The fact that the first work published by Watts was the “Sacred Lyrics” may justify this early estimate of his character as a sacred poet. It is probable, nay it is certain, that the time bestowed by Watts upon poetry was very slight and insignificant compared with that which he devoted to the graver pursuits of life, and the various studies connected with philosophy, theology, preaching, and education. He first, however, appeared in print as the author of the “Horæ Lyricæ,” the Lyrical Poems: and Dr. Johnson judges that they entitled him to an honourable place amongst our English poets. Watts himself thought very modestly of his claims in this way, and speaks concerning his own compositions in the humblest language. “I make no pretences,” he says, “to the name of a poet, or a polite writer in an age wherein so many superior souls shine in their works through the nation.” In many of his hymns he unquestionably deserves the highest honour: but for the most part it is not in the lyrics we are to seek, as we certainly shall not find, the noblest illustrations of his poetical genius; nor, perhaps, is it probable that we should turn to them with much interest or expectation but that they are the production of Dr. Watts, and that he was the author of those hymns so dear to the Church of Christ, and the “Divine and Moral Songs for Children.” In all our judgments and criticisms upon Watts as a poet, two things must be borne in mind: first, as we have seen above, that he not only disclaimed the character himself, but proved his sincerity by regarding it only as the recreation of grave and serious studies, and the very natural occupation of a man of fine taste and largely cultivated sensibility; and next, we must remember, that the poetry of the age in which he lived was artificial, formed for the most part upon classical models, whose rules were very greatly inapplicable to English verse. The sweetest and most perfect poet in any near approach to those times was Oliver Goldsmith, and he was the writer least imbued with classical lore, and the one who left all classical rules and allusions furthest behind him, content to express himself in simple and pleasing English. Johnson was a poet, and Joseph Addison, but although so much more ambitious and devoted to the pursuit, they neither of them have produced sentiments or expressions which charm us more than those we find in the productions of Watts. Thomas Gray was a poet, but only in two or three instances did the simplicity and purity of the English language, and the simple metre, succeed in winning him from the trammels of classical formularies. Indeed there was something ludicrous in the poetry of the time; and the great genius of Pope, which really was equal to anything in verse, seemed almost to struggle in vain against the pedantic rules he imposed upon himself. It was the age of fantastic ornament and of formal symmetry, of artificial gardening, of trimmed yews, when even Nature herself in her trees, hedgerows, and flower-beds was made to look ridiculous. A sort of tulip-mania, a false admiration in colour and in form, took possession not merely of the speculators in the market, but of the devotees of the fine arts. Years passed on before English poetry liberated itself from these false trammels, and the first great English writer who subsequently gave freedom and freshness, a combination of sublimity and simplicity to English verse, was William Cowper.
We must separate and distinguish between Watts as a poet, the author of the “Lyrics,” and Watts as a hymnologist, and the author of those pieces which, as they have been, so we trust they will continue to be, a precious legacy of the Church, and the expression of its deepest, highest, and tenderest emotions. In a letter to the “Gentleman’s Magazine,” when his judgment was appealed to for a poetical decision, he said, “Though I have sported with rhyme as an amusement in younger life, and published some religious composures to assist the worship of God, yet I never set myself up among the numerous competitors for a poet of the age, much less have I presumed to become their judge.” There is a writer of one or two immortal hymns in our language who sometimes suggests a comparison with Dr. Watts. Watts was capable of poetry. He was not only a poet in his hymns, but a poetic nature often broke through the turgid pindarics he adopted as the vehicle of his expressions. But Ken was no poet at all, and yet, unlike Watts, who disclaimed the character, this was Ken’s one vanity. A writer in the “Quarterly Review,” which may be accepted here as an unexceptionable umpire, says, “If there was any vanity in the good man’s heart, it would seem to have been on the subject of his poetical skill. He expresses, indeed, a belief that his verses are open to the assaults of criticism, but he must have thought something of them, for he left them for publication, and they fill four thick volumes. The contrast is strange between the clear, free, harmonious flow of his prose, and the barbarous, cramped, pedantic language, the harsh dissonance, the extravagant conceits, which disfigure the great mass of his verses. Mr. Anderson has tried the ingenious experiment of reducing some passages from metre to prose, and no doubt they gain considerably! But there is no getting over the fact that these four volumes are altogether a mistake.”[12] Such a criticism as this can never be pronounced on Watts, but it is yet true that some of the vices of Ken disfigure the pages of the “Horæ Lyricæ,” and they are traceable to the same cause—the forsaking simplicity and nature, and following artificial models and straining after affected diction.
He was essentially a hymn writer, and among the lyrics the most beautiful and effective pieces are those which either are hymns or approach nearest to that order of composition. The modern reader will be impatient of the frequent apostrophe, and, although “personification, that is, the transformation of the qualities of the mind, and abstract ideas, and general notions into living embodiments,” has ever been regarded as one of the noblest exercises and proofs of the poetic faculty, we suppose few will be disposed to regard Watts’ excursions in this way with favour. He possessed this power in an eminent degree: instantaneously, apparently, a sentiment became an image, and the image pointed to a tender and pathetic treatment. His elegy on the death of William III. has often been cited as a fine piece of elegiac personification; should it seem extravagant to the reader, it would scarcely seem so to Lord Macaulay; and it must be remembered that Dr. Watts was one who regarded himself and the nation as profoundly indebted, surely not unnaturally, for freedom and prosperity to the arms and government of the deceased king. He was young when he wrote these verses. William, as we have said, died the day on which Watts was ordained to the work of the ministry, 1702. The verses present a picture of the illustrious hero lying in state, surrounded by the weeping arts and graces of society. Dr. Gibbons, not inappropriately, speaks of the piece as “the largest constellation of personifications occurring amongst the Doctor’s Odes:”
Preserve, O venerable pile,
Inviolate thy sacred trust;
To thy cold arms the British isle,
Weeping, commits her richest dust.
Rest his dear sword beneath his head;
Round him his faithful arms shall stand:
Fix his bright ensigns on his bed,