1707. 'Give us something better, young man,' had been the reply,1 when he complained of the want of good hymns; and he had set to work to attempt some remedy for the defect. His first hymn, published as a sample of what was to come, was upon Revelation v. 9 (a text with which his book was afterwards headed), and was entitled, with a want of religious modesty and taste which was his occasional fault, A New Song to the Lamb that was Slain.2

Watts's psalms and hymns are of very unequal merit. In the first place, he wrote far too many. Among four hundred hymns, and an almost corresponding bulk of verses in his adaptations of the Psalms, besides his Lyric Poems, there could not fail to be a great deal that might have been advantageously altered or omitted. But in any case his sacred poetry would have abounded in faults. The strong and narrow dogma of the school of religious thought to which he belonged is sometimes expressed with most repellent harshness. Watts held a most dismal view of human nature. There are passages in his writings which show that he occasionally recoiled from following out his Calvinism to its ultimate consequences. But in his eyes the world was nothing but a dreadful ruin, 'wherein lie millions of rebels against their Creator, under condemnation to misery and death, who are at the same time sick of a mortal distemper, and disordered in their minds even to distraction. . . . Only here and there one attends to the proclamation of grace, and complies with the proposals of peace.' The sufferings of mankind-and he drew a dreadful and exaggerated picture of them-he regarded not as trials, not as wholesome chastisement, but as an imputed curse. 'And,' added he, ‘it is most

3

1 F. Saunders's Evenings with the Sacred Poets, p. 283.

2 So also in its opening verse :—

Prepare new honours for His name,
And songs before unknown.

3 Watts's Ruin and Recovery of Mankind, 89, 90; quoted in J. Wesley's Works, ix. 375.

abundant goodness that mankind have any comforts left, and that their miseries are not doubled.'1 Even children, tender as he was to them, he regarded with a sort of compassionate shudder. 'Cast a glance,' he cried, 'at the sports of children from five to fifteen years of age. What toys and fooleries are these! Would a race of wise and holy beings waste so many years of early life on such wretched trifles ? '2 As for the world, it is 'base as the dirt beneath my feet, and mischievous as hell.' It need hardly be added that the terrors of a future state of punishment lose nothing in horror and hopelessness in Watts's descriptions.

There are other blemishes in Watts's hymns. He often used expressions which grate acutely upon the ear of educated readers; and whenever he abandoned the simple language of devotion, and attempted to decorate sacred subjects with poetical ornaments after the manner of the incomparable Mr. Cowley, his language was apt to become strained, florid, and affected.

Yet, notwithstanding the faults which occasionally disfigure them, his hymns were a true benefaction to the religion of the country. Doddridge, in a letter to Watts, dated April 5, 1731, gives a striking testimony to the impression they were capable of producing. He had been preaching to a large assembly of plain country people. After the sermon 'we sang,' he writes, 'one of your hymns, which, if I remember right, was the 140th of the Second Book, and in that part of the worship I had the satisfaction to observe tears in the eyes of several of the people; and after the service was over some of them told me they were not able to sing, so deeply were their minds affected. . . . They were most of them poor people who work for their living; yet on the mention of your name I found they had read several of your books with great delight, and that your psalms

1 Watts's Ruin and Recovery of Mankind, p. 73.

2 Id. P.

80.

3 Id. ii. 10.

4 Watts's Preface to the Lyric Poems.

and hymns were almost their daily entertainment.'1 The hymn in question was the following one :

Give me the wings of faith, to rise
Within the veil, and see

The saints above, how great their joys,
And bright their glories be.

Once they were mourning here below,
And wet their couch with tears;
They wrestled hard, as we do now,
With sins, and doubts, and fears.

I ask them whence their vict'ry came.
They with united breath

Ascribe their conquest to the Lamb,
Their triumph to His death.

They marked the footsteps that He trod,
His zeal inspired their breast:

And following their incarnate God,
Possess the promised rest.

Our glorious Leader claims our praise
For His own pattern given,

While the long cloud of witnesses

Show the same path to heaven."

