French, for which he has a great contempt, as unfitted for lyrical composition. He inquired of me respecting Burns, to whom he had been likened; and begged me to tell him something of Moore. The delight of himself and his wife was amusing, at having discovered a secret which had puzzled them so long. "He had a thousand things to tell me; in particular, that he had only the day before received a letter from the Duchess of Orleans, informing him that she had ordered a medal of her late husband to be struck, the first of which would be sent to him: she also announced to him the agreeable news of the king having granted him a pension of a thousand francs. He smiled and wept by turns, as he told all this; and declared, much as he was elated at the possession of a sum which made him a rich man for life, the kindness of the duchess gratified him even more. "He then made us sit down while he read us two new poems; both charming, and full of grace and naïveté; and one very affecting, being an address to the king, alluding to the death of his son. As he read, his wife stood by, and fearing we did not quite comprehend his language, she made a remark to that effect: to which he answered impatiently, 'Nonsense,-don't you see they are in tears.' This was unanswerable; and we were allowed to hear the poem to the end; and I certainly never listened to anything more feelingly and energetically delivered. "We had much conversation, for he was anxious to detain us, and, in the course of it, he told me that he had been by some accused of vanity. 'Oh!' he rejoined, ‘what would you have? I am a child of nature, and cannot conceal my feelings; the only difference between me and a man of refinement is, that he knows how to conceal his vanity and exultation at success, which I let everybody see.'"] LIFE AND GENIUS OF DR. WATTS. BY THE REV. JOEL PARKER, D.D. and THERE is a natural alliance between genius | and infancy. Simplicity is a leading characteristic of both. The sublimest poets advert to their recollections of childhood with a pleasing interest. Men like Moore and Byron go back to those "sunny hours," because they furnish to their minds the only just conceptions of purity and innocence. Their later experience would, probably, lead them to deny the existence of such qualities. Yet childhood is, to society at large, what the mission of the infant prophet was to the house of Eli, a mission of reproof. But, men love not to be rebuked, and hence, happily, none but such as have retained the simplicity and virtue of "life's young dawn," care to spend their hours amid the charms of the nursery. Wordsworth deemed it good to be there because his philosophic and gentle spirit was akin to infancy. Maria Edgeworth loved to converse with children, because she saw all noble qualities closely folded in their germs in infant minds, and waiting for some genial influence to develope them. Dr. Watts discovered all these more. He saw that sentiments of virtue and piety were most easily infused in the very dawn of intelligence. He perceived that poetry was the most natural vehicle for introducing such sentiments, and the most efficient means of keeping the thoughts that nourish them ever green in the memory. He possessed an affinity with childhood, because he was childlike in his character; and children have a conscious affinity with him, because all children possess poetic qualities. The child who discovered that the stars were gimlet-holes bored through the solid sky, and made on purpose that streams of glory might be let down from heaven to earth, was prepared to sympathize with a poet like Watts. The little girl of four years old, who recollected distinctly an event that had occurred six years before, and who modestly combated her mother's declaration that she could not remember what had taken place previous to her birth, evinced true poetic genius, when raising her tiny hands and clasping her little neck, she exclaimed with the ardour of an undoubting faith in the visions of her own glowing imagination, "You forget, dear mother, you forget; I know I was not born, but God had made my head, just as far down as to here, and I peeped out of that cloud and saw it. You did not see me, but I saw you, and I remember it well." Not inferior to either of these was the confidential disclosure of a young lad to his playmates that he had discovered the use of those fleecy clouds piled up by the horizon, at nightfall, and overhung with red and blue curtains. They were couches on which the angels sleep. He had seen one who had become weary and gone to bed at an unusually early hour. He saw him at the going down of the sun stretched out in gigantic dimensions, with a bright face, having one foot and leg sheathed in a crimson stocking, the other bare, and an orange-coloured satin counterpane drawn over his shoulders. If these are extraordinary instances, still children generally are full of faith, and gifted with warm imaginings. A poet like Watts turns their own thoughts into verse, and no small portion of his power consists in doing for them what every teacher that is most skilful does for his pupils, when