THE BEAUTIES OF THE LATE REV. DR. ISAAC WATTS: CONTAINING The most striking and admired passages DIVINE, PHILOSOPHER MORALIST, THE LIFE OF DOCTOR WATTS IT is not to be expected that the life of a man devoted from a state of infancy to study and retirement, should be pregnant with such incidents as are apt to excite public curiosity. The truly excellent person of whom it is our business to present the reader with some biographical anecdotes, was distinguished by a cheerful and uninterrupted discharge of every religious and moral duty, an imagination so fertile in original and great ideas as to seem incapable of being exhausted, a profound and solid judgment, and very extensive literary acquirements. Having premised thus much, we shall proceed to the narrative. The father of Dr. Watts kept a boarding school in the town of Southampton; and his qualifications for the office of a preceptor were such as procured him considerable encouragement, while the integrity of his manners gained him the respect of all who had the happiness of his acquaintance. Of nine children Isaac was the eldest. Though Mr. Watts was not in circumstances of opulence, yet his income was equal to the support of his numerous family in a style of gentility. Isaac Watts was born at Southampton, on the 17th of July, 1674. At a very early period of life he appeared to be strongly attached to reading; and this disposition was with pleasure observed, and carefully cultivated, by his parents. At four years old his father began to instruct him in Latin; and after having made some considerable progress in that language, and in other fundamental branches of learning, he was placed under the tuition of the Rev. Mr. Pinhorne, a cler gyman of the established church, and master of the free school at Southampton. In this situation our young student afforded very early proofs of an insatiable thirst for learning, and of an uncommon brilliancy of genius, which indeed rendered him afterwards so highly distinguished in the literary world. His rapid progress in the learned languages, and in various branches of the sciences, together with the sprightliness and vivacity of his wit, which he had the happy talent of attempering with a degree of sober judgment, which was altogether extraordinary in one of his years, induced some liberal-minded persons to propose engaging in a subscription for the purpose of completing his education at one of the universities. This generous proposal, however, he declined with grateful acknowledgments, declaring his resolution of adhering to those prin |
