He did not endeavour to affist his eloquence by any gefticulations; for, as no corporeal actions have any correfpondence with theological truth, he did not fee how they could enforce it.

At the conclufion of weighty fentences he gave time, by a short paufe, for the proper impreffion.

To ftated and public inftruction he added familiar vifits and perfonal application, and was careful to improve the opportunities which conversation offered of diffusing and increasing the influence of religion.

By his natural temper he was quick of refentment; but by his established and habitual practice, he was gentle, modeft, and inoffenfive. His tenderness appeared in his attention to children, and to the poor. To the poor, while he lived in the family of his friend, he allowed the third part of his annual revenue, though the whole was not a hundred a year; and for children he condescended to lay afide the fcholar, the philofopher, and the wit, to write little poems of devotion, and fyftems. of inftruction, adapted to their wants and capacities, from the dawn of reafon through its gradations of advance in the morning of life. Every man acquainted with the common principles of human action, will look with veneration on the writer, who is at one time combating Locke, and at another making a catechism for children in their fourth year. A voluntary defcent from the dignity of fcience is perhaps the hardest leffon that humility can teach.

As his mind was capacious, his curiofity excurfive, and his industry continual, his writings are very numerous, and his fubjects various. With his theological works I am only enough acquainted

to

to admire his meeknefs of oppofition, and his mildness of cenfure. It was not only in his book, but in his mind that orthodoxy was united with charity.

Of his philofophical pieces, his Logick has been received into the univerfities, and therefore wants no private recommendation: if he owes part of it to Le Clerc, it must be confidered that no man, who undertakes merely to methodise or illuftrate a fyftem, pretends to be its author.

In his metaphyfical difquifitions, it was obferved by the late learned Mr. Dyer, that he confounded the idea of Space with that of empty space, and did not confider that though space might be without matter, yet matter being extended could not be without space.

Few books have been perused by me with greater pleasure than his "Improvement of the "Mind," of which the radical principles may indeed be found in Locke's "Conduct of the Un"derstanding," but they are fo expanded and ramified by Watts, as to confer upon him the merit of a work in the highest degree useful and pleafing. Whoever has the care of inftructing others, may be charged with deficience in his duty if this book is not recommended.

I have mentioned his treatises of Theology as distinct from his other productions, but the truth is, that whatever he took in hand was, by his inceffant folicitude for fouls, converted to Theology. As piety predominated in his mind, it is diffufed over his works, under his direction it may be truly faid, Theologia Philofophia ancillatur, philofophy is fubfervient to evangelical inftruction; it is difficult to read a page without learning, or at least wishing

to

to be better. The attention is caught by indirect inftruction, and he that fat down only to reafon, is on a fudden compelled to pray.

It was therefore with great propriety that, in 1728, he received from Edinburgh and Aberdeen an unfolicited diploma, by which he became a Doctor of Divinity. Academical honours would have more value, if they were always bestowed with equal judgment.

He continued many years to ftudy, and to preach, and to do good by his inftruction and example; till at laft the infirmities of age disabled him from the more laborious part of his ministerial functions, and being no longer capable of publick duty, he offered to remit the falary appendant to it; but his congregation would not accept the refignation,

By degrees his weakness increased, and at last confined him to his chamber and his bed; where he was worn gradually away without pain, till he expired Nov. 25, 1748, in the feventy-fifth of his age.

Few men have left behind fuch purity of character, or fuch monuments of laborious piety. He has provided inftruction for all ages, from those who are lifping their firft 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 Science of the Stars,

His character, therefore, must be formed from the multiplicity and diverfity 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

have excelled, if he had not divided his powers to different purfuits.

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 judgment was exact, and he noted beauties and faults with very nice difcernment; his imagination, as the "Dacian Battle" proves, was vigorous and active, and the ftores of knowledge were large by which his fancy 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 measures, and too often in blank verse: the rhymes are not always fufficiently correfpondent. He is particularly unhappy in coining names expreffive of characters. His lines are commonly smooth and cafy, 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 spriteliness and vigour? He is at leaft one of the few poets with whom youth and ignorance may be fafely pleafed; and happy will be that reader whofe mind is difpofed by his verfes, 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.

Of the birth or early part of the life of AM

F

BROSE PHILIPS I have not been able to find any account. His academical education he received at St. John's college in Cambridge, where he first folicited the notice of the world by fome English verfes, in the collection published by the University on the death of queen Mary.

From this time how he was employed, or in what station he paffed his life, is not yet difcovered. He must have published his Paftorals before the year 1708, because they are evidently prior to thofe of Pope.

He afterwards (1709) addreffed to the univerfal patron, the Duke of Dorfet, a "poetical Letter "from Copenhagen," which was published in the "Tatler," and is by Pope in one of his first letters mentioned with high praife, as the production of a man "who could write very nobly."

Philips was a zealous Whig, and therefore eafily found access to Addison and Steele; but his ardour seems not to have procured him any thing more than kind words; fince he was reduced to translate the "Perfian Tales" for Tonfon, for which he was afterwards reproached, with this addition of contempt, that he worked for half-a-crown. The

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