he makes them feel that what he has accomplished, was the expressing of their views better than they could have done it themselves. Doctor Watts was a great man. True, he did not place himself at the head of any one department of science or literature. Yet, he was highly distinguished in more respects, perhaps, than any man of the age in which he lived. He was a general scholar; a skilful logician, a profound divine, an acute metaphysician, a sublime poet, and a charitable and devout Christian. There is not a more attractive grace in human nature than condescension, and one knows not where to find a more beautiful instance of it than in him who composed a Logic for the Universities, combated the philosophy of John Locke, framed a catechism for children in their fourth year, and wrote "Divine and Moral Songs" for the nursery. It may be justly doubted whether the world's history furnishes a parallel, except it be in Him who claimed the heavenly hierarchies as his servants, and took little children in his arms, and laid his hands upon them, and blessed them. Isaac Watts was born in 1674 at Southampton. His father was a schoolmaster. He suffered persecution for his dissenting opinions, and tradition says that "the youthful and sorrowing mother has been known to seat herself on the steps of her husband's prisonhouse, suckling this child of promise — this child cradled in meekness amid controversial storms." He was a very precocious child, as is seen in the fact that he commenced the | tion for his subsequent eminence. During this study of Latin at the early age of four years. He was a great lover of books, and was wont, when any of his friends had given him a penny, to cry, "A book, a book," and never to rest till he held in hand the only commodity for which he thought money well expended. His precociousness, instead of being regarded as an intimation, as a wiser philosophy teaches us it should have been, that mental development should be cautiously repressed, was looked on only as an encouragement to stimulate to the utmost his already over-active brain. The pale and expressive features and manly actions of a delicate boy like him, could not but awaken a deep interest in his education. He was first entrusted to the care of a worthy clergyman of the established church, the Rev. John Pinhorne, master of the free grammar school at Southampton; of whose able attention to his improvement the Doctor bears honourable testimony in a Latin ode inscribed to him. It was written at the age of twenty, and published among his lyric poems. While he was yet a lad, his sprightliness and wit and extraordinary attainments in learning, attracted the attention of neighbouring gentlemen. Dr. Speed, a physician of Southampton, proposed a subscription for his education at one of the universities, but his sympathy with the suffering non-conformists would not allow him to avail himself of the generous offer. "I am resolved," said he, "to take my lot with the Dissenters." In the year 1690, at the age of sixteen, he was sent to London for academical education, under the Rev. Thomas Rowe, to whom also he has inscribed an ode among his Lyric Poems. His conduct while at the academy was inoffensive, not only, but also such as to be continually presented by his tutor as a model for others. Having spent four years at this institution, he returned home, and for two years prosecuted that course of study which was deemed necessary for the sacred office. It was during this time that a circumstance occurred which led to the composition of his sacred lyrics. He attended worship in the same church with his father. Complaining one day of the untasteful character of the compositions employed in sacred praise, his father, knowing his poetical turn, suggested that he should try if he could do better. He did so. Thus, one after another, a considerable portion of his hymns were produced during these two years, though they were not published till some time after. From his father's house he went to reside in the family of Sir John Hartopp, at Stoke Newington, to superintend the education of his son. Here he spent five years very agreeably and usefully, and by a revision of his elementary studies and extensive reading, laid the founda period he studied extensively the Scriptures in the original tongues, and on the day which completed the twenty-fourth year of his age, he was chosen assistant to Dr. Isaac Chauncey, pastor of the Dissenting Church in Berry Street, London. Upon Dr. Chauncey's resignation in January, 1702, Mr. Watts was called to succeed him in the same church, of which the famous Dr. John Owen had formerly been pastor. After much delay and modest diffidence, he at length accepted the call on the 8th of the March following, the very day on which King William died,- -a day regarded as very alarming to the dissenting interest. In 1707 his Hymns were first published, and the copyright sold for only ten pounds. Their sale, if they could have been retained, and the copyright perpetuated, would probably have yielded more than twenty times that amount per annum. The copyright for Milton's "Paradise Lost" was sold for fifteen pounds. It would afford an interesting view of the benefactions of genius to the world, if we could estimate the amount of what is deemed a copyright compensation of all the copies of their works sold. A small copyright tax paid on each copy of Homer, of Virgil, of Paradise Lost, of the Pilgrim's Progress, and Watts' Psalms and Hymns, would exhibit an immense accumulation. Yet these writers gave their works to the world, to be used at the bare expense of manufacturing the books, and many of them will thus be given for thousands of years. In 1712, Mr. Watts was seized with a most alarming illness. This sickness so prostrated his nervous system that he never entirely recovered from its effects. Yet it was the means of one of the most fortunate occurrences of his life. It was the means of introducing him to the acquaintance of Sir Thomas Abney, Knight and Alderman, and, at that time, Lord Mayor of London. In this refined and opulent family, at Newington, he spent the remainder of his days, enjoying every comfort which the most abundant wealth and liberal munificence and kind affections could supply. Here, for thirty-six years, his mature powers produced and sent forth the greater portion of those works with which Dr. Watts blessed his own and subsequent times. He went thither at the invitation of Sir Thomas, to make a brief visit. The time of his stay was insensibly prolonged, till the congeniality subsisting between the Doctor and this excellent man bound him to the spot, and rendered him ever after the "genius loci" of Abney Park.* "Sir Thomas Abney was knighted by King William III. and served in the office of Lord Mayor in 1700. He was bred up in dissenting principles, and it is related of him The place is replete with interesting associations, besides its being the shrine of "The sweet Psalmist" of England, we had almost said of Christendom; for Watts is little less conspicuous as a composer of songs of praise for the modern gentile Church, than David had been in the Jewish. The gifted Daniel De Foe had once occupied a house in the village. Here, also, had resided John Howard, who acquired by his compassionate endeavours to illumine dungeons by the spirit and beneficence of the gospel, the honoured name of "The Philanthropist." And here, also, but a few years ago, dwelt Dr. Aiken, with his sister, "the gentle, child-loving Mrs. Barbauld." A surface, encompassed with a balustrade. "The heavens declare thy glory, Lord; The gate by which you went in and out, was richly embellished with carvings of fruits and flowers. The interior was mostly finished with rich oak panelings. The hall and staircase were ample, and the rooms, by their magnitude and height, possessed a stately magnificence. One apartment on the first floor was peculiarly beautiful. It was denominated "The Painted Room." Its panels were filled with landscapes and figures. It must have been gorgeous in its effect; but the general character of the whole building was that of "unostentatious solidity and wealthy plainness." On the right as you entered the hall, was the library, where the logician and poet thought and wrote; where his mind passed back and forth from earth to heaven, from contemplating the glories of the Godhead, to a survey of the wants and the attractions of infant minds. Here he often rehearsed his songs of praise. One would like to stand in the same room, and listen to one's own voice, and to fancy that he heard mingling with it the reverberations of the mellifluous tones of the poet dying out in a continually weakening | celebrated Mr. Whitfield, and had ventured to whisper, but still all the holier because remote chide gently the over-action which is almost sure to mar, in some degree, a character of such generous and warm impulses. Here also he met the Lady Huntington, who desired to greet with a holy urbanity all that possessed talents thus consecrated to the cause of true piety. After the usual salutations, the Doctor thus accosted her: "Madam, your ladyship has come to see me on a very remarkable day. This day thirty years ago I came hither to the house of my good friend Sir Thomas Abney, intending to spend but one single week under his friendly roof, and I have extended my visit to the length of exactly thirty years." Lady Abney, who was present, replied: "Sir, what you term a long thirty years' visit, I consider as the shortest visit my family ever received." "A coalition like this," says Dr. Johnson, "a state in which the notions of patronage and dependence were overpowered by the perception of reciprocal benefits, deserves a particular memorial." Abney House has been removed, but the grove of cedars and yews under whose shade the poet loved to linger, and the mound from which he used to survey the park and its green environments before the city had encroached on them, as at present, still exist. They have in time from the salient point of their original been preserved with jealous care, and while impulse. dilapidated walls and decaying marble tell of In this room he had conversed with the perishing humanity, the living branches of |