Why do we mourn departing friends?
Amidst trembling prayers, in the darkened room, in the presence of some
sweet shrouded and coffined form, the memory of some soft sealed face and
folded hands, and spirit for ever at rest, has rose the hymn into pensive
rapture:
Are we not tending upward too,
As fast as time can move?
Nor would we wish the hours more slow
To keep us from our love.
Contrasting the evanescence of man, not merely with the eternity of God,
but with the eternity of Christ, and the promised prevalence of His
salvation everywhere, who has not seen large meetings leap into hearty
fervour at the announcement of that noble prophecy:
Jesus shall reign where’er the sun
Does his successive journeys run.
Who has more triumphantly followed the spirit of the believer into its
glorious home and rest? Watts had a singularly bold and majestic manner
in striking in the very first words of a hymn the key-note of the whole
piece; indeed there was usually a singular fitness and force in the first
line.
Give me the wings of faith to rise
Within the veil, and see
The saints above; how great their joys,
How vast their glories be!
Some critics have objected to what seems to us the sweet natural pathos
of that verse:
How we should scorn the clothes of flesh,
These fetters and this load,
And long for evening to undress,
That we may rest with God.
Or that fine piece:
Absent from flesh! O blissful thought!
And the following verses, not so often quoted, or so well known:
And is this heaven? and am I there?
How short the road! how swift the flight!
I am all life, all eye, all ear;
Jesus is here my soul’s delight.
Is this, the heavenly Friend who hung
In blood and anguish on the tree,
Whom Paul proclaimed and David sung,
Who died for them, who died for me?
Creator-God, eternal light,
Fountain of good, tremendous power,
Oceans of wonders, blissful sight!
Beauty and love unknown before.
Thy grace, Thy nature, all unknown
In yon dark region whence I came,
Where languid glimpses from Thy throne
And feeble whispers teach Thy name.
I’m in a world where all is new,
Myself, my God; O blest amaze!
Not my best hopes or wishes knew
To form a shadow of His grace.
Fixed on my God, my heart, adore;
My restless thoughts, forbear to rove;
Ye meaner passions, stir no more;
But all my powers be joy and love.
And one of the most touching of his funeral pieces is that magnificent
funeral march for some departed saint, and worthy of the grand air to
which it has often been sung—Handel’s Dead March in “Saul:”
Unveil thy bosom, faithful tomb!
Take this new treasure to thy trust,
And give these sacred relics room
Awhile to slumber in the dust.
Nor pain, nor grief, nor anxious fear
Invade thy bounds: no mortal woes
Can reach the forms which slumber here,
And angels watch their soft repose.
So Jesus slept! God’s dying Son
Passed through the grave and blessed the bed:
Rest here, dear saint, till from His throne
The morning break and pierce the shade!
Break from His throne, illustrious morn!
Attend, O earth, His sovereign word;
Restore thy trust—a glorious form
Called to ascend and meet the Lord.
A judicious and compendious arrangement in order of the hymns of Watts,
would thus show that every form of expression apparently necessary for
public service finds some adequate representation: worship, confession,
prayer, expression of faith; and those churches which for nearly a
century had no other volume to assist them in their public devotions,
do not deserve so much pity as has very frequently been expressed for
them. Soon after their publication they came to be used outside of the
communion for which they were designed. Ralph Erskine, of Dunfermline,
drew a great number of the verses into his most remarkable volumes of
divine drollery, sometimes in a most remarkable manner debasing the
metre. Should the reader care to see an instance of this he may find it
in “Scripture Songs,” Book III., Song III.; but there are many other
instances.
Admirers of Wesley are fond of citing against Watts the well-known saying
attributed to him, that he would have given all he had written for the
credit of being the author of Charles Wesley’s hymn, “Come, O thou
Traveller unknown.” It has been truly said, his excessive modesty often
gloomed his greatness; Gibbons makes some such remark; it, at any rate,
kept all power and disposition to self-assertion in the shade; but it is
no reason why his admirers now should imitate, with reference to himself,
that virtue, and be indifferent to his great powers as a sacred poet.
No hymn-writer has suffered so much from mutilation as Watts. Sometimes
the attempts at improvement have been ludicrous. We remember a specimen
of many:
The little ants, for one poor grain
_Exert themselves_ and strive.
Instead of—
Labour and tug and strive.
But such emendations are innocent when compared with those in which the
entire doctrine of the hymn has been expelled.[23] Lord Selborne (Sir
Roundell Palmer) has said, “Watts altered some of Charles Wesley’s
hymns, much to his brother John’s discontent, as he testifies in the
preface to his Hymn Book.” We have very little hesitation in assuring
his lordship that he is mistaken, and that he will find no instance in
which Watts altered, however slightly, Wesley’s hymns. In two or three
instances he altered and appropriated from Tate and Brady and Patrick,
and acknowledged the extent of his alterations in notes, a courtesy never
extended to himself.
Before Jehovah’s awful throne,
is Watts altered, and admirably altered, by two words in the first line,
but the entire hymn was appropriated; but indeed it was impossible that
Watts could alter Wesley. Watts’ work was all done, and had long been
done, before Wesley appeared. Literary plagiarism we believe to be a much
less common sin than many suppose. Minds on the same plane of thought and
feeling are likely to discover the same images, and to indulge in the
same expressions. Certainly Mr. Milner, in his “Life of Watts,” is wrong
when he says (page 276) that Watts’ well-known lines:
The opening heavens around me shine
With beams of sacred bliss,
were probably suggested to Watts by Gray’s—
The meanest flow’ret of the vale,
The simplest note that swells the gale,
The common sun, the air, the skies,
To him are opening paradise.
Watts’ lines were published nine years before Gray was born!
Comparing the two great hymn-writers, Isaac Watts and Charles Wesley, an
adequate sense may be arrived at, if the very important distinctions are
noticed between the work proposed in the verses of the two admirable men.
It is our conviction that while Watts has, in the stricter term of the
word poet, included in himself Charles Wesley, the purpose of Wesley’s
verse was especially to describe frames, feelings, and experiences,
to set these to a sweet strain of popular melody, such as might rouse
the thousands for whom they were intended. Nothing is more remarkable
than the contrasted sense Watts and the Wesleys entertained of their
performances. The preface published to the Wesleyan Hymn Book, in 1779,
is one of the most extravagant efforts of conceit in our language; it is
somewhat wonderful that the good taste of the Wesleyan Conference does
not omit it from the editions now in the course of circulation. “Here,”
it says, “is no doggerel, no botches, nothing put in to patch up the
rhyme, no feeble expletives; here is nothing tinged or bombast, or low
and creeping; here are no cant expressions, no words without meaning;
those who impute this to us know not what they say.” “Here are,” it
continues, “the purity, elegance, and strength of the English language,
and the utmost simplicity and plainness suited to every capacity.” It
goes on to assert that “in the following hymns is to be found the true
spirit of poetry, such as cannot be acquired by art or labour, but must
be the gift of nature. By labour a man may become a tolerable imitation
of Spenser, Shakespeare, or Milton, and may heap together pretty compound
epithets, such as pale-eyed, meek-eyed, and the like; but unless he be
born a poet he will never attain to the genuine spirit of poetry.” How
remarkably all this is in contrast to the spirit of the writer whose
hymns had been before the world nearly half a century before this first
collected edition of the Wesleys’ hymns was published. John Wesley
included many of Watts’ hymns in his own hymn book, but their authorship
was not acknowledged; and many others were vigorous translations from the
German of Zinzendorf, Paul Gerhardt, etc.; Watts’ hymn book was entirely
and wholly his own.
It is ungracious work to bring into the rivalry of comparison or contrast
two singers who have so sacredly served the Church. Yet we will dare
to say it here, in the hymns of Watts there is that peculiar accent,
that note of pain, that majesty and melody of the deep minor chord—that
sounding of a deeper experience—that ineffable something which testifies
to a capacity of agony, as well as to the assurance of ecstasy which is
the true poet’s prerogative and power. We would even say the very test
of Watts’ genius and experience is that many of his pieces, and some
of his very highest, are unfitted for more than the select experience.
Wesley’s are more easy, common-place, and popular. The hymns of Watts,
however, will stand a far higher test than that of the suffrages of large
congregations or ecclesiastical communities—the sighs of the sick-room,
the death-bed, the bereaved chamber, the private closet of heart
devotion. With these verses on their lips refreshing their hearts, how
many pilgrims have approached the
Land of pure delight
Where saints immortal reign.
Most of what has gone before applies to the hymns; but some especial
reference should be made to the version of the Psalms. Palmer, in his
“Life of Watts,” says, “This is generally allowed to be his capital
production in poetry, with which, in point of utility, none of his
other pieces will bear comparison.” From this verdict there will be many
dissentients. It is certainly true that in some of the pieces he rises
to the highest rendering of the evangelical sense of the Psalter. His
object was to interpret the Psalms of Christ; it is not therefore very
remarkable that when a young minister inquired of an elder which was the
best commentary on the Psalms, he replied, “Watts’ version of them.” This
judgment was not so singular as it seems.
Watts’ may be called the Messianic version of the Psalms; he felt that
without this construction they must be very greatly inexplicable. The
unfolding this idea popularly was an immense boon to the churches. We
are to remember that the Book of Psalms was the great Hebrew Psalter; it
was the Book of Common Prayer and Praise, and when the Christian Church
arose, it still continued the use of these divine airs for the expression
of its experiences and its faith. Jerome says: “The labourer, while he
holds the handle of the plough, sings Alleluia, the tired reaper employs
himself on the Psalms, and the vine-dresser, while lopping the vines with
his curved hook, sings something out of David; these are our ballads in
this part of the world; these, to use the common expression, are our love
songs.” Chrysostom has a noble panegyric upon the use of the Psalms in
the service of the Church. “If we keep vigil in the Church, David comes
first, last, and midst. If early in the morning, David is first, last,
and midst.” Again, he goes on to declare how, “in the funeral solemnities
for the dead, or when the girl sits at home spinning, and not in cities
alone, and not alone in churches, but in the forum and in the wilderness,
and even in the uninhabitable desert, David excites to the praises of
God.” And this has continued true ever since.
The case being so, why was it that, alike in Hebrew and in Christian
days, the Book of Psalms has had such a sovereign power over holy souls?
The personality of David has even obscured the higher personality and the
Messianic symmetry; it is forgotten that in the Hebrew language David
signifies the beloved, the darling, the chosen one, and that many of
the Psalms, regarded as personal to him, are rather to be apprehended
in the _same manner_ in which his name occurs in Isaiah and Jeremiah
and Ezekiel, in which we have “the key of David,” “David, a leader and
commander to the people,” in “the sure mercies of David,” terms the
fulness of which is lost sight of by their being associated with the
Hebrew prince, rather than with Him who is the infinitely beloved of
God and man. Thus in numerous Psalms to which the prefix is given, “A
Psalm of, or by, David,” a stricter reading would be, “A Psalm to, or
for, David;” in some instances this sense comes out with great force,
and thus they illustrate that text in Ezekiel, penned hundreds of years
after David’s death, “I will set one shepherd over them, and he shall
feed them, even my servant David (_i.e._ the Beloved). He shall feed them
and be their shepherd.” What a different fulness of meaning is given to
such innumerable passages as those in the 123rd Psalm, “For thy servant
David’s sake turn not away the face of thine anointed;” “The Lord hath
sworn unto David, Of the fruit of thy body will I set upon thy throne:”
if we substitute the Beloved one for David in many such passages, and
what a rich meaning is unfolded! David was perhaps the author of all
these; but in that wonderful spirit of the Hebrew playing upon words,
just as he rose from his own occupation to exclaim, “The Lord is my
shepherd,” so he rose from his own name, transforming it into a Divine
synonym, searching for its origin and filling it out with divine and
elevated ideas.[24] This was the spirit in which Watts in his version
restored the Psalms to Christ, and removed them from the lower and more
contracted circle of human personality to the suffering and reigning
Messiah. Most readers were thankful for the noble restoration of the
evangelical regalia to their rightful owner; and only here and there
one or two, like the indecent and insolent Bradbury, took exception to
the performance as “robbing them of their book of Praise,” as that rash
and vehement man, referring to the version of Watts, said, “David is no
longer suffered to be our Psalmist.”
This, then, is the spirit in which Watts translated the Psalms, to
the Christian sense preserving, as we have said, the Messianic idea
throughout, as in that stirring call to Christian service:
Arise, O King of Grace, arise
And enter to Thy rest!
Lo! Thy church waits with longing eyes
Thus to be owned and blest.
Enter with all Thy glorious train,
Thy Spirit and Thy word;
All that the Ark did once contain
Could not such grace afford.
The aim of Watts in his Book of Psalms was to translate the Old Testament
phraseology into a New Testament language and experience. James Hamilton
has illustrated this by an anecdote which it can scarcely be impertinent
to quote here; he says: “I cannot tell it accurately, but I have heard
of a godly couple whose child was sick and at the point of death. It was
unusual to pray together except at the hours of ‘exercise;’ however, in
her distress, the mother prevailed on her husband to kneel down at the
bedside and offer a word of prayer. The good man’s prayers were chiefly
taken from the best of liturgies, the book of Psalms; and after a long
and reverential introduction from the 90th and elsewhere, he proceeded,
‘Lord, turn again the captivity of Zion; then shall our mouth be filled
with laughter and our tongue with singing.’ And as he was proceeding,
‘turn again our captivity,’ the poor agonized mother interrupted him:
‘Eh, man, you are aye drawn out for thae Jews, but it’s our bairn that’s
deein’,’ at the same time clasping her hands and crying, ‘Lord, help us;
oh, give us back our darling, if it be Thy holy will; and if he is to
be taken, oh take him to Thyself!’ And fond as I am,” continues James
Hamilton, “of scriptural phrases in prayer, I am fonder still of reality.
It is a striking fact that the prayers addressed to Christ in the Gospels
are hardly one of them in Old Testament language; just as New Testament
songs embed in a language of their own Old Testament phrases;” and, as we
may add, just as the woman and her husband had the same purpose in their
prayers.
And it is in this way Watts seems to apologize for his attempts when he
says, in his introduction to his version of the Psalms:
HEBREW MELODIES CHRISTIANIZED.
“But since I believe that any Divine sentence, or Christian
verse, agreeable to Scripture, may be sung, though it be
composed by men uninspired, I have not been so curious and
exact in striving everywhere to express the ancient sense and
meaning of David, but have rather expressed myself as I may
suppose David would have done, had he lived in the days of
Christianity; and by this means, perhaps, I have sometimes
hit upon the true intent of the Spirit of God in those verses
farther and clearer than David himself could ever discover, as
St. Peter encourages me to hope (1 Peter i. 11, 13) where he
acknowledges that the ancient prophets, who foretold of the
grace that should come to us, were, in some measure, ignorant
of this great salvation; for though they testified of the
sufferings of Christ and His glory, yet they were forced to
search and inquire after the meaning of what they spake or
wrote. In several other places I hope my reader will find a
natural exposition of many a dark and doubtful text, and some
new beauties and connections of thought discovered in the
Jewish poet, though not in the language of a Jew. In all places
I have kept my grand design in view, and that is to teach my
author to speak like a Christian. For why should I now address
God my Saviour in a song, with burnt sacrifices of fatlings,
and with the fat of rams? Why should I pray to be sprinkled
with hyssop, or recur to the blood of bullocks and goats? Why
should I bind my sacrifice with cords to the horns of an altar,
or sing the praises of God to high-sounding cymbals, when the
Gospel has shown me a nobler atonement for sin, and appointed
a purer and more spiritual worship? Why must I join with David
in his legal or prophetic language to curse my enemies, when my
Saviour in His sermons has taught me to love and bless them?
Why may not a Christian omit all those passages of the Jewish
psalmist that tend to fill the mind with overwhelming sorrows,
despairing thoughts, or bitter personal resentments, none of
which are well suited to the spirit of Christianity, which is
a dispensation of hope and joy and love? What need is there
that I should wrap up the shining honours of my Redeemer in the
dark and shadowy language of a religion that is now for ever
abolished, especially when Christians are so vehemently warned
in the Epistles of St. Paul against a Judaizing spirit in their
worship as well as doctrine? And what fault can there be in
enlarging a little on the more useful subjects in the style of
the Gospel, where the psalm gives any occasion, since the whole
religion of the Jews is censured often in the New Testament as
a defective and imperfect thing?”
And, again, he says on the—
SPIRIT OF THE HEBREW PSALMS.
“Moses, Deborah, and the princes of Israel; David, Asaph,
Habakkuk, and all the saints under the Jewish state, sung
their own joys and victories, their own hopes, and fears, and
deliverances, as I hinted before; and why must we, under the
Gospel, sing nothing else but the joys, hopes, and fears of
Asaph and David? Why must Christians be forbid all other melody
but what arises from the victories and deliverances of the
Jews? David would have thought it very hard to be confined to
the words of Moses, and sung nothing else on all his rejoicing
days but the drowning of Pharaoh of the fifteenth of Exodus.
He might have supposed it a little unreasonable, when he had
peculiar occasions of mournful music, if he had been forced to
keep close to Moses’ prayer in the ninetieth Psalm, and always
have sung over the shortness of human life, especially if he
were not permitted the liberty of a paraphrase; and yet the
special concerns of David and Moses were much more akin to
each other than ours are to either of them, and yet they were
both of the same religion; but ours is very different. It is
true that David has left us a richer variety of holy songs than
all that went before him; but, rich as it is, it is still far
short of the glorious things that we Christians have to sing
before the Lord; we and our churches have our special affairs
as well as they. Now, if by a little turn of their words, or
by the change of a short sentence, we may express our own
meditations, joys, and desires in the verse of those ancient
psalmists, why should we be forbidden this sweet privilege?
Why should we, under the Christian dispensation, be tied up to
forms more than the Jews themselves were, and such as are much
more improper for our age and state too? Let us remember that
the very power of singing was given to human nature chiefly for
this purpose, that our own warmest affections of soul might
break out into natural or divine melody, and that the tongue of
the worshipper might express his own heart.”
The following well expresses his modest estimate of his work: “I must
confess I have never yet seen any version or paraphrase of the Psalms, in
their own Jewish sense, so perfect as to discourage all further attempts.
But whoever undertakes the noble work, let him bring with him a soul
devoted to piety, an exalted genius, and withal a studious application;
for David’s harp abhors a profane finger and disdains to answer to an
unskilful or a careless touch. A meaner pen may imitate at a distance;
but a complete translation or a just paraphrase demands a rich treasury
of diction, an exalted fancy, a quick taste of devout passion, together
with judgment, strict and severe, to retrench every luxuriant line,
and to maintain a religious sovereignty over the whole work. Thus the
psalmist of Israel might arise in Great Britain in all his Hebrew glory,
and entertain the more knowing and polite Christians of our age. But
still I am bold to maintain the general principle on which my present
work is founded; and that is, that if the brightest genius on earth, or
an angel from heaven, should translate David and keep close to the sense
and style of the inspired author, we should only obtain thereby a bright
or heavenly copy of the devotions of the Jewish king; but it could never
make the fittest psalm-book for a Christian people. It was not my design
to exalt myself to the rank and glory of poets, but I was ambitions to
be a servant to the Churches and a helper to the joy of the meanest
Christian. Though there are many gone before me who have taught the
Hebrew psalmist to speak English, yet I think I may assume this pleasure
of being the first who hath brought down the royal author into the common
affairs of the Christian life, and led the Psalmist of Israel into the
Church of Christ, without anything of a Jew about him. And whensoever
there shall appear any paraphrase of the Book of Psalms that retains
more of the savour of David’s piety, or discovers more of the style and
spirit of the Gospel, with a superior dignity of verse, and yet the lines
as easy and flowing and the sense and language as level to the lowest
capacity, I shall congratulate the world, and consent to say, Let this
attempt of mine be buried in silence.”
This chapter must not be closed without some slight reference to the
wonderful history and anecdote connected with these hymns; verses
from them have been murmured from innumerable death-beds, have shone
out as memorial lines on innumerable tombstones, and have proved, in
how many instances, to be the converting word, the power of God unto
salvation. When the great orator and statesman of the United States,
Daniel Webster, lay dying, almost the last words which fell from those
eloquent lips which had so often moved in the Senate with thrilling
and overwhelming power, were those words of Watts’ 51st Psalm; and he
repeated them again and again:
Show pity, Lord: O Lord, forgive;
Let a repenting rebel live;
Are not Thy mercies large and free?
May not a sinner trust in Thee?
And the gravestone of the great shoemaker, scholar, linguist, and
missionary, William Carey, in Bengal, contains beside the name and date
only that final confession of faith:
A guilty, weak, and helpless worm,
On Thy kind arms I fall.
The late beautiful and beloved William Bunting used to tell a story of a
poor blind woman, in Liverpool, brought to a sense of sin and salvation
at a Wesleyan service held in connection with the national fast upon the
first visit of cholera to this country. Her impressions had been stirred
by Watts’ hymn—the 224th of the Wesleyan Selection—“I’ll praise my Maker
while I’ve breath.” The next morning she called on the Rev. R. McOwen,
and asked if he could procure for her the book in which was the hymn with
those lines, also Watts’,
The Lord pours eyesight on the blind,
The Lord supports the sinking mind.
It also was in the Wesleyan Hymn Book, which Mr. McOwen placed in her
hands. Her memory was soon stored with the hymns which she delighted
in repeating. By her talent in shampooing she earned a respectable
livelihood. For this purpose she attended on the old Earl of Derby, the
grandfather to the present Earl. She repeated one of her hymns to him.
The old Earl liked it, and encouraged her to repeat more. But one day,
when repeating the hymn of Charles Wesley, “All ye that pass by,” she
came to the words:
The Lord in the day of His anger did lay
Your sins on the Lamb, and He bore them away,
he said, “Stop, Mrs. Brass, don’t you think it should be—
“The Lord in the day of His _mercy_ did lay?”
She did not think his criticism valid; but it showed she was not
repeating her verses to inattentive ears, and other indications showed
that the blind woman was made a blessing to the dying nobleman. But such
anecdotes might be multiplied and extended to many pages.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF ISAAC WATTS IN EARLY LIFE.
Believed to have been presented by him to his friend and schoolmaster,
the Rev. John Pinhorne, Master of the Grammar School, Southampton, now in
the Vestry of Above Bar Chapel, Southampton.]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER VIII.
A Circle of Friends.
The friends of Watts, at almost any period of his life, form an
interesting and very memorable circle, a very striking portrait gallery.
Amongst them are some well-known names, and some, comparatively unknown
now, famous then. We have said, about a mile from Theobalds, within the
parish of Cheshunt, lived RICHARD CROMWELL. He was a member of Watts’
church, although he removed from Cheshunt some short time after Watts’
settlement.
But a more remarkable person than Richard Cromwell was Cromwell’s niece,
the granddaughter of the great Protector, Mrs. BENDISH, in whom it was
said the very Protector himself lived again. Her husband was Thomas
Bendish, Esq., a descendant of Sir Thomas Bendish, Baronet, ambassador
from Charles I. to the Court of Turkey. He died in 1707, but she
survived him till 1728, removing, however, in the latter years of her
life, to Yarmouth. She was a piece of astonishing eccentricity. She had
a great admiration for Owen as a theologian and Watts as a poet; and
very early in his life Watts addressed to her his poem against tears.
She was a member of his church. Her admiration for her grandfather was
extraordinary, and no one was permitted in her presence to express a
doubt concerning his legitimate sovereignty or essential greatness. What
she might have been as a man is beyond all power to speculate; as a woman
she certainly inherited much of her grandfather’s dreamy, musing, moody,
and ruggedly imperative character. Her character and her connections both
alike commanded for her great respect, but she was an oddity. She was
fond of night walks, even on lonely roads. She would not suffer a servant
to attend her, saying God was a sufficient guard, and she would have no
other. Visiting at the houses of friends, she would usually set off at
about one in the morning in her chaise, or on horseback, chanting as she
went one of Watts’ hymns in a key, it is said, more loud than sweet.
There are pictures of her, word paintings, which bring her before our
eyes in the oddest light. Capable of comporting herself with dignity in
the best society, she disdained no menial employment, and very cheerfully
turned her hand to the pitch-fork or the spade among her labourers and
workmen, working herself with a right ready and forcible good will, from
the early morning to declining day, in an attire as mean as the meanest
of those with whom she was toiling, giving no account, say some records,
of either her character or even her sex. It is a curious thing to find
the youthful Isaac Watts talking to this strong-minded creature like a
patriarch in his lines addressed to her in 1699, in which occurs the fine
verse:
If ’tis a rugged path you go,
And thousand foes your steps surround,
Tread the thorns down, charge through the foe;
The hardest fight is highest crowned.
We could have liked a portrait of her from the pen of Watts, or a record
of some of his conversations with her or with her uncle, but it does
not appear to have been in his way either to sketch the portraits of
his friends or to violate private confidences or conferences by putting
them on paper. Her son was another of Watts’ intimates, and with him the
family of Bendish became extinct. He died at Yarmouth, unmarried, in the
year 1753.
Among the ministerial friends of Watts stands the almost forgotten name
of JOHN SHOWER, a very beautiful and eminent man in his day, a man of
large learning and extensive travel. He had ministered for some time
to an English congregation at Rotterdam, and, returning to England, he
passed through the periods of trouble afflicting the communion to which
he belonged. Watts was on terms of close intimacy with him, and they must
have been congenial in their lives of elevated and profoundly cultured
piety.
And there were men around Watts in the ministry with whom he had great
congeniality of sentiment. Eminent among these was SAMUEL ROSEWELL,
the son of Thomas Rosewell, celebrated for his trial for high treason
and unjust condemnation before the impious Jefferies. Watts gives an
interesting account of his visit to him on his death-bed in one of his
sermons preached at Bury Street. “Come, my friends,” says he, “come into
the chamber of a dying Christian; come, approach his pillow, and hear
his holy language: ‘I am going up to heaven, and I long to be gone, to
be where my Saviour is.—Why are His chariot-wheels so long in coming?—I
hope I am a sincere Christian, but the meanest and the most unworthy:—I
know I am a great sinner, but did not Christ come to save the chief of
sinners?—I have trusted in Him, and I have strong consolation.—I love
God, I love Christ.—I desire to love Him more, to be more like Him, and
to serve Him in heaven without sin.—Dear brother, I shall see you at the
right hand of Christ.—There I shall see all our friends that are gone
a little before (alluding to Sir T. Abney).—I go to my God and to your
God, to my Saviour and to your Saviour.’ These,” observes Watts, “are
some of the dying words of the Rev. Mr. S. Rosewell, when, with some
other friends, I went to visit him two days before his death, and which I
transcribed as soon as I came home, with their assistance.” It was after
this visit Watts wrote to his friend the following note:
“DEAR BROTHER ROSEWELL,
“Your most agreeable and divine conversation, two days ago,
so sweetly overpowered my spirits, and the most affectionate
expressions which you so plentifully bestowed on me awakened
in me so many pleasing sensations, that I seemed a borderer on
the heavenly world when I saw you on the confines of heaven and
conversed with you there. Yet I can hardly forbear to ask for
your stay on earth, and wish your service in the sanctuary,
after you have been so much within view of the glorious
invisibilities which the Gospel reveals to us. But if that hope
fail, yet our better expectations can never fail us. Our anchor
enters within the veil, where Jesus, our forerunner, is gone to
take our places (Heb. vi. ult.). May your pains decrease, or
your divine joys overpower them! May you never lose sight of
the blessed world, and of Jesus, the Lord of it, till the storm
is passed and you are safely arrived. And may the same grace
prepare me for the same mansions, and give you the pleasure of
welcoming to those bright regions
“Your affectionate and unworthy friend and brother,
“ISAAC WATTS.
“LIME STREET, _7th April, 1722_.
“Just going to Theobalds.
“P.S.—Our family salute you; they are much affected, pleased,
and edified with their late visit. Grace be with you and all
your dear relations. Amen.”
And among his friends, as we have already seen, he kept up a considerable
intimacy with his own fellow-townsman and fellow-student, SAMUEL SAY, son
of Giles Say, who was ejected from the parish church of St. Michael’s in
Southampton, and one of the first ministers of the Nonconformist church
of that town, and with which Watts’ family was connected. He was a kind
of smaller Watts, a man of large and varied knowledge in the classics,
mathematics, astronomy, and natural philosophy. For forty-eight years he
kept a journal of the alterations of the weather and of his observations
of remarkable occurrences in nature. Possessed of an extraordinary
genius, it was veiled and shrouded by a modesty as extraordinary; but
about two years before his death some of his papers were committed to the
press, consisting of poems and essays on the “Harmony, Variety and Power
of Numbers, whether in Prose or Verse.” He had a great admiration for
Milton, and translated apparently with great elegance the introduction
of “Paradise Lost” into Latin verse; and in the “Gentleman’s Magazine,”
vol. xxxv., is an interesting paper by him, entitled, “The Resurrection
Illustrated by the Changes of the Silkworm.” Watts thought highly of his
judgment, as the following, among other letters, indicates:
“_April 11th, 1728._
“DEAR SIR,
“Your letter, dated from Feb. 10th to March 5th, afforded me
agreeable entertainment, and particularly your notes on the 2nd
Psalm, in which I think I concur in sentiment with you in every
line, and thank you. The epiphonema to the 16th Psalm is also
very acceptable, and, in my opinion, the Psalms ought to be
translated in such a manner for Christian worship, in order to
show the hidden glories of that divine posey. I beg leave only
to query about the _Sheol_ in Psalm 16, whether that phrase of
‘not seeing corruption’ ought to be applied to David at all,
since Peter (Acts ii. 31) and Paul (Acts xiii. 36) seem to
exclude him. And though I will not say that your sense of the
_soul_, _i.e._, the _life_, may answer the Hebrew manner of the
reduplication of the same thing in other words, yet, as David
sometimes speaks of the _soul_ as a thing distinct from the
body, and may not the _soul_ be taken in this place and _Sheol_
signify _Hades_, the state of the dead?
“I am glad my little prayer-book is acceptable to you and your
daughter. I perceive you have been also (among many others)
uneasy to have no easier and plainer catechism for children
than that of the Assembly. I had a letter from Leicestershire
the very same day when I received yours on the same subject;
and long after this a multitude of requests have I had to set
my thoughts at work for this purpose. I have designed it these
many years. I have laid out some schemes for this purpose,
and I would have three or four series of catechisms, as I
have of prayers. I believe I shall do it ere long if God
afford health. But, dear friend, forgive me if I cannot come
into your scheme of ‘bringing in the creed;’ for it is, in my
opinion, a most imperfect and immethodical composition, and
deserves no great regard, unless it be put in at the end of the
catechism for form’s sake, together with the Lord’s Prayer and
Ten Commandments, as is done in the Assembly’s Catechism. The
history of the life and death of Christ is excessively long in
so short a system and the design of the death of Christ (which
is the glory of Christianity) is utterly omitted. Besides, the
operations, of the Spirit are not named. The practical articles
are all excluded. In short, ’tis a very mean composure, and
has nothing valuable—_præter mille annos_. My ideas of these
matters run in another track, which, if ever I have the
happiness to see you, may be matter for communication between
us. I am sorry I forgot to put up the coronation ode in my
pocket. I will count myself in debt till I have an occasion to
send you something more valuable along with it. Two days (ago)
I published a little essay on charity schools, my treatise of
education growing so much longer in my hands than I designed.
If it were worth while to send such a trifle you should have
it. In the meantime I take leave, and with due salutations to
yourself and yours,
“I am your affectionate brother and servant,
“I. WATTS.”
WILLIAM COWARD is the name of one of Watts’ intimate friends, an oddity
in his way as great as Mrs. Bendish: he had been a merchant in the city;
he lived in retirement at Waltonstow; his name is well known now in
Nonconformist circles as the founder of “The Coward Trust,” a useful
fountain of benevolence for the education of young, and the assistance
of poor decayed ministers. He was a type of man easily realised to the
imagination, dogmatical and opinionated, a bundle of eccentricities.
Among others, it was his whim to establish a rule that the doors of his
house should never be opened, however pressing the emergency, after eight
o’clock at night, to any person whatever, visitor or friend. The name
of Hugh Farmer is still held in high and deserved respect for manifold
attainments, one of Doddridge’s most hopeful students, and who had
probably been recommended to Mr. Coward by Doddridge, to whose academy
Coward was a munificent helper. Farmer was the chaplain of the eccentric
man, but he arrived one evening at the door too late; he found himself
without lodging for the night, and was compelled to betake himself to the
house of another, perhaps equally eminent, but more courteous friend, Mr.
Snell, who not only took him in for that evening, but compelled him to
stay with him for thirty years. Nonconformist ministers appear to have
possessed some singularly appreciative friends in those days. William
Coward, however, was, if a man of singular eccentricity, one possessed
of sterling virtues, and especially zealous in the maintenance of the
more rigid articles of faith, and was constantly devising some plans
of usefulness to assist both metropolitan and country ministers. Watts
appears to have had great influence over him, and could comb his rugged
asperities into smoothness. Watts it was to whom we are greatly indebted
for the shape assumed by the “Coward Trust.” He devoted £20,000, and by
Watts’ wise and most judicious advice it was left in such a manner that,
unlike many other trusts, it has been saved from the consequence of
diversion or litigation; and, largely and most respectably useful, it has
furnished a most helpful hand in giving a thorough and most respectable
education to many a young minister, and helping many a poor one, even to
the present day. The “will” of William Coward is a curiosity, and may be
studied, by those who have patience, on the walls of the library of the
New College.
Among the friends of Watts, whose names ought to be mentioned, we must
not omit that of JOHN SHUTE, LORD BARRINGTON, a person very interesting
in his own times. He moved in that immediate circle of which Watts was a
distinguished member; he was nearly of Watts’ age, and his mother was a
daughter of that Joseph Caryl who was one of Watts’ early predecessors
in the ministry at Mark Lane. He was a thoughtful, scholarly man, as the
several works he published abundantly show.[25] His sixth and youngest
son became the well-known Shute Barrington, Bishop of Durham. In the
memoir prefixed to the three volumes of his father’s works, the name of
Dr. Watts is never even mentioned, although the verses from the lyrics,
referring to the intimacy of Shute with John Locke, addressed to him by
Watts, are quoted. He was a member of the Church meeting at Pinners’
Hall, and had previously attended the ministry of Thomas Bradbury;
but when that person behaved so indecently to Dr. Watts, and took so
turbulent a part in the discussion with reference to the Trinity, Lord
Barrington united himself with the Church at Pinners’ Hall, then beneath
the ministry of Dr. Jeremiah Hunt. It seems probable that an intimacy
commenced early in life between Mr. Shute and Isaac Watts, perhaps before
the settlement of Watts in the ministry. It was in 1718 that Swift writes
of him, “One Mr. Shute is named for the secretary to Lord Wharton; he is
a young man, but reckoned the shrewdest head in England, and the person
in whom the Presbyterians chiefly confide; and if money be necessary
toward the good work (that is, the repeal of the sacramental test) in
Ireland, it is reckoned he can command as far as £100,000 from the body
of Dissenters here. As to his principles, he is a truly moderate man,
frequenting the church and the meeting indifferently.” He took the name
of Barrington about the time this letter was written, a connection of
his family, Francis Barrington, Esq., of Tofts, in Essex, leaving to
him his estate conditionally upon his taking his name and adopting his
arms. The high favour in which he stood with George I. exposed him to
the jealousy and enmity of Sir Robert Walpole. He had an interview with
the king on the first day after his arrival in London, apparently in
order that he might decline certain offices of preferment which were made
him, because the Schism and Conformity Bills were as yet unrepealed.
Upon this occasion he stated to the king the grievances beneath which
Dissenters suffered, although they were amongst the most hearty and
faithful friends of the House of Hanover. In the fifth year of this
reign he was created a peer. He stood very high in the friendship of the
king, and it seems that it was this very friendship which brought about
the close of his political life when, in 1723, he was expelled from the
House of Commons for his connection with the Harburgh lottery. This was
a company formed for carrying on trade between England and the king’s
electoral dominions, and it had been proposed that it should be assisted
by a lottery to defray the expenses in deepening the River Elbe near the
port of Harburgh; the project had not met with the approbation of Lord
Barrington, but he received the king’s personal commands to continue
as sub-governor of the company, Prince Frederick being the governor.
It furnished, however, the occasion which Sir Robert Walpole knew how
to use for the removal from his path of a man dangerous to his own
unscrupulous ambition. The project itself was simply a means, favoured by
the king, for promoting trade between the two countries. But now, in his
retirement, he betook himself to pursuits of a very different character,
and the volumes of his theological works are most interesting, and show
abundantly how he brought to bear upon the department of theology that
clearness of judgment which had characterized his political life, united
to a keen analytic power of criticism and discrimination very interesting
to follow through the subjects he discusses; his essay “On the
Dispensation of God to Mankind as revealed in Scripture” is especially
entertaining and suggestive.
He was nephew, by his mother, of Sir Thomas Abney, and this would make
his intimacy with the family in which Watts resided very natural; but at
his house at Tofts he kept round about him much intellectual society, and
sometimes even of persons widely differing in opinion from himself, such
persons as Antony Collins,[26] the well-known sceptical writer of that
day. The Greek Testament was frequently the subject of investigation and
criticism, and on one occasion it is said Collins remarked concerning the
apostle Paul, “I think so well of him as a man of sense and a gentleman,
that if he had asserted he had worked miracles himself, I would have
believed him.”
Lord Barrington instantly produced a passage to that effect, when the
disconcerted sceptic seized his hat and hastily retreated from the
company. Upon another occasion his lordship inquired how it was that
although he professed to have no religion himself, he was so careful
that his servants should attend regularly at church, when he replied
he did this to prevent them robbing and murdering him. This amiable
nobleman, moderate, wise, and well informed, if we may not rather speak
of him as a man of extensive and varied scholarship, was such a one as
could well appreciate and sympathize with Isaac Watts. At the old house
at Tofts, or Beckets, in Berkshire, where Lord Barrington died, we may
be sure that Watts was a frequent visitor, and it was the frequency of
the intercourse probably which permits us so few letters between them,
and of those letters none before 1718. We have already quoted the high
estimate he formed of Watts’ “View of Scripture History;” his estimate of
the “Logic” he rates so highly that he says, “I shall not only recommend
it to others, but use it as the best manual of its kind myself, and I
intend, as some have done Erasmus or a piece of Cicero, to read it over
once a year.” The following note sets every point of his friendship with
Watts in a very pleasing light:
“LONDON, _Jan. 11, 1718_.
“REV. SIR,
“I cannot dispense with myself from taking the first
opportunity I have of acknowledging your great favour in
assisting me so readily to offer up the praise due to Almighty
God for His signal mercies vouchsafed me on three several
occasions, and of assuring you that it was with the utmost
concern I understood that I must not flatter myself with
the hopes of your being with us in this last. But how very
obliging are you, who would give yourself the trouble to let
me know that, though you could not give me the advantage
of your company at Hatton Garden, yet I should not want
your assistance at a distance, where you would address such
petitions to heaven to meet ours as tend to render me one of
the best and happiest men alive. This they will influence to
me in some measure, both by their prevalency at the throne
of grace, and by instructing me in the most agreeable manner
what I should aspire to. Whilst I read your letter, I found
my blood fired with the greatest ambition to be what you wish
me. I will, therefore, carefully preserve it, where it shall
be least liable to accidents, and where it will be always
most in my view. There, as I shall see what I ought to be, by
keeping it always before me, I shall not only have the pleasure
of observing the masterly strokes of the character you wish
me, but, I hope, come in time to bear some resemblance to it.
Whilst you were praying for us, we did not forget you; nor
shall I cease to beseech Almighty God to make you a bright
example of passive virtue, till He shall see fit to restore you
to that eminent degree of acceptableness and service you have
once enjoyed.
“I am, sir, your most obliged humble servant,
“BARRINGTON.
“My wife is very much obliged by your civility. She has desired
a copy of your letter, which, she says, will be as useful to
her as it has been entertaining, if it be not her own fault.
Both our humble services attend the good family where you
are. I am sorry my lady’s cold is like to deprive us of their
company on Wednesday.”
Yet another of the circle of friends, whose names occur to the mind
when we think of Watts, is the saintly JAMES HERVEY. One of Watts’
biographers speaks of “the bloated effusions of Hervey which are
now justly discarded, then not only tolerated, but admired.” It is
an unjust judgment; James Hamilton was much more fair and faithful
when he says of him that “he had a mind of uncommon gorgeousness, his
thoughts are marched to a stately music, and were arrayed in the richest
superlatives;” and he speaks of Hervey’s “Theron and Aspasia” as “one
of our finest prose poems.” James Hervey deserves that his name should
be mentioned with great affection and respect. His life was perpetually
stretched upon a rack of infirmity and weakness. There is even a kind of
pathetic drollery in watching him at Weston Favell living his bachelor’s
life, and, while stirring the saucepan which held the gruel constituting
his modest meal, turning aside to derive some new fancy, fact, or image
from the microscope on his study table. As a writer, he indulged himself
too freely in colour, but many of his works are very pleasing; he was
not only passionately fond of natural scenery, but in an equal degree
delighted in the discoveries of natural history; his copious description
of the human frame is one of the most seductive dissertations on anatomy
and physiology in our language; and those subjects, not remarkable for
being invested with the charms of fancy, certainly do in his descriptions
appear to be invested by the fascinations of poetry. He was a friend
of both Doddridge and Watts. He lived ever in the neighbourhood of the
grave, but his little church of Weston Favell was filled with a loving
congregation. It was a small flock, for it was a small church: but the
humble villagers felt a large amount of affectionate regard for their
feeble and yet famous friend. Into his church he speedily introduced,
after their publication, Dr. Watts’ Hymns. So he tells Watts:
“To tell you, worthy Doctor, that your works have long been
my delight and study, the favourite pattern by which I would
form my conduct and model my style, would be only to echo
back in the faintest accents what sounds in the general voice
of the nation. Among other of your edifying compositions,
I have reason to thank you for your ‘Sacred Songs,’ which
I have introduced into the service of my church; so that
in the solemnities of the Sabbath, and in a lecture on the
week-day, your music lights up the incense of our praise, and
furnishes our devotions with harmony. Our excellent friend, Dr.
