LIFE OF DR. WATTS.

He therefore repaired in 1690 to an academy taught by Mr. Rowe, where he had for his companions and fellow- students Mr. Hughes the poet, and Dr. Horte, afterwards arch­bishop of Tuam. Some Latin essays, sup­posed to have been written as exercises at this academy, show a degree of knowledge, both philosophical and theological, such as very few attain by a much longer course of study.

He was, as he hints in his Miscellanies, a maker of verses from fifteen to fifty, and in his youth he appears to have paid attention to Latin poetry. His verses to his brother in the glyconic measure, written when he was seventeen, are remarkably easy and elegant. Some of his other odes are deformed by the Pindaric folly then prevailing, and are written with such neglect of all metrical rules as is without example among the ancients; but his diction, though perhaps not always exactly pure, has such copiousness and splendour, as shows that he was but a very little distance from excellence.

His method of study, was to impress the contents of his books upon his memory by abridging them; and by interleaving them, to amplify one system with supplements from another.

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With the congregation of his tutor, Mr. Rowe, who were, I believe, independents, he communicated in his nineteenth year.

At the age of twenty he left the academy, and spent two years in study and devotion at the house of his father, who treated him with great tenderness; and had the happi­ness, indulged to few parents, of living to see his son eminent for literature, and venerable for piety.

He was then entertained by Sir John Har­topp five years, as domestic tutor to his son; and in that time particularly devoted him­self to the study of the Holy Scriptures; and being chosen assistant to Dr. Chauncey, preached the first time on the birth- day that completed his twenty- fourth year; probably considering that as the day of a second na­tivity, by which he entered on a new period of existence.

In about three years he succeeded Dr. Chaun­cey; but soon after his entrance on his charge,