spent the remainder of his life; for six and thirty years he was treated by the members of this fa mily with unremitting deference and esteem; for, though Sir Thomas lived but eight years to ens joy the society of our worthy divine, equal pro tection and domestic comforts were extended to him by his widow and her daughters.

In October 1716, four years after the com mencement of his illness, he returned to the du ties of his ministry, which, during his confinement, had been performed by Mr. Price, as joint pastor. In 1728 the universities of Edinburgh and Aberdeen conferred upon him, without his knowledge, and in the most respectful manner, the degree of doctor in divinity, an honour which his piety, his learning, and philosophy had long merited.

Until the infirmities of old age overtook him, Dr. Watts continued, not only to discharge his official functions with exemplary regularity, but to benefit the public by the productions of his pen; at length, increasing weakness compelled him to relinquish both employments; his resig nation as a minister, however, was not accepted; nor would his congregation, though remunerating another pastor, omit the salary that he had been accustomed to receive.

...Dr. Watts died under the roof of Lady Abney,

without pain or struggle, on the 25th of November, 1748, aged seventy-four.

. In his literary character, Dr. Watts may be considered as a poet, a philosopher, and a theologian. In the first of these departments, if he did not attain a very high rank, he was, at least, considerably above mediocrity; and, his devo tional poetry, in particular, possesses a sweetness and simplicity, both in thought and diction, which deservedly acquired, for it, especially among the Dissenters, with whom his psalms and hymns are in daily use, an established reputa tiona

1

His philosophical productions can claim the rare merit of being always practically useful, and have been of the most essential service in the education of youth. His logic has received the highest encomium by its admission into the universities; his Philosophical Essays; his Treatise on Education, &c. &c. are conducive to the best purposes of morality and instruction; and on his work entitled The Improvement of the Mind, no greater or happier eulogium can be given than what the following paragraph from Dr. Johnson affords: . .

C

"Few books have been perused by me with greater pleasure than his Improvement of the Mind, of which the radical principle may in

deed be found in Locke's Conduct of the Understanding;' but they are so expanded and rami fied by Watts, as to confer upon him the merit of a work in the highest degree useful and pleas ing. Whoever has the care of instructing others, may be charged with deficiency in his duty if this book is not recommended."*

In theology the compositions of our author are uncommonly numerous; and every page displays his unaffected piety, the purity of his principles, the mildness of his disposition, and the great goodness of his heart. The style of all his works is perspicuous, correct, and frequently elegant; and, happily for mankind, his labours have been translated and dispersed with a zeal which does honour to human nature; for there are probably few persons who have studied the writings of Dr. Watts without a wish for improvement; without an effort to become a wiser or a better member of society..

This slight sketch of Dr. Watts's life has been occasioned by his contribution to the Spectator, of a Letter and a Psalm in N°461. The letter, after a well-merited compliment to the editor on the taste and morality which distinguish his pe riodical essays, contains some just critical obser

Lives of the Poets, vol. iii. p. 245. +

vations on the 114th psalm; and these are suc<> ceeded by a literal and metrical version of the: sacred ode, in which the Doctor has preserved. with fidelity a peculiar beauty that he had discovered in the conduct and arrangement of the: original.

33. ANTHONY HENLEY was the son of Sir Ro bert Henley, of the Grange in Hampshire; and inherited from his father, who occupied for many years the lucrative office of Master's Place of the King's Bench Court, an unencumbered estate of three thousand pounds per annum.

He was educated at Oxford, where he early distinguished himself by the elegance of his taste, and by a critical knowledge of ancient literature. Shortly after his arrival in this celebrated university, however, he met with such a reception from Dr. Goodwin, then president of Magdalen College, that the impression which it occasioned was never obliterated during his life. The Doc-> tor, who was the rigid patriarch of indepen-> dency, and the intimate friend of Cromwell, was of opinion, that there could be no religion unaccompanied by gloom and melancholy; and he: therefore systematically surrounded himself with an apparatus calculated to excite..despondency

1.

and terror. The interview of young Henley with this formidable divine has been thus related by Addison.

"A gentleman, who was lately a great or nament to the learned world, has diverted me more than once with an account of the reception which he met with from a very famous independent minister, who was head of a college in those days. This gentleman was then a young adventurer in the republic of letters, and just fitted out for the university with a good cargo of Latin and Greek. His friends were resolved that he should try his fortune at an election which was drawing near in the college, of which the independent minister, whom I have before mentioned, was governor. The youth, according to custom, waited on him in order to be examined. He was received at the door by a servant, who was one of that gloomy generation that were: then in fashion. He conducted, him, with great silence and seriousness, to a long gallery, which was darkened at noon-day, and had only a single candle burning in it. After a short stay in this melancholy apartment, he was led into a chamber hung with black, where he entertained himself for some time by the glimmering of a taper, until at length the head of the college came out

• Mr. Henley died the year before this was written.