how much happier, and how much more respectable, this son of genius would have been, if, in addition to his extraordinary and captivating talents, he had cultivated those qualities which are so necessary in the conduct of life, that no person, be his endowments or advantages what they may, can neglect them with impunity,-those qualities without which "knowledge is useless, wit ridiculous, and genius contemptible!"

BISHOP WATSON.

WRITTEN AFTER READING ANECDOTES OF HIS LIFE, WRITTEN

BY HIMSELF.

"Of all literary productions, those in which the authors are their own biographers, afford us the greatest pleasure; especially when the writers record their actual sentiments with sincerity and frankness, and permit us to look into the inmost recesses of their bosoms."

Aikin.

Bishop Watson ranks high among the eminent characters who flourished in the religious and political world, during the reign of George the Third. He acquired celebrity, and rose to distinction, not by family connections, nor by patronage obtained by servility, but by his talents, which were powerful; his learning and knowledge, which were extensive and various; and his persevering exertions, which were so resolute as to border on obstinacy. Some of his sermons and charges to his clergy, were generally admired for their liberal and manly sentiments; and his answers to Gibbon and Paine shine, by comparison with other works which appeared on the same subject, and had a considerable influence on the public mind, in counteracting the prevalence of infidelity.

He did not, however, exemplify that religion which he so ably defended. With what sincerity could he subscribe the thirty-nine articles, when he hated and

despised the doctrines which they contain? Or with what consistency could he censure the non-residence of the clergy, so much as he has done in various parts of his writings, when he himself, by living in Westmorland, was absent from his duties as Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge, and from his charge as Bishop of Llandaff? For many years he seldom or never preached, disregarded clerical and episcopal duties, and devoted himself to secular pursuits. This conduct he avows without any apparent sense of shame; and attempts to justify, by pleading that he was neglected by the court, and that his merit was rewarded by no more than £2,000 a year of church preferment. To remain above thirty years in the lowest station among the bishops, and to see one after another put over his head, were mortifications which he could ill brook, when he was conscious that, in learning and ability, he came not a whit behind the very chief.

This neglect, painfully as it operated upon his mind, and much as it excited his resentment, will not surprise the reader, when he is informed of the circumstances of the case. Bishop Watson made himself obnoxious to the king, by his uncourtly principles, and his high, unyielding, and independent spirit. He connected himself with patriotic politicians, and distinguished himself as a reformer at public meetings. The dangerous influence of the crown, and the corruptions of the constitution, were the common

themes of his censure; and the object at which he aimed was to improve the representation, by restoring to the people their due share in the legislation. His sentiments on these subjects are often admirably just, and highly honourable to him; but they were more likely to increase his popularity, than to promote his interest. He wished to regulate the church as well as to reform the state; and one of his plans, for that purpose, was to equalize the revenues of all the bishoprics; a proposal which did not come very decorously from the poorest prelate on the bench.

Who can wonder that, when benefices became vacant, such a man, however extraordinary his talents, or exalted his merit, was passed by; and that other men, though every way inferior to him, were preferred before him? To be neglected by the court, and excluded from farther promotion, were the obvious and direct consequences of the choice which he made, and of the course which he pursued; and yet they rankled in his bosom, and produced reiterated and bitter complaints. He wanted to serve his country and mammon; to unite the honour of independence with the advantages of sycophancy; and he seems to have thought that the minister against whom he voted, should give him his patronage; and that the king, to whom he had made himself offensive, should honour him with his favour. That sound sense which Bishop Watson displayed on other subjects, and that knowledge of the world which he must have acquired, ought

to have saved him from the folly of such inconsistent expectations, and the torment of such disappointed hopes. He might have been aware what a man of his character and principles had to look for, in a reign which was the triumph of Toryism, and from a minister who resented all contradiction to his will, and who had not enough to satisfy his supporters, much less to spare for his opponents. In the latter part of his life, this nethermost prelate tried to atone for former delinquencies, and to recommend himself to preferment, by a speech in favour of the union with Ireland, and an address to the people when the country was threatened with an invasion by the French. These services procured him the compliments of Bishop Horsley, and other men of that party; and they exposed him to the censure of his former friends, but they failed of their intended object; he laboured in vain, and found no place for repentance.

When he lost hope, he left this memoir behind him, to be published after his death, that the world might see how shamefully he had been neglected, and that his enemies might be stung with remorse, for their treatment of a man who, as he thought, deserved so much better. "He that speaketh of himself, seeketh his own glory;" but if that were Bishop Watson's object in this auto-biography, he has not attained it. He does not seem at all aware how unfavourable the account is to himself, and how much it tends to lower him in the estimation of the reader.