ward view, have feebly, it may be painfully, dragged through many more years of languor, and inability for lick service, and even for profitable study, or, perhaps, hght have sunk into his grave under the overwhelming ird of infirmities in the midst of his days; and thus the Harch and world would have been deprived of those many cellent sermons and works, which he drew up and pubhed during his long residence in this family. In a few ars after his coming hither, sir Thomas Abney dies; but samiable consort survives, who shows the doctor the me respect and friendship as before, and most happily r him and great numbers besides; for, as her riches ere great, her generosity and munificence were in full roportion; her thread of life was drawn out to a great ge, even beyond that of the doctor's; and thus this exellent man, through her kindness, and that of her daughter, he present Mrs. Elizabeth Abney, who in a like degree esteemed and honoured him, enjoyed all the benefits and felicities he experienced at his first entrance into this family, till his days were numbered and finished; and, like a shock of corn in its season, he ascended into the regions of perfect and immortal life and joy."

If this quotation has appeared long, let it be considered that it comprises an account of six-and-thirty years, and those the years of Dr. Watts.

From the time of his reception into this family, his life was no otherwise diversified than by successive publications. The series of his works I am not able to deduce; their number and their variety show the intenseness of his industry, and the extent of his capacity.

He was one of the first authors that taught the dissenters to court attention by the graces of language. Whatever they had among them before, whether of learning or acuteness, was commonly obscured and blunted by coarseness, and inelegance of style. He showed them, that zeal and purity might be expressed and enforced by polished diction.

He continued to the end of his life the teacher of a

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By je natural ember le is quick resentment. by gia mutablished and Jahual tractice. Le vas modest, and nodenste. His tenderness inpeared 1 attention to children and to the poor. To se tour. T. he lived in the family of ais friend, ie owen se r part of his annual revenue, though the "vie was r hundred a year; and for children de condescendet e acide the scholar, the philosopher, and the L D little poems of devotion, and systems of instruction, a ed to their wants and capacities, from the dawn of through its gradations of advance in the morning fe Every man acquainted with the common principles of w man action, will look with veneration on the writer, who s at one time combating Locke, and at another making 1

techism for children in their fourth year. A voluntary >scent from the dignity of science is, perhaps, the hardest sson that humility can teach.

As his mind was capacious, his curiosity excursive, and is industry continual, his writings are very numerous, and is subjects various. With his theological works I am only nough acquainted to admire his meekness of opposition, nd his mildness of censure. It was not only in his book, ut in his mind, that orthodoxy was united with charity.

Of his philosophical pieces, his Logick has been received into the universities, and, therefore, wants no private recommendation; if he owes part of it to Le Clerc, it must De considered that no man, who undertakes merely to methodise or illustrate a system, pretends to be its author.

In his metaphysical disquisitions, it was observed by the late learned Mr. Dyer, that he confounded the idea of space with that of empty space, and did not consider, that though space might be without matter, yet matter, being extended, could not be without space.

Few books have been perused by me with greater pleasure than his Improvement of the Mind, of which the radical principles may, indeed, be found in Locke's Conduct of the Understanding; but they are so expanded and ramified by Watts, as to confer upon him the merit of a work, in the highest degree, useful and pleasing. Whoever has the care of instructing others, may be charged with deficience in his duty if this book is not recommended.

I have mentioned his treatises of theology as distinct from his other productions; but the truth is, that whatever he took in hand was, by his incessant solicitude for souls, converted to theology. As piety predominated in his mind, it is diffused over his works: under his direction it may be truly said, "theologiæ philosophia ancillatur," philosophy is subservient to evangelical instruction: it is difficult to read a page without learning, or at least wishing, to be better. The attention is caught by indirect instruction, and he that sat down only to reason is, on a sudden, compelled to pray. It was, therefore, with great propriety that, in 1728, he

VOL. VIII.

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received from Edinburgh and Aberdeen an unsolici diploma, by which he became a doctor of divinity. A demical honours would have more value, if they wer always bestowed with equal judgment.

He continued many years to study and to preach, an to do good by his instruction and example: till at last the infirmities of age disabled him from the more laboris part of his ministerial functions, and, being no longer ca Ele of publick duty, he offered to remit the salary appet dant to it; but his congregation would not accept the t

signation.

By degrees his weakness increased, and at last confine him to his chamber and his bed; where he was worn dually away without pain, till he expired, Nov. 25, 14 in the seventy-fifth year of his age.

Few men have left behind such purity of character, such monuments of laborious piety. He has providedstruction for all ages, from those who are lisping their i lessons, to the enlightened readers of Malbranche Locke; he has left neither corporeal nor spiritual nat unexamined; he has taught the art of reasoning, and t

science of the stars.

His character, therefore, must be formed from the mu tiplicity and diversity of his attainments, rather than fren any single performance; for it would not be safe to clai for him the highest rank in any single denomination literary dignity; yet, perhaps, there was nothing in whic he would not have excelled, if he had not divided b powers to different pursuits.

As a poet, had he been only a poet, he would probab have stood high among the authors with whom he is no associated. For his judgment was exact, and he note beauties and faults with very nice discernment; his imag nation, as the Dacian Battle proves, was vigorous and a tive, and the stores of knowledge were large by which is fancy was to be supplied. His ear was well-tuned, and his diction was elegant and copious. But his devotional poetry is, like that of others, unsatisfactory. The panci

efits topicks enforces perpetual repetition, and the sanctity If the matter rejects the ornaments of figurative diction. -:t is sufficient for Watts to have done better than others hat no man has done well.

His poems on other subjects seldom rise higher than aight be expected from the amusements of a man of etters, and have different degrees of value as they are nore or less laboured, or as the occasion was more or less avourable to invention.

He writes too often without regular measures, and too often in blank verse; the rhymes are not always sufficiently correspondent. He is particularly unhappy in coining names expressive of characters. His lines are commonly smooth and easy, and his thoughts always religiously pure; but who is there that, to so much piety and innocence, does not wish for a greater measure of sprightliness and vigour? He is, at least, one of the few poets with whom youth and ignorance may be safely pleased; and happy will be that reader whose mind is disposed, by his verses or his prose, to imitate him in all but his nonconformity, to copy his benevolence to man, and his reverence to God.

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