TH WATTS. 1 HE Poems of Dr. Watts were by my recommendation inserted in the late Collection; ', the readers of which are to impute to me whatever pleasure or weariness they may find in the perusal of Blackmore, Watts, Pomfret, and Yalden. Isaac Watts was born July 17, 1674, at Southampton, where his father, of the same name, kept a boarding-school for young gentlemen, though common report makes him a shoemaker. He appears, from the narrative of Dr. Gibbons,3 to have been neither indigent nor illiterate. 2 Isaac, the eldest of nine children, was given to books from his infancy; and began, we are told, to learn Latin when he was four years old, I suppose, at home. He was afterwards taught Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, by Mr. Pinhorne, a clergyman, master of the Freeschool at Southampton, to whom the gratitude of his scholar afterwards inscribed a Latin ode. His proficiency at school was so conspicuous, that a subscription was proposed for his support at the University; 1 Johnson, in writing to beg for details of Watts's life, says: "I wish to distinguish Watts, a man who never wrote but for a good purpose." See Letter to Mr. W. Sharp, Boswell's Johnson, vol. iii. p. 159. 2 Mr. P. Cunningham states that this is a mistake. 3 Dr. Gibbons, 1720-1785. In 1743 he was "called " to the pastoral charge of the Independent congregation at Haberdasher Hall, and continued it till his death. He wrote a life of Isaac Watts (1780), and assisted Johnson with materials for his life of Watts. Boswell's Johnson, vol. iv. p. 76 note. but he declared his resolution to take his lot with the Dissenters.1 Such he was as every Christian Church would rejoice to have adopted. He therefore repaired in 1690 to an academy taught by Mr. Rowe, where he had for his companions and fellowstudents Mr. Hughes the poet, and Dr. Horte, afterwards Archbishop of Tuam. Some Latin Essays, supposed to have been written as exercises at this academy, shew a degree of knowledge, both philosophical and theological, such as very few attain by a much longer course of study. He was, as he hints in his Miscellanies, a maker of verses from fifteen to fifty, and in his youth he appears to have paid attention to Latin poetry. His verses to his brother, in the glyconick2 measure, written when he was seventeen, are remarkably easy and elegant. Some of his other odes are deformed by the Pindarick folly then prevailing, and are written with such neglect of all metrical rules as is without example among the ancients; but his diction, though perhaps not always exactly pure, has such copiousness and splendour, as shews that he was but at a very little distance from excellence. His method of study was to impress the contents of his books upon his memory by abridging them, and by interleaving them to amplify one system with supplements from another. With the congregation of his tutor Mr. Rowe, who were, I believe, Independents, he communicated in his nineteenth year. 1 His father was a Nonconformist, and in the reign of Charles II. was imprisoned for nonconformity, and on his release was, as his son records, "forced to leave his family, and live privately in London for two years." Milner, Life of Watts, 8vo, 1834, p. 60. 2 Glyconic, a kind of verse so called from its inventor Glycon. It consisted of three feet, a spondee, a pyrrhic, and a choriamb. At the age of twenty he left the academy, and spent two years in study and devotion at the house of his father, who treated him with great tenderness; and had the happiness, indulged to few parents, of living to see his son eminent for literature and venerable for piety.' He was then entertained by Sir John Hartopp five years, as domestick tutor to his son; and in that time particularly devoted himself to the study of the Holy Scriptures; and being chosen assistant to Dr. Chauncey, preached the first time on the birth-day that compleated his twentyfourth year; probably considering that as the day of a second nativity, by which he entered on a new period of existence. In about three years he succeeded Dr. Chauncey; but, soon after his entrance on his charge, he was seized by a dangerous illness, which sunk him to such weakness, that the congregation thought an assistant necessary, and appointed Mr. Price. His health then returned gradually, and he performed his duty, till (1712) he was seized by a fever of such violence and continuance, that, from the feebleness which it brought upon him, he never perfectly recovered. 3 This calamitous state made the compassion of his friends necessary, and drew upon him the attention of Sir Thomas Abney, who received him into his house; where, with a constancy of friendship and uniformity of conduct not often to be found, he was treated for thirty-six years with all the kindness that friendship could prompt, and all the attention that respect could dictate. Sir Thomas died 1 His father died Feb. 10, 1736-7. 2 Samuel Price, died 1756, and buried in Bunhill Fields, where on his grave is recorded, at his own request, that he was assistant and copartner to the truly Reverend Dr. Watts for forty-five years.-P. CUN NINGHAM. 3 Sir Thomas Abney (1639-1722), Lord Mayor in 1700. He had a principal share in founding the Bank of England. |