Doddridge, informs me of the infirm condition of your health,
for which reason I humbly beseech the Father of spirits and
the God of our life to renew your strength as the eagle’s, and
to recruit a lamp that has shone with distinguished lustre in
His sanctuary; or, if this may not consist with the counsels
of unerring wisdom, to make all your bed in your languishing,
softly to untie the cords of animal existence, to enable your
dislodging soul to pass triumphantly through the valley of
death, leaning on your beloved Jesus, and rejoicing in the
greatness of His salvation. You have a multitude of names
to bear on your breast and mention with your lips, when you
approach the throne of grace in the beneficent exercise of
intercession; but none, I am sure, has more need of such an
interest in your supplications than, dear sir, your obliged and
humble and affectionate servant,
“JAMES HERVEY.”
There could not be a very long intimacy between these two, or much
knowledge of each other; they were both hermits, following, in the midst
of much weakness, the calls of duty and the pursuits of a cultivated
taste. The letter we have just quoted was written the year before Watts
died; Hervey lived ten years longer, but died at the age of forty-seven.
He forms one of a cluster of men singularly interesting to contemplate.
With Doddridge, from their vicinity in the same county, he was on terms
of the closest intimacy. He was a large scholar, a poet by natural
temperament, and an intense lover of natural description. His works, once
so famous, are almost forgotten, and have fallen into quite an undeserved
neglect, partly arising, it may be, from the unfavourable estimate formed
of them by those who have not read them, or who may have fixed their
impressions from the scanning his “Contemplation of the Starry Heavens,”
or his “Reflections in a Flower Garden,” or his “Descant on Creation.”
His portrait should be suspended in the gallery of those we are noticing
as one, who, if not among Watts’ most intimate friends, yet revered and
loved him much.
But there is one name with which that of Watts is constantly united; it
is the name of one whose nature in a marked and special manner seemed
fitted to produce a perfect harmony and accord, it is the name of PHILIP
DODDRIDGE. At what period the friendship commenced cannot be very exactly
ascertained. Probably, had the life of Doddridge been spared to pen the
biography of his venerable friend, the present biographer might have felt
his work a superfluity of naughtiness; but, considerable as the distance
was between the ages of the friends, Watts preceded his younger brother
by only a short time to the grave. Like Watts, his name is especially
associated with the hymnology of England; nor is there a collection of
sacred songs which does not contain some strains from the pair of sweet
singers. Doddridge is indeed rather known by a few pieces, very sweet
and helpful, but limited in the range of their emotions, and never
attempting the lofty and dazzling flight of Watts’ nobler pieces.
Doddridge’s life is full of interest; it has yet to be written, for
there was a variety of incidents in his story which scarcely appears
in the biography of Kippis, or the admirable memoir of Job Orton. All
things considered, it was a wonderful life: its activity was amazing,
the variety of his literary acquirements and spoils was prodigious; one
would say he had much more of the poet’s temperament than Watts; he was
impulsive, passionate, affectionate, yet we certainly miss in him that
indefinable something which constitutes the poet, and which something,
Watts assuredly possessed.
In some particulars both in his ancestry and earlier career Doddridge
resembled Watts; Philip, like Isaac, was the child (he was the twentieth)
of a mother whom persecution had drifted to our shores; at his birth his
mother seemed so near to death that no attention was given to the almost
lifeless little castaway, the infant, and the world almost lost Philip
the moment he was born.
If Watts probably received his first lessons in biblical knowledge from
his grandmother by the fireside of the old house in French Street, the
Dutch tiles in the chimney constituting an illuminated and illustrated
Bible, from which Doddridge’s mother first initiated her own son into
Bible lore, have become a famous tradition. Like Isaac, Philip made so
much progress in scholarship, that he had the offer of a training in
either University if he would enter the Established Church; it was made
generously by the Duchess of Bedford. Philip, like Isaac, declined the
temptation, and so he found his _alma mater_ beneath the more modest and
obscure roof of a Dissenting academy at Kibworth, in Leicestershire.
Doddridge was born in the year when Watts first became the co-pastor
of Dr. Chauncy, and he died in 1751, scarcely two years after the
venerable friend whom he so much honoured and loved. Thus, when Watts
died, Doddridge was on his way to the tomb, dying by the slow process of
consumption. Great as was the difference in point of age, it is affecting
to read the following letter from Watts to Doddridge—indeed, it simply
expresses the truth they were “both going out of the world.”
“STOKE NEWINGTON, _Oct. 18, 1746_, Saturday.
“DEAR SIR,
“My much esteemed friend and brother,
“It was some trouble to me that you even fancied I had
taken anything ill at your hands; it was only my own great
indisposition and weakness which prevented the freedom and
pleasure of _conversation_; and I am so low yet that I can
neither study nor preach, nor have I any hope of better days
in this world; but, blessed be God, we are moving onwards, I
hope, to a state infinitely better. I should be glad of more
Divine assistance from the Spirit of Consolation, to make me
go cheerfully through the remaining days of my life. I am very
sorry to find, by reports from friends, that you have met with
so many vexations in these latter months of life; and yet I
cannot find that your sentiments are altered, nor should your
orthodoxy or charity be called in question. I shall take it a
pleasure to have another letter from you, informing me that
things are much easier, both with you and in the west country.
As we are both going out of the world, we may commit each other
to the care of our common Lord, who is, we hope, ours in an
unchangeable covenant. I am glad to hear Mrs. Doddridge has
her health better; and I heartily pray for your prosperity,
peace, and success in your daily labours.
“I am yours affectionately, in our common Lord,
“I. WATTS.
“P.S.—I rejoice to hear so well of Mr. Ashworth: I hope my lady
and I have set him up with commentators, for which he has given
us both thanks. I trust I shall shortly see your third volume
of the ‘Family Expositor.’”
Watts’ life was uniform; we can scarcely point to a period and say the
man woke into life and being then and there; but Doddridge reached his
period of interior life and labour when he became pastor and tutor at
Northampton, and it would almost seem as if disappointment in love made a
man of him.
The work accomplished by Doddridge in the academy of which he was tutor
was enormous, and it exhibits the thoroughness of the training in the
small unostentatious academy where the Dissenting ministers of that day
gathered their stores of knowledge, and received their education for the
ministry.
And he was great as a preacher—the peasants of the neighbourhood thought
so—his usefulness among them was eminent; and Akenside, the poet, thought
so. The variety of his correspondence is an amazing characteristic too;
various, not only as to the personages with whom he corresponded, but the
subjects upon which he corresponded with them. Like Watts, his sweet and
gentle nature charmed the most obdurate—he had not even a Bradbury to
ruffle the equanimity of his spirit—even the rough and savage Warburton
became kind to him; he reviewed the “Divine Legation,” in the “Works
of the Learned,” a review of that day; and it was to the English Bishop
who quarrelled with everybody, the gentle Nonconformist was indebted for
obtaining that easy passage in the sailing vessel, in which the captain
gave up his cabin to him, that he might journey to the warm airs of
Lisbon to lay aside his labours and to die. Doddridge is known by many
of his works. His “Family Expositor” a long time held a place in the
family and in the study; but a far more extensive fame has followed the
authorship of “The Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul.” This work,
as its dedication to Dr. Watts shows, owes also its existence to him;
two letters exhibit, on either side, the sentiments these admirable men
entertain for each other; the first is the dedication to which reference
has been made:
“REV. AND DEAR SIR,
“With the most affectionate gratitude and respect I beg
leave to present you a book, which owes its existence to
your request, its copiousness to your plan, and much of its
perspicuity to your review, and to the use I made of your
remarks on that part of it which your health and leisure would
permit you to examine. I address it to you, not to beg your
patronage to it, for of that I am already well assured, and
much less from any ambition of attempting your character, for
which, if I were more equal to the subject, I should think
this a very improper place, but chiefly from a secret delight
which I find in the thought of being known to those whom this
may reach as one whom you have honoured, not only with your
friendship, but with so much of your esteem and approbation
too, as must substantially appear in your committing a work
to me, which you had yourself projected, as one of the most
considerable services of your life.
“I have long thought the love of popular applause a meanness
which a philosophy far inferior to that of our Divine Master,
might have us to conquer. But to be esteemed by eminently
great and good men, to whom we are intimately known, appears
to me not only one of the most solid attestations of some
real worth, but, next to the approbation of God and our own
consciences, one of its most valuable rewards. It will, I doubt
not, be found so in that world to which spirits like yours are
tending, and for which, through Divine grace, you have obtained
so uncommon a degree of ripeness. And permit me, sir, while
I write this, to refresh myself with the hope that when that
union of hearts which has so long subsisted between us shall
arrive to its full maturity and endearment there, it will be
matter of mutual delight to recollect that you have assigned
me, and that I have, in some degree, executed a task which
may, perhaps, under the blessing of God, awaken and improve
religious sentiments in the minds of those we leave behind us,
and of others that may arise after us in this vain, transitory,
and ensnaring world.
“Such is the improvement you have made of capacities for
service that I am fully persuaded heaven has received very
few in these latter ages who have done so much to serve its
interests here below; few who have laboured in this best of
causes with equal zeal and success; and therefore I cannot but
join with all who wish well to the Christian interest among us,
in acknowledging the goodness of Providence to you, and to the
Church of Christ, in prolonging a life, at once so valuable
and so tender, to such an advanced period. With them, sir, I
rejoice that God has given you to possess in so extraordinary
a degree, not only the consciousness of intending great
benefit to the world, but the satisfaction of having effected
it, and seeing such an harvest already springing up, I hope,
as an earnest of a more copious increase from thence. With
multitudes more I bless God that you are not in the evening
of so afflicted and so laborious a day rendered entirely
incapable of serving the public from the press and from the
pulpit, and that, amidst the pain your active spirit feels when
these pleasing services suffer long interruption from bodily
weakness, it may be so singularly refreshed by reflecting on
that sphere of extensive usefulness in which by your writings
you continually move.
“I congratulate you, dear sir, while you are in a multitude
of families and schools of the lower class, condescending
to the humble yet important work of forming infant minds
to the first rudiments of religious knowledge and devout
impressions, by your various catechisms and divine songs, you
are also daily reading lectures of logic and other useful
branches of philosophy to studious youth; and this not only
in private academies but in the most public and celebrated
seats of learning, not merely in Scotland, and in our American
colonies, where for some peculiar considerations it might be
most naturally expected, but, through the amiable candour of
some excellent men and accomplished tutors, in our English
universities too. I congratulate you that you are teaching no
doubt hundreds of ministers and private Christians by your
sermons, and other theological tracts, so happily calculated
to diffuse through their minds that light of knowledge, and
through their hearts that fervour of piety, which God has been
pleased to enkindle in your own. But above all I congratulate
you that by your sacred poetry, especially by your psalms and
your hymns, you are leading the worship, and, I trust also,
animating the devotions of myriads in our public assemblies
every Sabbath, and in their families and closets every day.
This, sir, at least so far as it relates to the service of the
sanctuary, is an unparalleled favour by which God hath been
pleased to distinguish you, I may boldly say it, beyond any of
His servants now upon earth. Well may it be esteemed a glorious
equivalent, and, indeed, much more than an equivalent, for all
those views of ecclesiastical preferment to which such talents,
learning, virtues, and interests might have entitled you in an
establishment; and I doubt not but you joyfully accept it as
such.
“Nor is it easy to conceive in what circumstances you could,
on any supposition, have been easier and happier than in that
pious and truly honourable family in which, as I verily believe
in special indulgence both to you and to it, Providence has
been pleased to appoint that you should spend so considerable
a part of your life. It is my earnest prayer that all the
remainder of it may be serene, useful, and pleasant. And as, to
my certain knowledge, your compositions have been the singular
comfort of many excellent Christians—some of them numbered
among my dearest friends—on their dying beds, for I have heard
stanzas of them repeated from the lips of several who were
doubtless in a few hours to begin the ‘Song of Moses and the
Lamb,’ so I hope and trust that, when God shall call you to
that salvation, for which your faith and patience have so long
been waiting, He will shed around you the choicest beams of
His favour, and gladden your heart with consolations, like
those which you have been the happy instrument of administering
to others. In the meantime, sir, be assured that I am not a
little animated in the various labours to which Providence
has called me, by reflecting that I have such a contemporary,
and especially such a friend, whose single presence would be
to me as that of a cloud of witnesses here below to awaken my
alacrity in the race which is set before me. And I am persuaded
that, while I say this, I speak the sentiment of many of my
brethren, even of various denominations, a consideration
which I hope will do something towards reconciling a heart so
generous as yours, to a delay of that exceeding and eternal
weight of glory which is now so nearly approaching. Yes, my
honoured friend, you will, I hope, cheerfully endure a little
longer continuance in life amidst all its infirmities from an
assurance that, while God is pleased to maintain the exercise
of your reason, it is hardly possible you should live in
vain to the world or yourself. Every day and every trial is
brightening your crown, and rendering you still more and more
meet for an inheritance among the saints in light. Every word
which you drop from the pulpit has now surely its peculiar
weight. The eyes of many are on their ascending prophet,
eagerly intent that they may catch, if not his mantle, at least
some divine sentence from his lips, which may long guide their
ways, and warm their hearts. This solicitude your friends
bring in those happy moments when they are favoured with your
converse in private, and, when you are retired from them, your
prayers, I doubt not, largely contribute towards guarding your
country, watering the Church, and blessing the world. Long may
they continue to answer these great ends. And permit me, sir,
to conclude with expressing my cheerful confidence that in
these best moments you are often particularly mindful of one,
who so highly esteems, so greatly needs, and so warmly returns
that remembrance as,
“Reverend Sir, your most affectionate brother,
“And obliged humble servant,
“PHILIP DODDRIDGE.
“NORTHAMPTON, _Dec. 13, 1744_.”
This dedication, of which Dr. Watts said, “It is the only thing in
that book I can hardly permit myself to approve,” may be appropriately
followed by a letter to Mr. David Longueville, minister to the English
church at Amsterdam, who had written to Dr. Watts asking his advice with
reference to the translation of the works of Doddridge into the Dutch
tongue; to this Watts replies:
“REV. SIR,
“It is a very agreeable employment to which you call me, and
a very sensible honour you put upon me, when you desire me to
give you my sentiments of that reverend and learned writer, Dr.
Doddridge, to be prefixed to a translation of any of his works
into the Dutch tongue. I have well known him for many years; I
have enjoyed a constant intimacy and friendship with him ever
since the providence of God called him to be a professor of
human science, and a teacher of sacred theology to young men
among us, who are trained up for the ministry of the Gospel. I
have no need to give you a large account of his knowledge in
the sciences, in which I confess him to be greatly my superior;
and as to the doctrines of divinity and the Gospel of Christ,
I know not of any man of greater skill than himself, and
hardly sufficient to be his second. As he hath a most exact
acquaintance with the things of God and our holy religion,
so far as we are let into the knowledge of them by the light
of nature and the revelations of Scripture, so he hath a most
happy manner of teaching those who are younger. He hath a most
skilful and condescending way of instruction, nor is there any
person of my acquaintance with whom I am more entirely agreed
in all the sentiments of the doctrine of Christ. He is a most
hearty believer of the great articles and important principles
of the Reformed Church, a most affectionate preacher and
pathetic writer on the practical points of religion, and, in
one word, since I am now advanced in age beyond my seventieth
year, if there were any man to whom Providence would permit
me to commit a second part of my life and usefulness in the
Church of Christ, Dr. Doddridge should be the man. If you have
read that excellent performance of his, ‘The Rise and Progress
of Religion in the Soul,’ etc., you will be of my mind; his
dedication to me is the only thing in that book I could hardly
permit myself to approve. Besides all this, he possesses a
spirit of so much charity, love, and goodness towards his
fellow Christians, who may fall into some lesser differences of
opinion, as becomes a follower of the blessed Jesus, his Master
and mine. In the practical part of his labours and ministry,
he hath sufficiently shown himself most happily furnished with
all proper gifts and talents to lead persons of all ranks
and ages into serious piety and strict religion. I esteem it
a considerable honour which the Providence of God hath done
me, when it makes use of me as an instrument in His hands to
promote the usefulness of this great man in any part of the
world; and it is my hearty prayer that our Lord Jesus, the Head
of the Church, may bless all his labours with most glorious
success, either read or heard, in my native language or in
any other tongue. I am, reverend sir, with much sincerity your
faithful humble servant, and affectionate brother in the Gospel
of our common Lord,
“ISAAC WATTS.”
“The Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul” is still the best book of
its kind; but, without doing any dishonour to its great merits, it may be
said that it is built up too much upon a frame-work like that of Scupoli
and A’Kempis, and we have known readers to whom it has rather been a
message of despair than of mercy. Salvation and spiritual happiness seem
to be rather in the attainment of some subjective condition, than in the
finished work of Christ; the soul seems to be invited rather to brood
over, or look in upon itself, than to look outward and upward to Christ.
Still it has been rendered into all the leading languages in Europe. But
it is in his hymns that the influence of Doddridge most resembles that of
his friend. His hymns have been spoken of as a kind of spiritual amber:
but that term, appropriate as it is, is rather descriptive of hymns in
general; are they not all pieces of secreted spiritual electricity,
rare and rich in spiritual emotion? And many of Doddridge’s have an
ineffable beauty. Logan, the Scotch poet, has the doubtful reputation
of the authorship of several very sweet hymns; we say doubtful, because
the authorship turns rather ominously towards the more likely genius of
Michael Bruce; but, in any case, the famous hymn, so sanctified in almost
every Scotch household, as it rises to the old tune of Martyrdom—
O God of Bethel, by whose hand,
ought not to be regarded as his. It may not be uninteresting to notice
together the variations in the two hymns:
LOGAN.
O God of Bethel! by Whose hand
Thy people still are fed;
Who through this weary pilgrimage
Hast all our fathers led;
Our vows, our prayers, we now present
Before Thy throne of grace.
God of our fathers! be the God
Of their succeeding race.
Through each perplexing path of life,
Our wandering footsteps guide:
Give us each day our daily bread,
And raiment fit provide.
O spread Thy covering wings around,
Till all our wanderings cease,
And at our Father’s loved abode
Our souls arrive in peace.
Such blessings from Thy gracious hand,
Our humble prayers implore;
And Thou shalt be our chosen God
And portion ever more.
DODDRIDGE.
O God of Jacob, by Whose hand
Thine Israel still is fed,
Who through this weary pilgrimage
Hast all our fathers led;
To Thee our humble vows we raise,
To Thee address our prayer,
And in Thy kind and faithful breast
Deposit all our care.
If Thou through each perplexing path,
Wilt be our constant guide:
If Thou wilt daily bread supply,
And raiment will provide;
If Thou wilt spread Thy shield around,
Till these our wanderings cease,
And at our Father’s loved abode
Our souls arrive in peace;
To Thee, as to our covenant-God,
We’ll our whole selves resign;
And count that not our tenth alone,
But all we have is Thine.
It is not generally known that Doddridge pursued for many years the
practice of Watts—perhaps he derived it from him—of writing a hymn
after each or many of his sermons, so that the volume of his hymns is a
tolerably large one, numbering three hundred and forty-seven. Many of
them have great evangelical tenderness and beauty; we do not remember
that they ever depart from a good and correct taste; they never soar up
to Watts’ daring heights, but they are often very sweet and exquisite;
they are like the notes of a nightingale in the depths of evening
shades, or sometimes like dove-like wings flashing near to the earth, but
in the bright sunshine, “wings tipped with silver, or feathers of yellow
gold.” And, perhaps, we appreciate rather more the frequent ecstasy of
his hymns in the memory of the fact that the story of his own life shows
him not to have been incapable of human passion.
To Doddridge we are indebted for a pleasing illustration of the early
reception of Watts’ sacred verses; Southey has quoted it in his life
of Watts; the incident shows that the hymns, in spite of the sneers of
Bradbury, were hailed with much delight, as supplying a very great want,
not only in public but domestic service. The letter from Doddridge is
dated 1731.
“Till heaven is enriched by your removal thither, I hope, sir, to find
in you a counsellor and a friend, if God should continue my life, and I
cannot but admire the goodness of Providence in honouring me with the
friendship of such a person. I can truly say your name was in the number
of those which were dearest to me long before I ever saw you. Yet, since
I have known you, I cannot but find something of a more tender pleasure
in the thought of your successful various services in the advancement
of the best causes, that of real, vital, practical Christianity. What
happened under my observation a few days ago gave me joy with regard to
you, which is yet so warm in my mind, that I hope, sir, you will pardon
my relating the occasion of it. On Wednesday last I was preaching in a
barn to a pretty large assembly of plain country people at a village a
few miles off. After a sermon from Hebrews vi. 12, we sang one of your
hymns (which, if I remember right, was the 140th of the second book).
And in that part of the worship I had the satisfaction to observe tears
in the eyes of several of the auditory, and after the service was over,
some of them told me that they were not able to sing, so deeply were
their minds affected with it, and the clerk in particular told me he
could hardly utter the words of it.[27] These were most of them poor
people who work for their living. On the mention of your name, I found
they had read several of your books with great delight, and that your
hymns and psalms were almost their daily entertainments. And when one of
the company said, ‘What if Dr. Watts should come down to Northampton?’
another replied, with a remarkable warmth, ‘The very sight of him would
be like an ordinance to me!’ I mention the thing just as it was, and am
persuaded it is but a familiar, natural specimen of what often occurs
amongst a multitude of Christians who never saw your face. Nor do I by
any means intend it as a compliment to a genius capable of entertaining
by the same compositions the greatest and the meanest of mankind, but
to remind you, dear sir (with all the deference and humility due to a
superior character), how much you owe to Him who has honoured you as the
instrument of such extensive service. Had Providence cast my lot near
you, I should joyfully have embraced the most frequent opportunities
of improving my understanding and warming my heart by conversing with
you, which would surely have been greatly for my advantage as a tutor,
a minister, and a Christian. As it is, I will omit none which may fall
in my way; and when I regret that I can enjoy no more of you here, will
comfort myself with the thoughts of that blessed state where I hope for
ever to dwell with you, and to join with you in sweeter and sublimer
songs than you have taught the Church below.”
One of the most notable persons who crossed the life of Dr. Doddridge
was Colonel James Gardiner: the stern soldier loved the gentle Doctor,
and not less did the gentle spirit of the Doctor attach itself firmly
to the stern soldier. Another instance of the singular hinges on which
friendships are suspended. Doddridge wrote his life, and it created
no little sensation, especially in those circles to which Colonel
Gardiner belonged. One of the last letters of the Countess of Hertford
to Dr. Watts refers so distinctly to this book and to the character of
Doddridge, that it may appropriately find a place here:
“PERCY LODGE, _Nov. 15, 1747_.
“REVEREND SIR,
“The last time I troubled you with a letter was to return you
thanks for your work on the “Glory of Christ,” a subject which
can never be exhausted, or ever thought of without calling for
all the praise which our hearts are capable of in our present
imperfect state. My gratitude to you is again awakened by
the obligation I am under (and, indeed, the whole Christian
Church) to you for giving Dr. Doddridge the plan, and engaging
him to write his excellent book of “The Rise and Progress
of Religion in the Soul.” I have read it with the utmost
attention and pleasure, and, I would hope, with some advantage
to myself, unless I should be so unhappy as to find the
impression it has made on my heart wear off like the morning
dew which passeth away, which God in His mercy avert. If you
have a correspondence with him, I could wish you would convey
my thanks to him, and the assurance that I shall frequently
remember him in my humble (though weak) address to the throne
of Almighty Grace (and which I know myself unworthy to look up
to any otherwise than through the merits and sufferings of our
blessed Saviour), that he may go on to spread the knowledge and
practice of his doctrine, and that he may add numbers to the
Church, and finally hear those blessed words, ‘Well done, thou
good and faithful servant, enter thou into thy Master’s joy.’
“I cannot help mentioning to you the manner of this book
falling into my hands, as I think there was something
providential in it. About four months ago my poor lord had
so totally lost his appetite that his physician thought it
necessary for him to go to Bath. I was not a moment in doubt
whether I should attend him there, because I knew it was my
duty, and, besides, I could not have been easy to be absent
when I hoped my care might be of some use. Yet I undertook the
journey with a weight upon my spirits, and a reluctance which
is not to be described, though I concealed it from him. Since
the great affliction with which it pleased Almighty God to
visit me by the death of a most valuable and only son, I found
myself happiest in almost an entire retreat from the world, and
being of a sudden called into a place where I remembered to
have seen the utmost of its hurry and vanity exerted, terrified
my imagination to the last degree, and I shed tears every time
I was alone at the thought of what I expected to encounter; yet
this dreaded change has, by the goodness of God, proved one
of the happiest periods in my life, and I can look back upon
no part of it with greater thankfulness and satisfaction. I
had the comfort to see my Lord Hertford recovering his health
by the use of those waters as fast as I could hope for. I
found it was no longer necessary, as formerly, to avoid giving
offence, to be always or frequently in company; I enjoyed
the conversation of two worthy old friends, whom I did not
expect to meet there, and had an opportunity of renewing my
acquaintance with Lady Huntingdon, and admiring that truly
Christian spirit which seems to animate the whole course of
her life; and, as I seldom went out, I read a great deal, and
Frederick, the bookseller, used to send the new books which he
received on the waggon nights, of which I kept what I chose,
and sent back the rest. One night he sent me an account of some
remarkable passages relating to the life of Colonel Gardiner;
as I had known this gentleman in his unconverted state, and
often heard with admiration the sudden and thorough change of
his conduct for many years, it gave me curiosity to read a book
which seemed to promise me some information upon that subject.
I was so touched with the account given of it that I could not
help speaking of it to almost everybody I saw; among others,
the Dowager Lady Hyndford came to make me a visit in the
morning, and as I knew she was of his country, and had lived
much in it, I began to talk to her of the book, and happened to
name the author. Upon which she said she would believe whatever
he wrote, for he was a truly good man, and had wrote upon the
‘Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul’ in a manner which
she was sure would please me. She gave me the title in writing,
and I bought the book the day before I left Bath. I have now
been at home three weeks, and have already had the pleasure
to engage several others to read it, who, I hope, will think
of it as I do. I would not wish to trouble you to write to me
yourself, but a letter from your amanuensis to let me know how
you enjoy your health, and whether you are still carrying on
some work of your pen to the glory of our great Master, would
be a very sincere pleasure to me. Let me beg to be remembered
in your prayers, for I am every day more sensible of the
imperfection of my own, and yet, I hope, my heart is sincere in
its desires, that it may be brought to a perfect conformity and
submission to the will of my heavenly Father. My Lord Hertford
always mentions you with regard, and will be glad of your
acceptance of the assurance of his friendship.
“I am, with an affectionate esteem, Sir,
“Your most faithful and obliged humble servant,
“F. HERTFORD.”
It is impossible not to feel that, viewed from many aspects, Philip
Doddridge must have been Watts’ most congenial friend. The largest
portion of Watts’ work was done before they knew each other, but
friendships founded in sympathy ripen very rapidly, and the difference
of years is very slightly felt where there is a great and happy
congeniality of hearts. Watts was not a glowing correspondent, but none
of his letters are so tender as those to Doddridge, to whom he writes
as his “dear and valuable friend,” and always his “affectionate brother
and fellow servant,” and the letters warm greatly as the correspondence
increases, Doddridge always looked up to, and spoke of, Watts in terms
of extraordinary reverence and affection; in their work they were
very similar; Doddridge’s nature was smaller than his friend’s, but
in its measure it was very harmonious and perfect. Watts had a fine
metaphysical sagacity, and the keenness with which he analyzed never
interfered for a moment with the clearness of visions by which he stepped
from the discrete to the concrete, and from parts to the whole; hence,
notwithstanding his fair and catholic nature, he appears to have been
much more absolutely dogmatic than Doddridge, and it was perhaps the
defect of this great man’s teaching that from the fatal facility which
brought him into contact with every class and shade of opinion, the lines
of his more absolute creed were not fixed with sufficient distinctness:
but from his tutorship there passed forth a variety of men who all
delighted to confess their obligations to Doddridge,—Hugh Farmer, Andrew
Kippis, Job Orton, Benjamin Fawcett, and, if not the most scholarly, that
beautiful and well-known teacher, who realized perhaps beyond any his
tutor’s spirit and his tutor’s peculiar power, Risdon Darracott. Such was
Doddridge, without some notice and knowledge of whom a review of the life
and times, the friends and labours of Watts would be incomplete.
One hundred and twenty years have passed away since Philip Doddridge
died, but his name and many of his works are still as sweet and
fragrant as ever. His “Life of Colonel Gardiner” is still one of the
most interesting of religious biographies; his “Family Expositor” still
holds its place in the family; his theological lectures are still an
invaluable curriculum; his correspondence is full of entertainment and
interest; his hymns are still sung in all our churches, and that to
which we have referred, which ought assuredly to be spoken of as his, “O
God of Bethel,” sounded the other day down the aisles of Westminster,
as the body of Livingstone was lowered into the grave. Doddridge’s
body, of course, was denied a resting-place at Lisbon by the civil
and ecclesiastical authorities, but it was permitted to repose in the
burying-ground of the English Factory. The great earthquake, which
occurred shortly after, left his grave undisturbed, and it is a spot of
holy ground unto this day.[28]
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER IX.
The Countess of Hertford and Mrs. Rowe.
One of the most considerable of Watts’ correspondents and apparently
intimate friends, was Frances, Countess of Hertford, afterwards Duchess
of Somerset. This lady was the daughter of the Honourable Mr. Thynne,
brother to Lord Weymouth; she married Algernon, Earl of Hertford, son
of Charles Seymour, Duke of Somerset, who succeeded to the honours and
estates of his father on December 2nd, 1748, _i.e._ about a week after
the death of Dr. Watts. The Countess appears to have been a woman of
great piety, amiability, and accomplishments. Thomson, in his “Seasons,”
addresses her:
“O Hertford, fitted or to shine in courts
With unaffected grace, or walk the plain
With innocence and meditation joined
In soft assemblage, listen to my song,
Which thy own season paints; when Nature all
Is blooming, and benevolent like thee.”
A collection of select letters, published by Mr. Hull, in two volumes,
includes eleven written by the Duchess, and they have been well
characterized as exhibiting rectitude of heart, delicacy of sentiment,
and a truly classic ease and elegance of style; tinged with an air of
melancholy, occasioned by the loss of her only son, Lord Beauchamp,
to whom she so frequently refers in her letters to Dr. Watts. His
death at Bologna, in 1744, cast a settled gloom over her mind, for he
was a youth who seemed to give evidences of superiority and worth of
character calculated to confer honour on the exalted station to which
he was destined, had his life been spared. Her letters all breathe the
spirit of unaffected simple piety and resignation; and from the time of
her husband’s elevation to the dukedom, her life was subjected to the
experience of intense troubles, first, in the death of her own son, and
very shortly after, in 1750, the death of the Duke, her husband; and it
is with reference to these occasions of grief that she writes to Lady
Luxbrough, September 9th, 1750: “You are very obliging in the concern you
express for the scenes of sorrow I have passed through. I have indeed
suffered deeply, but, when I consider it is the will of God, who never
chastises His poor creatures but for their good, and reflect at the same
time how unworthy I was of these blessings, which I now lament the loss
of, I lay my hand upon my mouth, and dare not repine, but hope I can with
truth appeal to Him in the following words: ‘Such sorrow is sent that
none may oppose His holy will. Let me sigh and offer up all my sighs to
Him! Let me mourn, and in the meantime bless His name in the midst of my
sorrow.’”
She did not herself long survive, only till July 7th, 1754, leaving an
only daughter, who subsequently became Duchess of Northumberland. The
Countess herself was the great and intimate friend likewise of Mrs. Rowe;
and when this lady died, to the Countess and to Dr. Watts she left those
confidential letters to which reference may be made in subsequent pages
of the present volume. How far she drew the Doctor from his retreat, how
often he visited the lady at her various houses, we have no means of
knowing; the friendship continued certainly from 1729 to the close of
Watts’ life, and it was probably commenced some time before this date,
for the terms of the first letters are those of warm friendship. In 1731
she refers to her children, especially to the son, who was to be in
after years a source of such grief to the mother’s heart, and she says,
“My young people send their services to you; I assure you my little boy
has grown a great proficient in your ‘Songs for Children,’ and sings
them with great pleasure.” The lady herself secretly cultivated the
recreation of verse, and sometimes forwarded her fancies in this way to
the Doctor, but she says, “I beg the favour of you not to give any copy
of the enclosed verses, for I would wish my excursions of this kind to
be a secret from everybody but you, and a friend or two more, who know
that I do not aim at the character of a genius by any attempt of this
nature, but am led to them merely to amuse a leisure hour, and speak
the sentiments of my heart.” She wrote, however, an elegy on Mrs. Rowe,
which called forth an epigram from the Doctor, which was published in his
posthumous volume of Miscellanies, “Remnants of Time, employed in Prose
and Verse”:
Struck with a sight of Philomela’s urn,
Eusebia weeps and calls the Muse to mourn;
While from her lips the tuneful sorrows fell,
The groves confess a rising Philomel.
Writing from the Hermitage on St. Leonard’s Hill, she says: “I return
you thanks for the epigram you were so good as to send me, and should
think myself very happy if anything of mine could deserve to show the
joy I should feel in being able to imitate Mrs. Rowe in the smallest
instance. I have only two meditations of hers, which she gave me with
the strongest injunctions not to let anybody see them, lest they should
be thought too rapturous; but as I conclude she would not have included
_you_ among those from whom she meant they should be concealed, I will
have them copied if you desire it.” There are in her letters very
pleasing indications of an amiable mind and heart; she writes to him
of the books which have met her in the course of her reading, and her
remarks are characterized by a quiet wisdom and judgment: “My Lord and
Betty (the future Duchess of Northumberland) are in London, so that my
son and his governor are my only companions at present; but we pass our
time agreeably enough between reading, walking, and such other amusements
as this place in which we are and the season of the year afford us; we
have been lately reading ‘Leonidas,’[29] in which I think there are many
fine thoughts; but I hear the town are much divided in their sentiments
about it, since one part are for preferring it to Milton, and others for
levelling it to the lowest rank of poetry. I confess neither of these
appear to me a just representation of it. If you have read it, I shall be
glad to know your thoughts of it.” In another letter she remarks upon the
poet Pope: “I think everybody must wish a muse like Mr. Pope’s were more
inclined to exert itself on Divine and good-natured subjects; but I am
afraid satire is his highest talent, for I think his ‘Universal Prayer’
is by no means equal to some other of his works, and I think his tenth
stanza:
Teach me to feel another’s woe,
To hide the faults I see;
That mercy I to others show,
That mercy show to me:
an instance how blind the wisest men may be to the errors of their own
hearts, for he certainly did not mean to imprecate such a proportion
of vengeance on himself as he is too apt to load those with whom he
dislikes; nor would he wish to have his own failings exposed to the eye
of the world with all the invective and ridicule with which he publishes
those of his fellow creatures.” The following is one of the most
interesting and favourable letters from the many which Dr. Gibbons has
preserved of the correspondence extending over so many years:
“_Jan. 17, 1739._
“SIR,
“I am truly sorry to find you complain of any decay, but I
am sure if you have any it must he bodily, and has no other
effect than that which both Mr. Waller[30] and yourself have
so happily described as letting in light upon the soul. I
never read anything in life that pleased me better than your
meditations on Revelation x., and I hope I shall not only
delight in reading the words, but lay the substance of it
to my heart, to which end allow me to beg your prayers as an
assistance.
“My lord’s state of suffering—for he is again confined to
his bed by the gout—gives me little opportunity and less
inclination to lose much time in the gay amusements which
are apt to divert other people from the thoughts of their
dissolution; but I am not sure that a life of care and anxiety
has not as bad an effect by fixing the mind too attentively
on the present gloom, which obscures every cheerful ray which
would otherwise enliven one’s spirits. I wish I had anything
to send more worth your reading than the following verses, but
I have so little leisure that I can scarce get time to write
letters to the few friends I correspond with. These lines were
written one morning in October as I was sitting in a bow-window
in my chamber at St. Leonard’s Hill, which looks on a little
grove in the garden, and beyond was an extensive view of the
forest:
How lately was yon russet grove
The seat of harmony and love!
How beauteous all the sylvan scene!
The flowers how gay, the trees how green!
But now it no such charms can boast,
Its music gone, its verdure lost;
The changing leaves fall fast away,
And all its pride is in decay;
Where blossoms deckt the pointed thorn
Now hangs the wintry drop forlorn;
No longer from the fragrant bush
Odours exhale, nor roses blush.
Along the late enamelled mead
No golden cowslip lifts its head,
Scarce can the grass its spires sustain,
Chilled by the frost, or drenched with rain.
Alas! just thus with life it fares.
Our youth like smiling spring appears,
Allied to joy, unbroke with cares;
But swiftly fly those cheerful hours,
Like falling leaves, or fading flowers;
We quickly hasten to decline,
And ev’ry sprightly joy resign:
Then be our heart prepared to leave
Those joys, nor at their absence grieve;
Sublimer pleasures let us prove,
And fix our thoughts on those above,
By the bright eye of sacred truth
Review the dangers of our youth,
Think how by turns wild passions raged,
By calm reflection now assuaged,
And bless the gentle ev’ning hour,
When reason best exerts its power,
And drives those tyrants from our breast,
Whose empire they too long possest:
Devotion comes with grace divine,
Around them heavenly glories shine,
While ev’ry gloom their rays dispel,
And banish the deceits of hell;
Ambition now no more aspires,
Contentment mod’rates our desires,
From envy free we can behold
Another’s honours, or his gold,
Nor jealousy our rest alarms,
No longer slaves to mortal charms.
With prudence, patience comes along,
Who smiles beneath oppressive wrong:
If then such peaceful heav’nly guests
Age introduces to our breasts,
Can we his soft approaches fear,
Or heave a sigh, or drop a tear,
Because our outward forms decay,
And time our vigour steals away?
Should we regret our short-lived bloom,
Which, could it last us to the tomb,
Must quickly there to dust consume?
If thus life’s progress we survey,
View what it gives, what takes away,
We shall with thankful hearts declare,
It leaves us all that’s worth our care.
“I am importuned by a very valuable old woman, who is declining
apace, to beg your prayers. She took me from my nurse, and
if I have any good in me I owe it to her. She was trusted
by my mother with the care both of my sister and myself, and
has lived with me ever since. But now, though past seventy,
she cannot meet death without terror, and yet I believe I may
venture to answer that she has always lived under the strictest
sense of religion; but lowness of spirit, joined to many bodily
infirmities, will shed darkness on the most cheerful minds, and
hers never was of that cast. I fear she has very few months, if
weeks, to come on earth, and a notice that you will grant her
request would make her, I believe, pass them with some comfort.
I am forced to take another page to assure you of my lord’s
compliments, and those of my young people; the two latter are
very well. I have no other view in sending the above verses but
to prove that my confidence in your friendship has received no
alteration from the length of time which has passed since I had
an opportunity of assuring you in person with how true a regard
“I am, Sir,
“Your most faithful humble servant,
“F. HERTFORD.”
It is pleasant in these letters to notice the indications of a quiet and
retreating spirit. Upon her return, after a considerable absence, to the
family seat near Marlborough, she says: “I have the pleasure of finding
my garden extremely improved in the two years I have been absent from it,
some little alterations I had ordered are completed; the trees which I
left small ones are grown to form an agreeable shade, and I have reason
to bless God for the pleasantness of the place which is allotted me to
pass many of my retired hours in; may I make use of them to fit me for
my last, and that I may do so, allow me to beg the continuation of your
prayers.” She several times refers to her “dear old nurse,” the “very
valuable old woman” mentioned in the lengthy letter quoted above: “Your
good prayers for poor Rothery have met with unexpected success, she is
so much recovered that I begin to think she will get entirely well, and
if she does I think nothing of that kind has since I can remember looked
more like a miraculous operation of the healing power of the Almighty.
I hope the same Divine mercy will long preserve you a blessing to the
age, and that you will find your strength return with the warm weather.”
This was written from Windsor Forest; the next month she writes from
Marlborough: “My poor old woman has got hither, contrary to her own and
all our expectations; she has the deepest gratitude for your goodness to
her, and begs you will accept her thanks; she is still very weak, and I
fancy will hardly get over the autumn.”
