THEIR AUTHORS AND ORIGIN. 79
father persecuted and imprisoned for nonconformity six months. After that forced to leave his family, and live privately for two years." Isaac was a precocious child, and made such progress in his classical studies under the care of a clergyman, the Rev. Mr. Pinhorne, at that time rector of All Saints, Southampton, as to awaken the delight and expectation of his friends. At the age of sixteen, he declined a proposition to support him at the university, and declared his resolution of taking his lot with the Dissenters. He went to London to study in the academy of the Rev. Thomas Rowe, an Independent minister. " Such he was," says Dr. Johnson, " as every Christian church would rejoice to have adopted." There he made progress in his studies, and became decided in his Christian character. At the age of nineteen, he joined the church then meeting at Girdlers Hall, under the pas toral care of his tutor. To both these preceptors Watts has inscribed odes in his " Horae Lyricas." During his stay in London, the young student injured his constitution for life by excessive study. Leaving London for a time, Watts returned, at the age of twenty, to his father s house, to spend two years in more extended preparatory studies. During this time he wrote many of his hymns, and continued the poetic pursuits he had begun in his boyhood. Having complained to his father of the compo sitions ordinarily used by the congregation with which they wor shipped at Southampton, his father, who was a deacon of the church and a man of taste, suggested that he should try his hand, and these hymns were the result. The first composed is said to have been
" Behold the glories of the Lamb" (No. 303)
in the "New Congregational Hymn Book," where it is given with the omission of two verses.
From 1696 to 1702 Watts resided with Sir John Hartopp, Bart., at Stoke Newington, in order to be tutor to his son. This was a most valuable seedtime for future harvests, and Watts gladly prolonged his stay after he had commenced his pastoral work.
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