A hymn-writer who can produce such instances of popular appreciation has fulfilled one of the chief conditions of a successful hymn-writer. But Watts has received very high praise from cultivated critics. James Montgomery, while acknowledging that his hymns are often inferior in execution, ranks him, in somewhat exaggerated language, as second to David. Dr. Johnson, who held the strange opinion that no devotional subjects could be treated satisfactorily in verse, limited his praise to this, that 'Watts had done better than others what no man had done well.'4 They at once attained a great reputation, chiefly no doubt among Dissenters, but also among Churchmen, and in America

1 Corresp. and Diary of Philip Doddridge, iii. 74.

2 Hymns, Bk. ii. 140.

3 Preface to the Christian Psalmist, quoted in Oxford Essays, p. 151. 4 Lives of the Poets (Cunningham), vol. iii. p. 255.

5

J. Newton's Apologia, Letter i.; Works, p. 881.

as well as in England. Rippon, who published his once well-known Selection towards the latter part of the century, even made in his preface a sort of apology for not leaving Watts's hymns in sole possession of the field. Great as their fame was, 'it might not,' he said, 'be improper to introduce others, . . . not intended directly or indirectly to set aside Watts, but because many supplementary ones were wanted.'1 His psalms were scarcely less popular; and copies of them were sold by thousands from the first date of their appearance in 1718. They were not simply metrical versions in the usual sense of the word, but imitated in the language of the New Testament, and applied to the Christian state and worship.'2 Such adaptations are apt to be not very natural; and in one case, where the 75th Psalm is applied to the glorious Revolution by King William, or the happy accession of King George, the mixture of ideas becomes positively grotesque. Many are decidedly inferior to the New Version: others, however, are of great merit.

Many of Watts's psalms and hymns are very well known, as they deserve to be. Among the former are the 72nd, second part, 'Jesus shall reign where'er the sun,' the 84th, 'Lord of the worlds above,' the 90th, 'O God, our help in ages past,' and the 117th,' From all that dwell below the skies.' His paraphrase of the 100th, 'Sing to the Lord,' is a favourite hymn in its greatly improved form as altered by Charles Wesley into Before Jehovah's awful throne.' Its substance, however, was left unchanged. The 146th is memorable from an interesting association with Wesley's life. He expired while faintly endeavouring to repeat the following lines:

3

I'll praise my Maker with my breath;
And when my voice is lost in death,

Praise shall employ my nobler powers:

1 Rippon's Selection of Hymns, 1787, Preface,
2 Title to The Psalms.

3 Oxford Essays (1858), p. 150; Saunders, p. 286.

My days of praise shall ne'er be past,
While life, and thought, and being last,
Or immortality endures.

4

Among his hymns, some of the best known are, 'Come, let us join our cheerful songs,' 'Not all the blood,' 'When I survey the wondrous Cross,' 'Come Holy Spirit, heavenly Dove,' 'When I can read my title clear,' 'I give immortal praise,' 'This is the day the Lord hath made,' and, above all, 'There is a land of 7 pure delight.' This last hymn is said to have been suggested by the charming landscape which met his eyes as he looked over the Southampton Water. The beautiful hymn, 'How bright these glorious spirits shine,' is an improvement by Cameron on Watts's 40th, 'What happy men or angels these.'

Watts's songs for children may some of them excite a smile, and in other instances are tinged oppressively with the gloom of a part of his theology. But, as a whole, they well deserve the favour they have gained. Their homely simplicity commends itself to children, and clings to their memories. They are likely long to outlive many verses which are far superior to them as compositions, and which might be thought more attractive to the young. But among the moral songs there is one of great beauty-that well-known comparison of a Christian's death to a summer sunset. William Wilberforce speaks of it with special admiration. So do Toplady,10 Southey,11 and others; and all readers, young and old, will agree with their opinion.

Among them also is the cradle hymn beginning 'Hush, my dear, lie still and slumber.' Like many of Watts's hymns there are lines in it which might well be

1 Bk. i. 62.

2 Bk. ii. 142.

3 Bk. iii. 7.

7 Bk. ii. 56.

4 Bk. ii. 34. Not to be confused with a better-known hymn, with the same beginning, by Simon Browne.

5 Bk. ii. 11O.

8 Saunders, p. 284.

6 Bk. iii. 38.

9 Memoirs, v. 289: quoted by R. A. Wilmot, Lives of S. Poets, ii. 137. 10 Toplady's Works, vi. 165.

11 Southey's Specimens of the Later Poets, vol. ii. p. 96.