This lady’s letters exhibit a vein of intelligence and interesting
reading in pleasant contrast to the frivolity of most of the courtly
ladies of that age. “I have just had the oddest pamphlet sent me I ever
saw in my life, called ‘Amusemens Philosophiques sur le Language des
Bêtes.’ It was burnt by the hands of the common executioner at Paris, and
the priest who wrote it banished till he made a formal retraction of it,
and yet I think it very plain by the style that the man was either in
jest or crazed. It is by no means wanting of wit, but extremely far from
a system of probability.” Again, in another letter: “I have forgotten
whether in any of my later letters I ever named to you a little book
newly translated from the Italian, by the same Mrs. Carter who has a
copy of verses printed in the beginning of Mrs. Rowe’s works, occasioned
by her death. The book she has now translated is Sir Isaac Newton’s
‘Doctrine of Light and Colours made easy for the Ladies.’ My daughter
and I have both read it with great pleasure, and flatter ourselves that
we at least understand some parts of it.” It would be interesting to know
who was the lady referred to in the following letter—it was probably Mrs.
Elizabeth Carter; the work of the Doctor’s to which so marked a reference
is made was undoubtedly his discourses “On the World to Come,” which had
only just been published, a copy of which he had forwarded to her, and
which had been acknowledged two or three weeks before in a letter from
his “faithfully affectionate servant, F. Hertford.”
“MARLBOROUGH, _July 30, 1739_.
“SIR,
“I would much sooner have written to you to thank you for the
favour of your last letter, had I enjoyed more leisure; but I
have had a friend with me this last month who has engrossed a
good many of those hours which I used to employ in writing to
my correspondents. She is a very pious and religious, as well
as agreeable woman, and has seen enough of the world in her
younger years to teach her to value its enjoyments and fear its
vexations no more than they deserve, by which happy knowledge
she has brought her mind and spirits to the most perfect
state of calmness I ever saw; and her conversation seems to
impart the blessing to all who partake of her discourse. By
this you will judge that I have passed my time very much to
my satisfaction while she was with me; and, though I have not
written to you, you have shared my time with her, for almost
all the hours I passed alone I have employed in reading your
works, which for ever represent to my imagination the idea of
a ladder or flight of steps, since every volume seems to rise
a step nearer the language of heaven, and there is a visible
progression toward that better country through every page; so
that, though all breathe piety and just reason, the last seems
to crown the whole, till you shall again publish something to
enlighten a dark and obstinate age, for I must believe that
the manner in which you treat Divine subjects is more likely
to reform and work upon the affections of your readers than
that of any other writer now living. I hope God will in mercy
to many thousands, myself in particular, prolong your life
many years. I own this does not seem a kind wish to you, but I
think you will be content to bear the infirmities of flesh some
years longer to be an instrument in the hands of God toward the
salvation of your weak and distressed brethren. The joys of
heaven cannot fade, but will be as glorious millions of ages to
come as they are now, and what a moment will the longest life
appear when it comes to be compared with eternity!”
Upon the death of Mrs. Rowe, as she had left her meditations for the
hands of Dr. Watts, when he proposed to publish the volume with his
preface, he also very naturally proposed to dedicate it to their friend
the Countess. With extraordinary modesty, however, she shrunk from
this. She writes: “The sincere esteem I have for you makes it very
difficult for me to oppose anything you desire, and it is doubly so in an
instance where I might have an opportunity of indulging so justifiable
a pride as I should feel in letting the public see this fresh mark of
your partiality to me, but as I am apprehensive that the envy such a
distinction would raise against me might draw some vexation with it, I
hope you will have the goodness to change the dedication into a letter
to a friend, without giving me any such appellation.” In another letter,
with characteristic modesty, she says: “I can, with the strictest truth,
affirm that I do not know any distinction upon earth that I could feel a
truer pleasure in receiving were I deserving of it, but as I am forced to
see how much I fall below the idea which the benevolence of your nature
has formed of me, it teaches me to humble myself by that very incident
which might administer a laudable pride to a more worthy person. If I
am constrained to acknowledge this mortifying truth, you may believe
there are many people in the world who look upon me with more impartial
eyes than self-love will allow me to do; and others, who perhaps think
I enjoy more of this world’s goods than I either merit or than falls to
the common lot, look at me with envious and malignant views, and are glad
of every opportunity to debase me or those who they believe entertain a
favourable opinion of me. I would hope that I have never done anything,
wilfully I am sure I have not, to raise any such sentiments in the breast
of the meanest person upon earth, but yet experience has convinced me
that I have not been happy enough to escape them. For these reasons, sir,
I must deny myself the pleasure and the pride I should have in so public
a mark of your friendship and candour, and beg that if you will design
me the honour of joining any address to me with those valuable remains
of Mrs. Rowe, that you will either retrench the favourable expressions
you intended to insert, or else give me no other title at the top of it
than that of a friend of yours and hers, an appellation which, in the
sincerity of my soul, I am prouder of than I could be of the most pompous
name that human grandeur can lay claim to.”
She shrunk from all observation, and in another letter says, “I will
trespass so far on your good nature as to beg you will leave out whatever
will imply my attempting to write poetry; but if there be any among the
things you have of mine which you think worth placing among yours I
shall have just cause to be pleased at seeing them come abroad in such
company, if you will have the goodness to conceal my name, either under
that of Eusebia or A Friend, a title which I shall think myself happy
to deserve.” This letter enables us to identify four poetical pieces,
entitled “A Rural Meditation,” “A Penitential Thought,” “A Midnight
Hymn,” and the “Dying Christian’s Hope,” inserted in Watts’ Miscellanies,
and attributed to Eusebia, as the compositions of the Countess. It may
not be unpleasant to the reader to have brought before him some of these
verses, which will show that the modesty of the Countess need not have
been dictated by the poverty of her expression:
A RURAL MEDITATION.
Here in the tuneful groves and flow’ry fields,
Nature a thousand various beauties yields:
The daisy and tall cowslip we behold
Arrayed in snowy white, or freckled gold.
The verdant prospect cherishes our sight,
Affording joy unmixed, and calm delight
The forest-walk, and venerable shade,
Wide-spreading lawns, bright rills, and silent glade,
With a religious awe our souls inspire,
And to the heav’ns our raptured thoughts aspire,
To Him who sits in majesty on high,
Who turned the starry arches of the sky;
Whose word ordained the silver Thames to flow,
Raised all the hills, and laid the valleys low;
Who taught the nightingale in shades to sing,
And bade the skylark warble on the wing;
Makes the young steer obedient till the land,
And lowing heifers own the milker’s hand;
Calms the rough sea, and stills the raging wind,
And rules the passions of the human mind.
This correspondence sets in a very beautiful light the character of this
amiable and excellent lady, no doubt one of Watts’ attached friends, and
intercourse with whom, through the long period of twenty years, must have
been to him a frequent source of rest and enjoyment. When their intimacy
commenced she was in immediate attendance on the Queen Caroline, wife of
George I. In those days the attempts which subsequently were made by the
Countess of Huntingdon to create a feeling of piety and purity in the
neighbourhood of the court had not been commenced, the manners of the
great were not favourable to goodness and virtue, and the general spirit
of the time brings out into strong relief the character of this gentle
and noble lady; seldom apparently free from illness, her thoughts usually
move round those loftiest sources of consolation in which the highest or
the humblest equally find the surest and most abiding alleviation and
repose.
In 1737 Watts sustained a loss in the innermost and most intimate circle
of his acquaintance by the death of Mrs. Rowe. His early relations
with this lady have round them some traditions of a tender mystery; it
is generally supposed that upon his side at one time his feelings for
Miss Singer, her maiden name, were something more than those of mere
friendship. The charms of the lady appear to have been considerable, and
procured her previous to marriage many admirers, among others Prior, the
poet, who sought the lady’s hand in vain, and in his poem on “Love and
Friendship” expresses himself after the most approved fashion of the
disconsolate Werthers of that day, informing her that—
He dies in woe, that thou mayst live in peace.
It would seem that Watts’ attachment was some time talked about
extensively, for Young refers to it in one of his satires:
What angels would those be, who thus excel
In theologies, could they sew as well!
Yet why should not the fair her text pursue?
Can she more decently the Doctor woo?
Isaac, a brother of the canting strain,
When he has knocked at his own skull in vain,
To beauteous Marcia often will repair,
With a dark text to light it at the fair.
Oh how his pious soul exults to find
Such love for holy men in womankind!
Charmed with her learning, with what rapture he
Hangs on her bloom, like an industrious bee;
Hums round about her, and with all his power,
Extracts sweet wisdom from so fair a flower.
More respectfully, Mrs. Barbauld appears to allude to the circumstance
when addressing Mrs. Rowe, she says:
Thynne, Carteret, Blackmore, Orrery approved,
And Prior praised, and noble Hertford loved,
Seraphic Ken, and tuneful Watts were thine,
And virtue’s noblest champions filled the line.
But there is no reason, beyond the idle chatter of the town, to suppose
that there was more than ardent friendship between the two; Watts was not
a man ever likely to have been refused in marriage, and the talk appears
only to have originated from the fact that people in general suppose
that there can be no community of taste, and intellectual intercourse,
and high and even ardent friendship between opposite sexes without
its pointing to marriage. That it was not so in this instance appears
certain, not only from the very high regard Mrs. Rowe always entertained
for Watts, but from the terms of the letter addressed to him to be
delivered after her death; we would rather suppose it possible, although
we do not assert it, that Elizabeth Singer might have been not indisposed
to a relationship the idea of which was not encouraged by the Doctor, and
which he deferred to the calmer communion of intimate friendship and
high esteem. The proofs that this was the case are not very clear if the
circumstance is probable. However it might be, it never interfered with
their friendship which continued not only unbroken to death, but beyond
death.
Mrs. Rowe was a lady quite famous in her own time; to an elevated piety
she united in her style of composition many of the faults of the age in
which she lived; her works were tinctured by an ardent mode of expression
little in harmony with the more frigid expressions of our own day. For
Dr. Watts she entertained the highest esteem. She died suddenly, but
in her cabinet were found letters for two or three of the friends who
held the highest place in her affections, especially for the Countess
of Hertford and Dr. Watts; the letter to the Doctor was accompanied
by the manuscript of her “Devout Exercises,” which she requested him
to publish after a complete and thorough revision. A portion of his
correspondence with the Countess upon this we have already quoted; the
volume is dedicated to the Countess as Mrs. Rowe’s intimate friend,
and Watts, whose mind and heart were now in a state of quiet and holy
calm, dispassionately reviews the merits of her various works; he does
not altogether vindicate her ardent style, on the other hand, he is
far from severely reprehending it; he remarks how in former years even
grave divines had expressed the fervours of devout love to the Saviour
much in the style of the Song of Solomon, and says, “I must confess that
several of my compositions in verse written in younger life were led by
those examples unwarily into this track.” Indeed, many of his hymns,
especially those which are paraphrases of the Song of Solomon, are quite
as ardent as anything we meet with in the writings of Mrs. Rowe. The love
of Christ is a principle, but we should be sorry to think that in the
heart of the believer it may not glow with all the fervour and force of
a great passion; the language of the Apostle Paul shows us that it may,
but his language is not coloured by the singular ecstasy of the Oriental
mind; it is fervid, but the line is very distinctly marked between the
expressions of a merely human passion, which, however pure upon the
heart which utters them, may by hearts less holy and elevated seem to
be almost the utterance of license, and even to colder though not less
holy natures may seem to border on profanity. There are Christians still
who delight in this doubtful method of expressing and setting forth the
holiest affections. Watts in all his religious works had at all times
the ardent and fervent words of a poetic and imaginative nature, but he
considerably pruned both thought and speech as the years passed in study
and seclusion brought a riper wisdom; he did not repress the ardours
of the heart, but he gave to their expression a chastened and colder
form; he was not satisfied indeed by light without love, but he clothed
that love with a more sacred reticence. Mrs. Rowe’s writings have all
an exceedingly unreticent character, but she lived apparently a holy
life, realizing very greatly the ardours which gushed so glowingly from
her pen, and it says much for all that she was in herself, that through
so many long years she retained a close and intimate friendship with a
judgment so wisely balanced, and a nature so simple and domestic, as that
which evidently shines in the character of the Countess of Hertford.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER X.
Shimei Bradbury.
There was living in London contemporary with Watts one of those ungentle,
unbeautiful spirits, from whose malignant jealousy few men of eminence
entirely escape; he appears to have been to Watts what Alexander the
coppersmith was to Paul, he did him much evil and sought to do more.
Bradbury was one of the most vehement and virulent spirits of the times,
he was infected with the prevalent spirit of railing long before he
began to cast about his Shimei and Rabshakeh pleasantries upon Watts;
he was well known for his capabilities in this way, and in 1715 Daniel
Defoe reproved him in a pamphlet entitled, “A Friendly Epistle by way
of Reproof, from one of the people called Quakers to Thomas Bradbury, a
dealer in many words.” The following paragraph illustrates the character
of the man the pamphlet is intended to represent: “Men, especially,
Thomas, preaching men, as thou art, ought much rather to move their
people and their brethren to forbear and forgive one another, than to
move and excite them to severities, and to executing revenge upon one
another, lest the day come when that which they call justice may be
deemed injustice. I counsel thee, therefore, that thou forbear to excite
thy sons of Belial to do wickedly, but rather that thou preach to them
that they repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand; which I meekly
advertise thee is the proper duty of thy employment, whereas the other is
the work of darkness and tendeth to blood.”
Again, he says: “I must lead thee by the hand, not by the nose,
Thomas—others have done thee that office already—that thou mayst be
convinced, yea, even confounded, for those whom thou hast, with so great
confidence, taken on thee to recommend as good men, and men fearing
God. I do thee justice, Thomas, and therefore observe in thy behalf
that thy modesty would not permit thee to say, ‘They were men hating
covetousness.’”[31]
Bradbury was one of those men who, pursuing politics in the pulpit
with vehement and intolerant pertinacity, degrade the standard of the
minister of the Gospel; he was even charged with desiring the blood of
the ministers of Queen Anne in the pamphlets of the day, especially in
“Burnet and Bradbury; or, the Confederacy of the Press and the Pulpit for
the Blood of the last Ministry.”[32]
A life of Watts would be quite incomplete which did not give some account
of his very eminent but now almost forgotten assailant and enemy, Thomas
Bradbury. Born at Wakefield, in Yorkshire, he had all the characteristics
of a typical Yorkshireman; he was a bold and hearty, and possibly,
whatever that may be worth, well-meaning man; he possessed a considerable
amount of natural genius, especially for doubtful drollery and expletive.
It is a wonder that his name has not found a record in such histories
as Macaulay’s and Stanhope’s, for it has a semi-historical interest. He
was probably the most representative political Nonconformist among the
ministers in the City of London of his day, and a well-known anecdote
tells that he was the first to proclaim, as he did from his pulpit, the
accession of George I. to the throne. It is said that he was walking
through Smithfield in a very pensive and thoughtful mood on Sunday,
August 1st, 1714, when the great “Schism Bill” was about to take effect,
when Bishop Burnet happened to pass in his carriage; the Bishop called to
his friend, and inquired into the cause of his great thoughtfulness. “I
am thinking,” replied Bradbury, “whether I shall have the constancy and
courage of the noble army of martyrs whose ashes are deposited in this
place, for I most assuredly expect to see similar times of violence and
persecution, and that I shall be caused to suffer in a like cause.”
The Bishop was himself equally zealous with Bradbury for the cause of
Protestantism; he told him that the Queen was very ill, that she was
given over by her physicians, who expected every hour to be her last;
and he further said, that he was even then on his way to the Palace to
inquire the particulars, and that he would despatch a messenger to Mr.
Bradbury with the earliest intelligence of the Queen’s death, and that
if he should be in the pulpit when the messenger arrived, he should drop
a handkerchief from the gallery as a token of that event. The messenger
employed was Mr. John Bradbury, a brother of the preacher, and one in
the medical profession. The Queen died while Bradbury was preaching, and
the intelligence was conveyed to him by the signal agreed upon; perhaps
the preacher may be forgiven if his heart was filled with joy; he indeed
suppressed his feelings during the sermon, but in his prayer gave
thanks to God who had again delivered the nation from the power of evil
counsels, and implored a Divine blessing upon his majesty King George and
the House of Hanover. He always gloried in being the first who proclaimed
King George the First.
This anecdote gives a fair idea of the character of the man; one more
utterly unlike Isaac Watts it is impossible to conceive; he was a man
whose learning was limited, he had neither taste nor capacity for those
refined subtleties either of argument or imagination into which Watts was
forced by the necessities of controversy in his times; also, Bradbury was
a rugged, rough-and-ready speaker and thinker, possessed of a dangerous
prompt wit, not always free from a coarse disregard of the feelings of
others; nor can we fail to see that there mingled, perhaps unconsciously
to himself, a considerable amount of jealousy of his more eminent and
illustrious brother. Before Watts had received his invitation to become
the co-pastor or successor of Dr. Chauncy, the congregation had heard
Mr. Bradbury; it is easily understood that the courtly, polished, and
perhaps fastidious people would scarcely appreciate an eloquence like
that of “bold Bradbury”—a term by which Queen Anne designated him. Then,
at the first signal of his hostility to Watts, one of his own most
distinguished people, Watts’ friend, Lord Barrington, forsook him; it was
perhaps not likely to improve his temper, and Watts, although exceedingly
firm in his own convictions, as he had not the strength so neither had
he the disposition for any vehement political action, and if he stepped
aside slightly to use his influence in political partisanship, it was
unfortunately not to aid the particular persons espoused by Bradbury. And
so it was that in the sermons of this free-spoken man there are handed
down to us perhaps the most harsh and unjust words which ever assailed
the ministry of Isaac Watts. It was at a later period of life, when Watts
was very infirm, that, at a meeting of the ministers in the Redcross
Street Library, he rose to propose some resolution, and, with his weakly
constitution and feeble voice, he found considerable difficulty in making
himself heard, when Bradbury called out to him in the meeting, “Brother
Watts, shall I speak for you?” The quiet little Doctor turned to him and
said, “Why, Brother Bradbury, you have often spoken _against_ me.” At
first he had encouraged the idea of Watts’ publication of his Paraphrase
of the Psalms and of his Hymns, but when they came forth, although they
proved so acceptable to congregations in general, he continued to use
the dull version of Dr. Patrick until his dying day in his own place,
New-court Chapel, and prevented their introduction into the service
at Pinners’ Hall. There, however, on one occasion the clerk happened
unluckily to give out one of Watts’ pieces; up rose Bradbury immediately,
exclaiming, “Let us have none of Watts’ _(w)hims_.”
In all this, and in other such instances, a faithful biographer must see
the traces of a good deal of mere jealousy. It is quite an exceptional
instance in the life of Watts, and it must seem singular that so sweet
and gentle a nature should have suffered from the misrepresentations
of any, and Bradbury has perhaps, even in his grave, been the most
abiding enemy to Watts’ reputation. It seems scarcely probable that the
Unitarians could have so audaciously claimed our writer as their own,
had not Bradbury set them a wicked example in his sermons. One of the
most affecting and earnest passages in the correspondence of Watts is
his remonstrance with his unjust brother against unseemly attacks upon
him, and misrepresentations of his opinions. Watts, so far as we can
see, was never either discourteous or unjust; but he bitterly felt it
that while, by his hymns and his treatises, he was attempting to shake
the ground of the Arian heresy, his name was, from the pulpit and the
pen, covered with obloquy as injuring and shaking the foundations of the
most exalted faith in Christ. Bradbury was not concerned to reply to
arguments, but in a right-down vehement manner to denounce those from
whom he differed. He was no metaphysician. Turning over the many volumes
of his sermons, we find them all characterized by strong evangelical
statement, a very happy arrangement of thoughts, and great lucidity
and apt readiness of expression. He never passed beyond the sense or
culture of an ordinary audience; it must also be said that he never
put the bridle on his wit. He was a man who could never find himself
in the wrong, and who must always have the last word, and that word a
disagreeable one. In a most extraordinary manner he could write and say
the most abusive and bitter things, and seem quite surprised that the
person to whom they were addressed did not take them as expressions of
kindness. He tells Watts that he is “profane, conceited, impudent, and
pragmatical;” he says: “You are mistaken if you think I ever knew, and
much less admired, your mangling, garbling, transforming, etc., so many
of your Songs of Zion; your notions about psalmody, and your satirical
flourishes in which you express them, are fitter for one who pays no
regard to inspiration, than for a Gospel minister, as I may hereafter
show in a more public way.” And when Watts mildly demurred to this as a
personal reflection, he says, in reply: “Should any one take the liberty
of burlesquing your poetry, as you have done that of the Most High God,
you might call it personal reflection indeed; when I consider that
most of those expressions are adopted either by the New Testament or
the evangelical prophets, I tremble at your mowing them together, as
you were resolved to make the Songs of Zion ridiculous.” Again he says:
“Do you think that the ministers of London are to stand still while you
tear in pieces eight great Articles of their faith? And must every one
who answers your arguments be accused of personal reflections?” Such is
the vein in which this noisy man writes. Watts replies in a spirit of
singular meekness; Bradbury, while indulging in the coarsest invective,
professes a large amount of respect and honour, and Watts says: “I am
always ready to acknowledge whatsoever personal respect Mr. Bradbury has
conceived for one of so little merit as I can pretend to; but I know not
how to reconcile the profession of so much respect with so many and so
severe censures, and with such angry modes of expression, as you have
been pleased to use both in print and in writing.” Vindicating himself
for attempting to set the Psalms of David to the service of song, he says:
“You tell me that I rival it with David, whether he or I be the
sweet psalmist of Israel. I abhor the thought; while yet, at
the same time, I am fully persuaded that the Jewish psalm-book
was never designed to be the only psalter for the Christian
Church; and though we may borrow many parts of the prayers of
Ezra, Job, and Daniel, as well as of David, yet if we take them
entire as they stand, and join nothing of the Gospel with them,
I think there are few of them will be found proper prayers for
a Christian Church; and yet, I think, it would be very unjust
to say ‘we rival it with Ezra, Job, etc.’ Surely their prayers
are not best for us, since we are commanded to ask everything
in the name of Christ. Now, I know no reason why the glorious
discoveries of the New Testament should not be mingled with our
songs and praises, as well as with our prayers. I give solemn
thanks to my Saviour, with all my soul, that He hath honoured
me so far as to bring His name and Gospel in a more evident and
express manner into Christian psalmody.
“And since I find you have been pleased to make my hymns and
imitations of the Psalms, together with their prefaces, the
object of your frequent and harsh censures, give me leave
to ask you whether I did not consult with you while I was
translating the Psalms in this manner, fourteen or fifteen
years ago? Whether I was not encouraged by you in this work,
even when you fully knew my design, by what I had printed, as
well as by conversation? Did you not send me a note, under
your own hand, by my brother, with a request that I would form
the fiftieth and the hundred and twenty-second Psalms into
their proper old metre? And in that note you told me too that
one was six lines of heroic verse, or ten syllables, and the
other six lines of shorter metre; by following those directions
precisely, I confess I committed a mistake in both of them,
or at least in the last; nor had I ever thought of putting in
those metres, nor considered the number of the lines, nor the
measure of them, but by your direction, and at your request. I
allow, sir, with great freedom, that you may have changed your
opinion since, and you have a right to do it without the least
blame from me; but I do declare it, that at that time you were
one of my encouragers, and therefore your present censures
should be lighter and softer.
“You desire me at the end ‘to remember former friendships,’ but
you will give me leave to ask which of us has forgot them most;
and I am well assured that I have more effectually proved
myself all that which you are pleased to subscribe, viz., your
steady, hearty, and real friend, your obedient and devoted
servant,
“I. WATTS.”
And the following letter is a very fair illustration of the temper and
spirit of Watts’ replies to his censorious and abusive brother:
“LIME STREET, _Nov. 1, 1725_.
“REVEREND SIR,
“On Friday night last my worthy friend and neighbour, Mr. Caleb
Wroe, called on me at Theobalds, and desired me to convey the
enclosed paper to you, with his humble thanks for the share you
have given him in the late legacy intrusted with you, and he
intreats that you would please to pay the money into the hands
of this messenger, that I may return it to him; and I cannot
but join my unfeigned thanks with his, that you are pleased to
remember so valuable and pious a man in your distributions,
whose circumstances are by no means above the receipt of such
charitable bequests, though his modesty is so great as to
prevent him from sueing for an interest in them.
“But while I am acknowledging your unexpected goodness to my
friend, permit me, sir, to inquire into the reason of your
unexpected conduct towards myself in so different a manner. It
is true I live much in the country, but I am not unacquainted
with what passes in town. I would now look no further backward
than your letter to the Board at Lime Street, about six months
ago, where I was present. I cannot imagine, sir, what occasion
I had given to such sort of censures as you pass upon me there
among others, which you are pleased to cast upon our worthy
brethren; nor can I think how a more pious and Christian return
could have been made by that Board at that time than to vote
a silence and burial of all past contests, and even of this
last letter of yours, and to desire your company amongst us as
in times past. I had designed, sir, to have never taken any
further notice of this letter, if I had not been abundantly
informed that your conduct since is of the same kind, and
that you have persisted in your public reflections on many of
my writings in such a manner as makes it sufficiently appear
that you design reproach to the man, as much as to show your
zeal against his supposed errors. The particular instances
of this kind I need not rehearse to you; yourself are best
acquainted with them. And yet, after all this, I had been
silent still; but as I acknowledge God and seek Him in all my
ways, so I am convinced it is my duty to give you a private
admonition, and, as a brother, I intreat you to consider
whether all this wrath of man can work the righteousness of
God? Let me intreat you, sir, to ask yourself what degrees of
passion and personal resentment may join and mingle themselves
with your supposed zeal for the Gospel? Jesus, the searcher
of hearts, He knows with what daily labour and study, and
with what constant addresses to the throne of grace, I seek
to support the doctrine of His Deity as well as you, and to
defend it in the best manner I am capable of. And shall I tell
you also, sir, that it was your urgent request, among many
others, that engaged me so much further in this study than I
at first intended. If I am fallen into mistakes, your private
and friendly notice had done much more toward the correction of
them than public reproaches. I am not conscious to myself that
either my former or latter conduct towards you has merited such
indignities as these; nor can I think that our blessed Lord,
who has given you so rich a furniture of imagination, and
such sprightly talents for public service, will approve such
employment of them in the personal disgrace of your brethren
that own the same faith, that preach the same Saviour, and
attempt to spread abroad the same doctrines of salvation.
“I wish, sir, it were but possible for you to look upon your
own conduct, abstracted from that fondness which we all
naturally bear to self, and see whether there be no occasion
for some humbling and penitent thoughts in the sight of God. It
is not the design of this writing to carry on a quarrel with
you. It has been my frequent prayer, and it will be my joy,
to see your temper suited to your work, and to hear that you
employ your studies and your style for the support of truth and
godliness in the spirit of the Gospel, that is, in the spirit
of meekness and love. And I conclude with a hearty request
to Heaven that your wit may be all sanctified, that you may
minister holy things with honour and purity and great success,
and you may become as eminent and public an example of piety,
meekness, heavenly-mindedness, and love to all the saints, as
your own soul wishes and desires. Farewell, sir, and forgive
this freedom of your humble servant and fellow labourer in the
Gospel of Christ,
“I. WATTS.”
It is very satisfactory, however, throughout the correspondence to feel
that Watts, the only one of the two names in which we now feel much
interest, preserves a spirit of quietness and candour; the correspondence
was forced upon him by the noisy Bradbury, and as he commenced it so he
was determined to have the last of it. Watts had quietly implored him to
silence, saying: “Let us examine what is past, and take care for the time
to come what we write or print with regard to our brethren be expressed
in such language as may dare appear and be read by the light of the last
conflagration, and the splendour of the tribunal of our returning Lord.”
This produced a tempest of a letter, in which Bradbury says: “I learn
no such passive obedience to an unreasonable adversary, but rather the
contrary; you should have left off contention before it was meddled with,
for I doubt not to open to the world your shame.”
The correspondence is very lengthy; it is not probable that it will ever
be reprinted; it is not worth the patience of perusal, unless to add to
the esteem of the subject of these memoirs. Bradbury’s turbulent nature
in the course of it seems to be utterly ungoverned, and raves along in a
manner quite fatal to any respect with which a desire to think well of
the man might possess the reader’s mind. It had perhaps been better if
the wave of this correspondence had, like most of Watts’ letters, been
lost to the eye, but, by some fatality, it is the only complete piece
of correspondence in our author’s life published. Walter Wilson remarks
upon it that “the letters are of that personal nature as do but little
credit to the writers.” This is very unjust; if Mr. Wilson had read, he
must have known that there is not one word in the letters of Watts which
does not reflect the quiet holiness of a spirit at perfect peace with
itself, only desirous of healing the heart of his antagonist. Bradbury
even censures him because, after his attacks on Watts in print, he did
not reply in print, but referred to them in private letters to him! Watts
had expressed his desire in seeking the truth, and says:
“I acknowledge with respect and thankfulness the kind opinions you have
entertained of me, and I really ‘value all the care you have shown not
to grieve my spirit,’ whensoever I see it practised. I easily believe,
indeed, that your natural talent of wit is richly sufficient to have
taken occasions from an hundred passages in my writings to have filled
your pages with much severer censures. In the vivacity of wit, in the
copiousness of style, in readiness of Scripture phrases, and other useful
talents, I freely own you for my superior, and will never pretend to
become your rival. But it is only calm and sedate argument that weighs
with me in matters of controversy, nor will I be displeased with any
man for showing me my mistakes by force of argument, and in a spirit of
meekness; it is only in this manner truth must be searched out, and not
by wit and raillery.”
To this came back the following:
“Your profession of ‘seeking the truth’ is very popular, and I do not
wonder to find it so often in all your writings; but then there is such a
thing as ‘ever learning, and not being able to come to the knowledge of
the truth.’ And it is pity, after you have been more than thirty years
a teacher of others, you are yet to learn the first principles of the
oracles of God. What will our hearers think of us when we succeed the
greatest men of our last age in nothing else but their pulpits? Is there
no certainty in the words of truth? Was Dr. Owen’s church to be taught
another Jesus, that the Son and Holy Spirit were only two powers in the
Divine nature? Shall the men who planted and watered so happy a part of
the vineyard have all their labours rendered in vain? Shall a fountain in
the same place send forth sweet water and bitter? What need is there of a
charge?”[33]
On the whole, it is well to refer to this controversy. It is a painful,
important item in Watts’ life, and brings out very clearly how
singularly he was removed from irritable passions, and it sadly reveals
how impossible it seems even for the most gentle natures to escape the
venom and the vileness of the “perils of false brethren.”
Bradbury unquestionably was firmly attached to evangelical truth, so
far as he knew it, and his discourses in the two volumes called “The
Mystery of Godliness, Considered in Sixty-one Sermons,” are certainly
interesting, suggestive, and even admirable specimens of preaching; but,
we have said, he was chiefly known as a political preacher. His printed
discourses contain few intimations of that wit which was a favourite
weapon with him in the pulpit, and of which we have some indications in
the sermon entitled “The Ass and the Serpent,” a comparison between the
tribes of Issachar and Dan in their regard for civil liberty—a sermon,
like all those in the volume which contains it, devoted to rousing the
spirit of the times in which he lived. Regularly as the fifth of November
came round, he commemorated the day in a sermon, and afterwards adjourned
with his friends to dine at a tavern, where, it is said, he always sung
the national song, “The Roast Beef of Old England;” there, no doubt,
jest and joke passed round pretty freely, for, as we have intimated,
he had a sprightly wit and a copious flow of eloquence. Watts gently
remonstrated with him for these displays, to which he replied in his
vehement and peppery style. George Whitefield, at a later period, more
strongly remonstrated with him on his conduct in this particular, but
not apparently with much effect. It is said that upon the death of Queen
Anne, an incident to which we have already referred, he took for his text
on the occasion of her funeral sermon, “Go, see now this cursed woman and
bury her, for she is a king’s daughter.” The story is exceedingly likely,
for he belonged to a race of men not indisposed to misuse Scripture
after that unbecoming fashion; and we may surely say, notwithstanding the
ominous shadows which brooded over the closing years of a reign commenced
with so much promise, the anecdote, even the possibility that it may be
true, testifies to the cruel coarseness, the low profane jocularity,
and ungrateful injustice of the man. He was a hearty politician, to
whom all refinements of speech or sentiment were unknown, and, right
or wrong, he plunged on in a reckless kind of fashion. He adopted as
his motto, _Pro Christo et patriâ_, For Christ and my country. Charity
may be permitted to hope that he, at any rate, thought the motto did
not unworthily represent the man, if sometimes in his conduct he seems
somewhat unworthily to represent the motto. And while Watts was pursuing
his studies in scholarly seclusion, never knowing the happiness of robust
health, and, although a firm Nonconformist, on good terms with bishops
and ministers of the Church of England, and ministers and members of many
communions of Christians, Bradbury mixed with freedom with the moving
parties in the City, and was ever ready to lift up his voice loudly about
all the political circumstances of the passing hours. Thus the two men,
although ministers of the same order, within a very short distance of
each other, were in their sympathies wide apart; they desired, indeed,
the same great ends, but the roads they took to their attainment were
widely different. It is still singular and unaccountable, but for the
personal motives we have assigned above, that Bradbury should have
expressed himself with so much bitterness and hostility concerning his
old friend, whose principles, neither in religion nor politics, could
ever have been at any very great remove from his own; but so it is, that
amidst the multitude of friends that honoured and esteemed Watts highly
for his work’s sake, we find Bradbury standing aside like a very Shimei
pouring upon him his perpetually reiterated torrent of contempt, obloquy,
and scorn, and no motive appears but the dangerous one which influences
three-fourths of all the evil and hatred in the world; jealousy of a
rank for which he was unfit, and genius to which he could not attain. On
the whole, it may be said of Bradbury, in the language of an old English
poet, he was “like a pair of snuffers, he snips the filth in other men,
and retains it in himself;” it could not be said of him “the snuffers
were of pure gold.” As Archbishop Abbott says of Jonah, in his sermons on
the prophet: “Some drams and grains of gold appear in him and his action,
but dross is there by pounds; little wine, but store of water; some
wheat, but chaff enough.”
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CHAPTER XI.
His Times.
Take the life of almost any man who has stood in any relation to the
thought and intelligence of his times, in any period of English history,
and it is interesting to regard him by the light of the events flowing on
around him. Watts was almost a literary solitary; he cannot be referred
to as greatly influencing the times in which he lived, but an outline of
his life is incomplete if we give no reference to the events of his time.
From the last years of the reign of Charles II. to the closing years
of George II. constitutes the era of Watts. Every age seems eminently
important to its actors—sometimes even to spectators—and yet that age
stands out with singular distinctness. How different the times of Watts’
birth and those of his death: the infant in the arms of a weeping mother,
beneath the bars of the dungeon of the imprisoned Nonconformist, and
the old man, that same infant, passing away, with the great Methodist
movement rising into activity over the whole nation. A little room,
scarcely tolerated in Southampton, where a few persecuted Nonconformists
assembled together, and large chapels, capable of holding thousands,
rising amidst the far-off wastes of Northern Yorkshire and Western
Cornwall, and a sudden burst of religious vitality finding vent in hymns
and meetings over the whole country.
If the change in the aspect of religious life was remarkable, not less
remarkable was the change, or rather perhaps we ought to say the changes,
which had been brought about in the political. The period of Watts’
childhood was the most ominous, unhappy, and unsettled in English story;
men knew not what to expect, they knew not whither they were drifting.
Those were the days of the great Monmouth Rebellion and Jeffreys’ “Bloody
Assize;” the days of the execution of Algernon Sidney and Lord William
Russell, the days of Titus Oates. The mind of England was full of plots,
and the fear and the shadow of plots, succeeded by internal discords, and
a disunited front to possible external foes. Well has it been said, “It
was high time that James should go; it was time that William should come.”
The closing years of Watts’ life Mr. Hallam ventures to speak of, and
Earl Stanhope confirms the verdict, as nationally the happiest period of
all England’s history, a brief period during which plenty and comfort
seemed everywhere to abound. We do not refer to the moral state of
the people; that appears to have been low enough, but the nation had
reached, and the people were experiencing, the blessedness of a lull
of peace after that great storm which had shaken every timber of the
national vessel. The period of George II. appears to be that ideal time
upon which many look back under the designations of “Happy England” and
“Merry England.” Between these two periods how many intervening chapters
occur! and it is not a little distressing to a biographer that it seems
impossible to lay the hand upon scarcely a letter of the many multitudes
of letters which Watts must have written, and many, one cannot but think,
illustrating some of the circumstances and the characters of the times,
and his interest in them.[34]
Thus, for instance, he was an intimate friend of that David Polhill
who was one of the foremost men in the affair of the great “Kentish
Petition,” a circumstance which shines brightly among the gallant actions
of those who, with daring intrepidity, supported William III. It was
at a time when pusillanimity and fear of France would have been fatal.
The House of Commons, rent by faction, was very slow in vindicating the
king; five Kentish gentlemen, magistrates, interpreting the opinion of
their county, signed as deputies a petition calling upon the House to
lay aside their own personal differences, to attend better to public
affairs, and especially to vote sufficient supplies to sustain the king
and his allies. It was a daring step; the five gentlemen who bore the
petition to the House all presented themselves as responsible for it; the
House instantly voted that it was scandalous, infamous, and seditious,
calculated to destroy the constitution of Parliament, and to subvert the
established government of the realm. The five gentlemen, of whom David
Polhill was one, were, amidst the acclamations of the nation, committed
to prison, and there for some time they continued. The pen of Defoe
sprang into eloquence on their behalf, and when they were liberated, as
they were shortly, one of those demonstrations—not of the mob—but of the
strong middle classes of England, greeted them on Blackheath on their way
home, bells clanging, bonfires burning, and Kent altogether in such a
state as it had not been in since the Restoration of Charles II.
1703—one wonders if Watts went down into the City on the 31st of July
that year, to see one whom he must very well have known, who, as we
have seen, studied some years before Watts was there, at the Dissenting
Academy in Stoke Newington—Daniel Defoe, standing in the pillory; for
Defoe’s great and even intimate friend, William III, was dead, and the
men who had long winced beneath his wit, and had longed for the time of
their reprisals, fancied the time had come at last; but, indeed, the
sentence which was intended for punishment turned into a painful kind of
triumph. It cannot be a pleasant position for the head and the hands to
be fixtures in that fashion for an hour; but if the sentence has to be
borne, then it is pleasant to find the rude machine adorned with flowers
and garlands, and the odium of the punishment transferred from the
sufferer to his judges. However, they ruined Defoe.
This was the year in which, as Watts mentions in his slight
autobiographic memoranda, occurred the great storm, one of the most
fearful England has ever known. Whole buildings were hurled down, two
hundred and fifty thousand timber trees torn up by the roots, spires
beaten from the churches, and the lead from the roofs of more than one
hundred churches rolled up like scrolls. Eight thousand persons perished
by drowning; the Severn overflowed its banks, and fifteen thousand sheep
besides other cattle perished; eight hundred dwelling-houses, four
hundred windmills, and barns without number, were thrown down. Some
people were killed in their beds, among others Dr. Kidder, Bishop of Bath
and Wells, and his wife. The damage done in London amounted to about
a million of pounds sterling, in Bristol to £150,000. The damage on
the sea was still more considerable, many ships of the royal navy were
cast away, and innumerable merchant vessels. Imagination quite fails to
realize the horrors of that tremendous night; it was as one has said of
it, “As if the destroying angel hurried by shrouded in his very gloomiest
apparel.”
And side by side with such great national calamities went our great
national rejoicings. This was the moment in our history when the genius
of Marlborough was rising, and the victories of Blenheim and Ramillies
were taking place, holding in check, beyond any question, the audacity
of Louis XIV., and exhibiting the power and influence of England in the
foreign affairs of Europe in a manner never so remarkably exhibited
before.
Such were “the times that went over him.” Watts lived through all those
curious transactions round the Court of Queen Anne; lived also through
the great Sacheverell riots—and a curious time that was for Dissenters,
as he bears testimony again in his little outline of coincidences with
his autobiographical memoranda. “March 1st, 1710. The mob rose and pulled
down the pews and galleries of six meeting-houses, that is, Mr. Burgess,
Mr. Bradbury, Mr. Earle, Mr. Wright, Mr. Hamilton, and Mr. Charles
Taylor, but were dispersed by the guards under Captain Horsey, at one
or two in the morning.” He passed through all that excitement of public
feeling arising from the introduction of the “Schism Bill,” which, beyond
anything, covered with gloom the last days of the reign of Queen Anne.
When she ascended the throne, Watts wrote a lyric in honour of her happy
accession; there was no inconsistency in his expressing almost a burst of
gladness and joy at her decease. The “Schism Bill” was worthy of the very
worst days of the Stuarts; it was intended to crush all Nonconformist
schools, and all Dissenting academies; any Nonconformist teacher was
to be imprisoned three months, every schoolmaster was to receive the
sacrament and take the oaths, and if afterwards guilty of being present
at a conventicle, to be incapacitated and imprisoned. Earl Stanhope,
in his quiet, very interesting, and, on the whole, impartial history,
speaks of “this tyrannical act,” and well remarks: “It is singular that
some of the most plain and simple notions, such as that of religious
toleration, should be the slowest and most difficult to be impressed
upon the human mind.”[35] It is interesting to notice that this measure
was greatly the creation of Lord Bolingbroke, a man who, while “he
thought it,” as Earl Stanhope says, “necessary to crush Dissenters,” was
himself altogether independent and incapable of any religious faith or
conviction. Infidelity has never found its interests on the side of true
freedom, but only of lawlessness and licentiousness, to which it is ever
fond of applying the glorious term. In the midst of the panic created
by this measure the Queen died, died on the very day the Schism Act was
to have taken effect, and George I. succeeded to the English throne. He
commenced his reign with a noble declaration of liberty of conscience. At
his first appearing in council he said, “I take this occasion to express
to you my firm purpose to do all that is in my power for the supporting
and maintaining the Churches of England and Scotland as they are by
law established, which I am of opinion may be effectually done without
the least impairing the toleration allowed by law to her Protestant
Dissenters, so agreeable to Christian charity.”
