of cheerful affection and benevolent solicitude for their higher interests. Some, however, cannot easily be superseded. We doubt if even Todd's "Student's Guide," with all its modern adaptation and its welcome minuteness, will consign to oblivion the "Improvement of the Mind," so practical in its details and so inspiring in its tone; and although the universities may have now produced systems of logic more suitable to their objects than our author's clear and masterly compend, we know of nothing so likely to interest the non-professional reader in his own mind and its intellectual processes, or to aid him in his inquiries after truth.* In his theological disquisitions, Dr Watts was not so successful as in his contributions to Christian literature. The best of his hymns leave little for the most fastidious to censure, and nothing for the most aspiring to hope; and his sermon on "The End of Time," is as profoundly awakening as "The Happiness of Separate Spirits" is elevating to our nobler sentiments and reproving to our earthliness. But when he quitted the devotional and the practical for the speculative, he was away from home. Every one wants to climb a mountain, and it is exceedingly difficult to believe beforehand that it needs much strength to achieve the task, or that mists can be very dangerous: it looks so clear from below, and we feel so strong in the valley. And all of us can remember how, in the days of our youth, the first use we made of our Aristotelian alpenstock, was an attempt to ascend some metaphysical Mont Blanc or theo * The merits of Watts's Logic are admirably stated by Tissot of Dijon, in his preface to a French translation. (Paris, 1846). "Il y a aussi plus de méthode et de clarté peut-être dans la Logique de Watts que dans celle d'Arnauld. Le bon sens Anglais, le sens des affaires, celui de la vie pratique, s'y révèle à un très-haut degré ; tandis que le sens spéculatif d'un théologien passablement scolastique encore, est plus sensible dans l'Art de penser. Or, Watts a su être complet sans être excessif; il a touché très convenablement tout ce qui devait l'être, et s'est toujours arrèté au point précis où plus de profondeur aurait pu nuire à la clarté." logical Jungfrau; and although we cannot exactly say that we reached the summit, yet we are sure that we were a great deal higher than the Origin of Evil, or the water-shed betwixt Liberty and Necessity. Even to old age, Dr Watts felt something of this temptation, and very naturally. His forte was explanation. He had an admirable faculty of clearing up confusion, within his own line of things. In everyday ethics, and in the elements of mental science, he could expound, distinguish, simplify, so well that few could do better. But it was unfortunate that he tried to set philosophers right on the subjects of Space, and of the Freedom of the Will, nor less unfortunate that he sought to readjust for theologians the doctrine of the Trinity. It is scarcely presumption even in us to say, that these were matters too high for him. His mind was not naturally designed to master such difficulties; nor were his habits those of profound, continuous, abstract thinking. He was neither Joseph Butler, nor Jonathan Edwards, nor William de Leibnitz, but the Isaac Watts, whom the most of good men would have rather been; and it is no reproach to his general ability to say that he failed to ascend those dizzy altitudes, although it might have been more to the credit of his prudence if he had never tried. As the sacred poet, none could soar so high; but in pedestrian expeditions, he was scarcely a match for the longer wind and tougher sinews of some very prosaic competitors. If rightly told, a life like that of Isaac Watts would read great lessons; but, for brevity, and notwithstanding the exception we have just taken, the whole might be condensed into-"Study to be quiet, and to do your own business." Dr Watts had his own convictions. He made no secret of his Nonconformity. At a period when many Dissenters entered the Church, and became distinguished dignitaries, he deemed it his duty still to continue outside of the National Establishment. At the same time, he was no agitator. He felt no THE LESSON OF HIS LIFE. 313 call to rail at his brethren for their ecclesiastical defection, nor did he write pamphlets against the evils of a hierarchy, real or imagined. But God had given him a "business." He had given him, as his vocation, to join together those whom men had put asunder-mental culture and vital piety. And, studying to be quiet, he pursued that calling very diligently, very successfully. Without concealing the peculiar doctrines of the gospel, without losing the fervour of his personal devotion, he gained for that gospel the homage of genius and intelligence; and, like the King of Israel, he touched his harp so skilfully, that many who hardly understood the words were melted by the tune. Without surrendering his right of private judgment, without abjuring his love of natural and artistic beauty, he shewed his preference for moral excellence, his intense conviction of "the truth as it is in Jesus." And now, in his well-arranged and tasteful study, decorated by his own pencil, a lute and a telescope on the same table with his Bible, he seems to stand before us, a treatise on Logic in one hand, and a volume of "Hymns and Spiritual Songs" in the other, asserting the harmony of Faith and Reason, and pleading for Religion and Refinement in firm and stable union. And, as far as the approval of the Most High can be gathered from events, or from its reflection in the conscience of mankind, the Master has said, "Well done, good and faithful servant." Without trimming, without temporising, he was "quiet;" and without bustle, without boasting or parade, he did "his own business," the work that God had given him. And now no Church repudiates him, and none can monopolise him. His eloge is pronounced by Samuel Johnson and Robert Southey, as well as Josiah Conder; and, whilst his monument looks down on Dissenting graves in Abney Park, his effigy reposes beneath the consecrated roof of Westminster Abbey. And, which is far better, next Lord's-day, the Name that is above every name, will be sung in fanes where princes worship and prelates minister, as well as in barns where mechanics pray and ragged scholars say "Amen," in words for which all alike must thank his hallowed genius; and it will only be some curious student of hymnology who will care to recollect that ISAAC WATTS is the Asaph of each choir, the leader of each company. IN the Established Churches of England and Scotland, the words of Dr Watts are sung every Lord's-day, although the authorship is often unsurmised by the worshippers; and, in many instances, owing to the material changes which have been made, the author, were he to revisit our world, could hardly identify his own compositions. Our readers have here. a sample of the old wine undiluted and unadulterated; and even those to whom the specimens are most familiar, will not deem their introduction irksome or unwelcome. In the first of the following hymns, Mr Milner (" Life and Times of Dr Watts," page 276) says, that Dr Watts "avails himself of a beautiful idea from Gray's Fragment on Vicissitude,'" quoting the well-known passage It "See the wretch that long has tost, On the thorny bed of pain, At length repair his vigour lost, And breathe and walk again; The meanest floweret of the vale, may be questioned whether there is more than a casual coincidence between the two poets. At all events, Watts could not have borrowed from Gray, as the above hymn was published nine years before the author of the "Fragment on Vicissitude" was born! Thomson's beautiful "Hymn of the Seasons," as every one remembers, concludes with the line "Come, then, expressive silence, muse His praise." |