Isaac Watts; his life and writings, his homes and friends

by Edwin Paxton Hood

Of humble turf sits gently down.

Without claiming then for Watts a pre-eminent place among those who are called poets, these citations will be sufficient to show that however he might disclaim the dignity, he deserved the designation. And there are poets whose eminence is in general more unquestioned, who deserve it less. He was unjust to himself in this particular; verse and rhyme fell from him easily, happily, naturally. Perhaps he succeeded least when he most ambitiously attempted; but he had a remarkable and pleasant power of instantly translating some sentiment which crossed his mind from the classics into English verse, as in those well-known lines,—

Seize upon truth where’er ’tis found,

On Christian, or on heathen ground.

Amongst your friends, amongst your foes,

The flower’s divine where’er it grows,

Neglect the prickle and assume the rose.

In which he elevates the sentiment of Virgil,—

“Fas est ab hoste doceri.”