Watts lived through that great agitation which consigned Francis
Atterbury, the Bishop of Rochester, first to the Tower, and then to
exile, for his complicity with the Pretender, and attempts to bring back
the Stuarts. Atterbury was sworn by many oaths to maintain the Protestant
succession, but his guilt was soon manifest beyond any doubt, even to the
most lenient and doubtful mind. It was greatly to men of Watts’ order
of religious conviction that the reigning family owed the stability of
its power; and when the fury of the clergy, especially the High Church
clergy, was excited by the arrest of the Bishop, one of their own order,
and attempts even made to set him forth in the light of a martyr, it
is interesting to notice that it was Bishop Gibson, the friend and
correspondent of Watts, who allayed the storm.[36]
The intense antipathy to Rome and the Papacy, so manifest in the writings
of Watts, and in the wild passions of the times, was not without a
cause, and a cause which would make itself especially felt in the
City of London. When Watts was ordained over the church in Mark Lane,
only fifteen years had elapsed since the Revocation of the Edict of
Nantes; that dreadful act of persecution had poured over many parts of
England and of America the noble refugees of freedom and Protestantism;
multitudes found their way to the neighbourhood of London; not far from
the neighbourhood of Watts’ church, there sprung up a Protestant French
colony. They did no harm to this nation by their exile hither,—they
brought character, and piety, and invention, and wit; where they
rested they reared the unadorned and humble temples of their simple
Protestant service. Possessed themselves of the hymns of Clement Marot,
they probably suggested a psalmody, sweeter and more elevated than our
churches at that time possessed—but in many instances their sufferings
in the course of their expatriation had been dreadful. From year to year
they still escaped to our shores, and found their way to London; the
people and their pastors were aided by the government of William and
Mary, and by the succeeding governments. It was not possible but that the
dread of honest and quiet thinkers, and the more turbulent passions of
the people, should be awakened against that fearful system which seemed
so recklessly to strike at all national happiness and prosperity; and in
England the Papacy had its agents almost ubiquitous, crafty, cunning,
powerful, cruel, and remorseless; it was no time for the indulgence
of a mere philosophical calm and dreams of generous toleration. There
were frequent wild outbreaks of madness and wrath in heated and excited
mobs, and the language indulged by writers, usually so clear and wise,
became intense in hatred to Rome; but let the reader transfer his
feelings to that time, and interpret his feelings by natural fear, and
he will scarcely be able to visit either manifestation with very severe
reprehension.
The times through which Watts lived were indeed very remarkable,
regarded from many points of view. Well might the nation shudder at
the idea of any approach to Popery on the part of our own government;
for if the villages and towns of our coast opposite to France, and
the neighbourhoods of the little suburban villages of Shoreditch and
Spitalfields, were thronged with the refugees of persecution from
France, refugees of a similar persecution from Austria also, at a later
period, poured into Prussia, into New England, and into some parts of
our own country, and especially into London. The Church of Rome did
not, in those days, permit many years to pass without refreshing the
memory of Protestants as to her power and disposition to persecute.
Watts interested himself on behalf of the poor Saltzburgers (£33,000
was raised in London for their relief). Multitudes settled at Ebenezer,
in Georgia. The Rev. F. M. Ziegenhagen writes to Watts that “any old
rag thrown away in Europe is of service to them, old shoes, stockings,
shirts, or anything of wearing apparel from men and women, grown people
or children. Wherefore, dear sir, if Baron Oxie’s supposition be true,
perhaps you might, by the blessing of God, be the happy instrument to
get here and there something of old clothes for them to cover their
nakedness.” To this application Watts appears to have responded, as Mr.
Ziegenhagen again replies: “The readiness you show in assisting the poor
Saltzburgers, nay, your well receiving the mentioning them and their
circumstances in my last letter, gave me great satisfaction.” Those of
these persecuted ones who passed over to the American plantations appear
to have settled surprisingly, aided by England; George Whitefield bears
testimony to the great blessings which rested upon them. England made a
parliamentary grant of £10,000 to relieve their sufferings. Our readers
know the amazing story, the mighty exodus, the march of the exiles,
amounting to 20,678, in the depth of winter. The pathos of that story is
immortalized in one of the sweetest poems of Goethe, and for us in the
prose of Thomas Carlyle. Prussia threw her arms open to receive them;
but many perished on the march for want of food, having been obliged to
leave their goods behind them. The Count of Warnigrode gave a substantial
dinner to 900 of them; the Duke of Brunswick liberally entertained
others; the clergy of Leipsic met a number of the wanderers on their
way, and led them into the city through the gates, singing Luther’s hymn
as they passed in. The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, to which we
have referred, happened a short time before Watts commenced his ministry;
this rousing event happened when it was drawing towards its close.
As we turn over some of the hymns of Watts, and some pages of his and
other writings of the day, it seems as if the denunciations of Rome
were wanting in good taste, and tender charitableness of feeling. The
sentiments Watts expressed and indulged in never appear to go beyond
the bounds of propriety; his sentiments towards Rome are shared by John
Milton, who wrote while the valleys of Piedmont were flaming with burning
villages, and covered with the bodies of the slaughtered saints of God.
In those years Rome had the power to get up every now and then some such
startling _spectacle_ to astonish Europe and mankind. Papists are still
surprised that such entertainments were not taken in good part, and
that, on the contrary, fervid expressions of indignation were uttered,
and loud prayers put up that God would save England from the dominancy
of Rome again in the politics of our nation. Men like Watts judged such
expressions to be neither unnatural, unholy, nor unwise: they had not
reached that stoical calm which contemplates either the insolent outrage
and persecution of a hierarchy trampling under foot the holiest rights of
men, or the groans of protracted suffering, with indifference; they lived
in the neighbourhood of danger, and did not affect a calmness of feeling
as they beheld, even in their own neighbourhood, infidelity and priestism
working together, as they so often work, forging fetters for a nation.
In several pages of this volume glances have been given at the aspects
of the age and its manners, so far as they affected, or were affected
by, the subject of this memoir. A large portion of that time may be
spoken of as the most dissolute age of England, and even in the later
period it was a rude, rough time. In those regions in which vice did not
abound, a thick, dark night of ignorance “covered the people.” However
we may boast of a few splendid names in literature, and however some
character or incident gives effect and pomp to the scenery, still it is
only worthy of the apt description of John Foster[37] that “we are only
gazing with delight at a fine public bonfire, while in all the cottages
round the people are shivering for want of fuel.” It was a time along
whose way romance loves to loiter; when the lanthorn lighted the sedan
on the neighbourly visit in town as well as country; when, also, no home
was exempted from the housebreaker, and every suburb was haunted by
highwaymen.
We need not dwell at greater length on the literary characteristics of
the age; incidentally we may remind our readers that to Watts, in the
later years of his life, we owe the introduction to the world of a poem
which has not long ceased to be a very popular one, “The Grave,” by
Robert Blair, the minister of the parish of Athelstanford, in Scotland.
Blair sent his poem to Watts, and Watts thought so well of it that he
sent it to Doddridge, and both advised its author to publish it, and
appear to have been able to render him some valuable assistance in making
it known. Almost forgotten now, it immediately took the popular taste. It
is not wonderful that it did so, for it has all the gloomy magnificence
of a body lying in state; but it is gloomy without vulgarity, and has
the gorgeousness of the silver shieldings and splendid heraldry on
the black velvet. It is short; it perhaps seems to us now almost a
sentimental piece of commonplace; but it instantly took possession of
the public mind, and is still included in most respectable collections
of English poets. It belonged to a class of pieces which appear to have
been great favourites with people in those days, and which have furnished
abundant materials for sermons ever since—Hervey’s “Meditations among
the Tombs,” and Young’s “Night Thoughts,”—although the last is a very
far superior piece of work, and may deserve to be spoken of as one of
the finest of purely didactic poems. Blair, in his far-off home among
the East Lothians, had everything which to such a nature as his would
be likely to press home with a pensive force upon the mind; and the
deep reality of James Hervey’s nature, every one at all acquainted with
his biography well knows. Edward Young, it may without much indignity
to charity be believed, was a man of a very different order, in whom
unrealized sentiment considerably dominated the character. He was a man
of unquestionable genius, and he so far laid his genius on the altar of
religion that he produced not only the poem to which we are referring,
but many others, which, if not of equal eminence, had a decided religious
influence. But he was a constant haunter of the abodes of fashion, a
hanger-on of Courts, and not at all indisposed to avail himself of every
kind of help in seeking to further his purposes in life. He was not below
the average of men, but the “other-worldliness” of his poem contrasts
strangely enough with the worldliness of the author; if, when he wrote
of the other world, he wrote like a saint, we cannot forget that, when
he wrote of this, he wrote as a keen satirist. In fact, all this belongs
to the character of the poetry of the period; it was not real, it was
stiff and stilted; it was poetry in brocade; nothing about it looks very
real. Of course there are beautiful lines and beautiful passages to be
quoted, but its men and women are not real. The poetry of our own times,
as compared with those, has gained immeasurably in this, in reality, and
a large proportion of the things which were said and admired then would
be regarded as simply ridiculous now.
No reference has been made to the States of America. The United States
had no existence in Watts’ day—America was regarded then much as we
regard Australia now. Watts had many friends there, and much interesting
correspondence exists between them; especially interesting it is to find
in the history of Harvard University that Watts’ name occurs as one of
its early benefactors.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER XII.
Return to Stoke Newington.
It would be a very difficult thing to realize now in the suburb of Stoke
Newington, the Stoke Newington of Isaac Watts’ day. The mighty city has
absorbed it; the lanes, the fields, the woods, the old bridge, the old
church, and the very river have vanished. It must have been a very pretty
little rural village, comprised in a small cluster of houses; it may even
be spoken of as a kind of sequestered hermitage, amidst whose shades
those who desired it might find, if the stillness of nature could give
it, perfect peace. Even more than forty years after Watts’ death there
were only one hundred and ninety-five houses; within the memory of old
inhabitants it was still but a village. In Watts’ day it was probably
surrounded by trees; a short time before he took up his residence there,
there were seventy-seven acres of woodland in demesne, part of the
ancient forest of Middlesex, so justifying its name from Stoke, a wood
(_Stoke Newington_, the new little town in the wood). A very pleasant
retreat, the like of which we should have to look a long way from any
London suburb to discover now. The ancient houses have disappeared from
the present vicinity, and two of the last, and those in which Watts
passed his early and his later age, the houses of Hartopp and Abney, have
only just been pulled down. We have noticed the history of Fleetwood’s
house, built in the reign of Queen Elizabeth; but tradition assigns to
some old houses in the village, called the “Bishop’s Place,” the frequent
visits of Henry VIII., and here, on a part of these premises, was born
Samuel Rogers, the poet; and it is a singular and noticeable thing, that
as the father of the poet died in 1793, and had lived the greater part
of his life at Stoke Newington, those who knew the poet talked with a
man who was the child of one who had probably not only seen but talked
with Isaac Watts. There is a spot in Stoke Newington still called “King
Henry’s Walk,” and when the premises supposed to be his retreat were
taken down, parts of the old wainscot were found to be richly gilt and
ornamented with paintings, although, indeed, almost obliterated.
Stoke Newington, about the period when Watts resided there, was the
residence and retreat of many celebrities. Here, as we have seen, Defoe
was educated, and for some time resided; and here, a little later,
resided another whose name has been a charm over childhood, Thomas
Day, the author of “Sandford and Merton.” Watts had only been dead two
years when John Howard came to reside in the village. The place seems
especially to have been the retreat of retired statesmen or merchants,
but all ranks seem to mingle memories in the little village. Queen
Elizabeth’s Walk is founded on the tradition that in the Manor House the
Princess Elizabeth was concealed during a part of the reign of Queen
Mary. London suburbs were wont to retain the flavour of a peculiar kind
of society, and not less really than Twickenham retained its literary
eminence; not less renowned than Clapham for its “Sect,” was Stoke
Newington eminent as the home and haunt of Nonconformist celebrities.[38]
The interest of the place, however, gathers greatly round the memories
of the houses of the Hartopp and the Abney families, for Watts is the
greatest name connected with Stoke Newington, and in both these houses he
found his home.
Watts’ biographers have hitherto not nicely discriminated the periods
of his residence; reading Southey, it might be supposed he had passed
all his life at Stoke Newington; reading Milner, it might be supposed
he not only passed the greater part of his life, but closed his days at
Theobalds. The truth is, that Thomas Gunston, the brother of Lady Abney,
purchased a house and twenty-five acres of land with the Manor of Stoke
Newington. He pulled the house down, and commenced the erection of a
very large and elegant house on the site of the old one, but he died in
1700, just before the completion of the building. He was a young man, and
Watts was young, and between the two there appears to have been a bond of
exceedingly close and tender friendship. When Thomas Gunston died he left
the house to his sister, then residing at Theobalds with her husband, Sir
Thomas Abney, and there Watts resided with them; but many years after,
probably when time had softened the stroke which seems to have been felt
very keenly, Lady Abney left Theobalds and came to her house in Stoke
Newington. Watts came with the family, and in this house were passed the
last thirteen years of his life, and there, shortly after the death of
her revered friend, Lady Abney died. The house then became the property
of the eldest daughter, Miss Elizabeth Abney, who never married, and
whose name occurs as a considerable benefactor to the neighbourhood. Upon
her death, she directed by her will the lease and estate to be sold, and
after the payment of certain legacies, the residue to be distributed to
poor Dissenting ministers, to their widows, and other objects of charity;
the sale realized £13,000.
This, then, was the spot associated with some of Watts’ earliest,
happiest days, and was the scene of their quiet close. His friendship
with Thomas Gunston was evidently founded on moral and intellectual
relationship, and when he died, he poured out his grief in a long elegy,
published in the Lyrics. It is noticeable in the poetry of Watts, and
of that day, that so many of the subjects are devoted to the memory of
friends. If a friend died, or if any other circumstance happened in life,
it seemed necessary to embody the impressions in verse, and we need not,
perhaps, regard this as altogether artificial and unnatural; in Watts’
instance, we may be sure it was not so, although many of the expressions
sound extravagant; those to which most exception is taken have scarcely
more of this characteristic than some of the similar poems of Milton; we
may, for instance, remember Lycidas:
Mourn, ye young gardens, ye unfinished gates,
Ye green enclosures and ye growing sweets
Lament; for ye our midnight hours have known,
And watched us walking by the silent moon
In conference divine, while heavenly fire,
Kindling our breasts, did all our thoughts inspire
With joys almost immortal.
And again—
Oft have I laid the awful Calvin by,
And the sweet Cowley, with impatient eye
To see these walls, pay the sad visit here,
And drop the tribute of an hourly tear.
Still I behold some melancholy scene,
With many a pensive thought and many a sigh between.
Two days ago we took the evening air,
I and my grief.
Amidst the exaggerations, however, which a prosaic age may fancy it
detects, there is no reason for including expressions which it would
certainly be impossible to appropriately use now; the poet calls upon
the dusky woods and echoing hills, the flowery vales overgrown with
thorns, the brook that runs warbling by, the lowing herd, and the moaning
turtle, the curling vine with its amorous folds, and the stately elms,
the reverent growth of ancient years, standing tall and naked to the
blustering rage of the mad winds. These are images which must have
been simply natural and appropriate when the piece was written; all is
changed, entirely changed now, unless some exception be made for the
elms which are, or were, recently standing. The death of this amiable,
excellent, and promising young man stands out as probably the most
intense grief of Watts’ life. As there was a community of taste, leisure
for the indulgence of the pursuits of the intellect and the heart, and
the strong wish to gratify the instincts of a noble nature, it is not
wonderful that Watts poured out his feelings in so lengthy a poem.
The young man appears to have come of a high-spirited family; his father,
John Gunston, befriended many of the ministers when they fell beneath
the arm of persecution; and when the eminent Dr. Manton was imprisoned
in the Gate House for refusing the Oxford Oath, the Lady Broughton, his
keeper, placing the keys at his disposal, allowed him an opportunity of
visiting his friend, Mr. Gunston, at Newington. Thus we have the early
and tender connection of Watts with this village. And not long since
the old house was standing. An amiable and accomplished man of our time
writes, in a letter dated May, 1840: “On my return to town I stopped at
Stoke Newington, and paid a promised visit to an old friend and colleague
at Abney House, where he has charge of the literary education of some
twenty candidates for the ministry. The house—that in which Dr. Watts
lived for more than a generation, composed his precious hymns, and at
last died—afforded me, in its noble antique apartments, in its still rich
embellishments, its surrounding grounds (said to contain the bones of
Oliver Cromwell), and, above all, its sacred associations, more delight
than I can express.”[39]
On the spot where the house stood, with its beautiful grounds, gardens,
and trees extending round, is now laid out the Abney Park Cemetery,
amongst whose forests of tombs may be detected innumerable names very
dear to the memories of modern Nonconformists: since the closing of
Bunhill Fields, Abney Park Cemetery has become what it was, a sort of
_santa croce_, or _campo santo_ of revered and hallowed dust.
Though now within a short walk of the great city, it seemed a sequestered
village when Watts resided there. The roads were probably not of the
best, and there were no lights upon them. The woods intervening and in
the neighbourhood, would furnish shelter for many social annoyances,
and even dangers. But it was nearer to London than the more stately and
palace-like abode of Theobalds, and, noble as it was, it was altogether
a plainer habitation. Watts was probably, after the death of Sir Thomas
Abney, very much the modest master of both abodes. Until within a short
period of its dissolution the house contained such memories of Watts as
adorned the walls of Theobalds. We have seen that he was a painter,
and the fashion at that time was to adorn the wainscoting and walls
and panels. There were noble rooms in the mansion, and thus were they
relieved, mostly by subjects of a classical, mythical, and allegorical
character. He painted four characters of Youth and Age, Mirth and Grief,
for two of the parlours, “where,” says Dr. Robinson, “they are at this
present day.” To the time of its fall the mansion testified to the taste
and elegance with which it was fitted up, the painted room displaying
costly ornaments, and altogether a fine specimen of the age in which it
was arranged; the mouldings gilt, and the whole of the panels and sides
painted with subjects from “Ovid,” and on the window-shutters pictorial
decorations, supposed to have been the production of the pencil of
Watts, emblematical of Death and Grief, and evidently alluding to the
decease of Mr. Gunston. The elms, to which reference has been already
made, continued to excite attention to the last. Planted long before the
building was commenced, they continued to wave their widowed branches
after it had passed away. Dr. Robinson mentions a portrait of Watts which
long continued in the house, an indifferent portrait of him when a young
man, in a blue night-gown, wig and band, and three or four duplicate
mezzotinto prints of him when older by G. White, 1727, clerically
habited, with a Bible in his right hand, and under him in capitals:
ISAAC WATTS
“In Christo mea vita latet, mea gloria Christus, hunc lingua,
hunc calamus celebrat nec magis, tacebit. In uno Jesu omnia.”
And on the upper corner “To live is Christ, to die is gain.”
Here his last days were passed; Dr. Gibbons does not mention in what
year the family left Theobalds to return to Stoke Newington, but it
must have been about thirteen years before his death; and during this
time, although his life was clouded by many pains and infirmities, he
still continued the active operations of his pen, and, as we shall have
occasion to see, the active operations of his mind, employing himself
especially in attempting to solve what seems to many the insolvable
question of the Trinity of Persons in the Godhead. But as he descended
towards the closing years it seems that he suffered greatly from some
members of his own family. In a letter from the Rev. John Barker to
Dr. Doddridge, written nearly two years before Watts’ death, we read:
“The behaviour of Dr. Watts and the wretch Buckston towards Dr. Isaac
is a most marvellous, infamous, enormous wickedness; Lady Abney, with
inimitable steadiness and prudence, keeps our friend in peaceful
ignorance, and his enemies at a becoming distance, so that in the midst
of the persecution of that righteous man he lives comfortably; and when a
friend asks him how he does, answers, ‘Waiting God’s leave to die.’”[40]
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER XIII.
The World to Come.
“The World to Come” was for a long time one of those favourite pieces
which occupied a place upon our forefathers’ book-shelves, and
especially charmed the dwellers at home in those times and places
when and where there were no Sabbath evening services; it belongs to
that era when Christian people found their spiritual pleasure and
refreshment in Baxter’s “Saint’s Everlasting Rest,” to which work it
bears no inconsiderable resemblance. Southey, in his “Life of Watts,” in
which, like Johnson, he lays aside all his acerbity against Watts and
Dissenters, appears to dwell with much pleasure on this book. Probably
most of our readers are now unacquainted with it; and, if so, they
have to learn how much there is in these two volumes of suggestion and
instruction. Watts was fond of dwelling in imagination upon, and dilating
with his pen over, the conditions of the world to come. The work first
appeared in two volumes, although the second was not published until the
year 1745, when Watts was drawing near to the period of his own entrance
into that kingdom, upon whose conditions he had speculated so largely
and interestingly. Some portions of this work soon found their way into
other languages; his piece on “The End of Time” was translated, as a
tract, into most of the tongues of Europe; an edition is now circulating,
or was a short time since, in modern Greek, on the shores of the Levant;
and none of the prose works of Watts have perhaps obtained so large an
acceptance, or produced, on the one hand, more serious impressions, and,
on the other, more quieting and comfortable consolation.
The work has the characteristic of the times in which it was
written—diffuseness; but here, if sometimes there is an indulgence in
those fancies and colourings of speech of which we become impatient
now, we find some of the best illustrations of that happy power of
illumination and imagination which we should expect to abound in the
works and sermons of such a poet as Watts. The poet and the metaphysician
meet, and mutually aid each other in the attempt to enter upon the
mysteries of the unseen world; his ideas, perhaps, do not differ greatly
from those which are ordinarily entertained amongst us. Franke, the
well-known German pietist, was the means of the translation of a portion
of the work in Geneva, and the translator said, in introducing the work,
that “the preacher had taken occasion of flying with his thoughts into
the blessed mansions of the just, and had given not only a very probable
and beautiful idea of the glory of a future life in general, but also an
enumeration of the many sorts of enjoyments and pleasures that are to be
met with there.”
But Watts’ “World to Come” is not limited to the work that bears that
title. His thoughts perpetually hovered round that fascinating theme. He
was constantly, as we find in many of his pieces, engaged in attempts to
understand the nature of metaphysical substance. Though from Revelation
we can only gather that “we know not what we shall be,” yet there are
precious hints from which we may obtain all that is sufficient for
comfort and for light, especially in the Great Teacher’s promise that
“where I am there shall also My servant be,” and the assurance of His
apostle that “we shall see Him as He is.”
It would not be uninteresting to group together all Watts’ words from his
various works illustrating his conception of “The World to Come,” his
conjectures concerning the mode of our immortality; thus he presents to
us—
THE BRAIN BOOK.
“We may try to illustrate this matter by the similitude
of the union of a human soul to a body. Suppose a learned
philosopher be also a skilful divine and a great linguist, we
may reasonably conclude that there are some millions of words
and phrases, if taken together with all the various senses of
them, which are deposited in his brain as in a repository,
by means of some correspondent traces or signatures; we may
suppose also millions of ideas of things, human and divine,
treasured up in various traces or signatures in the same brain.
Nay, each organ of sense may impress on the brain millions
of traces belonging to the particular objects of that sense;
especially the two senses of discipline, the eye and the ear;
the pictures, the images, the colours, and the sounds, that are
reserved in this repository of the brain, by some correspondent
impressions or traces, are little less than infinite; now,
the human soul of the philosopher, by being united to this
brain, this well-furnished repository, knows all these names,
words, sounds, images, lines, figures, colours, notions, and
sensations. It receives all these ideas; and is, as it were,
mistress of them all. The very opening of the eye impresses
thousands of ideas at once upon such a soul united to a human
brain; and what unknown millions of ideas may be impressed on
it, or conveyed to it in successive seasons, whensoever she
stands in need of them, and that by the means of this union
to the brain, is beyond our capacity to think or number. Let
us now conceive the Divine Mind or Wisdom as a repository
stored with infinite ideas of things present, past, and
future: suppose a created spirit, of most extensive capacity,
intimately united to this Divine Mind or Wisdom: may it not by
this means, by Divine appointment, become capable of receiving
so many of those ideas, and so much knowledge, as are necessary
for the government and the judgment of all nations? And this
may be done two ways, viz., either by the immediate application
of itself, as it were by inquiry, to the Divine Mind, to which
it is thus united, or by the immediate actual influences and
impressions which the Divine Mind may make of these ideas on
the human soul, as fast as ever it can stand in need of them
for these glorious purposes. Since a human brain, which is
mere matter, and which contains only some strokes and traces,
and corporeal signatures of ideas, can convey to a human soul
united to it many millions of ideas, as fast as it needs them
for any purposes of human life; how much more may the infinite
God, or Divine Mind or Wisdom, which hath actually all real and
possible ideas in it in the most perfect manner, communicate to
a human soul united to this Divine Wisdom, a far greater number
of ideas than a human brain can receive; even as many as the
affairs of governing and judging this world may require. This
may be represented and illustrated by another similitude, thus:
suppose there were a spherical looking-glass or mirror vast as
this earth is; on which millions of corporeal objects appeared
in miniature on all sides of it impressed or represented there,
by a thousand planetary and starry worlds surrounding this vast
mirror; suppose a capacious human spirit united to this mirror,
as the soul is to the body: what an unknown multitude of ideas
would this mirror convey to that human spirit in successive
seasons! Or, perhaps, this spirit might receive all these ideas
at once, and be conscious of the millions of things represented
all round the mirror. This mirror may represent the Deity; the
human spirit taken in these ideas successively, or conscious
of them all at once, may represent to us the soul of Christ
receiving, either in a simultaneous view, or in a successive
way, unknown myriads of ideas, by its union to Godhead; though,
it must be owned, it can never receive all these ideas which
are in the Divine Mind.”
And thus he endeavours to image to his mind the worlds:
EARTH, HEAVEN, AND HELL.
“I have often tried to strip death of its frightful colours,
and make all the terrible airs of it vanish into softness and
delight; to this end, among other rovings of thought, I have
sometimes illustrated to myself the whole creation as one
immense building, with different apartments, all under the
immediate possession and government of the great Creator. One
sort of these mansions are little, narrow, dark, damp rooms,
where there is much confinement, very little good company,
and such a clog upon one’s natural spirits, that a man cannot
think or talk with freedom, nor exert his understanding, or
any of his intellectual powers with glory or pleasure. This
is the Earth in which we dwell. A second sort are spacious,
lightsome, airy, and serene courts open to the summer sky,
or at least admitting all the valuable qualities of sun and
air, without the inconveniences; where there are thousands
of most delightful companions, and everything that can give
one pleasure, and make one capable and fit to give pleasure
to others. This is the Heaven we hope for. A third sort of
apartments are open and spacious too, but under a wintry
sky, with perpetual storms of hail, rain, and wind, thunder,
lightning, and everything that is painful and offensive;
and all this among millions of wretched companions cursing
the place, tormenting one another, and each endeavouring to
increase the public and the universal misery. This is Hell.
“Now what a dreadful thing it is to be driven out of one of
the first narrow dusky cells into the third sort of apartment,
where the change of the room is infinitely the worst! No
wonder that sinners are afraid to die. But why should a soul
that has good hope, through grace, of entering into the serene
apartment, be unwilling to leave the narrow smoky prison he
has dwelt in so long, and under such loads of inconvenience?
Death to a good man is but passing through a death entry, out
of one little dusky room of his Father’s house into another
that is fair and large, lightsome and glorious, and divinely
entertaining. Oh may the rays and splendours of my heavenly
apartment shoot far downward, and gild the dark entry with such
a cheerful beam as to banish every fear, when I shall be called
to pass through.”
He teaches and very much elaborates, as Southey says, the doctrine of
Milton:
—What, if earth
Be but the shadow of Heaven, and things therein
Each to other like, more than on earth is thought?
Southey somewhat naturally finds an occasion for humour in that Milton
beheld in heaven a place for armies, the review of bright brigades, and
illustrious cohorts with keen swords and long bright spears, and so he
remarks, “The Heaven of Watts’ imagination was coloured by his earthly
pursuits, and whether there were to be reviews of armies or not there
were to be sermons.” “For,” says Watts, “not only is there the service of
thanksgiving here and of prayer, but such entertainment as lectures and
sermons also, and there all the worship that is paid is the established
worship of the whole country.” But the conceptions formed by Watts of
the heavenly state are majestic in the main. “For the Church,” he says,
“on earth is but a training school for the church on high, and is, as
it were, a tiring-room in which we are dressed in proper habit for our
appearance and our places in that bright assembly.” Thus he beholds
“Boyle and Ray pursuing the philosophy in which they delighted on earth,
contemplating the wisdom of God in His works; and Henry More and Howe
continuing their metaphysical researches with brightened and refined
powers of mind.” It is singular that Watts, who speculated so keenly
and clearly into the nature of metaphysical substance, should have thus
somewhat embarrassed his views of the heavenly state by discriminating so
much the pursuits of a pure and perfect soul, by characteristics which
partake of the faulty views of an earthly understanding; but we are to
remember that he wrote for useful purposes, and we may believe that some
of those excursions of the fancy, while scarcely consistent even with his
own metaphysics, added not a little to the pleasant horizon spread out
before the view of those readers unable or indisposed to follow him into
more abstract and pure regions of thought. Interestingly and curiously
he seeks to trace the progress of the soul from the visible to the
invisible world; we know this world by Space and Substance, the solution
of these in connection with our existence in that future world to come
is not less a trouble to Watts than it has been to the rest of us. Space
he endeavoured to annihilate, Substance also, and he argues, as Isaac
Taylor has argued since in his “Physical Theory of Another Life,” that as
disembodied spirits cannot exist _everywhere_, and do not probably exist
_anywhere_, philosophically they may be said to exist _nowhere_.[41] The
question then is whither does the soul depart when it is separated from
the body? Perhaps it may be furnished with some new vehicle of a more
refined matter, which will remind readers of Abraham Tucker’s singular
chapters in his “Light of Nature,” on the “Vehicular State;” and it is
very suggestive to find him intimating that it may abide where death
finds it, not changing its place, but only its manner of thinking and
acting, and its mode of existence, and without removal finding itself
in heaven or in hell according to its own consciousness, and that is,
according to its own previous training or education, and then he says,
“I may illustrate this by two similitudes, and especially apply them to
the case of holy souls departing.” They may remind the reader of Henry
Vaughan’s beautiful verse:
If a star were confined in a tomb,
Its captive light would e’en shine there;
But when it bursts it dissipates the gloom,
And shines through all the sphere.
“Suppose a torch enclosed in a cell of earth, in the midst of ten
thousand thousand torches that shine at large in a spacious amphitheatre.
While it is enclosed, its beams strike only on the walls of its own cell,
and it has no communion with those without. But let this cell fall down
at once, and the torch that moment has full communion with all those
ten thousands; it shines as freely as they do, and receives and gives
assistance to all of them, and joins to add glory to that illustrious
place.
“Or suppose a man born or brought up in a dark prison, in the midst
of a fair and populous city. He lives there in a close confinement;
perhaps he enjoys only the twinkling light of a lamp, with thick air
and much ignorance; though he has some distant hints and reports of
the surrounding city and its affairs, yet he sees and knows nothing
immediately but what is done in his own prison, till in some happy
minute the walls fall down; then he finds himself at once in a large and
populous town, encompassed with a thousand blessings. With surprise he
beholds the king in all his glory, and holds converse with the sprightly
inhabitants. He can speak their language, and finds his nature suited to
such communion. He breathes free air, stands in the open light; he shakes
himself, and exults in his own liberty.”
The gentle spirit of Watts trembled before hell; he expressed his belief
in eternal punishment in the strongest and most unequivocal terms, not
because he found it plainly in his understanding, but because he found it
plainly declared in the New Testament, while yet, like other fathers in
the Church, he expresses within himself a latent hope that God has some
secret and mitigating decree, and that although we neither dare preach
nor speculate upon it, bowing to the word, we yet may hope that Infinite
Love will find out a way.[42]
Some readers will be surprised to find that among his proofs of a
separate state, Watts does not hesitate, although very modestly, to
avow some belief in Apparitions. It was the age of superstition and
supernatural visitations. Joseph Addison indeed was aiming at a sweeping
reform, and attempting to lay all the ghosts in the country. Watts says—
CONCERNING THE POSSIBILITY OF APPARITIONS.
“At the conclusion of this chapter I cannot help taking
notice, though I shall but just mention it, that the multitude
of narratives, which we have heard of in all ages, of the
apparition of the spirits or ghosts of persons departed from
this life, can hardly be all delusion and falsehood. Some of
them have been affirmed to appear upon such great and important
occasions as may be equal to such an unusual event; and several
of these accounts have been attested by such witnesses of
wisdom, and prudence, and sagacity, under no distempers of
imagination, that they may justly demand a belief; and the
effects of these apparitions, in the discovery of murders and
things unknown, have been so considerable and useful, that a
fair disputant should hardly venture to run directly counter
to such a cloud of witnesses without some good assurance on
the contrary side. He must be a shrewd philosopher indeed who,
upon any other hypothesis, can give a tolerable account of all
the narratives in Glanvil’s ‘Sadducisimus Triumphatus,’ or
Baxter’s ‘World of Spirits and Apparitions,’ etc. Though I will
grant some of these stories have but insufficient proof, yet if
there be but one real apparition of a departed spirit, then the
point is gained that there is a separate state.
“And, indeed, the Scripture itself seems to mention such
sort of ghosts or appearances of souls departed (Matt. xiv.
26). When the disciples saw Jesus walking on the water they
‘thought it had been a spirit.’ And (Luke xxiv. 37) after
His resurrection they saw Him at once appearing in the midst
of them, ‘and they supposed they had seen a spirit;’ and our
Saviour doth not contradict their notion, but argues with
them upon the supposition of the truth of it, ‘a spirit hath
not flesh and bones as ye see Me to have.’ And, Acts xxiii.
8, 9, the word ‘spirit’ seems to signify ‘the apparition of a
departed soul,’ where it is said, ‘The Sadducees say there is
no resurrection, neither angel nor spirit;’ and, verse 9, ‘If a
spirit or an angel hath spoken to this man,’ etc. A spirit here
is plainly distinct from an angel; and what can it mean but an
apparition of a human soul which has left the body?”
An acquaintance with the “World to Come” will take away even now from
the reader any surprise at the popularity it once enjoyed during years
when printed sermons were not very abundant, and when readers received
without questioning the doctrines and statements of such books as bore
the imprint of the names of eminent men. Many passages are fraught with a
most pleasing eloquence, and, read by a serious mind, are well calculated
to convey not only passing, but permanent impressions. Shall we take two
or three?
ALL THINGS PREACH THE END OF TIME.
“Time, hastening to its period, will furnish us with perpetual
new occasions of holy meditation. Do I observe the declining
day, and the setting sun sinking into darkness? So declines the
day of life, the hours of labour, and the seasons of grace;
oh may I finish my appointed work with honour ere the light
is fled! May I improve the shining hours of grace ere the
shadows of the evening overtake me, and my time of working is
no more! Do I see the moon gliding along through midnight, and
fulfilling her stages in the dusky sky? This planet also is
measuring out my life, and bringing the number of my months
to their end. May I be prepared to take leave of the sun and
moon, and bid adieu to these visible heavens, and all the
twinkling glories of them! These are all but the measures of
my time, and hasten me on towards eternity. Am I walking in
a garden, and stand still to observe the slow motion of the
shadow upon a dial there? It passes over the hour lines with
an imperceptible progress, yet it will touch the last line
of daylight shortly: so my hours and my moments move onward
with a silent pace; but they will arrive with certainty at the
last limit, how heedless soever I am of their motion, and how
thoughtless soever I may be of the improvement of time, or the
end of it. Does a new year commence, and the first morning
of it dawn upon me? Let me remember that the last year was
finished, and gone over my head, in order to make way for the
entrance of the present: I have one year the less to travel
through the world, and to fulfil the various services of a
travelling state: may my diligence in duty be doubled, since
the number of my appointed years is diminished! Do I find a
new birth-day in my survey of the calendar, the day wherein I
entered upon the stage of mortality, and was born into this
world of sins, frailties, and sorrows, in order to my probation
for a better state? Blessed Lord, how much have I spent already
of this mortal life, this season of my probation, and how
little am I prepared for that happier world! How unready for
my dying moment! I am hastening hourly to the end of the life
of man, which began at my nativity: am I yet born of God? Have
I begun the life of a saint? Am I prepared for that awful day
which shall determine the number of my months on earth? Am I
fit to be born into the world of spirits through the strait
gate of death? Am I renewed in all the powers of my nature, and
made meet to enter into that unseen world, where there shall
be no more of these revolutions of days and years, but one
eternal day fills up all the space with Divine pleasure, or one
eternal night with long and deplorable distress and darkness?
When I see a friend expiring, or the corpse of my neighbour
conveyed to the grave: alas! their months and minutes are all
determined, and the seasons of their trial are finished for
ever; they are gone to their eternal home, and the estate of
their souls is fixed unchangeably: the angel that has sworn
their ‘time shall be no longer’ has concluded their hopes,
or has finished their fears, and, according to the rules of
righteous judgment, has decided their misery or happiness for a
long immortality. Take this warning, oh my soul, and think of
thine own removal! Are we standing in the churchyard, paying
the last honours to the relics of our friends? What a number of
hillocks of death appear all round us! What are the tombstones
but memorials of the inhabitants of that town, to inform us of
the period of all their lives, and to point out the day when
it was said to each of them, your ‘time shall be no longer.’
Oh may I readily learn this important lesson, that my turn is
hastening too! Such a little hillock shall shortly arise for me
on some unknown spot of ground; it shall cover this flesh and
these bones of mine in darkness, and shall hide them from the
light of the sun, and from the sight of man, ‘till the heavens
be no more.’ Perhaps some kind surviving friend may engrave my
name, with the number of my days, upon a plain funeral stone,
without ornament and below envy; there shall my tomb stand,
among the rest, as a fresh monument of the frailty of nature
and the end of time. It is possible some friendly foot may,
now and then, visit the place of my repose, and some tender
eye may bedew the cold memorial with a tear: one or another
of my old acquaintance may possibly attend there to learn the
silent lecture of mortality from my grave-stone, which my lips
are now preaching aloud to the world: and if love and sorrow
should reach so far, perhaps, while his soul is melting in his
eye-lids, and his voice scarce find an utterance, he will point
with his finger and show his companion the month and day of my
decease. Oh that solemn, that awful day, which shall finish
my appointed time on earth, and put a full period to all the
designs of my heart and all the labours of my tongue and pen.
Think, oh my soul! that while friends or strangers are engaged
on that spot, and reading the date of my departure hence, thou
wilt be fixed under a decisive and unchangeable sentence,
rejoicing in the rewards of time well improved, or suffering
the long sorrows which shall attend the abuse of it in an
unknown world of happiness or misery.”
And we should think that many a believer has read the following with
sentiments of delight:
CHRIST ADMIRED AND GLORIFIED IN HIS SAINTS.
“Astonishing spectacle! When the dark and savage inhabitants of
Africa, and our forefathers, the rugged and warlike Britons,
from the ends of the earth, shall appear in that assembly,
with some of the polite nations of Greece and Rome, and each
of them shall glory in having been taught to renounce the gods
of their ancestors, and the demons which they once worshipped,
and shall rejoice in Jesus the King of Israel, and in Jehovah
the everlasting God. The conversion of the Gentile world to
Christianity is a matter of glorious wonder, and shall appear
to be so in that great day: that those who had been educated to
believe in many gods, or no god at all, should renounce atheism
and idolatry, and adore the true God only; and those who were
taught to sacrifice to idols, and to atone for their own sins
with the blood of beasts, should trust in one sacrifice,
and the atoning blood of the Son of God. Here shall stand a
believing atheist, and there a converted idolater, as monuments
of the almighty power of grace. There shall shine also in that
assembly here and there a prince and a philosopher, though ‘not
many wise, not many noble, not many mighty are called.’[43]
And they shall be matter of wonder and glory: that princes,
who loved no control, should bow their sceptres and their
souls to the royalty and Godhead of the poor Man of Nazareth:
that the heathen philosophers, who had been used to yield
only to reason, should submit their understandings to Divine
revelation, even when it has something above the powers and
discoveries of reason in it.
“Come, all ye saints of these latter ages, ‘upon whom the
end of the world is come,’ raise your heads with me, and look
far backwards, even to the beginning of time, and the days of
Adam; for the believers of all ages, as well as of all nations,
shall appear together in that day, and acknowledge Jesus the
Saviour: according to the brighter or darker discoveries of
the age in which they lived, He has been the common object of
their faith. Ever since He was called ‘the Seed of the woman,’
till the time of His appearance in the flesh, all the chosen of
God have lived upon His grace, though multitudes of them never
knew His name. It is true, the greater part of that illustrious
company on the right hand of Christ lived since the time of
His incarnation, for the ‘great multitude which no man could
number’ is derived from the Gentile nations. Yet the ancient
patriarchs, with the Jewish prophets and saints, shall make a
splendid appearance there: ‘one hundred and forty-four thousand
are sealed among the tribes of Israel;’ these of old embraced
the Gospel in types and shadows; but now their eyes behold
Jesus Christ, the substance and the truth. In the days of their
flesh they read His name in dark lines, and looked through the
long glasses of prophecy to distant ages, and a Saviour to
come; and now, behold, they find complete and certain salvation
and glory in Him. ‘These all died in faith, not having received
the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded
of them, and embraced them.’ They died in the hope of this
salvation, and they shall rise in the blessed possession of it.
