credited to him by Gibbons in his biography. He died in February 1736–7, aged 85. His wife was daughter of an Alderman Taunton at Southampton, and had Huguenot blood in her veins.
Isaac Watts was the eldest of nine children, of whom Richard lived to be a physician, Enoch was bred to the sea, and Sarah married a draper named Brackstone at Southampton. Watts received an excellent education at the grammar school from John Pinhorne, rector of All Saints, Southampton, prebendary of Leckford, and vicar of Eling, Hampshire: a Pindaric ode to Pinhorne, by Watts, describes the wide range of his classical teaching. His facility in English verse showed itself very early. The promise of his genius induced Dr. John Speed, a physician of the town, to offer to provide for Watts at the university; but, as he preferred ‘to take his lot among the dissenters,’ he was sent (1690) to an academy at Stoke Newington, under the presidency of Thomas Rowe [q. v.], pastor of the independent meeting in Girdlers' Hall. The teaching in classics, logic, Hebrew, and divinity was excellent, as the notebooks of Watts show; and he owed to the academy his after habits of laborious analysis and accuracy of thought. Among his contemporaries were John Hughes (1677–1720) [q. v.], one of the contributors to the ‘Spectator;’ Samuel Say [q. v.], who succeeded Calamy as pastor in Westminster; Daniel Neal; and Josiah Hort [q. v.] (afterwards bishop of Kilmore and Ardagh, and archbishop of Tuam). Watts was admitted to communion in Rowe's church in December 1693. After leaving the academy (1694), he spent two years and a half at home, and commenced the composition of his hymns. The first of these, ‘Behold the glories of the Lamb,’ was produced as an improvement on the hymns of William Barton [q. v.], and others then sung in the Southampton chapel. Several other pieces followed: they were circulated in manuscript, and given out line by line when sung. In October 1696 he became tutor to the son of Sir John Hartopp, bart., at Stoke Newington, and held the post five years, devoting all his leisure to Hebrew and divinity. He preached his first sermon on 17 July 1698, and in the following year was chosen assistant pastor to Isaac Chauncy [q. v.] in the chapel at Mark Lane. On 18 March 1702 he succeeded to the pastorate. The congregation was a distinguished one: Joseph Caryl [q. v.] and John Owen (1616–1683) [q. v.] had formerly ministered to it; it numbered among its members Mrs. Bendish, Cromwell's granddaughter; Charles Fleetwood, Charles Desborough, brother-in-law of Cromwell; as well as the Hartopps, and Sir Thomas and Lady Abney. It removed successively to Pinners' Hall (1704) and Bury Street, St. Mary Axe (1708). Watts, however, soon proved unequal to its single supervision. The intense study to which he had devoted himself had undermined his constitution and made him subject to frequent attacks of illness. As early as 1703 Samuel Price began to assist him, and was afterwards chosen co-pastor (1713). A visit to Sir Thomas and Lady Abney at Theobalds in 1712 led to a proposal from them that Watts should reside permanently in their house; and the remainder of his days was spent under their roof, either at Theobalds or at Stoke Newington, to which Lady Abney removed (1735) after the death of Sir Thomas Abney (1722). The kindness of the Abneys gave him a sheltered and luxurious home. He drove in from Theobalds for his Sunday ministrations when his health permitted. In the fine house at Stoke Newington, which stood in what is now Abney Park cemetery, some figures on the panelling, painted by Watts, were formerly shown. His attacks of illness increased as years went on: he only reluctantly consented to retain his pastorate, and had scruples as to taking any salary; but the congregation refused to break the connection with one so famous and beloved as Watts became.
Watts was one of the most popular writers of the day. His educational manuals—the ‘Catechisms’ (1730) and the ‘Scripture History’ (1732)—were still standard works in the middle of this century. His philosophical books, especially the ‘Logic’ (1725), had a long circulation; so also had his ‘World to Come’ (1738) and other works of popular divinity. The best of his works is ‘The Improvement of the Mind’ (1741), which Johnson eulogises. In two fields his literary work needs longer notice. His ‘Horæ Lyricæ.’ (1706) gave him his niche in Johnson's ‘Lives of the Poets.’ It was a favourite book of religious poetry, and as such was admitted into a series of ‘Sacred Classics’ (1834), with a memoir of Watts from Southey's pen. But his poetical fame rests on his hymns. At the beginning of the eighteenth century the stern embargo which Calvin had laid on the use in the music of sacred worship of everything except metrical psalms and canticles had been broken by the obscure hymns of Mason, Keach, Barton, and others; and hymns were freely used in the baptist and independent congregations. The poetry of Watts took the religious world of dissent by storm. It gave an utterance, till then unheard in England, to the spiritual
