the department of Natural History, which promised so much information and entertainment, that I fell very soon into the same way of reading. Dr. Woodward the physician, who had been a fellow-labourer with Hutchinson, and followed very nearly the same principles, had made the natural history of the Earth, and the diluvian origination of extraneous fossils, so agreeable and so intelligible, that I was captivated by his writings: and from them I went to others; taking what I found, with a taste and appetite, which could not, at that time, make such distinctions as I may have been able to make since. In the simplicity of my heart, I communicated some of the novelties, with which my mind was now filled, to my dear and constant companion, Mr. Horne, from whom I seldom concealed any thing; but found him very little inclined to consider them; and I had the mortification to see, that I was rather losing ground in his estimation. Our College-Lectures on Geometry and Natural Philosophy (which were not very deep) we had gone through with some attention, and thought ourselves qualified to speak up for the Philosophy of Newton. It was therefore shocking to hear, that attraction was no physical principle, and that a vacuum never had been, and never would be, demonstrated. Here therefore Mr. Horne insisted, that if Sir I. Newton's Philosophy should be false in these principles, no Philosophy would ever be true. How it was objected to, and how it was defended, I do not now exactly remember; I fear, not with any profound skill on either side; but this I well recollect, that our disputes, which happened at a pleasant season of the year, kept us walking to and fro in the Quadrangle till past midnight. As I got more information for myself, I gained more

upon my companion: but I have no title to the merit of forming him into what he afterwards proved to be.

In the same College with us, there lived a very extraordinary person. He was a classical scholar of the first rate, from a public school, remarkable for an unusual degree of taste and judgment in poetry and oratory; his person was elegant and striking, and his countenance expressed at once both the gentleness of his temper and the quickness of his undestanding. His manners and address were those of a perfect gentleman: his common talk, though easy and fluent, had the correctness of studied composition: his benevolence was so great, that all the beggars in Oxford knew the way to his chamber door; upon the whole, his character was so spotless, and his conduct so exemplary, that mild and gentle as he was in his carriage toward them, no young man dared to be rude in his company. By many of the first people in the University he was known and admired: and it being my fortune to live in the same staircase with him, he was very kind and attentive to me, though I was much his junior: he often allowed me the pleasure of his conversation, and sometimes gave me the benefit of his advice, of which I knew the meaning to be so good, that I always heard it with respect, and followed it as well as I could. This gentleman, with all his other qualifications, was a reader of Hebrew, and a favourer of Mr. Hutchinson's philosophy; but had kept it to himself, in the spirit of Nicodemus; and when I asked him the reason of it afterwards, and complained of the reserve with which he had so long treated me in this respect; "Why," said he, "these things are in no repute; the world does not receive them; and you, being a young man, who must keep what friends you have, and make your for

tune in the world, I thought it better to let you go on in your own way, than bring you into that embarrassment which might be productive of more harm than good, and embitter the future course of your life: besides, it was far from being clear to me, how you would receive them; and then I might have lost your friendship." It was now too late for such a remonstrance to have any effect; I therefore, on the contrary, prevailed upon him to become my master in Hebrew, which I was very desirous to learn: and in this he acquitted himself with so much skill and kind attention, writing out for me with his own hand such grammatical rules and directions as he judged necessary, that in a very short time I could go on without my guide. I remember, however, that I had nearly worked myself to death, by determining, like Duns Scotus in the Picture-Gallery, to go through a whole chapter in the Hebrew before night.

To this gentleman, whose name was George Watson, I recommended Mr. Horne at my departure from Oxford; and they were so well pleased with each other, that Mr. Horne, instead of going home to his friends in the vacation, stayed for the advantage of following his studies at Oxford, under the direction of his new teacher: and in the autumn of the year 1749, he began a Series of Letters to his Father, which fill above thirty pages in large quarto, very closely written; from the whole tenor of which, it is pleasant to see, how entire a friendship and confidence there was between a grave and learned father, and a son not yet twenty years of age! Of these letters, though they are by no means correct enough, either for style or judgment, to stand the test of severe criticism, it is highly proper I should give some account; to shew what those opinions were, which had now got possession of his

mind; intermixing with my abstract such notes and explanations as shall seem requisite for a better understanding of it.

Having first apologized to his father, for not visiting him in the vacation, he gives him an account of his teacher. "I am obliged for the happiness I have enjoyed of late to a gentleman of this society, and shall always bless God that his providence ever brought me acquainted with him. He is a Fellow of our house; and, though but six and twenty, as complete a scholar in the whole circle of learning, as great a divine, as good a man, and as polite a gentleman, as the present age can boast of." These words of Mr. Horne I introduce with peculiar satisfaction; because they afford so strong a concurring testimony to the truth of what I have already ventured to say of Mr. Watson. This excellent man never published any large work, and will be known to posterity only by some occasional pieces which he printed in his life-time. His Sermon on the 19th Psalm, which he preached before the University, and afterwards left the printing of to my care, so delighted Mr. Horne (as it appears from these letters to his father) that it probably raised in his mind the first desire of undertaking that Commentary on the whole book of Psalms, which he afterwards brought to such perfection*. Mr. Watson published another Sermon on the Divine Appearance in Gen. xviii.; which was furiously shot at by the bush-fighters of that time in the Monthly Review; insomuch that the author thought it might be of some service to take up his pen and write them a letter; in which their insolence is reproved with such superior

This is the gentleman who is spoken of in a Note to the Comment on Psalm xix.

dignity of mind and serenity of temper, and their ignorance and error so learnedly exposed, that, if I were desirous of shewing to any reader what Mr. Watson was, and what they were, I would by all means put that letter into his hand; of which I suppose no copies are now to be found, but in the possession of some of his surviving friends. It is however made mention of with due honour by Dr. Delany, the cele brated Dean of Down in Ireland, who was once the intimate friend of Swift, and has given us the best account of his life and character in his Observations in answer to Lord Orrery. In a Preface to the third volume of his Revelation examined with Candour, which he printed at London very late in life, he speaks of a malignant style of criticism, in practice at that time with the obscure and unknown authors of a Monthly Review; and observes upon the case, that " he must seem at first sight a rash as well as a bold man, who would venture to wage war at once with Billingsgate and Banditti. And yet in truth," adds hè, "such a war (defensive only) hath been waged with them to great advantage, by a gentleman, whose mind and manners are as remote from illiberal scurrility and abuse, as his adversaries appear to be from learning, from candour, and from every character of true criticism. Mr. Watson, the defendant here mentioned, hath, in return to their scurrility, answered and exposed them with strong, clear and irresistible reasoning, and such a meek, calm and Christian spirit, as hath done honour to his own character, and úncommon justice to the Christian cause; such as were sufficient to silence any thing but effrontery, hardened in ignorance, to the end of the world." Mr. Watson also printed a Sermon, preached before the University on the 29th of May, which he calls an Ad