“Behold Abraham appearing there, the father of the faithful,
‘who saw the day of Christ, and rejoiced to see it;’ who
trusted in his Son Jesus, two thousand years before He was
born; his elder family, the pious Jews, surround him there,
and we, his younger children, among the Gentiles, shall stand
with him as the followers of his faith, who trust in the same
Jesus almost two thousand years after He is dead. How shall we
both rejoice to see this brightest day of the Son of Man, and
congratulate each other’s faith, while our eyes meet and centre
in Him, and our souls triumph in the sight, love, and enjoyment
of Him in whom we have believed! How admirable and divinely
glorious shall our Lord Himself appear, on whom every life is
fixed with unutterable delight, in whom the faith of distant
countries and ages is centered and reconciled, and in whom ‘all
the nations of the earth appear to be blessed,’ according to
the ancient word of promise.
“Then one shall say: ‘I was a sensual sinner, drenched in
liquor and unclean lusts, and wicked in all the forms of
lewdness and intemperance; the grace of God my Saviour appeared
to me, and taught me to deny worldly lusts, which I once
thought I could never have parted with. I loved my sins as
my life, but He has persuaded and constrained me to cut off
a right hand, and to pluck out a right eye, and to part with
my darling vices; and behold me here a monument of His saving
mercy.’
“‘I was envious against my neighbour,’ shall another say, ‘and
my temper was malice and wrath; revenge was mingled with my
constitution, and I thought it no iniquity; but I bless the
name of Christ my Redeemer, who, in the day of His grace,
turned my wrath into meekness; He inclined me to love even my
enemies, and to pray for them that cursed me; He taught me
all this by His own example, and He made me learn it by the
sovereign influences of His Spirit. I am a wonder to myself,
when I think what once I was. Amazing change, and Almighty
grace!’
“Then a third shall confess: ‘I was a profane wretch, a
swearer, a blasphemer; I hoped for no heaven, and I feared no
hell; but the Lord seized me in the midst of my rebellions,
and sent His arrows into my soul; He made me feel the stings
of an awakened conscience, and constrained me to believe there
was a God and a hell, till I cried out astonished, “What
shall I do to be saved?” Then He led me to partake of His own
salvation, and, from a proud, rebellious infidel, He has made
me a penitent and a humble believer, and here I stand to show
forth the wonders of His grace, and a boundless extent of His
forgiveness.’
“A fourth shall stand up and acknowledge in that day: And I was
a poor carnal, covetous creature, who made this world my god,
and abundance of money was my heaven; but He cured me of this
vile idolatry of gold, taught me how to obtain treasures in the
heavenly world, and to forsake all on earth, that I might have
an inheritance there; and, behold, He has not disappointed my
hopes: I am now made rich indeed, and I must for ever sing His
praises.’
“There shall be no doubt or dispute in that day whether it was
the power of our own will, or the superior power of Divine
grace, that wrought the blessed change, that turned the lion
into a lamb, a grovelling earthworm into a bird of paradise,
and of a covetous or malicious sinner made a meek and a
heavenly saint. The grace of Christ shall be so conspicuous
in every glorified believer in that assembly, that, with one
voice, they shall all shout to the praise and glory of His
grace, ‘Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to Thy name be all
the honour!’
“Behold that noble army with palms in their hands; once they
were weak warriors, yet they overcame mighty enemies, and have
gained the victory and the prize; enemies rising from earth
and from hell to tempt and to accuse them, but they overcame
‘by the blood of the Lamb.’ What a Divine honour it shall be
to our Lord Jesus Christ, ‘the Captain of our salvation,’ that
weak Christians should subdue their strong corruptions, and
get safe to heaven through a thousand oppositions within and
without! It is all owing to the grace of Christ, that grace
which is all-sufficient for every saint. They are made ‘more
than conquerors through Him that has loved them.’ Then shall
the faith and courage and patience of the saints have a blessed
review; and it shall be told before the whole creation what
strife and wrestlings a poor believer has passed through in
a dark cottage, a chamber of lone sickness, or perhaps in a
dungeon; how he has there combated with ‘powers of darkness,’
how he has struggled with huge sorrows, and has borne, and has
not fainted, though he has been often ‘in heaviness through
manifold temptations.’ Then shall appear the bright scene which
St. Peter represents as the event of sore trials (1 Peter i. 6,
7). ‘When our faith has been tried in the fire of tribulation,
and is found more precious than gold,’ it shall shine to the
praise, honour, and glory of the suffering saints, and of
Christ Himself at His appearance.
“Behold that illustrious troop of martyrs, and some among
them of the feebler sex and of tender age. Now, that women
should grow bold in faith, even in the sight of torments, and
children, with a manly courage, should profess the name of
Christ in the face of angry and threatening rulers; that some
of these should become undaunted confessors of the truth, and
others triumph in fires and torture, these things shall be
matter of glory to Christ in that day; it was His power that
gave them courage and victory in martyrdom and death. Every
Christian there, every soldier in that triumphing army, shall
ascribe his conquest to the grace of his Lord, his Leader, and
lay down all their trophies at the feet of his Saviour, with
humble acknowledgments, and shouts of honour.
“Almost all the saved number were, at some part of their lives,
weak in faith, and yet, by the grace of Christ, they held out
to the end, and are crowned; ‘I was a poor trembling creature,’
shall one say, ‘but I was confirmed in my faith and holiness
by the Gospel of Christ; or, I rested on a naked promise, and
found support, because Christ was there, and He shall have the
glory of it.’ ‘In Him are all the promises yea, and in Him
amen, to the glory of the Father;’ and the Son shall share in
this glory; for He died to ratify these promises, and He lives
to fulfil them.
“‘Oh, what an almighty arm is this,’ shall the believer say,
‘that has borne up so many thousands of poor sinking creatures,
and lifted their heads above the waves!’ The spark of grace
that lived many years in a flood of temptations, and was not
quenched, shall then shine bright to the glory of Christ, who
kindled and maintained it. When we have been brought through
all the storms and the threatening seas, and yet the raging
waves have been forbid, to swallow us up, we shall cry out
in raptures of joy and wonder: ‘What manner of Man is this,
that the winds and the seas have obeyed him?’ Then shall it be
gloriously evident that He has conquered Satan, and kept the
hosts of hell in chains; when it shall appear that He has made
poor, mean, trembling believers victorious over all the powers
of darkness, for the Prince of Peace has bruised him under
their feet.”
[Illustration]
CHAPTER XIV.
The Man.
Watts, as we have seen, lived so much in retirement and retreat, and
was so constant a sufferer from the infirmities of health, that little
is known in the way of incident and anecdote of his life. In a sense,
indeed, he lived constantly before the eyes of men, for his industry,
when he was capable of industry, must have been immense; he must have
read extensively, he thought deeply, and he possessed not only an active
but a facile pen, which appears to have served him very readily when he
desired to translate his thoughts into language. His life belongs to that
order we represent by such names as Richard Hooker, Jeremy Taylor, and
John Howe: we do not here compare or contrast the finer details of their
character, but, like them, he appears to have been essentially a man of
contemplation; his activity was only the reflection of a contemplative
life. In height he was quite beneath the common standard; Dr. Gibbons
says not above five feet, or, at most, five feet two inches; we are not
accustomed to associate so small a stature with any commanding presence
in the pulpit; yet his preaching was greatly admired, and Dr. Jennings
says that it was not only weighty and powerful, “but there was a certain
dignity and respect in his very aspect which commanded attention and
awe, and when he spoke, such strains of truly Christian eloquence flowed
from his lips as one thinks could not be easily slighted, if resisted.”
He was altogether a very slight figure—thin, an oval face, an aquiline
nose, his complexion fair and pale, and, Gibbons says, his forehead
low; but this does not appear in his portrait, nor does that which it
usually indicates, a want of generosity, mark his character. When unable
to preach, it was with difficulty he could be persuaded to accept the
stipend of the church of which he was the pastor, saying that, as he
could not preach, he had no title to any salary. His refusal was not
accepted, but the delicate sense of honour marks the character of the
man; while, from the time he lived in the Abney family, he devoted a
third part of his income to charitable purposes. His eyes appear to have
lighted up his face; they are described as singularly small and grey, and
are said to have been amazingly piercing and expressive. His voice was
very fine and, slender, but regular, audible, and pleasant. The anecdote
is well known of him that when he was in one of those coffee-houses—then
the haunts of men who knew what company they might expect to find, for
every particular coterie had its own place of rendezvous—he overheard his
name given by one person to another, who said in surprise, “What! is that
the great Dr. Watts?” Whereupon he wrote down a verse and handed it to
him:
Were I so tall to reach the pole,
And grasp the ocean in a span,
I must be measured by my soul,—
The mind’s the standard of the man.
We have never thought the anecdote a very likely one; Watts was
altogether too quiet, and we may use the word, majestic in his manner to
make it possible he would do this. The verse is indeed his, but it occurs
in a lengthy poem, and it is possible that it was fitted into a fabulous
incident which some inventor of scenic situations thought might be, or
ought to be, true. There is another anecdote which has been related of
him, although we have seen it attributed to others, how, when once in a
coffee-house, and somewhat in the way of a tall giant of a man, he said
to Watts, “Let me pass, O giant!” and Watts replied, “Pass on, O pigmy!”
“I only referred to your mind,” said the giant; “I also to yours,”
replied Watts.
Whatever impression such anecdotes may convey, one of his chief
characteristics was a very modest appreciation of himself. “His
humility,” said Dr. Jennings, “like a deep shade, set off his other
graces and virtues, and made them shine with greater lustre.” And of
those attributes of his character of which others thought most highly,
he thought very inconsiderably. And to such a character is often allied
that which is very noticeable in him, a very grateful sense of all
favours conferred upon him. There was nothing narrow in his mind, he
had a great width of thought and a great width of love: although, as we
have seen, a Nonconformist by strong conviction, judging the communion
to which he belonged as favourable to civil and religious freedom, and
regarding the service as most in harmony with what he considered the
simplicity of the Gospel, he was on terms of friendship with many other
communions, and especially with several of the prelates, ministers, and
members of the Established Church. It would be expected, although this
is not invariably the case, that a mind so richly stored, united to so
ready an eloquence, would shine in conversation, and this was the case.
It is said that in conversation his wit sparkled; his biographer says,
“It was like an ethereal flame, ever vivid and penetrating;” but he had
an aversion to satire. Referring to the pictures he sometimes introduces,
illustrating the vices and follies of his age, he utterly disclaims the
idea that in them he has attempted to portray any personal character. “I
would not,” he says, “willingly create needless pain or uneasiness to the
most despicable figure among mankind; there are vexations enough among
the beings of my species without my adding to the heap. When a reflecting
glass shows the deformity of a face so plain as to point to the person,
he will sooner be tempted to break the glass than reform his blemishes;
but if I can find any error of my own happily described in some general
character, I am then awakened to reform it in silence, without the public
notice of the world, and the moral writer attains his noblest end.”
He was not happy in the friendship of listeners, who took down with
any accuracy the sayings which fell from him; and it is probable that
in conversation, although rich and full, wide and wise, it was rather
remarkable for these characteristics than for either its gaiety or its
force.
There were few waste moments for which he had to give an account; he
acted like a miser by his time, and permitted few moments to pass without
their being garnered and compelled to pay interest. We read of his
writing on horseback, and whithersoever he travelled the objects which
entered either the eye or the ear seem to have left abiding impressions.
It seems even the injustice of his opponents in disputation did not make
him angry. Such injustice we know he had to experience; and when, in his
later years, he offended on both sides, one writer complaining of him
that he had gone too far, and another that he had not gone far enough,
he contented himself by saying, “Moderation must expect a box on both
ears.” A character like that of Watts inspires confidence in almost all
that proceeds from his pen: the men, indeed, who carry what Chalmers
called “weight in life,” are usually the tall, the self-assertive, and
the strong; none of these attributes mark him, and yet he appears to have
carried great weight. It was not by vehemence, but by wisdom; he did
not win by the forcible striking of the ball, but by prescience and a
judicious calculation.
Watts, like so many of the great wits, poets, and authors of his
time, was what we should now consider very slightly versed in the
accomplishments of travel: a few places in the neighbourhood of
London and Southampton and Tunbridge Wells seem almost to exhaust his
excursions. Indeed, England was for the most part an unknown country,
and as to the continent of Europe, men of wealth and fashion were
expected to perfect their education by the grand tour, but to persons
even in Watts’ circle of society, France, Switzerland, and Italy, with
their cities, memories, forests, and mountains, were unknown. Gray had
not yet discovered Cumberland and Westmoreland, and when discovered,
there were no facilities to make travel thither very easy; Yorkshire and
Lancashire were almost equally unknown. The place to which we frequently
find Watts retreating for the benefit of his health was Tunbridge
Wells, and a singular place it must have been for a retreat, judging
from the description Macaulay has given us of it in his history; but it
furnishes us with a singular sense of the simple things which excited
the imagination, to read how Watts regarded it. Many a modern reader
is struck with surprise at Shakespeare’s description of the cliffs of
Dover—a description of terror and fear arising from precipitous heights,
which we could scarcely now persuade ourselves to be just of Helvellyn
and Pendle. The rocks of Tunbridge seemed to Watts so wild and fearful
that they furnish him with a subject for a sermon, “On the vain Refuge of
Sinners,” from the text reciting the condition of those who said to the
mountains and rocks, “Fall on us, and hide us from the face of Him that
sitteth upon the throne.” The sermon is expressly called “A Meditation
upon the Rocks near Tunbridge Wells,” and he says:
“When I see such awful appearances in nature, huge and lofty rocks
hanging over my head, and at every step of my approach they seem to nod
upon me with overwhelming ruin; when my curiosity searches far into
hollow clefts, their dark and deep caverns of solitude and desolation,
methinks, whilst I stand amongst them, I can hardly think myself in
safety, and, at best, they give a sort of solemn and dreadful delight.
Let me improve the scene to religious purposes, and raise a Divine
meditation. Am I one of those wretches who shall call to these huge
impending rocks to fall upon me?”
When Watts first visited Tunbridge Wells in search of health and
refreshment, it must have been to our modern sense an uncomfortable
place; even at the close of his life and in his later visits, it was only
just rising into importance as the retreat of the coteries of fashion
and letters; it is almost the only spot left now which we may be sure,
from some points of view, looks much as it did in the day when Watts,
Richardson, or Johnson walked along the Pantiles, and inhaled the breezes
from the neighbouring rocks and grounds. Such as it was at the close
of the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries, we find described in
the pages of Macaulay and some of the novelists and poets. The waters
possessed some real, and acquired an artificial, fame; there was no town,
only a few neat and rustic cottages, some of these moveable; moveable
cabins and huts were drawn on sledges from one part of the common to
another. Fashionable London tradespeople went down and spread out their
bazaars under the trees, and near the spring; a fair was daily held, in
which were booths where the man of letters and the politician might find
his cup of coffee, his newspaper, and his friend; and others, in which
the gambler might find his vice and his victim. On the whole, it was a
merry place for sated and wearied fashionable loungers, where they might
believe that they were becoming rural, and charm themselves into the
persuasion that they were the spectators of a poetry of nature, which
they would have been indisposed to experience too long or too deeply; but
a place where we cannot suppose that Watts found himself for any length
of time at home. He was, however, frequently there, and upon one occasion
he was guilty of one of the few of what may be called the vanities of
verse which fell from his pen. The atmosphere of watering-places is
favourable to every kind of literary as well as other lounging. Watts was
not altogether insensible, we should suppose, to the charms of female
beauty, and certainly a man may well be moved to express himself in verse
concerning it, when feeble verses have been erroneously attributed to
him. It was in the summer of 1712, when at Tunbridge Wells, that he wrote
the following lines in honour of Lady Sunderland, one of the daughters
of the Duke of Marlborough; her husband had just been dismissed from the
councils of the queen, and she had just withdrawn from the court. We may
suppose the little clusters of various loungers and talkers would be
surprised to see them in some one of the little local flying “Mercury’s”
of the day where these verses appeared and were attributed to Watts; he
appears to have felt it was an occasion for some apology for stepping
into such a by-way; he does so in the following note, upon which fancy
may a little divert itself as to the life he and others led at Tunbridge
Wells:
TO AMYNTAS.
“Perhaps you were not a little surprised, my friend, when you
saw some stanzas on the Lady Sunderland at Tunbridge Wells,
and were told that I wrote them; but when I give you a full
account of the occasion your wonder will cease. The Duke of
Marlborough’s three daughters, namely, the Lady Godolphin, the
Lady Sunderland, and the Lady Bridgewater, had been at the
Wells some time when I came there; nor had I the honour of
any more acquaintance with any of them than what was common
to all the company in the Wells, that is, to be told who they
were when they passed by. A few days afterwards they left that
place, and the next morning there was found a copy of verses in
the coffee-house, called the ‘Three Shining Sisters;’ but, the
author being unknown, some persons were ready to attribute them
to me, knowing that I had heretofore dealt in rhyme. I confess
I was ashamed of several lines in that copy. Some were very
dull, and others, as I remember, bordered upon profaneness.
“That afternoon I rode abroad as usual for my health, and
it came into my head to let my friends see that, if I would
choose such a theme, I would write in another manner than that
nameless author had done. Accordingly, as I was on horseback, I
began a stanza on the ‘Three Shining Sisters,’ but my ideas,
my rhyme, and the metre would not hit well while the words ran
in the plural number; and this slight occurrence was the real
occasion of turning my thoughts to the singular; and then,
because the Lady Sunderland was counted much the finest woman
of the three, I addressed the verses to her name. Afterwards
when I came to the coffee-house, I entertained some of my
friends with these lines, and they, imagining it would be no
disagreeable thing to the company, persuaded me to permit them
to pass through the press.”
But here are the verses—
ODE TO LADY SUNDERLAND, 1712.
Fair nymph, ascend to Beauty’s throne,
And rule that radiant world alone;
Let favourites take thy lower sphere,
No monarchs are thy rivals here.
The court of Beauty built sublime,
Defies all pow’rs but heaven and time;
Envy, that clouds the hero’s sky,
Aims but in vain her shafts so high.
Not Blenheim’s field, nor Ister’s flood,
Nor standards dyed in Gallic blood,
Torn from the foe, add nobler grace
To Churchill’s house than Spenser’s face.
The warlike thunder of his arms
Is less commanding than her charms;
His lightning strikes with less surprise
Than sudden glances from her eyes.
His captives feel their limbs confined
In iron; she enslaves the mind:
We follow with a pleasing pain,
And bless the conqueror and the chain.
The Muse that dares in numbers do
What paint and pencil never knew,
Faints at her presence in despair,
And owns th’ inimitable fair.
Presently appeared the following epigram or _impromptu_ composed by some
divine, of which it has been truly remarked that it is difficult to say
whether the author or the lady has the greater compliment!—
While numerous bards have sounded Spenser’s name,
And made her beauties heirs to lasting fame,
Her memory still to their united lays
Stands less indebted than to Watts’s praise.
What wondrous charms must to that fair be given,
Who moved a mind that dwelt so near to heaven!
Tunbridge Wells is still the pleasant resort of those who seek the mild
and quiet attractions of charming scenery, refreshing breezes, and crags
and downs; but the romantic season of Tunbridge Wells is to be sought for
about the period when Watts and his contemporaries were visitors there,
scenes open to the fancy which it would be difficult to realize now
amidst its splendid palatial residences; even Nature must look less like
Nature than it did then, while the superior auxiliaries of comfort and
accommodation have, as in almost all such instances, been purchased at
the expense of dissipating the charms and rural beauties of a place which
still retains so many of them as to make one of the most attractive and
satisfying haunts for a sick heart among the sanatories of England.
The life of Dr. Watts must be illustrated rather from his works than from
its incidents. It is remarkable that so little is recorded of him; his
powers of conversation seem to have been considerable, and his reputation
for wit was what we might naturally suppose from the liveliness of many
of his prose writings. But he was certainly unfortunate in his first
biographer. Dr. Gibbons was an accomplished man, a correct and fine
scholar, but surely the last thing for which he was ever intended, either
by nature or by grace, was to write a biography. _His_ contains many
noticeable and acute remarks, and some passages which almost dilate
into beauty; but it is strange that, constant as was his intercourse
with his friend, he has preserved scarcely anything either of anecdote,
conversation, or description illustrating their intercourse; and it
seems certain that Watts’ life would have well repaid the assiduity of
a Boswell. His mind was remarkably full, and Gibbons testifies how, on
any and every occasion, he was able to express himself at once with
great force, propriety, and elegance. But his biographer only tells us
how his life, from the time of his earliest studies, afforded little
variety, and consequently has few subjects for narration—it “flowed
along in an even, uniform tenor; one year, one month, one week, one day
being, in a manner, a repetition of the former.” Like some other eminent
men, it somewhat appears as if he finished the furnishing of his mind
when in his youngest years, and devoted all the after period of his life
to the unfolding, amplifying, expounding, and popularizing the stores
he had amassed and acquired. Dr. Gibbons refers to the fact that his
“Treatise on Astronomy and Geography” was most probably prepared for the
tuition of Mr.—afterwards Sir John—Hartopp; when published in 1725, in
the dedication to Mr. Eames, he says that: “The papers had lain by him
in silence above twenty years;” and as to his “Logic,” we have already
referred to it; and the dedication in which he tells his former pupil
that “it was fit that the public should receive, through his hands, what
was originally written for the assistance of his younger studies, and
was thus presented to him.” And thus we are assured that the work which
met with so large a reception and distinguished applause was prepared
in days when he was himself little more than a youth, to serve his own
purposes of tuition. Such was the life of this interesting man—it was a
fountain of life and power. In the spacious chapel-walk in Southampton
there is a pavement-stone marked with the letter W—it stands for Watts;
but, as Mr. Carlyle says in his interesting paper on Watts, it might
stand for Watts’ Well; it was once the property of Isaac Watts, and the
well has a long story, well authenticated in the church records of the
Above Bar congregation. That well of clear, beautiful water was purchased
by old Isaac Watts from his friend, Robert Thorner, the founder of the
Southampton Charity. It was on, and constituted a part of, the tenement
known by the name of the Meeting-house; then it was leased to the church,
then it was purchased by the church. It was known in Southampton two
hundred years ago. It is now a fountain sealed, but still it is known,
and proudly the pastor says, “Our father Isaac gave us this well, and
drank thereof, himself and his children.”[44] Watts’ Well is no inapt
symbol or emblem of Watts’ life and labours. Even lost to sight, sealed
over, its springs still pour along their refreshing, cooling, and
transparent streams; nor have the crowds who hurry thoughtlessly by power
to interfere with the useful freshness of its pure blessings.
“The last days are the best witnesses for a man.” “Blessed,” says old
Robert Harris, “shall he be that so lived that he was desired, and so
died that he was missed.” Isaac Watts illustrated in a remarkable manner
power in weakness.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER XV.
Death and Burial.
He died in 1748, at the age of seventy-four, in ripe years, and hoary
with the honours of holiness. We are dependent upon his friend and
biographer, Dr. Gibbons, for almost all that we know of his last days and
hours, but it is very pleasant to find that the author of “The World to
Come” himself went down to the grave with all the calmness and confidence
which the words he has uttered have so often imparted to others in the
outlook towards the better country. He says, “It is a glory to the Gospel
when we can lie down with courage in hope of its promised blessings;
dying with faith and fortitude is a noble conclusion of a life of zeal
and service.” “Death in the course of nature,” he says, “as well as by
the hands of violence, hath always something awful and formidable in it;
flesh and blood shrink and tremble at the appearance of a dissolution;
but death is the last enemy of all the saints, and when a Christian
meets it with sacred courage he gives that honour to the Captain of his
salvation which the saints in glory can never give, and which we can
never repeat; it is an honour to our common faith when it overcomes the
terrors of death, and raises the Christian to a song of triumph in
the view of the last enemy; it is a new crown put upon the head of our
Redeemer, and a living cordial put into the hands of mourning friends
in our dying hour when we can take leave of them with holy fortitude,
rejoicing in the salvation of Christ.”
Such were his words; such honour have not all the saints; some who have
looked forward through life with triumph to that hour have fainted
when it came, and some who feared it most have felt it least: peculiar
temperaments and special forms of pain and disease sometimes make death
dreadful; and an old writer says, “We are not glad to feel the snake,
even when we know its sting is drawn.” Thomas Walsh, one of the holiest
and most eminent of the early Methodists, was very angry against John
Fletcher, the seraphic vicar of Madeley, because he heard him say that
some comparatively weak believers might die most cheerfully, and that
some strong ones, for the further purification of their faith, or for
inscrutable reasons, might have severe conflicts. “Be it done unto you
according to your faith,” said Walsh, “and be it done unto me according
to mine.” But when the hour came to Walsh it was clouded, and those eyes
which had “looked out of the windows were darkened;” only at the last
moment he exclaimed, “He is come! He is come! My beloved is mine, and I
am His for ever!” And so he passed. But Fletcher died in a rapture. “I
know thy soul,” said his wife, “but if Jesus is very present with thee,
lift up thy right hand.” Immediately it was raised. “If the prospects of
glory sweetly open before thee, repeat the sign.” The hand was raised
a second time, and so his soul breathed itself away. Faith survives
the presence of sensible comforts. An aged believer in Southampton, on
her death-bed, complained of the absence of sensible comforts to her
pastor, the Rev. W. Kingsbury, but so strong was her faith that she
said, “It is against the whole scope of Divine revelation that my soul
should be lost.” Old Thomas Fuller, having surveyed the various modes
of death, arrived at the short, decisive conclusion, “None please me.”
“But away,” he adds, “with these thoughts; the mark must not choose
what arrow shall be shot against it.” The happiness of a clear, calm
departure was given to Watts, his closing days were serene and happy;
with all the imaginative glow of his mind, he had naturally a calm
character. He had well grounded his convictions; he had long lived like a
sunbeam amidst sunbeams in the light. Dr. Gibbons, speaking from his own
knowledge, says, “Although his weakness was very great, he knew no decay
of intelligence, and was the subject of no wild fancies.” His biographer
adds, “He saw his approaching dissolution with a mind perfectly calm
and composed, without the least alarm or dismay, and I never could
discover, though I was frequently with him, the least shadow of a doubt
as to his future everlasting happiness, or anything that looked like an
unwillingness to die; how I have known him recite with self-application
those words in Hebrews, ‘Ye have need of patience, that, after ye have
done the will of God, ye may receive the promise;’ and how often have I
heard him, upon leaving the family after supper and withdrawing to rest,
declare with the sweetest composure, that if his Master was to say to him
that he had no more work for him to do, he should be glad to be dismissed
that night. And I once heard him say, with a kind of impatience, perhaps
such as might in some degree trespass upon that submission we ought
always to pay to the Divine will, ‘I wonder why the great God should
continue me in life, when I am incapable of performing Him any further
service?’”
The death-beds of great and eminent men are often hung round with curious
fables and inventions; one is mentioned even to our own day, although
Dr. Gibbons denies the whole story in the very first edition of his
biography. Somebody conveyed it to Mr. Toplady, who says, “That little
more than half-an-hour before Dr. Watts expired he was visited by his
dear friend, Mr. Whitefield; he, asking him how he found himself, the
dying doctor answered, ‘Here am I, one of Christ’s waiting servants.’
Soon after a medicine was brought in, and Mr. Whitefield assisted in
raising him upon the bed that he might with more convenience take
the draught; on the doctor’s apologizing for the trouble he gave Mr.
Whitefield, the latter replied, with his usual amiable politeness,
‘Surely, my dear brother, I am not too good to wait upon a waiting
servant of Christ!’ Soon after, Mr. Whitefield took his leave, and often
regretted since that he had not prolonged his visit, which he would
certainly have done could he have foreseen that his friend was but
within a half-an-hour’s distance from the kingdom of glory.” There is
not a word of truth in the whole story; Dr. Gibbons says it is entirely
fictitious. “Mr. Whitefield never visited the doctor in his last illness
or confinement, nor had any conversation or interview with him for some
months before his decease. It were to be wished that greater care was
practised by the writers of other persons’ lives, that illusions might
not take place and obtain the regards of truth, and lay historians who
come after them under the unpleasing necessity of dissolving their
figments, and thereby, in consequence, evincing to the world how little
credit is due to these relations.”
His dying sayings are recorded, and they were all of them of a quiet and
peaceful nature. Dr. Jennings, who preached his funeral sermon, and
saw him on his death-bed, mentions, that while for two or three years
previous to his death his active and more sprightly powers of nature had
failed, his trust in God, through Jesus the Mediator, remained unshaken
to the last. To Lady Abney he said: “I bless God I can lie down with
comfort at night, not being solicitous whether I awake in this world or
another.” And again he said: “I should be glad to read more, yet not in
order to be confirmed more in the truth of the Christian religion, or
in the truth of its promises, for I believe them enough to venture into
eternity on them.” When he was almost worn out and broken down by his
infirmities he said, in conversation with a friend, that he remembered an
aged minister used to say, that the most learned and knowing Christians,
when they come to die, have only the same plain promises of the Gospel
for their support as the common and the unlearned. “And so,” said he, “I
find it; they are the plain promises of the Gospel that are my support,
and I bless God they are plain promises, which do not require much
labour or pains to understand them, for I can do nothing now but look
into my Bible for some promise to support me, and live upon that.” Dr.
Gibbons naturally regrets that he did not commit to writing the words
of his dying friend; it is wonderful that he did not; but Watts had an
amanuensis who had been with him upwards of twenty years, and who, as
Gibbons says, was “in a manner ever with him;” to him and to Miss Abney,
or, as she is generally called, Mistress Elizabeth Abney, the eldest
daughter and successor to the Abney property, we are principally indebted
for the record of his dying words. When he found his spirit tending to
impatience, he would check himself, saying: “The business of a Christian
is to bear the will of God as well as do it. If I were in health I
could only be doing that, and that I may do now; the best thing in
obedience is a regard to the will of God, and the way to that is to get
our inclinations and aversions as much modified as we can.” Some of his
expressions were such as the following: “I would be waiting to see what
God will do with me; it is good to say as Mr. Baxter, what, when, and
where God pleases. If God should raise me up again I may finish some more
of my papers, or God can make use of me to save a soul, and that will be
worth living for. If God has no more service for me to do, through grace
I am ready; it is a great mercy to me that I have no manner of fear or
dread of death. I could if God please lay my head back and die without
terror this afternoon or night; my chief supports are from my view of
eternal things, and the interest I have in them. I trust all my sins are
pardoned through the blood of Christ; I have no fear of dying; it would
be my greatest comfort to lie down and sleep, and wake no more.” Dr.
Gibbons a short time before his death came into his room, and finding him
alone sat down for conversation with him; he said not a word of what he
had been or done in life, but his soul seemed swallowed up with gratitude
and joy for the redemption of sinners by Jesus Christ. His visitor
thought he realized the description of the apostle, “Whom having not seen
ye love; in whom, though now ye see Him not, yet believing ye rejoice
with joy unspeakable and full of glory.”
So he continued to the close, rising into no ecstasies, nor sinking into
any great depressions, in the full possession of his understanding, free
from pain of body, comfortable in spirit. This was during the autumn of
1748. It was during the month of November that he was confined to his
room, never to leave it any more. For three weeks he continued in the
state just described, tenderly attended for the most part by Lady Abney
or Mr. Parker. The following extracts are from Mr. Parker’s letters
to the brother of Dr. Watts, residing at Southampton, the first dated
November 24th, 1748: “I wrote to you by the last post that we apprehended
my master very near his end, and that we thought it not possible he
should be alive when the letter reached your hands; and it will no doubt
greatly surprise you to hear that he still lives. We ourselves are amazed
at it. He passed through the last night in the main quiet and easy, but
for five hours would receive nothing within his lips. I was down in his
chamber early in the morning, and found him quite sensible. I begged he
would be pleased to take a little liquid to moisten his mouth, and he
received at my hand three teaspoonsful, and has done the like several
times this day. Upon inquiry he told me he lay easy, and his mind was
peaceful and serene. I said to him this morning that he had taught us
how to live, and was now teaching us how to die by his patience and
composure, for he has been remarkably in this frame for several days
past. He replied, ‘Yes.’ I told him I hoped he experienced the comfort of
these words, ‘I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.’ He answered,
‘I do.’ The ease of body and calmness of mind which he enjoys is a great
mercy to him, and to us. His sick chamber has nothing terrifying in it.
He is an upright man, and I doubt not that his end will be peace. We
are ready to use the words of Job, and say, ‘We shall seek him in the
morning, but he shall not be.’ But God only knows by whose power he is
upheld in life, and for wise purposes, no doubt. He told me he liked
that I should be with him. All other business is put off, and I am in
the house night and day. I would administer all the relief that is in
my power. He is worthy of all that can be done for him. I am your very
faithful and truly afflicted servant.”
On the next day, November 25th, in the afternoon, aged seventy-four
years, four months, and eight days, the gentle spirit of the Doctor
passed away, and Mr. Parker wrote again to the same person: “At length
the fatal news is come. The spirit of the good man, my dear master, took
its flight from the body to worlds unseen and joys unknown yesterday in
the afternoon, without a struggle or a groan. My Lady Abney and Mrs.
Abney are supported as well as we can reasonably expect. It is a house of
mourning and tears, for I have told you before now that we all attended
upon him and served him from a principle of love and esteem. May God
forgive us all, that we have improved no more by him, while we enjoyed
him!” “May I be excused,” says his biographer, “if I take the liberty of
adding that I saw the corpse of this excellent man in his coffin, and
observed nothing more than death in its aspect. The countenance appeared
quite placid, like a person fallen into a gentle sleep, or such as the
spirit might be supposed to leave behind it upon its willing departure
to the celestial happiness. How justly might I have said at the moment I
beheld his dead earth, as he does in an epitaph upon a pious young man,
who was removed from our world after a lingering and painful illness:
“So sleep the saints, and cease to groan,
When sin and death have done their worst:
Christ has a glory like His own
Which waits to clothe their waking dust!”
And this was the manner in which “this silver cord was loosed, and this
golden bowl broken.”
They buried him, of course, in Bunhill Fields; thither already had been
borne the bodies of many of those who had been his fellow-students, and
his most familiar friends; and thither were to follow him at last many
of those friends who were for a few brief years to survive him. It was
the _Campo Santo_ of Nonconformity, the spot consecrated by the memories
of the martyrs and confessors of civil and religious liberty, and their
tombs then were fresh. Their graves and their memories were green and
verdant. Amidst the wilderness of indiscriminate tombs it is now scarcely
possible to decipher localities, dust has mingled with dust, yet it would
be scarcely possible to visit anywhere a spot where almost every mound
recalled venerable remains or in the course of years became haunted by
such tender and animating memories. Bunhill Fields does not possess the
attractive and splendid tombs of _Père la Chaise_ or Munich, of Greenwood
or Kensall Green, but it may be with perfect certainty affirmed that none
of these places possess such a congregation of sainted sleepers, and such
consecrated dust.
The history of this pensive enclosure goes back to the reign of Henry
III. It had been from a period even anterior to this set apart as the
exercising and training ground for the archers and train-bands of the
City; indeed it is probable, whether he knew it or not, that this is the
very spot to which Lord Lytton refers in some of the earlier scenes of
the “Last of the Barons,” the archery-ground of Finsbury; a romantic and
lovely spot, a very easy walk from the quaint gabled houses of the old
City four hundred years since. It was a spot surrounded by gardens and
orchards in the Manor of Finsbury or _Fens_bury, and on the borders of
that extensive suburban tract, the Moor Fields; but when the Great Plague
decimated London, the Corporation set apart this field as a burial-place
for the poor. It was a gentle acclivity, a rising spot of ground, which,
affection had called the _Bon_hill, at a time when the language of the
country was very largely held in possession by Norman influences and
French terms, as in innumerable instances mingled with Saxon. Thus:
In death divided from their dearest kin,
This was a field to bury strangers in;
Fragments from families untimely reft,
Like spoils in flight, or limbs in battle left,
Lay there[45]⸺
The subsequent history of the place justifies another characterization
from the same poet:
For they were there to this Siberia sent,
Doomed in the grave itself to banishment.
As a humble cemetery for the purposes we have mentioned, it had been
enclosed at the charge of the Corporation, but for this purpose it was
not long needed; and when the ravages of persecution succeeded to those
of disease, one Tyndall purchased it, principally for the interment of
Dissenters, and it became known as Tyndall’s Burying Ground. The first
interment in this second epoch of its funereal history dates from the
first distinctly legible stone in the year 1668. Twenty years after
this, it received the beloved and revered remains of John Bunyan; in
the interim, many of those who had been among the foremost religious
actors, preachers, and writers of the time came hither—Thomas Goodwin,
Thomas Manton, Joseph Caryl, Theophilus Gale, John Owen, William Jenkyn,
Henry Jessey, William Kiffin, Hanserd Knollys, and many others. In
this spot almost every order of religious outlawed opinion finds some
representative: here reposes the active body of Daniel Defoe, and in
Bunhill Fields, but in a spot set apart to those of his opinion, rests
the founder of the Society of Friends, George Fox; and here that revered
and holy woman, from whose household in the Rectory of Epworth went forth
the inspiration, as from her own life went forth the lives of the prophet
and poet of Methodism, Mrs. Susannah Wesley; here rest two well-beloved
sweet singers, whose names are found in all our hymn-books, Joseph
Swain and Joseph Hart. As the years passed along every one brought some
additional revenue to the wealth of the spot. Hither came Dr. Gibbons,
Watts’ biographer, and, by-and-by, John Gill, the author of the huge
commentary, if wild in fancy, still learned in all Rabbinical and Hebrew
lore, and John Macgowan, the author of the “Dialogues of Devils;” here
rests Dr. Williams, the founder of the well-known library, and donor of
the scholarships connected with it, and by this name we are reminded
of the great Arians who sleep very quietly here. Here lie Theophilus
Lindsay, Abraham Bees, Richard Price, Nathaniel Gardner, and Thomas
Belsham, all men of huge scholarship, whatever our estimate of their
doctrines; here lies, of another order, the learned John Eames, the
friend and fellow-student of Dr. Watts, the friend and correspondent of
Sir Isaac Newton, and of whom Watts said that he was the most learned man
he ever knew; Thomas Bradbury, Watts’ abusive and disingenuous traducer
and adversary, found the quiet he never permitted himself to find when
living, either in tranquil or troublesome times; and hither, within
the memory of those living, came Matthew Wilks, quaint and witty old
preacher of the London Tabernacles, and his fiery-hearted and earnest
co-pastor, John Hyatt, and James Upton, John Rippon, and the beloved and
beautiful Alexander Waugh and George Burder. The names we have mentioned
are great, but a very small instalment from the list of those famous in
holiness and scholarship and sanctified genius, to whom Bunhill Fields
was the Machpelah of their lives. Indeed, until the opening of the Abney
Park Cemetery, a place which derived its name and interest from its
association with, and memories of, Dr. Watts, Bunhill Fields was the
receptacle of every Nonconformist notability in the neighbourhood of
London. It was as natural that those who had attained an eminence in its
confession should receive sepulture there, as that the great statesman
or poet should repose within the hallowed naves of Westminster. The
significance of the spot, and the fact that it received amongst its other
treasures all that was mortal of the subject of this memoir, seem to
justify this lengthy loitering amongst its tombs.
Watts, by his will, directed that his remains should find their last
resting-home in this place, amongst the fathers and brethren, many of
whom he had so well known; he also desired that it should be conducted as
quietly as possible, but wished that his body should be attended to the
grave by two Independent, two Presbyterian, and two Baptist ministers;
but an immense concourse of persons gathered, as was to be expected. Dr.
Chandler gave the address at the grave, and Dr. David Jennings preached
to his people the funeral sermon. Returning from the funeral, Dr.
Benjamin Grosvenor was met by a friend, who said, “Well, Doctor, you have
seen the end of Dr. Watts, and must soon follow him; what think you of
death?” “Think of it!” replied he, “why, when death comes I shall smile
on him if God smile on me.” Other funeral sermons were preached, and
they are in our possession, especially one by Dr. John Milner, of which
Doddridge thought very highly, and in whose house Oliver Goldsmith, a
poor, simple young man, his mind and heart full of worlds of shrewdness
and tenderness, for a long time lived as an usher. To prevent any
laboured and too flattering an epitaph, which in those days, indeed,
there was plenty of cause to dread, from the hands of partial friends,
who certainly had none of the graces of concision, Watts wrote his own
modest memorial, and it was placed over his grave. It reads as follows:
“Isaac Watts, D.D., pastor of a church of Christ in London,
successor to the Rev. Mr. Joseph Caryl, Dr. John Owen, Mr.
David Clarkson, and Dr. Isaac Chauncey, after fifty years of
feeble labours in the Gospel, interrupted by four years of
tiresome sickness, was at last dismissed to his rest—
In uno Jesu omnia.
2 Cor. v. 8: ‘Absent from the body, and present with the Lord.’
Col. iii. 4: ‘When Christ, who is my life, shall appear, then
shall I also appear with Him in glory.’”
“This monument, on which the above modest inscription is
placed, by order of the deceased, was erected, as a small
testimony of regard to his memory, by Sir John Hartopp, Bart.,
and Dame Mary Abney.”
