Few men have left behind such purity of character, or fuch monuments of laborious piety. He has provided inftruction for all ages, from those who are lifping their first leffons, to the enlightened readers of Malbranche and Locke; he has left neither corporeal nor fpiritual nature unexamined; he has taught the art of reasoning, and the fcience of the stars. His character, therefore, muft be formed from the multiplicity and diversity of his attainments, rather than from any fingle performance; for it would not be fafe to claim for him the highest rank in any fingle denomination of literary dignity; yet perhaps there was nothing in which he would not have excelled, if he had not divided his powers to different pursuits. As a poet, had he been only a poet, he would probably have ftood high among the authors with whom he is now affociated. For his judgement was exact, and he noted beauties and faults with very nice difcernment; his imagination, as the Dacian Battle proves, I proves, was vigorous and active, and the ftores of knowledge were large by which his imagination was to be fupplied. His ear was well-tuned, and his diction was elegant and copious. But his devotional poetry is, like that of others, unfatisfactory. The paucity of its topicks enforces perpetual repetition, and the fanctity of the matter rejects the ornaments of figurative diction. It is fufficient for Watts to have done better than others what no man has done well. His poems on other fubjects feldom rife higher than might be expected from the amusements of a Man of Letters, and have different degrees of value as they are more or lefs laboured, or as the occafion was more or lefs favourable to invention. He writes too often without regular meafures, and too often in blank verfe; the rhymes are not always fufficiently correfpondent. He is particularly unhappy in coining names expreffive of characters. His lines are commonly smooth and eafy, and his thoughts always religiously pure; but who is there that, to fo much piety and innocence, does not wish for a greater measure of fpriteliness and vigour? But he is at least one of the few poets with whom youth and ignorance may be fafely pleased; and happy will be that reader whose mind is disposed by his verses, or his profe, to imitate him in all but his non-conformity, to copy his benevolence to man, and his reverence to God. A. PHILIPS. |