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 consid

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 vary

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

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 t

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

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 comp

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: a

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. W

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 h

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

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 piet

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

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 ye

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 g

“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

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 desir

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 Gospe

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 ho

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....