But, shortly after his death, a monument was erected to his memory in
Westminster Abbey. Another monument erected in his chapel met with a
singular fate: some years since the chapel was pulled down, and all its
properties sold off. John Astley Marsden, Esq., of Liscard Castle, in
Cheshire, passing through one of the London streets, saw a marble tablet
inscribed with the name of Dr. Watts; inquiring about its meaning, he
found it was the very tablet which had been set up behind his pulpit;
he purchased it as an interesting relic of a man for whom he had a
great reverence, he took it home to his residence in Cheshire, and upon
his own ground he reared a church at his own expense, and there placed
the old cast-aside monument, handing the church over in trust to the
Congregational body. The inscription is that humble memorial which
Watts himself had prepared, and to which we have referred. In addition,
however, to these, a monument has been raised to his memory in Abney Park
Cemetery, a cemetery which has succeeded to the reputation of Bunhill
Fields as the resting-place of metropolitan Nonconformists, and is
spread out upon the grounds where stood the house and park, the history
of which, and its relation to the memory of Watts, we have given in an
earlier part of this volume.
In 1861, principally through the active exertions of Mr. William
Lankester, a monument was erected to his memory in his native town of
Southampton. The statue, about eight feet high, which is three feet
larger than life, is of white marble, and stands upon a pedestal of
polished grey Aberdeen granite; and the site selected has received
since then the designation “Watts’ Park.” The movement for the erection
of the monument received the co-operation of Churchmen as well as
Nonconformists, and the president of the committee was Dr. Wigram, the
Bishop of Rochester. The statue was uncovered by the Earl of Shaftesbury,
July 17th, 1861, and the day was kept with great festivity in the
town;[46] it took the shape of a great local celebration in honour of a
man who had conferred honour on the town by his life and writings. It
is not uninteresting to think of the change of public sentiment since
the day when the infant Isaac, in the arms of his mother, was held up
to the eyes of his father in the gaol of the very town where, to the
honoured memory of that infant, there was offered up so large an ovation
of respect, in which not only the Mayor and Corporation, but members,
ministers, and prelates of that very Church which had persecuted the
father for his opinions, united. It is a testimony to the change which
has passed over ecclesiastical opinion since that day.
Thus, some portion of the prophecy of Dr. Jennings in his funeral sermon,
from the text, “He being dead yet speaketh,” was fulfilled. “If I am not
greatly deceived, the same thing will be said of him in far distant ages
that is said of Abel in our text; while he is now celebrating the honours
of God and of the Lamb in the new songs of heaven, how many thousands
of pious worshippers are this day lifting up their hearts to God in the
sacred songs that he taught them upon earth! Though his voice is not
any longer heard by us, yet his words, like those of the day and night,
are gone out to the end of the world. America and Europe still hear him
speak, and it is highly probable they may continue to do so till Europe
and America shall be no more.”
[Illustration]
[Illustration: Isaac Watts, D.D.
_From the Bust in Dr. Williams’ Library._]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER XVI.
Summary and Estimate of Prose Writings.
In attempting any estimate of the prose writings of Watts we give the
first place to his educational works. And without descending to adulation
it may be fairly questioned whether any one individual in English
literature has effected so much and such various work for the cause of
education as Isaac Watts. As we have seen, he gave a system of logic to
the universities, a very simple system, but it broke up the old trammels
and chains of mere verbal logic, and taught students to look after, and
how to look at things. Johnson says: “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. Few books,” continues Johnson, “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 magnified
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.”
And in another paragraph of his memoir Johnson says: “For children he
condescended to lay aside the scholar, the philosopher, and the wit, to
write little poems of devotion and systems of instruction adapted to
their wants and capacities from the dawn of reason through its gradations
of advance in the morning of life. Every man acquainted with the common
principles of human action will look with veneration on the writer who
is at one time combating Locke, and in another making a catechism for
children in their fourth year; a voluntary descent from the dignity of
science is perhaps the hardest lesson that humility can teach.”
There is, indeed, scarcely a department of knowledge, however simple, to
which he did not descend; there is scarcely a region of thought, however
subtle, through which he did not familiarly move. We have a volume on
the “Art of Reading, Writing, and Pronouncing English,” this is for
the very youngest students; and for the same age we have his First and
Second Catechisms, and his “Divine and Moral Songs;” we have his work on
“Astronomy, Geography, and the Use of the Globes,” and the “Compendium
of the Assembly’s Catechism, with Proofs,” and his most charming and
rememberable “Catechism of Scripture History,” a large and yet most
compendious volume: and thus we reach the period of life when he prepares
the mind for its graver studies and more serious exploits.
The “Logic” is easy and delightful reading, and yet sets in order,
disciplines, marshals, and reviews mental materials so admirably
that it may be read with great profit as well as pleasure. When Lord
Barrington told Watts that he had a purpose to read it through once
every year, he said no extravagant thing. It brings the mind back to its
simplicity; it is not, and does not profess to be, a science of mind
or analysis of method, or the laws of thought, but it is a treatise
on logic, understanding by that term not so much the pushing inquiry
into unexplored domains and fields, as the setting forth the grammar
of thought, the principles of numeration, by which a knowledge of the
contents of the mind may be obtained, which is surely the true idea of
logic. The affluence of illustrations and references is very great, these
occur easily and rapidly, they are gathered up as a reaper gathers up a
sheaf. In its method it reminds us somewhat of Bacon’s “Novum Organum,”
for in every chapter, and every discrimination, illustration, and
distinction, occur instances unfolding the intention of the author, and
we venture to think that no logic has appeared since so well calculated
to make a clear and honest mind. The characteristics of the “Logic” of
Watts are very admirably summed up by Tissot, of Dijon, in his preface
to a translation published in Paris, 1848: “II y a aussi plus de méthode
et de clarté peut-être dans la logique de Watts que dans celle d’Arnaud.
Le bon sens Anglais, le sens des affaires, celui de la vie pratique,
s’y révèle à un très haut degré, tandis que le sens spéculatif d’un
théologien passablement scolastique encore est plus sensible dans _l’Art
de Penser_. Dr. Watts a su être complet; sans être excessif, il a touché
très convenablement tout ce qui devait l’être, et s’est toujours arrêté
au point précis où plus de profondeur nuit a la clarté.”[47]
As the “Logic” is a methodical and orderly arrangement of those
principles which give conduct to the understanding, as we have called
it a grammar rather than an etymology of the laws of thought, a setting
forth of their necessary conditions of thinking, rather than an inquiry
into their first principles, so his “Improvement of the Mind” is an
advance in the education of the character. The “Logic” is a code of
principles, the “Improvement of the Mind” the illustration of those
principles in their practice and action. No book can be better fitted to
strengthen and direct the mind in the first years of mind-life. Is it
ever read now? Is there an edition of it in circulation now? Are there
many youths who would have patience to read it now? And yet no work has
taken its place. It also, like the “Logic,” is fertile in illustrations
of all that the author desires to convey; every means by which the mind
can be enlarged or strengthened is dwelt upon; here there seems to be
no unnecessary diffuseness, but a compact presentation. The style is
apothegmatical, and rather colloquial than rhetorical, and it leaves
upon the mind of the reader the impression of a large world of wealth
in the mind of the author of which its pages are the mere fragments and
indications. There is a wisdom which rules men’s lives and acts in their
minds unconsciously, and ages and times vary in the method pursued for
the attainment of knowledge. Perhaps, in the times in which we live
the method is very much out of sight, and men become wise in spite of
themselves, the faculties of character are sharpened and made intense by
friction. It may also be said that character is not so much the result
of certain rules laid down for practice, as the inevitable pressure of
certain conditions from which it cannot well escape; life educates men
more than books, and the sharp collision of society and its rough usages
more than rules derived from writers. All this is true; but still
some men continue to preach, and others continue to hear, it is to be
supposed under the impression that the preaching and the hearing are not
altogether in vain; and it is a very desirable thing frequently to draw
out into the light certain principles, to give to minds, so to speak, a
pictorial resemblance of the idea.
It is so in the “Improvement of the Mind,” the very subjects are
suggestive: general rules to obtain knowledge,—the five methods
of improvement compared—rules relating to observation—books and
reading—judgment of books—living instruction by teachers—learning a
language—of knowing the sense of writers and speakers—conversation—of
disputes in general—the Socratical way of disputation—forensic
disputes—academic or scholastic disputes—study or meditation—of fixing
the attention—of enlarging the capacity of the mind—of improving the
memory—of determining questions—of inquiring into causes and effects—of
the sciences and their use. Then follows the second part, which was
posthumous; hitherto the mind has been supposed to be attaining, now it
is itself communicating, and here are discussions on methods of teaching
and reading lectures—of an instructive style—of convincing of truth or
delivering from error—of the use and abuse of authority—of managing the
prejudices of men—of instruction by preaching—of writing books for the
public, etc. etc. And beneath all these subjects is spread out a mass
of wise and useful observations, the result, the reader thinks, of a
life of earnest and careful study. A wise and candid judgment pervades
every page. A confidence in the writer as in one who is not writing
merely, but who is giving to the reader a portion of himself, grows in
the mind. Watts was himself an exceedingly careful student. We have
seen how his practice was to condense or to amplify the volumes or the
pages he himself read. He recommended this plan to be followed with the
nobler pieces of composition, and such as it seemed desirable to make the
heirlooms of the mind.
We have now lying before us the “Ecclesiastics” of John Wilkins, the
Bishop of Chester. The volume bears every internal evidence of being
the property of Dr. Watts: it is interleaved, and in addition to the
varied and singular learning of the book itself, in the handwriting
of the Doctor there is a perfect storehouse of references, exhibiting
the amazing world of knowledge over which his mind travelled; and not
merely references, but frequently some condensed expression of sentiment
and opinion. We ought to refer to this very valuable little manuscript
volume again. It often seems surprising that volumes such as these have
fallen into such neglect; but they only share the fate of multitudes of
others in various departments equally worthy. The number of those who
gaze upon the true regalia of literature is very small; our times delight
in startling contrasts, antitheses and paradoxes, and illustrations
frequently rather remarkable for their brilliancy than for their solid
and abiding persuasiveness. The literature of every time has its vices
and its virtues; writers even exercising a far stronger fascination and
spell over their day than Watts are very seldom referred to now, they are
names and little more. They are like extinct creations of other times,
a kind of dodo, a being very near to our own day, but yet only known by
a specimen preserved in a museum. Thus probably the two works to which
we have referred will have few more readers. Yet safer and wiser charts
for travelling the seas of knowledge were never prepared, and while they
breathe a fine mental independence, a freshness wafted from undiscovered
realms, they are eminently free from all that rashness and audacity of
speculation which some have chosen to regard as a pursuit of knowledge,
or as adding to the spoils of the understanding. He kept his students
within the bounds of the knowable and provable, and if he trampled upon
the ridiculous logic which had for years held the mind of Europe in
chains, by the fetters of words which had no kind of sense either in the
heavens or the earth, and resolutely determining that words could only
be valuable when they were the real signs of things, and things of which
something could be known; on the other hand, he gave no encouragement to
licentiousness of thought, which is as dangerous to the well-being of the
intelligence as the servility of opinion. So that, on the whole, whatever
advances and attainments we have made since, we may believe that for the
discipline and tutelage of the young, a better finger-post could scarcely
be set up upon the highways of knowledge than Watts’ “Logic;” a better
and more living guide a young man can scarcely have through the cities of
instruction than his “Improvement of the Mind.”
Among the pieces of our author which are least known are the essays
variously published under the title of “Reliquiæ Juveniles; Miscellaneous
Thoughts in Prose and Verse, on Natural, Moral, and Divine Subjects,
written chiefly in younger years.” These were published in 1734, and
dedicated to the Countess of Hertford. A similar volume is the “Remnants
of Time Employed in Prose and Verse; or, Short Essays and Composures on
Various Subjects.” All of these are very pleasing essays, in which the
writer gives a more than ordinary rein to his fancy: the pieces are in
prose and verse, and they display a considerable amount of humour; the
subjects are very various, and display the purely literary excursions
of the author’s mind. The reader will be so far interested as to enjoy
some few selections. To dwell at length upon the characteristics of the
essays, or to indulge in any lengthy citation, would be like writing a
dissertation upon Johnson’s “Rambler,” or Addison’s “Spectator;” indeed,
there is very much of the Christian Rambler and the Christian Spectator
in these papers: brief essays on manners, on certain vices or defects of
character, conveyed after the usage of the time beneath names sheltered
under a Greek or Latin etymology; sometimes a graceful meditation upon a
text of Scripture, and sometimes a poem. We have ourselves found these
essays always fresh and interesting, possessing much of the spirit and
vivacity and philosophical meditativeness of Cowley, with a perpetual
suffusion of Christian sentiment and doctrine, and the whole exhibiting
the vigilance of the author’s eye, and the active usefulness of his mind.
THE SKELETON.
“Young Tramarinus was just returned from his travels abroad,
when he invited his uncle to his lodgings on a Saturday noon.
His uncle was a substantial trader in the City, a man of
sincere goodness, and of no contemptible understanding; Crato
was his name. The nephew first entertained him with learned
talk of his travels. The conversation happening to fall upon
anatomy, and speaking of the hand, he mentioned the carpus and
the metacarpus, the joining of the bones by many hard names,
and the periosteum which covered them, together with other
Greek words, which Crato had never heard of. Then he showed
him a few curiosities he had collected; but anatomy being
the subject of their chief discourse, he dwelt much upon the
skeletons of a hare and a partridge. ‘Observe, sir,’ said he,
‘how firm the joints! how nicely the parts are fitted to each
other! how proper this limb for flight, and that for running;
and how wonderful the whole composition!’ Crato took due
notice of the most considerable parts of those animals, and
observed the chief remarks his nephew made; but being detained
there two hours without a dinner, assuming a pleasant air, he
said, ‘I wish these rarities had flesh upon them, for I begin
to be hungry, nephew, and you entertain me with nothing but
bones.’ Then he carried home his nephew to dinner with him, and
dismissed the jest.
“The next morning his kinsman Tramarinus desired him to hear
a sermon at such a church, ‘For I am informed,’ said he, ‘the
preacher will be my old schoolmaster.’ It was Agrotes, a
country minister, who was to fulfil the service of the day;
an honest, a pious, and a useful man, who fed his own people
weekly with Divine food, composed his sermons with a mixture
of the instructive and the pathetic, and delivered them with
no improper elocution. Where any difficulty appeared in the
text or the subject, he usually explained it in a very natural
and easy manner, to the understanding of all his parishioners.
He paraphrased on the most affecting parts largely, that he
might strike the conscience of every hearer, and had been the
happy means of the salvation of many; but he thought thus with
himself, ‘When I preach at London I have hearers of a wiser
rank, I must feed them with learning and substantial sense,
and must have my discourse set thick with distinct sentences
and new matter.’ He contrived, therefore, to abridge his
composures, and to throw four of his country sermons together
to make up one for the City, and yet he could not forbear to
add a little Greek in the beginning. He told the auditors how
the text was to be explained; he set forth the analysis of the
words in order, showed the _hoti_ and the _dioti_—that is, that
it was so, and why it was so—with much learned criticism—all
of which he wisely left out in the country; then he pronounced
the doctrine distinctly, and filled up the rest of the hour
with the mere rehearsal of the general and special heads; but
he omitted all the amplification which made his performances
in the country so clear and so intelligible, so warm and
affecting. In short, it was the mere joints and carcase of a
long composure, and contained above forty branches in it. The
hearers had no time to consider or reflect on the good things
which were spoken, or apply them to their own consciences; the
preacher hurried their attention so fast onward to new matters
that they could make no use of anything he said while he spoke
it, nor had they a moment for reflection, in order to fix it in
their memories and improve by it at home.
“The young gentleman was somewhat out of countenance when the
sermon was done, for he missed all that life and spirit, that
pathetic amplification, which impressed his conscience when
he was but a school-boy. However, he put the best face upon
it, and began to commend the performance. ‘Was it not,’ said
he, ‘sir, a substantial discourse? How well connected all the
reasons! How strong all the inferences, and what a variety
and number of them!’ ‘It is true,’ said the uncle, ‘but yet
methinks I want food here, and I find nothing but bones again.
I could not have thought, nephew, you would have treated me
two days together just alike; yesterday at home, and to-day
at church, the first course was Greek, and all the rest mere
skeleton.’”
GOD IN VEGETATION.
“Let us first consider this as it relates to the vegetable part
of the creation. What a profusion of beauty and fragrancy, of
shapes and colours, of smells and tastes, is scattered among
the herbs and flowers of the ground, among the shrubs, the
trees, and the fruits of the field! Colouring in its original
glory and perfection triumphs here; red, yellow, green, blue,
purple, with vastly more diversities than the rainbow ever
knew, or the prism can represent, are distributed among the
flowers and the blossoms. And what variety of tastes, both
original and compounded, of sweet, bitter, sharp, with a
thousand nameless flavours, are found among the herbs of the
garden! What an amazing difference of shapes and sizes appears
among the trees of the field and forest in their branches and
their leaves! and what a luxurious and elegant distinction in
their several fruits! How very numerous are their distinct
properties in their uses in human life! And yet these two
common elements, earth and water, are the only materials out
of which they are all composed, from the beginning to the
end of nature and time. Let the gardener dress for himself
one field of fresh earth, and make it as uniform as he can;
then let him plant therein all the varieties of the vegetable
world, in their roots or in their seeds, as he shall think most
proper; yet out of this common earth, under the droppings of
common water from heaven, every one of these plants shall be
nourished, and grow up in their proper forms; all the infinity,
diversity of shapes and sizes, colours, tastes, and smells,
which constitute and adorn the vegetable world, would the
climate permit, might be produced out of the same clods. What
rich and surprising wisdom appears in that Almighty Operator,
who out of the same matter shall perfume the bosom of the rose,
and give the garlic its offensive and nauseous powers; who
from the same spot of ground shall raise the liquorice and the
wormwood, and dress the cheek of the tulip in all its glowing
beauties! What a surprise, to see the same field furnish the
pomegranate and the orange tree, with their juicy fruit, and
the stacks of corn with their dry and husky grains; to observe
the oak raised from a little acorn into its stately growth
and solid timber; and that pillars for the support of future
temples and palaces should spring out of the same bed of earth
that sent up the vine with such soft and feeble limbs as are
unable to support themselves! What a natural kind of prodigy
it is, that chilling and burning vegetables should arise out
of the same spot; that the fever and frenzy should start up
from the same bed where the palsy and the lethargy lie dormant
in their seeds! Is it not exceeding strange that healthful and
poisonous juices should rise up, in their proper plants, out
of the same common glebe, and that life and death should grow
and thrive within an inch of each other? What wondrous and
inimitable skill must be attributed to that Supreme Power, that
First Cause, who can so infinitely diversify effects, where
the servile second cause is so uniform and always the same!
It is not for me in this place to enter into a long detail of
philosophy, and show how the minute fibres and tubes of the
different seeds and roots of vegetables take hold of, attract,
and receive the little particles of earth and water proper for
their own growth; how they form them at first into their own
shapes, sending them up aspiring above ground by degrees, and
mould them so as frame the stalks, the branches, the leaves,
and the buds of every flower, herb, and tree. But I presume
the world is too weary of substantial forms, and plastic
powers, and names without ideas, to be persuaded that these
mere creatures of fancy should ever be the operators in this
wondrous work. It is much more honourable to attribute all to
the design and long forethought of God the Creator, who formed
the first vegetables in such a manner, and appointed their
little parts to ferment under the warm sunbeams, according to
such established laws of motion as to mould the atoms of earth
and water which were near them in their own figure, to make
them grow up into trunk and branches, which every night should
harden into firmness and stability; and, again, to mould new
atoms of the same element into leaves and bloom, fruit and
seed, which last, being dropped into the earth, should produce
new plants of the same likeness to the end of the world.”
FOOD.
“If the food of which one single animal partakes be never so
various and different, yet the same laws of motion which God
has ordained in the animal world, convert them all to the same
purposes of nourishment for that creature. Behold the little
bee gathering its honey from a thousand flowers, and laying up
the precious store for its winter food. Mark how the crow preys
upon a carcase, anon it crops a cherry from the tree; and both
are changed into the flesh and feathers of a crow. Observe the
kine in the meadows feeding on a hundred varieties of herbs
and flowers, yet all the different parts of their bodies are
nourished thereby in a proper manner: every flower in the field
is made use of to increase the flesh of the heifer, and to make
beef for men; and out of all these varieties there is a noble
milky juice flowing to the udder, which provides nourishment
for young children. So near akin is man, the lord of the
creation, in respect of his body, to the brutes that are his
slaves, that the very same food will compose the flesh of both
of them, and make them grow up to their appointed stature. This
is evident beyond doubt in daily and everlasting experiments.
The same bread-corn which we eat at our tables will give rich
support to sparrows and pigeons, to the turkey and the duck,
and all the fowls of the yard: the mouse steals it and feeds on
it in its dark retirement; while the hog in the sty, and the
horse in the manger, would be glad to partake. When the poor
cottager has nursed up a couple of geese, the fox seizes one
of them for the support of her cubs, and perhaps the table of
the landlord is furnished with the other to regale his friends.
Nor is it an uncommon thing to see the favourite lap-dog fed
out of the same bowl of milk which is prepared for the heir
of a wealthy family, but which nature had originally designed
to nourish a calf. The same milky material will make calves,
lap-dogs, and human bodies.”
CHRIST AS A SUN.
“I cannot deny myself, in this place, the pleasure of
publishing to the world a very beautiful resemblance, the first
hints and notices whereof I received formerly in conversation
from my reverend and worthy friend Mr. Robert Bragge, whereby
the person of Christ as God-man in His exalted state may
be happily represented. The sun in the heavens is the most
glorious of all visible beings: his sovereign influence has a
most astonishing extent through all the planetary globes, and
bestows light and heat upon all of them. It is the sun that
gives life and motion to all the infinite varieties of the
animal world in the earth, air, and water. It draws out the
vegetable juices from the earth, and covers the surface of it
with trees, herbs, and flowers. It is the sun that gives beauty
and colour to all the millions of bodies round the globe;
by its pervading power perhaps it forms minerals and metals
under the earth. Its happy effects are innumerable; they reach
certainly to everything that has life and motion, or that
gives life, support, or pleasure to mankind. Now suppose God
should create a most illustrious spirit, and unite it to the
body of the sun, as a human soul is united to a human body:
suppose this spirit had a perceptive power capacious enough
to become conscious of every sunbeam, and all the influences
and effects of this vast shining globe, both in its light,
heat, and motion, even to the remotest region; and suppose at
the same time it was able, by an act of its will, to send out
or withhold every sunbeam as it pleased, and thereby to give
light and darkness, life and death, in a sovereign manner, to
all the animal inhabitants of this our earth, or even of all
the planetary worlds. Such may be the ‘glorified human soul
of our blessed Redeemer united to His glorified body;’ and
perhaps His knowledge and His power may be as extensive as
this similitude represents, especially when we consider this
soul and body as personally united to the Divine nature, and
as one with God. Now this noble thought may be supported by
such considerations as these. As our souls are conscious of
the light, shape, motions, etc., of such distant bodies as the
planet Saturn or the fixed stars, because our eyes receive rays
from thence; so may not a human soul united to a body as easily
be supposed to have a consciousness of anything, wheresoever
it can send out rays or emit either fluids or atoms from its
own body? May not the sun, for instance, if a soul were
united to it, become thereby so glorious a complex being, as
to send out every ray with knowledge, and have a consciousness
of everything wheresoever it sends its direct or reflected
rays? And may not the human soul of our Lord Jesus Christ
have a consciousness of everything wheresoever it can send
direct or reflected rays from His own shining and glorified
body? To add yet to the wonder, we may suppose that these
rays may be subtle as magnetic beams, which penetrate brass
and stone as easily as light doth glass; and at the same time
they may be as swift as light, which reaches the most amazing
distance of several millions of miles in a minute. By this
means, since the light of the sun pervades all secret chambers
in our hemisphere at once, and fills all places with direct
and reflected beams, if consciousness belonged to all those
beams, what a sort of omniscient being would the sun be! I mean
omniscient in its own sphere. And why may not the human soul
and body of our glorified Saviour be thus furnished with such
an amazing extent of knowledge and power, and yet not be truly
infinite? Let us dwell a little longer upon these delightful
contemplations. If a soul had but a full knowledge and command
of all the atoms of one solid foot of matter, which according
to modern philosophy is infinitely divisible, what strange and
astonishing influences would it have over this world of ours?
What confusions might it raise in distant nations, sending
pestilential streams into a thousand bodies, and destroying
armies at once? And it might scatter benign or healing and
vital influences to as large a circumference. If our blessed
Lord, in the days of His humiliation, could send virtue out of
Him to heal a poor diseased woman, who touched the hem of His
garment with a finger, who knows what healing atoms, or what
killing influences, He may send from His dwelling in glory to
the remotest distances of our world, to execute His Father’s
counsels of judgment or mercy? It is not impossible, so far as
I can judge, that the soul of Christ in its glorified state may
have as much command over our heavens and our earth, and all
things contained in them, as our souls in the present state
have over our own limbs and muscles to move them at pleasure.
Let us remember that it is now found out, and agreed in the
new philosophy of Sir Isaac Newton, that the distances are
prodigious to which the powerful influence of the sun reaches
in the centre of our planetary system. It is the sun who holds
and restrains all the planets in their several orbits, and
keeps in those vast bodies of Jupiter and Saturn in their
constant revolutions—one at the distance of 424 millions, and
the other at the distance of 777 millions of miles—besides
all the other influences it has upon everything that may live
and grow in those planetary worlds. It is the sun who reduces
the long wanderings of the comets back again near to himself
from distances more immensely great than those of Saturn and
Jupiter. And why may not the human nature of our Lord Jesus
Christ, both in soul and body, have a dominion given Him by the
Father larger than the sun in the firmament? Why may not the
Son of God be endued with an immediate consciousness and agency
to a far greater distance? Thus if we conceive of the human
soul of Christ, either in the amazing extent of its own native
powers or in the additional acquirements of a glorified state,
we see reason to believe that its capacities are far above
our old usual conceptions, and may be raised and exalted to a
degree of knowledge, power, and glory suitable and equal to His
operations and offices, so far as they are attributed to His
human nature in the word of God.”
APPARENT FOLLY REAL WISDOM.
“This very man, this Gelotes, a few days ago, was carried by
his neighbour Typiger, to see a gentleman of his acquaintance;
they found him standing at the window of his chamber, moving
and turning round a glass prism, near a round hole which he
had made in the window-shutter, and casting all the colours
of the rainbow upon the wall of the room. They were unwilling
to disturb him, though he amused himself at this rate for
half an hour together, merely to please and entertain his
eyesight, as Gelotes imagined, with the brightness and the
strength of the reds and the blues, the greens and the
purples, in many shifting forms of situation, while several
little implements lay about him, of white paper and shreds of
coloured silk, pieces of tin with holes in them, spectacles and
burning-glasses. When the gentleman at last spied his company,
he came down and entertained them agreeably enough upon other
subjects, and dismissed them. At another time, Gelotes beheld
the same gentleman blowing up large bubbles with a tobacco-pipe
out of a bowl of water well impregnated with soap, which is a
common diversion of boys. As the bubbles rose, he marked the
little changeable colours on the surface of them with great
attention, till they broke and vanished into air and water. He
seemed to be very grave and solemn in this sort of recreation,
and now and then smiled to see the little appearances and
disappearances of colours, as the bubbles grew thinner towards
the top, while the watery particles of it ran down along the
side to the bottom, and the surface grew too thin and feeble
to include the air, then it burst to pieces and was lost.
‘Well,’ says Gelotes to his friend, ‘I did not think you would
have carried me into the acquaintance of a madman; surely he
can never be right in his senses who wastes his hours in such
fooleries as these. Whatsoever good opinion I had conceived of
a gentleman of your intimacy, I am amazed now that you should
keep up any degree of acquaintance with him, when his reason is
gone and he is become a mere child. What are all these little
scenes of sport and amusement, but proofs of the absence of
his understanding? Poor gentleman! I pity him in his unhappy
circumstances; but I hope he has friends to take care of him
under this degree of distraction.’ Typiger was not a little
pleased to see that his project, with regard to his neighbour
Gelotes, had succeeded so well; and when he had suffered him to
run on at this rate for some minutes, he interrupted him with a
surprising word: ‘This very gentleman,’ says he, ‘is the great
Sir Isaac Newton, the first of philosophers, the glory of Great
Britain, and renowned among the nations. You have beheld him
now making these experiments over again by which he first found
out the nature of light and colours, and penetrated deeper into
the mysteries of them than all mankind ever knew before him.
This is the man, and these his contrivances, upon which you so
freely cast your contempt, and pronounce him distracted. You
know not the depth of his designs, and therefore you censured
them all as fooleries, whereas the learned world has esteemed
them the utmost reach of human sagacity.’
“Gelotes was all confusion and silence; whereupon Typiger
proceeded thus: ‘Go now and ridicule the law-giver of Israel,
and the ceremonies of the Jewish Church, which Moses taught
them; go, repeat your folly and your slanders, and laugh at
these Divine ceremonies, merely because you know not the
meaning of them, go, and affront the God of Israel, and
reproach Him for sending Moses to teach such forms of worship
to the Jews. There is not the least of them but was appointed
by the Greatest of Beings, and has some special design and
purpose in the eye of Divine Wisdom. Many of them were
explained by the Apostle Paul, in his letter to the Hebrews,
as types and emblems of the glories and blessings of the New
Testament; and the rest of them, whose reason has not been
discovered to us, remain, perhaps, to be made known at the
conversion of the Jews, when Divine light shall be spread over
all the ancient dispensations, and a brighter glory diffused
over all the rites and forms of religion which God ever
instituted among the race of Adam.’”
A PLEA FOR CHRISTIANIZING HORACE.
“It is a piece of ancient and sacred history which Moses
informs us of, that when the tribes of Israel departed from
the land of Egypt, they borrowed of their neighbours gold and
jewels by the appointment of God, for the decoration of their
sacrifices and solemn worship when they should arrive at the
appointed place in the wilderness. God Himself taught His
people how the richest of metals which had ever been abused to
the worship of idols might be purified by the fire, and being
melted up into a new form, might be consecrated to the service
of the living God, and add to the magnificence and grandeur
of His tabernacle and temple. Such are some of the poetical
writings of the ancient heathens; they have a great deal of
native beauty and lustre in them, and through some happy turn
given them by the pen of a Christian poet may be transformed
into Divine meditations, and may assist the devout and pious
soul in several parts of the Christian life and worship.
Amongst all the rest of the Pagan writers, I know none so
fit for this service as the odes of Horace, as vile a sinner
as he was. Their manner of composure comes nearer the spirit
and force of the Psalms of David than any other; and as we
take the devotions of the Jewish king, and bring them into our
Christian churches, by changing the scene and the chronology,
and superadding some of the glories of the Gospel so may the
representation of some of the heathen virtues, by a little more
labour, be changed into Christian graces, or, at least, into
the image of them, so far as human power can reach. One day,
musing on this subject, I made an experiment on the two last
stanzas of Ode xxix, Book iii.
‘Non est meum, si mugiat Africis
Malus procellis, ad miseras preces
Decurrere, et votis pacisci,
Ne Cypriæ Syriæque merces
Addant avaro divitias mari;
Dum me, biremis præsidio scaphæ,
Nudum per Ægeos tumultus
Aura ferat, geminusque Pollux.’
THE BRITISH FISHERMAN.
Let Spain’s proud traders, when the mast
Bends groaning to the stormy blast,
Run to their beads with wretched plaints,
And vow and bargain with their saints,
Lest Turkish silks or Tyrian wares
Sink in the drowning ship,
Or the rich dust Peru prepares,
Defraud their long projecting cares,
And add new treasures to the greedy deep.
My little skiff that skims the shores,
With half a sail and two short oars,
Provides me food in gentler waves;
But if they gape in watery graves
I trust the Eternal Power, whose hand
Has swelled the storm on high,
To waft my boat and me to land,
Or give some angel swift command
To bear the drowning sailor to the sky.”
A work like this would be incomplete if it did not attempt some general
estimate, however feeble, of our author’s works, which are, however, so
various that it is difficult to bring their relation to their author’s
mind beneath one classification. The remark Dr. Jennings made in his
funeral sermon is simply just, when he says he “questions whether any
author before Dr. Watts ever appeared with a reputation on such a variety
of subjects as he has, both as a prose writer and a poet. However,” he
adds, “this I may venture to say, there is no man now living of whose
works so many have been diffused at home and abroad, which are in such
constant use, and translated into such a variety of languages, many of
which I doubt not will remain more durable monuments of his great talents
than any representation I can make of them, though it were to be graven
on pillars of brass. Thus did he shine as an ingenious man and a scholar.”
This circumstance of _the variety of his writings_ constitutes them an
element of his character: he was more various than intense, acute rather
than profound. There are some of his works upon which we need not permit
ourselves to be detained, they illustrate his readiness in turning to
every kind of labour which seemed to give the promise of usefulness, for
usefulness was evidently in everything the object he set before himself.
Regarded by the immense apparatus now at hand for every kind of mental
exercise Watts’ labours do some of them seem needless; but regarded from
his own age, it appears as if he created, originated, and gave effect
to almost every department of religious or improving knowledge. If the
reader looks round the literary horizon of that day, he will learn
rightly to estimate the benefits conferred by this writer; and these
works, the smallest, the most inferior of his mental exercises, were
not one of them a mere compilation, they were all the emanations of that
perpetually active mind, which, whether the body were well or ill, must
be employed for some useful object and end. None of his books were made
out of other books, excepting, indeed, so far as almost every volume must
imply the knowledge of a subject and the mind of an author; and at the
same time it must be said that some of his books for the young have been
dropped but not surpassed; they might still furnish the best hints and
the best arrangements for obtaining and imparting knowledge.
Being a literary man, Watts falls beneath a class of observations
which are not either necessary or applicable in forming an estimate
of almost any of his brethren, such as Howe, or Jacomb, or Bradbury,
or, indeed, any of the writers of his order or day. The _wisdom_ of
his mind was remarkable; it was “a city, built four square.” In this
useful purpose, which he ever kept before him, whatever charges may be
preferred against him on the score of the indulgence of fancy (and many
of his writings reveal how capable he was of such excursions), he kept
his mind singularly free from the literary vanities of his times, and
his times as singularly illustrate at once the vanity and the glory of
literature. If anybody would know what vanities there were, let him take
down the volumes of the Athenian Oracle,[48] and he will find few other
volumes which will give so lively an impression of the literary folly
of those times. Old Samuel Wesley, John Wesley’s father, did not disdain
to contribute largely to those pages; they are affluent in absurdities,
while they have a show of learned ignorance. Select a few; most of the
essays are in the way of question and answer. “Balaam being a Moabite,
how could he understand the ass speaking to him in Hebrew? How came the
two disciples to know Moses and Elias on the mount? I am resolved to go
round the earth on foot; I desire to know whether my head or my feet will
travel the most, and how much the one more than the other? Whether or no
there is a vacuum? Whether it is more proper to say the soul contains
the body, or the body the soul? Whether the quadrature of the circle be
possible? Pray, why does _a n d_ not spell _t u m_? _t h e_, _m e d_?
etc. etc. Whether Adam was a giant? How a silkworm lives when it has left
off eating and is enclosed in its web? Whether it is prudent to live in
a room haunted by spirits? Whether, since mermen and mermaids have more
of the human shape than other fishes, they may be thought to have more
reason? Where extinguished fire goes to? Where was the land of Nod? How
is it the spaniel knows its master’s horse? Whether a finite creature is
capable of enduring infinite loss?” etc. etc.
These volumes, perhaps, constitute the most amazing collection of
nonsense in our own or any other language; nor are they without a certain
value as illustrating, not only the time, then in possession of men, but
the ridiculous way in which they used it. Of course there are questions,
and many of them, of a more grave and serious character, but for the most
part they are the very soap-bubbles of the most foppish and foolish
imaginations, the most undisciplined and frequently prurient and indecent
fancies. The indulgence in these was quite a phase of the intellectual
life of the time. A singular chapter in the curiosities of literature
and science a reader may find in such volumes as the “Philosophical
Conferences of France;”[49] and the vanities of theology were quite
equal to the vanities of literature, as may be seen in the innumerable
productions of the time.
With a mind so disposed to imaginative excursions, it is quite worthy
of notice that Watts preserved a wise balance of all his powers and
faculties; he lived on the confines of the age of the wildest mysticism
our literature has known. From some words in his works he appears to have
been well acquainted with the writings of Henry More, and also to have
entertained for them that reverence and respect which assuredly many of
them command; but from their singular and erratic fancies he kept himself
quite free. Very strange are the matters with which we find these old
men entertained themselves, affirming “that God of Himself is a dale of
darkness, were it not for the light of the Son;” “that the star-powers
are Nature, and the star-circle the mother of all things, from which all
is, subsists, and moves;” “that the waters of the world are mad, which
makes them rave and run up and down, so as they do in the channels of the
earth;” “that they, at last, shall be calcined into crystal;” “that the
pure blood in man answers to the element of fire in the great world, his
heart to the earth, his mouth to the Arctic pole; and”—but we will not
finish this sublime stretch of metaphysical imagination—“that there be
two kinds of fires, the one a cold fire and the other hot, and that death
is a cold fire;” “that everything has sense, imagination, and a fiducial
knowledge of God in it—metals, meteors, and plants not excepted.” Also
the like pleasant excursions of fancy are found in “Paracelsus,” as “that
the stars are, as it were, the phials, or cucurbits, in which meteorical
sal, sulphur, and mercury are contained, and that the winds are made
out of these by the ethereal vulcans, are blown forth out of these
emunctories, as when a man blows or breathes out of his mouth;” “that
the stars are, as it were, the pots in which the archeus, or heavenly
vulcan, prepares pluvious matter, which, exhaled from thence, first
appears in the form of clouds, and after condenses to rain;” “that hail
and snow are the fruits of the stars, proceeding from them as flowers and
blossoms from trees;” “that the lightning and thunder are, as it were,
the deciduous fruits of the ethereal stars;” “that the stars eat and are
nourished,” etc. etc.
All this, and a good deal more to the like purpose. Since the beginning
of the world, men have asked of themselves and others strange questions,
like those Southey discovered in Luys de Escobar: “When God made dresses
for Adam and Eve, how did He get the skins of which those dresses were
made, seeing that beasts were not yet killed?” “Perhaps,” says the
respondent, “He made skins on purpose.” “Why are there three persons in
the Trinity rather than four or five?” “St. Cosmas and St. Damian cut off
a black man’s leg and fastened it on a white man; which will have the
leg at the resurrection?” “How did Adam learn Hebrew?” Queer curiosities
these, all of which will remind the reader of the madness of Elinora
Melorina, a lady of Mantua, who, being fully persuaded she was married
to a king, would kneel down and talk with him, as if he had then been
present with his retinue. Nay, if she by any chance found a piece of
glass upon a dunghill, or if she came upon a piece of oyster-shell or
tin, or any such thing that would glisten in the sunshine, she would say
it was a jewel sent from her lord and husband, and upon this account she
would fill her cabinet full of this kind of rubbish. The cabinets of the
mystics, amidst some worthier matter, are full of the kind of rubbish we
have quoted above, which, when instanced as solutions of things psychical
or physical, seem to be as satisfactory as the old story of the foolish
person who, riding an ass to the pond to drink by the light of the moon,
and some clouds intervening, and hiding the moon while the ass was
drinking, arrived at the grave conclusion that the ass had swallowed up
the moon, and took it clean out of being. When such grave problems and
questions are the result of so much of fasting and devotion, they only
remind us of the question preferred by a monk on one occasion to a higher
Church dignitary: “How many keys did Christ give to Peter?” which brought
the satisfactory reply, that “he ought to prepare himself by a course of
physic for such grave, sweet, and savoury questions!” Illustrative as
they are of the literary vanities and follies of the time, follies to
which even scholarly clergymen and eminent writers lent themselves, and
as illustrating also not only the freedom of Watts from such epidemical
foolishness, but the work he did in calling the mind to healthful methods
of thought, the writer trusts their quotation here may be forgiven.
He appears to have preserved his mind in great stillness. It is the quiet
and still mind which is wise and prudent; and, like Henry More, to whom
we have referred, his life would repeat what that great man was wont to
say, “In the more peaceful spirit, when it is also a quick and perceptive
one, will always reside those faculties which are to the soul vision and
power. In the deep and calm mind alone, in a temper clear and serene,
such as is purged from the dregs, and devoid of the more disorderly
tumults of the body, doth true wisdom or genuine philosophy, as in its
own proper tower, securely reside.” Hence the first great attribute of
Watts’ mind is _clearness_.
He ever kept before him a purpose of _usefulness_, alike in teaching men
what to think about, and how to think about it; indeed, it is simply
true, as Gibbons has remarked, that _perspicuity_ was eminently a feature
of his intellect; and it must be admitted that upon whatever he speaks
or writes, he is always clearly to be understood—as we have seen, it was
by no means a great virtue of his age, or of his contemporaries; and if
he discoursed upon the more lofty and difficult subjects of thought or
philosophy, they seem to acquire clearness in their passage through his
mind. He did not crowd words upon each other, and images of every order
were used by him, not to add to the splendour of a paragraph, or to set
off a division, but for the purpose of reflecting light on the reader’s
mind. He has dwelt himself upon the prime importance of perspicuity.
