Strong exception has been taken to Watts’ verse, on the score of its frequent, almost passionate, expression of Divine love; in this he frequently writes like Madame Guyon, or like some of those old monastic spirits who passed their days in cloisters; and Watts’ life was almost as cloisteral as that of a monk. Unlike his amiable friend, Philip Doddridge, he was never diverted from any of the solemn pursuits of his life by the claims of human passion or affection, although there are not wanting verses which, perhaps, show that he had not been altogether insensible to female charms:
Virgins, who roll your artful eyes,
And shoot delicious danger thence;
Swiftly the lovely lightning flies,
And melts our reason down to sense.
But perhaps his poem “Few Happy Matches,” reveals some reason why his timid spirit refused to seek its happiness in matrimonial chains, and so he turned to the higher affections, singing—
Life is a pain without Thy love;
Who can ever bear to be
Cursed with immortality,
Among the stars, but far from Thee?