erdeen an
unsolicited 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 study and to preach, and to do
good by his instruction and example, till at last the infirmities of age
disabled him from the more laborious part of his ministerial functions,
and, being no longer capable of public duty, he offered to remit the
salary appendent to it; but his congregation would not accept the
resignation. 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 November 25th 1748, in the seventy-fifth year of
his age.

Few men have left behind such purity of character, or such monuments of
laborious piety. He has provided instruction for all ages--from those
who are lisping their first lessons, to the enlightened readers of
Malebranche and Locke; he has left neither corporeal nor spiritual
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 diversity of his attainments, rather than from any
single performance, for it would not be safe to claim for him the
highest rank in any single denomination of literary dignity; yet,
perhaps, there was nothing in which he would not have excelled, if he
had not divided his powers to different pursuits.

As a poet, had he been only a poet, he would probably have stood high
among the authors with whom he is now associated. For his judgment was
exact, and he noted beauties and faults with very nice discernment; his
imagination, as the "Dacian Battle" proves, was vigorous and active,
and the stores of knowledge were large by which his fancy was to be
supplied. His ear was well tuned, and his diction was elegant
and copious. But his devotional poetry is, like that of others,
unsatisfactory. The paucity of its topics enforces perpetual repetition,
and the sanctity of the matter rejects the ornaments of figurative
diction. It is sufficient for Watts to have done better than others what
no man has done well. His poems on other subjects seldom rise higher
than might be expected from the amusements of a man of letters, and have
different degrees of value as they are more or less laboured, or as the
occasion was more or less favourable to invention. He writes too often
without regular measures, and t