In his “Improvement of the Mind,” he says: “He that would gain a happy
talent for the instruction of others must know how to disentangle and
divide his thoughts, if too many are ready to crowd into one paragraph;
and let him rather speak three sentences distinctly and clearly, which
the hearer receives at once with his ears and his soul, than crowd all
the thoughts into one sentence, which the hearer has forgotten before
he can understand it.” It is a prime virtue in Watts’ style that it
is clear; it ought to be a chief virtue in every writer. In him it
illustrated the character of his mind. He seemed even to be impatient
of the dark and obscure, and he never would permit himself to repose
near the absolutely incomprehensible without attempting in some way to
understand it; so, also, as he attempts to express his mind upon any
subject, his sentences instantly appear to be the very windows of the
intellect. And this accounts for that other noticeable characteristic of
his style—_its perfect ease_. There was smoothness and grace, the entire
absence of the turgid and the bombastic; his sentences flowed along in
happy harmony. Very frequently such a style conveys the impression that
a man has nothing to say, when, perhaps, it is by immense labour, and
by the study of the finest writers, and by conversation, that he has
attained to that grace and natural ease of manner in which all who listen
or who read are instantly able to apprehend the meaning. Thus he himself
translates his favourite Horace:
Smooth be your style, and plain and natural,
To strike the sins of Wapping or Whitehall;
While others think this easy to attain,
Let them but try, and with their utmost pain,
They’ll sweat and strive to imitate in vain.
Another attribute, to which Gibbons alludes, in Watts’ style is his
_dignity_, especially in the use of his metaphors and in the restraint he
puts upon himself in his most ardent and animated passages. A wise use
of the passions is a marked characteristic of his writings, as he says,
“Did the Great God ever appoint statues for His ambassadors to invite
sinners to His mercy; words of grace written upon brass or marble would
do the work almost as well; where the preachers are stone no wonder if
the hearers are motionless.” And in a fine passage in which he reprobates
the philosophy of the Earl of Shaftesbury, under the name of Rhapsodus,
who affirms that neither the fear of future punishment, nor the hope of
future reward, can possibly be called good affections, Watts exclaims:
“Go, dress up all the virtues of human nature in all the beauties of your
oratory, and declaim aloud on the praise of social virtue and the amiable
qualities of goodness, till your hearts or lungs ache, among the looser
herds of mankind, and you will ever find, as your _heathen fathers_
have done before you, that the wild appetites and passions of men are
too violent to be restrained by such mild and silken language. You may
as well build up a fence of straw and feathers to resist a cannon-ball,
or try to quench a flaming granado with a shell of fair water, as hope
to succeed in these attempts. But an eternal heaven and an eternal
hell carry a Divine force and power with them. This doctrine, from the
mouth of Christian preachers, has begun the reformation of multitudes.
This Gospel has recovered thousands among the nations from iniquity and
death. They have been awakened by these awful scenes to begin religion,
and afterwards their virtue has improved itself into superior and more
refined principles and habits by Divine grace, and risen to high and
eminent degrees, though not to consummate state. The blessed God knows
human nature better than _Rhapsodus_ doth, and has throughout His Word
appointed a more proper and more effectual method of address to it by the
passions of hope and fear, by punishments and rewards.”
His _ideas_ are large and ample; thoughts thronged through his pages.
Admirable as his prose is, he writes still like a poet, and he speaks
of the value of poetry as not a mere amusement or the embroidery of the
mind, he says how it “brightens the fancy with a thousand beautiful
images, how it enriches the soul with great and sublime sentiments and
refined ideas, and fills the memory with a noble variety of language,
it teaches the art of describing well, of painting everything to the
life, and presenting the pleasing and frightful scenes of nature and
providence, vice and virtue, in their proper charms and horrors; it
assists the art of persuasion, leads to a pathetic mode of speech and
writing, and adds life and beauty to conversation.”
And hence his style is so _attractive_; it has often been an enjoyment to
us to turn over the pages of his prose writings. What a variety of topics
is presented to us in his interesting inquiry “Concerning Space,” and
how interesting his treatment makes the discussion, however abstract the
topic. It is the same with his philosophic essays on “Innate Ideas,” and
on the “Nature of Substance,” and in that on the “Strength and Weakness
of Human Reason.” His sermons, we have before said, have not the pomp
and glow of Jeremy Taylor, but they resemble, and certainly do not fall
inferior to, those of John Donne, in a quiet metaphysical subtlety and a
happy use of images supplied by fancy; but let us select a few:
THE SOUL AND GOD.
“My soul is touched with such a Divine influence that it cannot
rest, while God withdraws, _as the needle trembles, and hunts
after the living loadstone_.”
A SENSITIVE HEART.
“Nothing could displease Phronissa (so this good mother
is called) more than to hear a jest thrown upon natural
infirmities. She thought there was something sacred in misery,
and it was not to be touched with a rude hand.”
IMPULSIVE CHRISTIANS.
“Such Christians as these (such who are weak and too much under
the influence of their passions) live very much by sudden fits
and starts of devotion, without that uniform and steady spring
of faith and holiness which would render their religion more
even and uniform, more honourable to God and more comfortable
to themselves. They are always high on the wing, or else lying
moveless on the ground. They are ever in the heights or in the
depths, travelling on the bright mountains with the songs of
heaven on their lips, or groaning and labouring through the
dark valleys, and never walking onward as on an even plain
towards heaven.”
THE FULFILMENT OF DIVINE PREDICTIONS.
“How easy it will be for our blessed Lord to make a full
accomplishment of all His predictions concerning His kingdom;
salvation shall spread through all the tribes and ranks of
mankind, as the lightning from heaven in a few moments would
communicate a living flame through ten thousand lamps or
torches placed in a proper situation and neighbourhood.”
He had an eminent _power in description_; the following meditation is
a rich illustration of this. The whole meditation is far too long to
quote—his descriptions of the awakening life of leaves, and birds, and
insects—but he closes:
THE FIRST OF MAY.
“’Tis a sublime and constant triumph over all the intellectual
powers of man, which the great God maintains every moment
in these inimitable works of nature, in these impenetrable
recesses and all mysteries of Divine art; and the month of
May is the most shining season of this triumph. The flags and
banners of Almighty wisdom are now displayed round half the
globe, and the other half waits the return of the sun to spread
the same triumph over the southern world. The very sun in
the firmament is God’s prime minister in this wondrous world
of beings, and he works with sovereign vigour on the surface
of the earth, and spreads his influence deep under the clods
to the very root and fibre, moulding them in their proper
forms by Divine direction. There is not a plant, nor a leaf,
nor one little branching thread above or beneath the ground,
which escapes the eye or influence of this beneficent star. An
illustrious emblem of the omnipresence and universal activity
of the Creator.”
The following strikes us as very pleasing:
ON DISTANT THUNDER.
“When we hear the thunder rumbling in some distant quarter
of the heavens, we sit calm and serene amidst our business
or diversions; we feel no terrors about us, and apprehend no
danger. When we see the slender streaks of lightning play afar
off in the horizon of an evening sky, we look on and amuse
ourselves as with an agreeable spectacle, without the least
fear or concern. But lo! the dark cloud rises by degrees; it
grows black as night, and big with tempests; it spreads as it
rises to the mid-heaven, and now hangs directly over us; the
flashes of lightning grow broad and strong, and, like sheets of
ruddy fire, they blaze terribly all round the hemisphere. We
bar the doors and windows, and every avenue of light, but we
bar them all in vain. The flames break in at every cranny, and
threaten swift destruction; the thunder follows, bursting from
the cloud with sudden and tremendous crashes; the voice of the
Lord is redoubled with violence, and overwhelms us with terror;
it rattles over our heads as though the whole house was broken
down at once with a stroke from heaven, and was tumbling on us
amain to bury us in the ruins. Happy the man whose hope in his
God composes all his passions amid these storms of nature, and
renders his whole deportment peaceful and serene amidst the
frights and hurries of weak spirits and unfortified minds.”
Many pages might be filled with such passages in which the compactness
of the proverb, or the pleasantry of the fancy, or the richness of the
description, is remarkable. It comes out of such characteristics as we
have noticed, that he reformed the preaching of his day, especially
as to the structure of sermons; it was the age of, what he calls very
felicitously, “branching sermons;” and even John Howe, as both Robert
Hall and Henry Rogers[50] have remarked, “far outwent many of his
most extravagant contemporaries in minute and frivolous subdivision;
we have sometimes heads arranged rank and file, half a score deep.”
Henry Rogers continues, “If any would wish to see the full extent to
which Howe carried this fault, they may look into the ‘scheme’ (a very
accurate one), which his publishers prefixed to the first edition of the
‘Delighting in God,’ and by the time the student has thoroughly digested
and mastered that, he will find little difficulty I apprehend in any of
the first books of Euclid.” It was the characteristic of nearly all the
great Puritan preachers before Watts. He speaks of some who would draw
out a long rank of particulars in the same sermon under one general, and
run up the number to eighteenthly! or seven and twentiethly! until they
cut all their sense into shreds, so that everything they say of anything
is a new particular; and he says, he has sat under this preaching until
he has thought of Ezekiel’s vision in the valley full of bones, “behold
they were very many and very dry.” He adds, “A single rose bush, or a
dwarf pear, with all their leaves, flowers, and fruit about them, have
more beauty and spirit in themselves, and yield more food and pleasure to
mankind, than the innumerable branches, boughs, and twigs of a long hedge
of thorns.” In the same manner he satirizes another kind of preaching,
in which there are no breaks and pauses. “Is there no medium,” he says,
“between a sermon made up of sixty dry particulars, and a long loose
declamation without any distinction of the parts of it? Must a preacher
divide his works by the breaks of a minute watch, or let it run on
incessantly like the flowing stream of sand in the hour-glass?” And thus
he inquires, “Can a long purling sound awaken a sleepy conscience? Can
you make the arrow wound where it will not stick? Where all the discourse
vanishes from the remembrance, can you imagine the soul to be profited or
enriched? When you brush over the closed eyelid with a feather, did you
ever find it give light to the blind? have any of your soft harangues,
your continued threads of silken eloquence, ever raised the dead?” Very
happily he says, “Preachers talk reason and religion to their auditories
in vain, if they do not make the argument so short as to come within
their grasps, and give a frequent rest to their thoughts; they must
break the Bread of Life into pieces to feed children with it, and part
their discourse into distinct propositions, to give the ignorant a plain
scheme of any one doctrine, and enable them to comprehend or retain it.
The auditors of the first kind of preacher have some confusion in their
knowledge, the hearers of the last have scarce any knowledge at all.”
The reader will not fail to notice, in this nervous passage, the happy
imagery by which the writer gives point to his ideas.
But that which we have said hitherto refers rather to the style, the
vehicular frame-work in which Watts set forth his thoughts; it is more
important to enter into the mind and spirit of the man; and, first, no
attribute seems more remarkable than the seraphic _reverence_ of his
nature. It is not easy to mention a writer who more distinctly realises
to the mind one of those six-winged seraphs Isaiah saw, who with twain
covered his face, with twain his feet, and with twain stood ready to
fly; Watts appeared ready for any flight; but reverence, an awful sense
of the mysterious and inscrutable, governed every movement of his soul.
The Unitarians have, with singular audacity, sought to drag him through
the Serbonian bog of creedless Christianity.[51] It is a fine remark,
quoted by Southey, that “such doubts as troubled him he subdued, not in
a martial posture, but upon his knees.” It is very certain that he had
a large speculative disposition; he approached very near to the veil
which hides from man the incommunicable light; there is not a line in
his writings which displays a tendency towards Arianism. Towards the
doctrine of Socinianism he does not condescend to give a single glance.
His complaint was, and we apprehend it to be a more common one than
even those who are troubled with it are aware, not that he could not
believe all that is revealed, but that revelation had not conferred
more light upon the subjects of even incomprehensible knowledge. But
his prayer, his “solemn address to the great and ever-blessed God, upon
what he had written concerning the great and ever-blessed Trinity,” is
certainly an extraordinary, a passionate and most humble utterance of
an ardently devout mind. It is too lengthy for entire quotation, but
some of the closing paragraphs will convey the spirit of the entire
piece, and the whole may be read, if read in the spirit in which it was
written, with profit to every one: “Blessed and faithful God, hast Thou
not promised that ‘the meek Thou wilt guide in judgment, the meek Thou
wilt teach Thy way?’ Hast Thou not taught us by Isaiah, Thy prophet,
that Thou wilt ‘bring the blind by a way they know not, and wilt lead
them in paths which they have not known?’ Hast Thou not informed us by
the prophet Hosea, that ‘if we follow on to know the Lord, then we shall
know Him?’ Hath not Thy Son, our Saviour, assured us, that our Heavenly
Father will give His Holy Spirit to them that ask Him? And is He not
appointed ‘to guide us into all truth?’ Have I not sought the gracious
guidance of thy Good Spirit continually? Am I not truly sensible of my
own darkness and weakness, my dangerous prejudices on every side, and
my utter insufficiency for my own conduct? Wilt Thou leave such a poor
creature bewildered among a thousand perplexities, which are raised by
the various opinions and contrivances of men, to explain Thy Divine
Truth? Help me, Heavenly Father, for I am quite tired and weary of these
human explainings, so various and uncertain. When wilt Thou explain it to
me Thyself, O my God, by the secret and certain dictates of Thy Spirit,
according to the intimation of Thy Word? Nor let any pride of reason,
nor any affectation of novelty, nor any criminal bias whatever, turn my
heart aside from hearkening to these Divine dictates of Thy Word and Thy
Spirit. Suffer not any of my native corruptions, nor the vanity of my
imagination, to cast a mist over my eyes while I am searching after the
knowledge of Thy mind and will, for my eternal salvation.
“I entreat, O most merciful Father, that Thou wilt not suffer the remnant
of my short life to be wasted in such endless wanderings in quest of Thee
and Thy Son Jesus, as a great part of my past days have been; but let
my sincere endeavours to know Thee, in all the ways whereby Thou hast
discovered Thyself in Thy Word, be crowned with such success that my
soul, being established in every needful truth by Thy Holy Spirit, I may
spend my remaining life according to the rules of Thy Gospel, and may,
with all the holy and happy creation, ascribe glory and honour, wisdom
and power, to Thee who sittest upon the throne, and to the Lamb for ever
and ever.”
We have stated the matter fairly as in relation to Watts’ entireness of
faith, but justice has not been done to Watts in relation to that dilemma
and agitation of public opinion and sentiment which forced him into
controversy. It was not that he himself doubted, neither was it that he
for himself approached the confines of a discussion of which it might be
said—
Dark with excessive light its skirts appear.
Arianism was vexing the church in general in England in that age.[52]
Many of the churches, especially those to which Watts stood related,
indicated a close proclivity to Arian sentiment. The peculiar spirit of
the times had created this degeneracy of sentiment; there was little
of what we are now accustomed to denominate practical Christianity—the
activities created by Methodism were quite unknown. All over the country
were Nonconformist churches (nooks of retreat), where some learned,
scholarly, and philosophical minister was at the head of a class of
thoughtful minds. Numbers of them seemed to have little to do but to
think; the heart did not minister much to the head in many instances. The
Unitarianism of our day was unknown. It thus represented very much the
high Arian sentiment of reverence to Christ without the acknowledgment
of His Godhead. The hymns of Watts abound in expressions of praise to
Christ and to the Holy Spirit. He was called upon to vindicate that which
he himself had done; he was called upon to defend that whole scheme of
doctrine which accepted the Three Persons in the Divine Godhead. Perhaps
the defect in all such efforts is, that the very attempt to embody some
doctrines within the forms of the understanding naturally and essentially
depraves them. If we say, as we often do, a God understood is no God at
all—and this remark applies to mere natural religion—the same holds true
of those higher doctrines of revelation which are the adumbrations of
“the light which no man hath seen or can see.” There are doctrines in
Theology, even as there are doctrines in Science, the demonstration of
which is rather negative than positive. Chemists tell us of an element
essential to our life—we breathe it every moment; it contributes to
the balance of all the powers of the atmosphere; it tames the subtle,
fiery-tempered oxygen, the wild and vehement hydrogen; it represses,
allays, and composes, but itself has no colour no odour; it has no active
properties, no chemical affections; it is one of the greatest mysteries
in nature. It is invisible, and yet it proclaims its presence; the
chemist cannot touch it, but he is sure of its existence. It may well
fill our minds with awe that we are ever in the presence of such an
agent, that before it the lamp of science is darkened, like a man with a
dim light in a room in which he sees phantoms he cannot touch, and hears
voices the causes of which he cannot detect, and as he holds up his lamp
he is aware of a presence that disturbs him, that will not enter into his
knowledge, and for which he cannot account. Only he knows that it is.
Such is nitrogen. It is thus we apprehend the doctrine of the Trinity.
All efforts must fail to apprehend the doctrines involved in the idea
of the Trinity, which insist upon either the idea of personality or
numeration, as they are understood by us. Watts, with the Bible in his
hand, stood on the defensive against the aggressions of Arianism, and
having attempted to unfold the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, he
published his further dissertation, “The Arian Invited to the Orthodox
Faith; a plain and easy method to lead such as deny the Proper Deity
of Christ into the belief of that Article.” Those who charge Arianism
upon Watts can only do so, because throughout the argument he has
conducted it in a strain of eminent courtesy and charity. He approached
the matter in no spirit of disputation, but with a cordial desire to
promote, if possible, healing and unity; nor do we think that there are
any indications, in the course of any of his discussions, that his own
mind or faith was unhinged; but the discussions around him compelled
him to direct his attention to questions certainly not uncongenial to
his speculative and analytic order of mind. Probably the reader feels
that there is a sufficient correspondence between the sense of our own
spiritual wants and the revelation given to us in the Divine Word to
make us feel that the Trinity of Persons in the Godhead is a necessity
of our moral nature, and that it is a doctrine, as we have already
intimated, best held, as most satisfactory to the mind and conscience,
when held _im_plicitly rather than _ex_plicitly.
The claim which the Unitarians put forth to find in Watts one of
themselves is not less than audacious and dishonest. It is, however,
founded—very ridiculously, we venture to think—upon some expressions
reported after his death, which implied that he would have been willing,
had he been able, to have altered some expressions in his hymns. Truly
it is amazing that the author could survive the publication of his
first volume forty years, and not alter many barbarisms of metre and
expression. It may, perhaps, be partly accounted for from the fact that
the copyright of the hymns had passed at once from his hands. We can
very well believe there were certain expressions in his hymns he would
have been not indisposed to alter, without touching at all upon matters
of doctrine. It will be time enough for Unitarians to claim Watts when
they are able to set aside his last published words, and to reconcile
them with that faith which they call theirs, or to account, upon such
principles as they would make him hold, for the sentiments which fell
from his lips when dying.
But as a study of Watts’ mind, these pieces of his are like all that
emanated from his pen, characterized by exceeding reverence for the
subject he attempted to elucidate, and by charity, respect, and courtesy
towards his opponents. Johnson says: “I am only enough acquainted with
his theological works to admire his meekness of opposition, and his
mildness of censure. It was not only in his books, but in his mind, that
orthodoxy was united with charity.” Some will, perhaps, almost think
that this width of charity in Watts degenerated into a vice; we hope this
book has made it evident that he both had strong convictions and knew how
to act upon them steadily. But his heart was very inclusive in its love.
It was not merely that he lived within the shadows of persecution, and
belonged to an order whose opinions were only tolerated; he represented
the mildest type of Nonconformity. Perhaps we shall surprise some readers
not very well acquainted with his writings, by informing them that one
of the latest efforts of his mind and pen was upon the inquiry, “Whether
an Establishment is altogether an Impossibility.” This was in his Essay,
published in the year 1739, on “Civil Power in Things Sacred.” It is a
singular scheme, and the question is discussed with great moderation
and candour; but it is rather a plea for a system of national education
than the establishment of a national religion. He inquires, indeed,
whether there might not be established a religion consistent with the
just liberties of mankind, and practicable with every form of civil
government. He thinks that officers should be appointed by the State
to explain and enforce the great duties and sanctions of morality, and
that the citizens should be compelled to receive such lessons as are
unquestionably at the foundation of a national well-being, the welfare,
strength, and support of the State, and that such teachers, as public
benefactors, should be sustained at the charge of the State.
Watts’ philosophical works exhibit him in the same light as his
theological. They are marked by a vivid disposition to analysis and
speculation, and by that elevated reverence of thought which appertains
to all his writings. Instance his “Inquiry Concerning Space; whether
it be Something or Nothing, God or a Creature.” Most minds are quite
unequal to such discussions, and many regard them as unwise, irreverent,
and dangerous. They are a kind of intellectual Matterhorn which certain
daring spirits assault from age to age—the origin of evil, liberty, and
necessity—the nature of substance, and time, and space. It would surely
be a dangerous and a doubtful doctrine to teach that such questions are
only the territories or hunting-grounds of the bold masters of sceptical
negations. It does not derogate from the greatness of Isaac Watts to
admit that he was neither a Joseph Butler, a William de Leibnitz,
nor a Jonathan Edwards; but in his mind such studies became means of
usefulness. He fashioned Alpenstocks for climbers among those higher
mountain ranges, through which he had himself travelled. In such studies
a reverent mind may at once enlarge the understanding while learning the
limitation of its powers. A wise guide will here, too, guard against the
dangerous _crevasse_, while he hath himself
The secret learned
To mix his blood with sunshine, and to take
The wind into his pulses.[53]
Johnson quotes a passage from Mr. Dyer, charging Watts with confounding
the idea of space with empty space, and that he did not consider that
though space might be without matter, yet matter, being extended, could
not be without space. But in reply to this, it may be remarked that this
is the whole question, and extended matter falls rather beneath the
denomination of substance. It appears certainly the case that Watts, in
his discussion, deals with infinite space, or say, certainly, indefinite
space—that is, extension abstracted from phenomena. Such space Sir Isaac
Newton reverently regarded as the sensorium of God. Newton was so
essentially reverent even in thought that it was not possible for him to
indulge an idea which was capable of depraving religious conceptions; but
all minds, even religious minds, have not been equally reverent. Hence
some have gone on to regard space as the immensity of God, as a property
of God. But it would follow from this that as space is extended, so God,
too, must be extended; and whatever tends to conform God with nature, or
to place Him in contact with it, in any other way than as in relation
to His wisdom and His will, is essentially unscriptural, and it is a
dangerous proclivity below which yawn the fearful gulfs of Pantheism
and Atheism. In these discussions our writer anticipated many of those
shadows which in the course of a few years were to project themselves
over the whole domain of philosophy and theology; and, indeed, only a
few years before, in the great work of Spinosa, ominous indications had
been given; and the second part of the “Living Temple” of John Howe bore
immediately upon the coming questions. Watts’ essay penetrates into the
stronghold of Pantheism. Newton and Pascal, both looking up into the
infinite spaces, felt their nature called on to reply to the questions
suggested. The silence terrified Pascal; Newton’s calmer nature gathered
up even infinite space into the great idea, that it was but a mode, or
attribute, of God. Some such doctrines govern the Essays of Watts: Space,
he argues, cannot be God; we cannot indeed conceive that infinite space
ever began to be, we have an idea of it as eternal and unchangeable;
according to Watts it seems to contain what existence it has in the
very idea, nature, or essence of it, which is one attribute of God, and
whereby we prove His existence. It appears to be a necessary being and
has a sort of self-existence, for we cannot tell how to conceive it not
to he. It seems to be an impassible, indivisible, immutable essence,
and therefore according to the ghastly pantheistic philosophy it is
argued that space is God. This idea Watts concisely set aside, because
it involves the absurdity of making the blessed God a Being of infinite
length, breadth, and depth, and ascribing to Him parts of this nature
measurable by inches, yards, and miles. Perhaps this is not so clear to
all readers as it was to the writer himself; but the close seems more
satisfactory when he says, “Strongest arguments seem to evince this, that
it must be God, or it must be nothing.” Watts, then, was an Idealist,
and the remark of Johnson arises from a misapprehension of the drift of
the essay. He argues that space is only the shadow cast by substance—we
are sure that shadow or darkness is a mere nothing, and space is nothing
but the absence of body, as shade is the absence of light, and both are
explicable without supposing either to be real beings: it is therefore
merely an abstract idea, or, as we should say, a “thought-form;” it will
follow from this that such an idea of space dissolves one of the charming
illusions of Pantheism, and that there rises from the midst of this
universe of unidentical being the personality of man.
Some critics have entertained a grim joke at the expense of Watts, that
having annihilated space, he proceeded in the next place to annihilate
substance, anticipating at once Berkeley and Hume. Let it then be
remembered that he engaged in none of these excursions in a vain or
Pyrrhonistic spirit: his essays were written not to unhinge, but to
rest and settle and give repose to the mind; indeed he says, “There
are mysteries wherein we bewilder and lose ourselves by attempting to
make something out of nothing;” substance is one of these. He goes for
some distance on the way with Locke, especially in refuting the idea
that substance is something real in nature; with Locke he argues that
“all the ideas we have of particular, distinct sort of substances, are
nothing but several combinations of simple ideas coexistent in such, the
cause of their union, which makes the whole subsist of itself.” Only
then comes in the important question, “what is it that supports the
accidents and qualities of being?” At this point Watts parts company
with Locke. His ideas of substance seem to be antagonistic to Locke,
and dangerously sustaining Spinosa, who taught, as our readers know,
that the whole universe, God and this world, may be the same individual
substance—“How can I be sure that God and the material world have not
one common substance?” But, very singularly, Watts himself in tracing
the mistakes upon this matter to their origin, seems to fall into the
very error he seeks to explode, the idea of a real, invisible abstract
or concrete, seems to stand behind all things; he says, the mistakes
which men make arise from the occult quality in the termination of names,
_ity_ in solidity, _sion_ in extension, which imply a quality without
including the substance; as white_ness_, without including the substance
or the thing that is white; the word white is concrete, and denotes the
thing or substance together with the quality, and he says, “We ought to
remember that _things_ are made by God, or Nature, _words_ are made by
man, and sometimes applied in a way not exactly agreeable to what things
and ideas require.” The object of Watts in his discussion of the idea of
substance, was the same as that in his discussion in the idea of space,
to disarm Spinozism of its gross and crude ideas of God. But we do not
feel that the same success closes the discussion. Perhaps it will be
sufficient to admit at once that space and substance are both modes of
Divine operation. Push the inquiry to any extent, and the most absolute
Spinozist is compelled to halt in some such conclusion. That God is
extended, that He is a mere infinite extension, is an absurdity; but it
seems that no injustice is done to the most reverent and infinite thought
of God by regarding Him as the essential _sub-stans_, the substance as of
all souls, so of all being.
That about the philosophic essays which interests us is their freshness,
and the clear, easily lucid, and charmingly illustrated style in which
the doctrines are conveyed. They assuredly are a very happy commentary
upon Locke, from whom he often separates, as in the essay on “Innate
Ideas;” he agrees with Locke in the main, and then proceeds to discourse
upon many simple ideas which are innate in some sense. His essay to prove
that the “Soul never Sleeps,” and “On the Place and Motion of Spirits,
and the Power of a Spirit to move Matter,” are interesting; that on the
“Departing and Separate Soul” is a sublime piece of writing, and on the
“Resurrection of the same Body,” and on the “Production and Nourishment
of Plants and Animals.” Few persons now, it may be supposed, even know of
the existence of these essays; they seem to us pieces of truly delightful
reading, most instructive, suggestive, and entertaining, singularly free
from hard and unpleasant lines of dogmatism, full of delightful and
suggestive pictures; take the following:
SUNBEAMS AND STARBEAMS.
“What a surprising work of God is vision, that notwithstanding
all these infinite meetings and crossings of starbeams and
sunbeams night and day, through all our solar world, there
should be such a regular conveyance of light to every eye as to
discern each star so distinctly by night, as well as all other
objects on earth by day! And this difficulty and wonder will
be greatly increased by considering the innumerable double,
triple, and tenfold reflections and refractions of sunbeams,
or daylight, near our earth, and among the various bodies on
the surface of it. Let ten thousand men stand round a large
elevated amphitheatre; in the middle of it, on a black plain,
let ten thousand white round plates be placed, of two inches
diameter, and at two inches distance; every eye must receive
many rays of light reflected from every plate, in order to
perceive its shape and colour; now, if there were but one ray
of light came from each plate, here would be ten thousand
rays falling on every single eye, which would make twenty
thousand times ten thousand, that is, two hundred millions
of rays crossing each other in direct lines in order to make
every plate visible to every man. But if we suppose that each
plate reflected one hundred rays, which is no unreasonable
supposition, this would rise to twenty thousand millions. What
an amazing thing is the distinct vision of the shape and colour
of each plate by every eye, notwithstanding these confused
crossings and rays! What an astonishing composition is the eye
in all the coats and all the humours of it, to convey those ten
thousand white images, or those millions of rays so distinct
to the retina, and to impress and paint them all there! And
what further amazement attends us if we follow the image on
the retina, conveying itself by the optic nerves into the
common sensory without confusion? Can a rational being survey
this scene and say there is no God? Can a mind think on this
stupendous bodily organ, the eye, and not adore the Wisdom that
contrived it?”
And the following is not only most interesting, but anticipates, with
much strength, a line of argument important to the sceptical philosophy
of our own day. The German Buchner binds up his atheistic philosophy
between the two covers of Force and Matter; and many in our own country
follow in the same train of singularly forgetful thought: forgetful
because force and matter are really not sufficient to constitute a
universe; the regulative and directive power which controls force and
manipulates matter to its will is assuredly as essential a factor as
either force or matter.[54] Thus Dr. Watts argues in his remarks:
THE DIRECTION OF MOTION A PROOF OF DEITY.
“Yet, after all, I know it may be replied again, that
gravitation is a power which is not limited in its agency by
any conceivable distances whatsoever; and therefore, when
these starbeams are run out never so far into the infinite
void by the force of their emission from the star, yet their
gravitation towards the star, or some of the planetary worlds,
which sometimes, perhaps, may be nearer to it, has perpetual
influence to retard their motion by degrees, even as the
motion of a comet is retarded by its gravitation towards the
sun, though it flies to such a prodigious distance from the
sun, and in time it is stopped and drawn back again and made
to return towards its centre. And just so, may we suppose,
all the sunbeams and starbeams that ever were emitted, even
to the borders of the creation, to have been restrained by
degrees by this principle of gravitation till, moving slower
and slower, at last they are stopped in their progress and made
to return toward their own or some other planetary system.
And if so, then there is a perpetual return of the beams of
light towards some or other of their bright originals, an
everlasting circulation of these lucid atoms, which will hinder
this eternal dilation of the bounds of the universe, and at the
same time will equally prevent the wasting of the substance
of the lucid bodies, the sun or stars. Well, but if this
power of restraining and reducing the flight of starbeams be
ascribed to this principle of gravitation, let us inquire what
is this gravitation, which prevents the universe from such a
perpetual waste of light? It cannot be supposed to be any real
property or natural power inhering in matter or body, which
exerts its influence at so prodigious a distance. I think,
therefore, it is generally agreed, and with great reason, that
it is properly the influence of a Divine power upon every atom
of matter which, in a most exact proportion to its bulk and
distance, causes it to gravitate towards all other material
beings, and which makes all the bulky beings in the universe,
viz., the sun, planets, and stars, attract the bodies that are
near them towards themselves. Now this law of nature being
settled at first by God the Creator, and being constantly
maintained in the course of His providence, it is esteemed
as an effect of nature, and has a property of matter, though
in truth it is owing to the almighty and all-pervading power
of God exerting its incessant dominion and influence through
the whole material creation, producing an infinite variety of
changes which Ave observe among bodies, confining the universe
to its appointed limits, restraining the swift motion of the
beams of light, and preserving this vast system of beings from
waste and ruin, from desolation and darkness. If there be a
world, there is a God; if there be a sun and stars, every ray
points to their Creator; not a beam of light from all the lucid
globes, but acknowledges its mission from the wisdom and will
of God, and feels the restraint of His laws, that it may not
be an eternal wanderer. But I call my thoughts to retire from
these extravagant rovings beyond the limits of creation. What
do these amusements teach us but the inconceivable grandeur,
extent, and magnificence of the works and the power of God, the
astonishing contrivances of His wisdom, and the poverty, the
weakness, and narrowness of our own understandings, all which
are lessons well becoming a creature?”
In the same manner, also, he replies to the modern doctrine of
_traducianism_ in his remarks on
CREATION OR CONSERVATION.
“It has been a very famous question in the schools, whether
conservation be a continual creation, i.e., whether that
action, whereby God preserves all creatures in their several
ranks and orders of being, is not one continued act of His
creating power or influence, as it were, giving being to them
every moment? Whether creatures, being formed out of nothing,
would relapse again into their first estate of nonentity if
they were not, as it were, perpetually reproduced by a creating
act of God? How there is one plain and easy argument whereby,
perhaps, this controversy may be determined, and it may be
proposed in this manner. In whatsoever moment God creates a
substance, He must create with it all the properties, modes,
and accidents which belong to it in that moment; for in the
very moment of creation the creature is all passive, and
cannot give itself those modes. Now if God every moment create
wicked men and devils, and cause them to exist such as they
are, by a continued act of creation, must He not, at the same
time, create or give being to all their sinful thoughts and
inclinations, and even their most criminal and abominable
actions? Must He not create devils, together with the rage and
pride, the malice, envy, and blasphemy of their thoughts? Must
He not create sinful men in the very acts of lying, perjury,
stealing, and adultery, rapine, cruelty, and murder? Must He
not form one man with malice in his heart? Another with a false
oath on the tongue? A third with a sword in his hand, plunging
it into his neighbour’s bosom? Would not these formidable
consequences follow from the supposition of God’s conserving
providence being a continual act of creation? But surely these
ideas seem to be shocking absurdities, whereas, if conservation
be really a continued creation, the modes must be created
together with their substances every moment, since it is not
possible that creatures, who every moment are supposed to be
nothing but the immediate products of the Divine will, should
be capable in every one of those very moments in which they are
produced or created to form their own modes in simultaneous
co-existence with their subjects. I own there are difficulties
on the other side of the question; but the fear of making God
the author of sin has bent my opinion this way. We must always
inviolably maintain it for the honour of the blessed God,
that all spirits, as they come out of His hand, are created
pure and innocent; every sinful act proceeds from themselves,
by an abuse of their own freedom of will, or by a voluntary
compliance with the corrupt appetites and inclinations of flesh
and blood. We must find some better way, therefore, to explain
God’s providential conservation of things than by representing
it as an act of proper and continual creation, lest we impute
all the iniquities of all men and devils, in all ages, to the
pure and holy God, who is blessed for evermore.”
There are two other pieces well worth a study—his remarks on Mr. Locke’s
“Essay on the Human Understanding,” and a “Brief Scheme of Ontology.” The
essay on ontology, like that on logic, is a most interesting handbook
and guide to thought. Watts thought so clearly that it often seems as if
he were only putting things neatly. Sometimes, as in his “Philosophic
Essays,” and in his pieces on the Trinity, he is eminently translucent;
you see that there is light behind. This is the impression conveyed by
his dissertation on “Space,” “Substance,” and “Concerning Spirits, their
Place and Motion;” but in his Ontology and Logic he is transparent, the
objects are brought distinctly into view. When he presents before you
his greater thoughts his style is indeed clear, but you feel that it is
as when “morning is spread upon the mountains” before sunrise, or as
when evening lingers in the soft and rosy light after sunset, there is
something somewhere behind, some orb of light which spreads out all that
roseate glow; in his Ontology and Logic he is concise and distinct, as
we have said; you may almost call him a neat writer. He has a wonderful
power of accumulating particulars, a singular felicity in discriminating
ideas. This gives to him a very nice sense of words, as he says, “We must
search the sense of words. It is for want of this that men quarrel in the
dark, and that there are so many contentions in the several sciences, and
especially in divinity.” His power of discrimination is so nice that it
often becomes as amusing as it is instructive; regarded thus, his Logic
is a most interesting book, we suppose quite the most delightful to read
of any treatise on logic in our language. Of this amusing cumulative
power let the reader take the following:
NAMES AND NAMING THINGS.
“Do not suppose that the natures or essences of things always
differ from one another as much as their names do. There are
various purposes in human life for which we put very different
names on the same thing, or on things whose natures are near
akin; and thereby oftentimes, by making a new nominal species,
we are ready to deceive ourselves with the idea of another
real species of beings, and those whose understandings are
led away by the mere sound of words fancy the nature of those
things to be very different whose names are so, and judge
of them accordingly. I may borrow a remarkable instance for
my purpose out of every garden which contains a variety of
plants in it. Most of all plants agree in this, that they have
a root, a stalk, leaves, buds, blossoms, and seeds: but the
gardener ranges them under very different names, as though
they were really different kinds of beings, merely because of
the different use and service to which they are applied by
men, as for instance those plants whose roots are eaten shall
appropriate the name of roots to themselves, such as carrots,
turnips, radishes, etc. If the leaves are of chief use to us
then we call them herbs, as sage, mint, thyme; if the leaves
are eaten raw they are termed salad, as lettuce, purslane;
if boiled they become pot-herbs, as spinage, coleworts; and
some of those same plants which are pot-herbs in one family
are salads in another. If the buds are made our food they are
called heads or tops; so cabbage heads, heads of asparagus,
and artichokes. If the blossom be of most importance we call
it a flower, such as daisies, tulips, and carnations, which
are the mere blossoms of those plants. If the husks or seeds
are eaten they are called the fruits of the ground, as peas,
beans, strawberries, etc. If any part of the plant be of known
or common use to us in medicine we call it a physical herb, as
cardamus, scurvy-grass; but if we count no part useful we call
it a weed, and throw it out of the garden; and yet perhaps our
next neighbour knows some valuable property and use of it, he
plants it in his garden and gives it a title of an herb or a
flower. You see here how small is the real distinction of these
several plants considered in their general nature as the lesser
vegetables, yet what very different ideas we vulgarly form
concerning them, and make different species of them, chiefly
because of the different names given to them.”
Exactly the same characteristics meet us in his Ontology, but here
there is yet more of this kind of amusement; its pages are crowded
with illustrations. It was perhaps in the nature of the subject that
he scarcely mentions a particular for which he does not furnish one or
twenty illustrative examples: take his curious discrimination of causes
into the deficient, the permissive, and the conditional:
CLASSIFICATION OF CAUSES.
“_A deficient cause_ is when the effect owes its existence in
a great measure to the absence of something which would have
prevented it, so that this may be reckoned a negative rather
than a positive cause: the negligence of a gardener, or the
want of rain, are the deficient causes of the withering of
plants; and the carelessness of the pilot, or the sinking of
the tide, is the cause of a ship’s splitting on a rock; the
forgetfulness of a message is the cause of a quarrel among
friends, or of the punishment of servants; the not bringing a
reprieve in time is the cause of a criminal’s being executed;
and the want of education is the cause why many a child runs
headlong into vice and mischief; the blindness of a man, or the
darkness of the night, are the causes of stumbling; a leak in
a boat is a deficient cause why the water runs in and the boat
sinks; and a hole in a vessel is called a deficient cause why
the liquor runs out and is lost. Man is the deficient cause of
all his sins of omission, and many of these carry great guilt
in them.
“_A permissive cause_ is that which actually removes
impediments, and thus it lets the proper causes operate. Now
this sort of cause is either natural or moral. A natural
permissive cause removes natural impediments or obstructions,
and this may be called a deobstruent cause. So opening the
window shutters is the cause of the light entering the room;
cleaning the ear may be the cause of a man’s hearing music
who was deaf before; breaking down a dam is the cause of the
overflowing of water and drowning a town; letting loose a rope
is the cause of a ship’s running adrift; leaving off a garment
is the cause of a cold and a cough; and cutting the bridle of
the tongue may be the cause of speech to the dumb.
“_Note._—The cause which removes natural impediments may be a
proper efficient cause with regard to that removal, yet it is
not properly efficient, but merely permissive with regard to
the consequences of that removal.
“_A moral permissive cause_ removes moral impediments, or takes
away prohibitions, and gives leave to act: so a master is a
permissive cause of his scholars going to play; a general is
the same cause of his soldiers plundering a city; and a repeal
of a law against foreign silks is the permissive cause why they
are worn.
“_Query._—Was not God’s permission of Satan to afflict Job
rather natural than moral, since his mischievous actions did
not become lawful thereby, and since it is now become his
nature to do mischief where he has no natural restraint?
“_A condition_ has been usually caused _causa sine quâ non_,
or a cause without which the effect is not produced. It is
generally applied to something which is requisite in order to
the effect, though it hath not a proper actual influence in
producing that effect. Daylight is a condition of ploughing,
sowing, and reaping; darkness is a condition of our seeing
stars and glowworms; clearness of the stream is the condition
of our spying sand and pebbles at the bottom of it; being well
dressed with a head uncovered is a condition of a man’s coming
into the presence of a king; and paying a peppercorn yearly is
the condition of enjoying an estate. How far the perfect idea
of the word condition, in the civil law, may differ from this
representation is not my present work to determine.
“_Note._—These three last causes may possibly be all ranked
under the general name of conditions, but I think it more
proper to distinguish them into their different kinds of
causality.”
We perhaps repeat ourselves in these last remarks, for all
is an illustration of that perspicuity which we mentioned as
Watts’ first characteristic; but in him perspicuity was not
the attribute of a small mind, or a limited range of vision;
perspicuous speech is the natural instrument of perspicuous
thought: how can that man express himself clearly who does
not see clearly? Hence dark language must be the companion
of dark vision; but the perspicuity of a child amongst its
playthings, in its playground or its garden is one thing,
and the perspicuity of the pilot of a vessel, or a gifted
astronomer, is quite another. However wide or vast the subjects
upon which Watts wrote, it seemed he had cleared thought in
his own mind, by the clearness with which speech served him in
making the things in his own mind the property of others; and
upon whatsoever he wrote there was always the same suffusing
light of the devoutness of the spiritual mind. Here is no
flippancy; here are no impertinent epigrams, no hard words
even for opponents; we have to search a long way through his
works before we find an expression of severity, we will not say
of contempt—perhaps there are such—but we are sure they will
only be used of those who, by some abandonment of sentiment,
had separated themselves from the common feeling of mankind.
Yet there was considerable nervousness in his speech, he
was a great preacher, he commanded attention; judging from
the testimony of Johnson, he must have been, to cultivated
minds, one of the most distinguished preachers of his day:
his enunciation was clear, forcible, and distinct, and what
was wanting to an imposing presence was made up from the
earnestness of the manner, the calm luminousness, elevation,
and we would even say, the sustained but subdued vehemence of
his diction. His sermon on the “Reformation of Manners,” to
which Southey has referred, not in his life of Watts but in one
of the volumes of his “Common-place Book,” as “an extraordinary
piece,” is an illustration of this. It was preached at the time
when we were in conflict with Louis XIV. He gives the following
side-glance to the wars in Flanders, and on the borders of the
Rhine, and he refers to the importance, not only of fighting
the enemy abroad, but resisting vice at home. He exclaims, in a
remarkable passage:
“But was there ever any war without danger, or victory
without courage? Besides, the perils you run here are almost
infinitely less than those which attend the wars of nations,
where the cause is not half so Divine. The fields of battle
in Flanders, and almost all over Europe, have drunk up the
blood of millions, and have furnished graves for large armies;
but it can hardly be said that _you_ have hitherto ‘resisted
unto blood striving against sin.’ In a war of more than twelve
years’ continuance (_i.e._, against vice at home) there has
but one man fallen. The providence of God has put helmets of
salvation upon your heads. Some of you can relate wonders of
deliverance to safety when you have been beset by numbers,
and their rage has kindled into resolutions of revenge; the
Lord has taken away their courage in a moment, the ‘men of
might have not found their hands;’ thus He has caused ‘the
wrath of man to praise Him, and the remainder of wrath He hath
restrained.’[55] Read over this psalm, and with Divine valour
pursue the fight. But if your life should be lost in such a
cause as this, it will be esteemed martyrdom in the sight of
God, and shall be thus written down in the book of the wars of
the Lord. Believe me, these red lines will look well in the
records of heaven, when the judgment shall be set, and the
books opened in the face of men and angels.”
_Watts in the pulpit_ ought to furnish the subject for a distinct
chapter—it must fall into this feeble attempt to realize the man’s mind
in his works. His sermons were evidently carefully prepared and admirably
arranged; it was not possible for him to speak without thought, but he
used very few notes in the pulpit, preparing carefully so that the mind
and memory were fully charged, giving to such a mind as his freedom,
instantaneous propriety, and fulness of expression; many men who exhibit
fulness of wisdom, both in thought and language, in the study, find all
fail them when they come to speak in public. On every hand we hear that
this was not the case with Watts, and that his deliverances in public
corresponded to his great powers in the study; and his sermons are of
that nature that they assure us if the delivery corresponded to the
strength of the matter and the felicity and harmony of the composition,
they must have been very impressive. As some of the great sermons of
Jeremy Taylor appear to have been prepared to preach when he was in
exile at the Golden Grove in Wales, in the drawing-room of Lord Vaughan,
so some of Watts’ sermons were prepared for delivery at the evening
worship at Theobalds; one of the noblest of these is a commanding piece
on the Scale of Blessedness, or Blessed Saints, Blessed Saviour, Blessed
Trinity. In this subduing sermon occurs one of the passages which excited
the wrath of Thomas Bradbury, and to which we have referred. Here it
is; the note is evidently intended to justify himself from his coarse
assailant, although he does not say so.
A SCALE OF BLESSEDNESS.
“Can we ever imagine that Moses the meek, the friend of God,
who was, as it were, His confidant on earth, His faithful
prophet to institute a new religion, and establish a new
Church in the world, who, for God’s sake, endured forty years
of banishment, and had forty years’ fatigue in a wilderness;
who saw God on earth face to face, and the shine was left upon
his countenance: can we suppose that this man has taken his
seat no nearer to God in Paradise than Samson and Jephthah,
those rash champions, those rude and bloody ministers of
Providence?[56] Or can we think that St. Paul, the greatest
of the apostles, ‘who laboured more than they all,’ and ‘was
in sufferings’ more abundant than the rest; who spent a long
life in daily services and deaths for the sake of Christ, is
not fitted for, and advanced to a rank of blessedness superior
to that of the crucified thief, who became a Christian but a
few moments at the end of a life of impiety and plunder? Can I
persuade myself that a holy man, who has known much of God in
this world, and spent his age on earth in contemplation of the
Divine excellences, who has acquired a great degree of nearness
to God in devotion, and has served Him, and suffered for Him,
even to old age and martyrdom, with a sprightly and faithful
zeal: can I believe that this man, who has been trained up all
his life to converse with God, and is fitted to receive Divine
communications above his fellows, shall dwell no nearer to God
hereafter, and share no larger a degree of blessedness, than
the little babe who has just entered into this world to die out
of it, and who is saved, so far as we know, merely by spreading
the veil of the covenant grace, drawn over it by the hand of
the parent’s faith? Can it be that the Great Judge who ‘cometh
and His reward is with Him, to render to every one according
to his works,’ will make no distinction between Moses and
Samson, between the apostle and the thief, between the aged
martyr and the infant, in the world to come? And yet, after
all, it may be matter of inquiry, whether the meanest saint
among the sons of Adam has not some sort of privilege above any
rank of angels by being of a kindred nature to our Emmanuel, to
Jesus the Son of God.”
And the following is a fine passage on the Trinity, which may be
read with pleasure, although some years after he says that “it is a
warmer effort of the imagination than riper years would indulge. What
distinctions there may be in this one Spirit I know not; I am _fully
established in the belief of the Deity of the Blessed Three_, though I
know not the manner of the explication.”
THE TRINITY.
“The Father is so intimately near the Son and Spirit, that no
finite or created natures or unions can give a just resemblance
of it. We talk of the union of the sun and his beams, of a
tree and its branches: but these are but poor images and faint
shadows of this mystery, though they are some of the best that
I know. The union of the soul and the body is, in my esteem,
still farther from the point, because their natures are so
widely different. In vain we search through all the creation to
find a complete similitude of the Creator.
“And in vain may we run through all parts and powers of
nature and art, to seek a full resemblance of the mutual
propensity and love of the Blessed Three towards each other.
Mathematicians, indeed, talk of the perpetual tendencies and
infinite approximations of two or more lines on the same
surface, which yet never can entirely concur in one line: and
if we should say that the Three Persons of the Trinity, by
mutual indwelling and love, approach each other infinitely in
one Divine nature, and yet lose not their distinct personality,
it would be but an obscure account of this sublime mystery.
But this we are sure of, that for three Divine Persons to be
so inconceivably near one another in the original and eternal
spring of love, goodness, and pleasure, must produce infinite
delight. In order to illustrate the happiness of the Sacred
Three, may we not suppose something of society necessary to
the perfection of happiness in all intellectual nature? To
know and be known, to love and to be beloved, are, perhaps,
such essential ingredients of complete felicity that it cannot
subsist without them. And it may be doubted whether such mutual
knowledge and love, as seems requisite for this end, can be
found in a nature absolutely simple in all respects. May we
not then suppose that some distinctions in the Divine Being
are of eternal necessity, in order to complete the blessedness
of Godhead? Such a distinction as may admit, as a great man
expresses it, of delicious society. ‘We, for our parts, cannot
but hereby have in our minds a more gustful idea of a blessed
state, than we can conceive in mere eternal solitude.’
“And if this be true, then the three differences, which we call
personal distinctions, in the nature of God, are as absolutely
necessary as His blessedness, as His being, or any of His
perfections. And then we may return to the words of my text,
and boldly infer, that if the man is blessed who is chosen by
the free and sovereign grace of God, and caused to approach,
or draw near Him, what immense and unknown blessedness belongs
to each Divine Person, to all the Sacred Three, who are by
nature and unchangeable necessity so near, so united, so much
one, that the least moment’s separation seems to be infinitely
impossible, and, then we may venture to say, it is not to be
conceived: and the blessedness is conceivable by none but God!
“This is a nobler union and a more intense pleasure than _the
Man_ Jesus Christ knows or feels, or can conceive, for He is
a creature. These are glories too Divine and dazzling for
the weak eye of our understanding, too bright for the eye of
angels, those morning stars; and they, and we, must fall down
together, alike overwhelmed with them, and alike confounded.
These are flights that tire souls of the strongest wing, and
finite minds faint in the infinite pursuit; these are depths
where our tallest thoughts sink and drown; we are lost in this
ocean of being and blessedness that has no limit on either
side, no surface, no bottom, no shore. The nearness of the
Divine Persons to each other, and the unspeakable relish of
their unbounded pleasures, are too vast ideas for our bounded
minds to entertain. It is one infinite transport that runs
through the Father, Son, and Spirit, without beginning, and
without end, with boundless variety, yet ever perfect and
ever present without change, and without degree; and all this
because they are so near to one another, and so much one with
God.
“But when we have fatigued our spirits and put them to the
utmost stretch, we must lie down and rest, and confess the
great incomprehensible. How far this sublime transport of joy
is varied in each subsistence; how far their mutual knowledge
of each other’s properties, or their mutual delight in each
other’s love, is distinct in each Person, is a secret too high
for the present determination of our language and our thoughts:
it commands our judgment in silence, and our whole souls into
wonder and adoration.”
He frequently indulged in a warmth of expression; he did not disdain
ornament, although all was held in a wise check, and indeed with a severe
rein, and his sermons were not less practical than beautiful. They abound
in such passages as the following, in which he so sweetly and mildly
expostulates with
CENSORIOUS CHRISTIANS.
“Be not too severe in your censures, you who have been kept
from temptation, but pity others who are fallen, and mourn
over their fall. Do not think or say the worst things you
can of those who have been taken in the snare of Satan, and
been betrayed into some grosser iniquities. When you see them
grieved and ashamed of their own follies, and bowed down
under much heaviness, take occasion then to speak a softening
and a healing word. Speak for them kindly, and speak to them
tenderly. ‘Have compassion of them, lest they be swallowed
up of over much sorrow.’ And remember, too, O censorious
Christian, that thou art also in the body. It is rich grace
that has kept thee hitherto, and the same God, who for wise
ends has suffered thy brother to fall, may punish thy severity
and reproachful language by withholding His grace from thee
in the next hour of temptation, and then thy own fall and
guilt shall upbraid thee with inward and bitter reflections,
for thy sharp censures of thy weak and tempted brother. This
life is the only time wherein we can pity the infirmities of
our brethren, and bear their burdens. This law of Christ must
be fulfilled in this world, for there is no room for it in
the next: ‘Wherefore bear ye one another’s burdens, and so
fulfil ye the law of Christ.’ This world is the only place
where different opinions and doctrines are found amongst the
saints; disagreeing forms of devotion, and sects, and parties,
have no place on high: none of these things can interrupt
the worship or the peace of heaven. See to it then, that you
practise this grace of charity here, and love thy brother, and
receive him into thy heart in holy fellowship, though he may be
weak in faith, and though he may observe days and times, and
may feed upon herbs, and indulge some superstitious follies
while thou art strong in faith, and well acquainted with the
liberty of the Gospel. Let not little things provoke you to
divide communions on earth: but by this sort of charity, and
a Catholic spirit, honour the Saviour and His Church here in
this world; for since there are no parties, nor sects, nor
contrary sentiments among the Church in heaven, this Christian
virtue can never find any room for exercise there. This kind of
charity ends with death.”
But such delineations as these might be pursued to a great length, and
we have scarcely dwelt at all upon that aspect of his public teaching
which the last quotation instantly suggests, its eminent practical
character; his discourses on “Christian Morality,” his beautiful
discourse on “Humility,” for which he received the hearty thanks of the
Bishop of London; his “Caveat against Infidelity,” his “Guide to Prayer;”
summarily, it may be said, he touched everything with an exquisite
delicacy of conscience, and with the elevation of a saint. His mind
cannot be summed in one attribute, neither his piety, nor his genius can
be said to find an adequate illustration in one work; he was one of a
race of men of whom, indeed, the history of the literature of those times
furnishes many illustrations, whose learning and labours were alike vast;
they must have caught the earliest daybeam, and trimmed the lamp far
beyond the hours of midnight, pursuing their industrious toil, devouring
libraries. Their works formed a library; they had not the necessities of
our times to call them away, nor was it the age of magazines and reviews,
and the lighter shallops of literature. The age immediately preceding
that of Watts, and his own age, present to us the forms of many men,
who in some sheltered nook passed a life unprofitable—ought we to say
inglorious?—satisfied with the spoils of learning, they lived a life of
barrenness; they sought wisdom for her own sake, neither for the use it
enabled them to confer on others, or the fame it conferred on themselves;
or, if they published, it was not so much from the benevolent idea of
the transfusion of knowledge, but really from their interest only in
their own idea. These were the men and those the times which may be best
described in the words of Milton:
Whose lamp at midnight hour
Is seen in some high lonely tower,
Where he may oft outwatch the Bear
With thrice great Hermes, or unsphere
The spirit of Plato, to unfold
What worlds or what vast regions hold
The immortal mind that hath forsook
Her mansion in this fleshly nook.
But to this order of mind Watts added that which altogether changed it;
he possessed in an eminent degree the love of books and thought, lofty
imaginations, and excursions through the far-off continents of knowledge;
but he added to the volitions of genius, and the accumulations of the
scholar, the doing “all for the glory of God;” few lives so useful and
even so obvious seem to have been so sanctified from every human passion
and selfish isolation; and hence with powers which might have found
their gratification had he chosen to move like some remote and solitary
planet in an unilluminating orb, he preferred rather to be a satellite,
shedding a useful lustre on his serene way, and in the language of a
well-known writer, “singing while he shone.” The amiable critic to whom
we have already referred says that the whole lesson of Watts’ life might
be condensed into the apostolic injunction, “Study to be quiet and mind
your own business;” and the estimate is greatly true. He was a firm
Nonconformist, but he was no agitator; he lived and wrought laboriously
in his vocation, and that vocation was to bring about “the union of
mental culture and vital piety.” As he did not write pamphlets to expose
the evils of the hierarchy, or the defects of his own ecclesiastical
system, so neither did he attempt to rebuke in print such assailants as
Bradbury. He was the first in England who set the Gospel to music; and
many who knew not the meaning of the words yet found their hearts melted
by the melody of genius. There is a saintly dignity and peaceful purity
about his life which it is not invidious to say gives to him, even in
writers of his own order, a high pre-eminence. He seems to have been one
whom “the peace of God which passeth all understanding” kept. And surely
he has won a place in the universal Church—no Church repudiates him; his
eulogy has been pronounced, and his life recorded, by Samuel Johnson, and
Robert Southey, and Josiah Conder. If his hymns crowd the “Congregational
Hymn Book,” they are to be found in the “Hymns Ancient and Modern;” and,
as we have seen, his monument adorns not only the “conventicle” but the
cathedral.
Ages differ, and men differ with their age. This is the place neither to
compare nor to contrast; but in an eminent sense Watts appears to have
fulfilled himself. He drank deep from every kind of learning: we have
seen that he wrote upon every kind of subject; and although it is the
fashion now to pass him by, and even to underrate many of those pieces in
prose and verse which were long held as the most cherished heirlooms of
the Church, we shall have to search long and far to discover a more ample
and consecrated intelligence, a more conscientious and laborious worker,
than the mild, the modest, yet majestic hermit, philosopher, and sweet
singer of Theobalds and Stoke Newington.
[Illustration: MONUMENT OF DR. WATTS IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY.]
FOOTNOTES
[1] “Dr. Isaac Watts,” a Lecture by Hermann Carlyle, LL.B., seventh
minister of the church of which Dr. Watts’ father was for forty-eight
years a deacon.
[2] It is interesting to remember that Isaac Watts the elder was the
first local trustee to Robert Thorner’s munificent bequest, which is now
the grandest of all the Southampton charities, and has made the name of
Thorner in that town a household word.
[3] The soil of Southampton seems to have been favourable to the
production of the lyrical faculty, although it is not probable that many
of those whose hearts have been stirred by the holy strains of Watts have
been acquainted with the melodies of one of the most national of English
song-writers, the laureate of sailors, also a townsman of Southampton,
Thomas Dibden.
[4] See Appendix.
[5] Walter Wilson’s “Life of Defoe,” vol. i. pp. 26, 27.
[6] “The Improvement of the Mind,” chap. iv. of “Books and Reading.”
[7] Afterwards, says Dr. Gibbons, Dr. Daniel Scott. He was a very
learned and amiable man. After he had studied under Mr. Jones he removed
to Utrecht for further education; there he took the degree of doctor
of laws. In the year 1741 he published a new version of St. Matthew’s
Gospel, with critical notes, and an examination of Dr. Mills’ various
readings. He published, also, in the year 1745, an “Appendix to H.
Stephens’ Greek Lexicon,” in two volumes.
[8] “History and Antiquities of Stoke Newington.” By William Robinson,
LL.D., F.S.A.
[9] The interested reader consulting that singular monument of patient
and painstaking industry, “The History and Antiquities of Dissenting
Churches and Meeting-Houses in London, Westminster, and Southwark,” by
Walter Wilson, will probably feel astonishment, not less at their number
than at the singular places in which they assembled.
[10] Matt. xviii. 20.
[11] Originally Mart Lane.
[12] “Quarterly Review,” vol. lxxxix. pp. 303, 304.
[13] “Ode to Mr. Pinhorne.” Translated by Dr. Gibbons.
[14] Lord Lytton, in “Devereux.”
[15] “Quarterly Review,” No. 222, April, 1862. Art. Hymnology.
[16] “British and Foreign Evangelical Review,” 1865.
[17] “The Poet of the Sanctuary,” etc. By Josiah Conder. 1857.
[18] “The Psalter and the Hymn Book.” Three Lectures by James Hamilton.
[19] See Crosbie’s “History of the English Baptists” (1740), vol. iii.
[20] “Quarterly Review,” vol. xxxviii. Art. Psalmody.
[21] “Letter to Rev. S. F. Macdonald,” by James Martineau, 1859.
[22] “Old Town Folk,” chap. iii.
[23] For illustrations of this, see “A Letter to the Rev. Mr. ⸺ or a
Gnat destroying the Little Arian Foxes among the Vines,” and part of the
“Remains of Dr. Watts’ Clear’d from the Leaves and Rags of Arianism.”
[24] See this idea illustrated in “An Essay on the Book of Psalms,” by
Mary Anne Schimmelpenninck, 1825, and “An Essay on the Literature of the
Book of Psalms,” in the “Preachers’ Lantern,” vol. ii. p. 558.
[25] Lord Barrington’s “Theological Works,” 3 vols.
[26] “Biog. Brit.” Article, Barrington.
[27] Dr. Southey, remarking on this incident, says: “The hymn, indeed,
was likely to have this effect upon an assembly whose minds were under
the immediate impression produced by a pathetic preacher.” They were
those well-known words:
Give me the wings of faith to rise
Within the veil, and see
The saints above, how great their joys,
How bright their glories be.
Once they were mourning here below,
And wet their couch with tears,
They wrestled hard, as we do now,
With sins, and doubts, and fears.
I ask them whence their victory came;
They with united breath
Ascribe their conquest to the Lamb,
Their triumph to His death.
They marked the footsteps that He trod,
His zeal inspired their breast;
And, following their Incarnate God,
Possess the promised rest.
Our glorious Leader claims our praise
For His own pattern given,
While the long cloud of witnesses
Show the same path to heaven.
[28] See an admirable and interesting summary of Doddridge’s Life and
Character,—“Philip Doddridge:” “North British Review.”
[29] Glover’s “Leonidas,” a poem scarcely ever read or referred to now,
but which created considerable interest on its publication, and for some
time held a conspicuous place in English poetry.
[30] Mr. Waller’s lines, to which her ladyship refers, are at the
conclusion of his Divine Poems:
The soul’s dark cottage, battered and decayed,
Lets in new light through chinks that time has made:
Stronger by weakness wiser men become,
As they draw near to their eternal home:
Leaving the old, both worlds at once they view,
That stand upon the threshold of the new.
The verses of Dr. Watts which her ladyship intends is the poem in his
“Horæ Lyricæ,” entitled “A Sight of Heaven in Sickness.”
[31] “Daniel Defoe, His Life and Recently Discovered Writings.” By
William Lee. 3 vols.
[32] See “Memoirs of the Life and Times of Daniel Defoe,” etc. By Walter
Wilson, Esq.
[33] See the whole of this in the “Posthumous Works of the late learned
and Rev. Isaac Watts,” 1779.
[34] See an interesting table of “Memorable Affairs in my Life and
Coincidents,” in Watts’ writing, in Appendix to this volume.
[35] See “History of England,” by Earl Stanhope, vol. i. chap. 1.
[36] Lord Macaulay says: “There was considerable excitement, but it was
allayed by a temperate and artful letter to the clergy, the work, in all
probability, of Bishop Gibson, who stood high in the favour of Walpole,
and shortly after became minister for ecclesiastical affairs.”
[37] Essay on “Popular Ignorance.”
[38] See the “Clapham Sect.” Sir James Stephen’s Essays in
“Ecclesiastical Biography.”
[39] “Memorials, etc. etc. of the late W. M. Bunting.”
[40] Doddridge’s “Life and Correspondence,” vol. iv. p. 520.
[41] “Without question we must affirm that Body is the necessary means
of bringing Mind into relationship with space and extension, and so of
giving it _Place_, very plainly a disembodied spirit, or we ought rather
to say, an unembodied spirit, or sheer mind, is NOWHERE.”—Isaac Taylor’s
“Physical Theory of Another Life,” chap. ii.
[42] See Preface to the second vol. of “World to Come,” Octavo edition.
[43] 1 Cor. i. 26.
[44] So says Mr. Carlyle, in one of the most interesting little documents
in connection with the life of Watts ever published, the little pamphlet
to which we have already referred.
[45] Montgomery on the Cholera Mount of Sheffield.
[46] “Memorials, Historical, Descriptive, Poetical and Pictorial,
Commemorative of the Inauguration of the Statue to Dr. Isaac Watts, in
the Western Park, Southampton, by the Earl of Shaftesbury, July 17th,
1861.” See also “The Proceedings connected with the Inauguration of the
Memorial Statue to Dr. Isaac Watts, at Southampton, July 17th, 1861.”
[47] “There is also perhaps more method and clearness in the logic of
Watts than in that of Arnauld. The good English sense—the business
faculty—that of practical life, repeats itself here in the highest
degree; whilst the speculative mind of a tolerably scholarly theologian
is yet more full in _the art of thinking_. Now Watts is complete without
being extravagant; he has touched very adequately all that is necessary,
and he always stops at the very precise point where depth might have
injured transparency.”
[48] “The Athenian Oracle, being an entire collection of all the valuable
Questions and Answers in the old Athenian Mercurys, intermixed with many
cases in Divinity, History, Philosophy, Mathematics, Love, and Poetry,
and never before Published,” etc. 4 vols. Printed for Andrew Bell, at the
Cross Keys.
“Athenian Sport; or, Two Thousand Paradoxes Merrily Argued, by a Member
of the Athenian Society.”
“Memoirs for the Ingenious; containing several Curious Observations in
Philosophy, Mathematics, Physic, Philology, and other Arts and Sciences,
in Miscellaneous Letters.” Printed for H. Rhodes, and for J. Harris, at
the Arrow, in the Poultry.
[49] “Another Collection of Philosophical Conferences of the French
Virtuosi, upon Questions of all sorts for the Improving of Natural
Knowledge, made in the Assembly of the Beaux Esprit of Paris, by the most
ingenious persons of that nation, rendered into English.” Sold at the
George, in Fleet Street, and the Mitre, Middle Temple, 1665.
[50] Rogers’ “Life of Howe,” p. 476.
[51] The matter, we suppose, is long since set at rest; it may be very
distinctly set at rest by a study of Watts’ works, discussing the great
question of the Trinity. “Watts not a Socinian,” by the Rev. S. Palmer,
puts the matter in a popular and concise form; but when his monument was
erected in Southampton, a lecture was delivered and published on “His
Life, Character, and Religious Opinions,” by the Rev. Edmund Kell, M.A.,
F.S.A., the late Unitarian minister of Southampton, in which the old
exploded dishonest statements were all reiterated.
[52] This is illustrated and manifest by the writings of Waterland, which
are almost contemporary with the discussions of Watts.
[53] J. R. Lowell.
[54] This matter has been well argued against the Atheistic view, in a
very interesting little pamphlet, “Croll on the Conservation of Force.”
[55] Psalm lxxvi. 5, 10.
[56] “These expressions may be sufficiently justified if we consider
Jephthah’s rash vow of sacrifice, which fell upon his only child; and
Samson’s rude or unbecoming conduct in his amours with the Philistine
woman at Timnath, the harlot at Gaza, and his Delilah at Sorek; his
bloody quarrels and his manner of life. The learned and pious Dr. Owen,
as I have been often informed by his intimate friend, Sir John Hartopp,
called him a rude believer. He might have strong faith of miracles, but a
small share of that faith which purifies the heart.”
TABLE OF COINCIDENTS.
_Mention has been made in p. 14 of a curious Autobiographical Table
prepared by Dr. Watts of the chief incidents in his life, together with
contemporaneous events of public interest. We give a fac-simile of the
first page, and the contents of the remainder._
[Illustration]
COINCIDENTS. MEMORANDA.
1693: July 13: Grandmo. I was admitted to Mr. T. Rows
Watts dyed Church. Dec. 1693
I went into yᵉ Country June. 1694
Dwelt at my father’s house
2 years & ¼.
Came to Sʳ John Hartopp’s to
be a Tutor to his Son at
Newington Oct. 15. 1696
1697. Jun. 11: Grandfa.
Tanton dyed
12 Cousin Isaac Began to preach, after I had
Watts dyed pursued University Studys
above 8 years. July. 17. 1698
1697 Peace at Reswic Went to Southampton and
concluded preached there severall times
in a visit to my friends. Augᵗ: 1698.
1698/9 Cousin John Preacht as Dr. Chanceys
Chapmā of Portsm dyed Assistant in yᵉ Church at
Mark Lane, & a little after
that my fever and weakness
began. Feb. 1698/9
1699/1700 Feb: Mʳ Wᵐ Adams Paid another Visit to Southampton
dyed of 5 weeks. July 1699
1700. March 30. Grandmo. Another. June 1700
Tanton [died.]
May 22. Mʳ John Pook Went to yᵉ Bath by yᵉ advice
of Physicians. June. 9. 1701.
Novʳ: 11: Mʳ Tho.
Gunston
From yᵉ Bath to Southampton July. 1701
Thence to Tunbridge. Sept 3 1701.
returned to Newington Nov. 3:
& to preaching at Mark Lane. Nov: 1701
So yᵗ I was detained from Study & preaching
5 o/m by my Weakness. Except one very
short discourse at Southto. in extreme
necessity.
Dr. Chancy having left his people,
Aprill 1701. & I being returned to
preach among ’em, they Call’d me to
yᵉ Pastorall office. Jan. 15. 1701/2
1702 March 8th, Morning: Accepted it March 8⸺
King Wᵐ dyed & was ordained March 18. 1701/2
Visited my friends at Southampton July. 1702.
Seizd wᵗʰ violent Jaundice from Septʳ 8 or
& Cholic 3 weeks after my thereabout to
return to London & had a Novʳ 27 or 8
very slow recovery—8 or 9
weeks Illness
This year (viz) 1702 by Slow degrees
removed from Newington to Mʳ Tho:
Hollis’s in the Minories. 1702
Mrs. Owen Dr Owen’s June—Mʳ Samˡˡ Price was chosen by yᵉ
Widow dyed Janʸ. 18: Church to assist me in preaching 1703
1703/4
Augᵗ I went to Tunbridge and stayd there 7
weeks with scarce any benefitt, for the
waters thro some defect of my stomach
did not digest well.
1703 Novʳ 26 Friday night Decʳ: after having intermitted in a great
and Saturday morning, measure a method of study and pursuit of
the Great and Dreadfull Learning, 4 years, by reasō of my great
Storm indispositions of body and weakness of head
(excepᵗ w: was of absolute necessity for my
Constant preaching) & being not satisfyd to
live so any longer, after due consideratiō
& prayer, I took a boy to read to me &
write for me, whereby my studies are much
assisted. Decʳ 1703
Visited my friends at Southto. May 1704
Augᵗ: 31. 1704 Bro: Remov’d our Meeting place to pinners
Richard marryd hall and began expositions of
Scripture. June 1704
Br. Joseph Brandley my Visited Southton July 1705
first servᵗ went away
Decʳ 1704: & Edwd.
Hitchin came
Published my Poems Decʳ 1705
Augᵗ 1705 Mʳ Tho: Rowe
my Tutor dyed
Mʳ Benoni Rowe my Went to Southton May. 18ᵗʰ 1706 returned
intimate friend dyed agⁿ wᵗʰ but small recruit of health.
Apˡˡ: 1706 July 5ᵗʰ
Bro: Thomas marry’d,
May 9ᵗʰ: 1706
went to Tunbridge Augᵗ 8ᵗʰ: Returned much
stronger Augᵗ 30.
Publisht essay against
Uncharitableness Apˡˡ 1707.
Went to Southton July, returned July Went
to Tunbridg: Augᵗ: returned Sepᵗ 3ᵈ
Union of E & Scot: May All this Year my health has been encouraging
1ˢᵗ 1707
This year yᵉ French Publisht my Hymns & Spˡˡ Songs July 1707
prophetts made a great Overturned in a coach without hurt. Oct. 5.
noise in our nation, 1707
and drew in Mʳ Lacy, Preached a reformation Sermō: Oct. 6. 1707,
Sir R. Bulckley &c. 200 and printed it
or more had
yᵉ agitations, 40 had yᵉ
inspiration—Provd a
delusion of Satan at
Birminghā Feb 3 or 4ᵗʰ
1707/8
Sister Sarah marryed. Went to Southtoⁿ—and afterward to Tunbr:
Feb: 1707/8 Augᵗ 1708
Pretender’s invasion Removed our Meeting place to Bury Street
disappointed. March: Sepʳ 29: 1708.
1708
May 25 1708 The Prophetts Printed 2ᵈ Edition of Hymns & 2ᵈ ed: of
disappointed by Mʳ Eams Poems: Apˡˡ & May 1709.
not rising frō the Dead
Terrible long snowy winter
1708/9
Bro R: came to settle in Went to Southton: June: Tunbridg. Augᵗ 1709
Londō: Oct 7 1709
Mar: 1 1709/10 yᵉ Mob rose Edwᵈ Hitchen my Servᵗ went away Decʳ: 31.
& pulled down yᵉ pews I bought a horse for my health Apˡˡ: 1710
and gallerys of 6 I rode down to Southton, & back agⁿ June &
meeting houses (viz) according to yᵉ accoᵗᵗ: I kept I rode above
Mʳ Burgess, Mʳ Bradbury, 800 mile frō Apˡˡ 13ᵗʰ to Sepʳ 28ᵗʰ
Mʳ Earle, Mʳ Wright, Mʳ I removed from Mʳ. Hollis’s & went to live
Hamilton, & Mʳ Chr: wᵗʰ Mʳ Bowes att Dec. 30ᵗʰ & John Merchant
Taylor but were my Servᵗ: came to me
dispersed by yᵉ Guards Went to Southton June, returned July
under Capt: Horsey at 1
or 2 in yᵉ morning.
Mʳ Arthur Shallot senʳ Went to Tunbridge Augᵗ: returned 7 Sepʳ
dyed: 4ᵗʰ Feb 1710/11 being under a disorder of my stomach,
and Mʳ Tho: Hunt and freqᵗ pains of yᵉ head. Found some
merchant & his wife relief at Tunbr: waters.
dyed about yᵉ same time.
Mʳˢ Ann Pickford dyed
Apˡˡ: 7ᵗʰ 1711.
My Lady Hartopp dyed
Novʳ: 9ᵗʰ: & Mʳˢ
Gould, Novʳ 15ᵗʰ 1711.
[Illustration]
INDEX.
Abney House, old, 223
Sir Thomas, 76
Academy at Gloucester, the, 25
at Stoke Newington, 15
Acrostic, an, 7
Anecdotes—Blind woman and Watts’ hymns, the, 134;
Bradbury and Burnet, 191;
Bradbury and Dr. Watts, 193;
death of an aged minister, 113;
Derby (Earl) and the blind woman, 134;
dying Webster, the, 134;
giant and pigmy, 248;
of Luther, 97;
sceptic defeated, the, 146;
stonemason’s dream, the, 5;
text for Queen Anne, a, 202;
“That the great Dr. Watts?” 247;
Watts’ (W)_hims_, 193;
“What think you of death?” 269;
Whitefield and Watts, 261
Anne’s reign, close of Queen, 209
Arianism of Watts’ day, the, 311
Artificial poetry, 58
Atonement, the poet of the, 108
Atterbury, Bishop, 210
Augustine, St., on the songs of the Church, 97
Barbauld, Mrs., _quo._, 186
Barrington, Lord, 144
letter to Watts, 147
Baxter on sacred hymns, 100
Bendish, Mrs., 136
Birth and childhood of Watts, 1
Blair’s “Grave,” 215
Bookmen, the age of great, 339
Bradbury, Thomas, 189, 190;
and Bishop Burnet, 191;
and Dr. Watts, 192;
characteristics, 202;
Defoe’s reproof to, 189;
political preacher, 190
Bunhill Fields, its associations, 265
Bunting, W. M., _quo._, 223
Carey’s tombstone, inscription, 134
Carter, Mrs. Elizabeth, 180
Caryl’s “Book of Job,” 46
Catechism, Watts’, 141
Cedar tree and the scythe, the, 37
Character of Watts, 248
Chauncy, Dr. Isaac, 48
Christ, Psalms restored to, 129
Classical sentiment, translation, 71
Coincidents, table of (_see_ Appendix)
Collins, Antony, and Lord Barrington, 146
Comet, lines on a, 12
Conder, Josiah, _quo._, 100
Controversy between Watts and Bradbury, 194-201
Countess of Hertford and Mrs. Rowe, 172;
and the Rise and Progress of Religion, 167
Coward, William, 142
Critics, hostile, 111
Cromwell, Richard, 80
Crucial events, 14
Daughters, a group of, 36
Death, 259
Defoe in the pillory, 208;
quoted, 15
Derby, Earl, and the blind woman, 134
Devotion the attribute of Watts’ hymns, 113
Dissenters, Shortest way with, 78
Doddridge, Dr. Philip, 151
Dying, 262
Elegy, a lovely, 36
England in the times of the last Stuarts, 12
England’s history, happiest period of, 206
English hymnology, 99
Epigram, an, 174, 255
Erskine, Ralph, and Watts’ hymns, 122
Expression, fervour of, 65
Faith, expressions of personal, 117
Family, in the Hartopp, 32
last of the Hartopp, 38
Father, imprisonment of Watts’, 1
Fleetwood, General, 35
Foster, John, _quo._, 215
Friend, letter to an afflicted, 53
Friends, Watts’, 136
Fuller, Thomas, on death, 260
Gale, Theophilus, 16
Gardiner, Colonel, 166
Gibbons, Dr., _quo._, 53, 54, 89, 256, 260, 261
Girdlers’ Hall church, 22
Gloucester academy, the, 25
Glover’s “Leonidas,” 175
Grandfather and grandmother of Watts, 4
Gunston, Thomas, 220
Harris, Robert, _quo._, 257
Hart, Josiah, 20
Hartopp, Sir John, 33;
daughters of, 36
Hartopps, last of the, 38
Hertford, Countess of, 172;
friendship with Watts, 174;
letters, character of, 173;
letters to Watts, 167, 174, 176, 179, 181, 182;
modesty, 182;
poetry, 177, 184
Hervey, James, 148;
letter to Watts, 150
Hollis family, the, 51
“Horæ Lyricæ,” 57
House in French Street, the old, 11;
old Abney, 223;
Stoke Newington, 32;
Theobalds, 79
Hughes, John, 20
Hymns, Apostolic, 90
Hymn, Augustine’s definition of a, 92;
origin of Watts’ first, 30;
? what is a, 93
Hymnology, Christian, 91;
English, 99
Industry, mental, 50;
of Watts, 249
Johnson, Dr., _quo._, 17, 18, 75, 96, 313
Jones, Rev. Samuel, 25
Jennings, Dr., _quo._, 272
Keble’s “Christian Year,” 89;
criticism of Watts’ poetry, 103
Ken, Bishop, and Watts contrasted, 59
Kennedy, Dr., _quo._, 111
Kentish petition, the, 207
Knox, A., criticism on Watts, 102
Latin, thinking in, 105
Letters—Countess of Hertford to Watts, 167, 174, 176, 179, 181, 182;
Doddridge to Watts, 164;
Doddridge’s dedicatory, 155;
Hervey to Watts, 150;
Jewel to Peter Martyr, 99;
Lord Barrington to Watts, 147;
of Enoch Watts, 84;
Secker to Watts, 25;
to Amsterdam, 160;
to an afflicted friend, 53;
to Bradbury, 195, 197;
to Doddridge, 153:
to Samuel Say, 141;
to Thomas Rosewell, 139;
Watts to his father, 6
Liddon, Canon, _quo._, 90
Lispings in numbers, 7
Logan and Doddridge, 162
London in Watts’ day, 42
Luther’s songs, 97
Macaulay, Lord, _quo._, 211
Mansion, an old family, 32
Mark Lane chapel, 54;
the church in, 46
Marot, Clement, 98
Martineau, James, _quo._, 106
“Media Vita,” the, 95
Messianic version of the Psalms, 126
Mind of Watts, seraphic, 308
Minories, the, 51
Modesty of Watts, 132
Montgomery’s estimate of Watts’ hymns, 88
Monument to Watts, 271
Morton, Rev. Charles, 16
Motto, a, 203
Mystic, Watts a, 109
Nature, Watts’ love of, 63
Nights, sleepless, 83
Nonconformist, a political, 190
service, early, 43
Nonconformists of old London, 45
Papacy, Watts’ antipathy to, 211
Parentage of Watts, 3
Parker, Mr., _quo_., 264, 265
Pastor, a youthful, 49
Pastor of a London church, 40
Persecution, the child of, 2
Personal appearance of Watts, 233
Personification, a definition of, 60
Personifications, a constellation of, 61
Perspicuity of Watts, 329
Philosophical works of Watts, 315
Physical theory of another life, 233
Pinhorne, Rev. John, 8
Poetry of Watts’ time, 58
Poets, imperfections of, 105
Polhill, David, 207
Pope, a criticism on, 175
Portrait of Watts, a, 224
Prayer, a beautiful, 309
Preacher, Watts as a, 40
Precocity, 7
Price, Samuel, 54
Prose writings, Estimate and summary, 273
Psalmless churches, 101
Psalms, Watts’, 126
Pupil, Watts’, 38
Puritan reminiscence, 43
“Quarterly Review,” _quo_., 59
Relic, an interesting, 270
Resignation in sorrow, 173
Watts’, 260
Rise and Progress of Religion, etc., 155, 162
Rogers, Henry, _quo_., 306
Rogers, Samuel, “Human Life,” characterized, 67
Rosewell, Samuel, death of, 138
letter to, 139
Rowe, Mrs., 173, 187
and Dr. Watts, 185
Rowe, Thomas, 17, 24
Sacheverell mob, doings of the, 209
Saltzburgers, the, 213
Say, Samuel, 21, 140
Schism Bill, the, 209
Scott, Dr. Daniel, 26
Selborne, Lord, _quo._, 122
Secker, Archbishop, 25
Sermons, branching, 306;
satirized by Watts, 306
Shimei Bradbury, 189
Shower, John, 138
Singing controversy, the, 101
Southampton gaol, 2;
of Watts’ day, 9;
plague at, 11
Southey, Dr., _quo._, 165
Spirit, a meek and quiet, 199
Stoke Newington, 218;
side of life, 67;
the old house at, 32
Storm of 1703, the great, 208
Students, Watts’ fellow, 19
Study, methods of, 18;
Watts’, 82
Suburb, an old London, 55
Theobalds, the old house at, 79
Theological works of Watts, 313
Theology, nature of Watts’, 109
Thomson _quo._, 172
Times of Watts, 206
Tunbridge Wells, 250
Tutor, Watts as a, 37
Unitarians and Watts, the, 106, 313
Verse, a perfect, 104
Verse, the accident of Watts’ life, 73
Verses, satiric, 69
Waller _quo._, 176
Walsh and Fletcher, death of, 259
Watchwords and Creeds, 115
Well, Watts’, 257
Wesley, Charles, and Watts contrasted, 124
“Wesleyan Magazine” _quo._, 107
Wesleys’ Obligations to Watts, the, 123
Words, dying, 262
“World to Come” criticised, 226
Young, Dr., 216;
_quo._, 186
Zodiac, signs of the, 72.
LONDON: PARDON AND SON, PRINTERS, PATERNOSTER ROW.
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