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ing down the events of his life, with an account of the feelings and motives which actuated him in relation to them. "This habit," he adds, "has been both pleasant and useful to me; I have had great pleasure in preserting, as it were, my identity, by reviewing the circumstances which, under the good providence of God, have contributed to place me in my present situation; and a frequent examination of my principles of action has contributed to establish in me a consistency of conduct, and to confirm me, I trust, in that probity of manners in my seventyfifth year, with which I entered into the world at the age of seventeen." To this habit, we may attribute the precision with which he is able to speak of his conduct, in all the transactions in which he was engaged, in that interval. His father was, for nearly forty years, headmaster of Heversham school, in the county of Westmoreland. He died in 1753. The subject of this memoir was born in 1737. He received his elementary education in Heversham school, though, before his birth, his father had resigned the charge of it. In 1754, he was admitted a sizer of Trinity College, Cambridge. On the 2d of May, 1757, he offered himself for a scholarship, a year before the usual time of the sizérs' sitting, and succeeded.

"I had," says he, "at the time of being elected a scholar, been resident in college for two years and seven months, without having gone out of it for a single day. During that period I had acquired some knowledge of Hebrew; greatly improved myself in Greek and Latin; made considerable proficiency in mathematics and natural philosophy; and studied with much attention Locke's works,

King's book on the Origin of Evil, Puffendorf's Treatise de Officio Homiris et Civis, and some other books on similar subjects; I thought myself therefore entitled to a little relaxation: under this persuasion I set for ward, May 30th, 1757, to pay my elder and only brother a visit at Kendal. He was the first curate of the new chapel there, to the structure of which he had subscribed libecally. He was a man of lively parts, but being thrown into a situation where there was no great room for the display of his talents, and much temptation to convivial festivity, he spent his fortune, injured his constitution, and died when I was about the age of thirty-three; leaving a considerable debt, all of which I paid immediately, though it took almost my all to do it,"

Of the course of his collegiate life, he

says

"Whilst I was an under graduate, I kept a great deal of what is called the best company that is of idle fellow-commoners,

and other persons of fortune-but their manners never subdued my prudence; I had strong ambition to be distinguished, and was sensible that, though wealth might plead folly in others, the want of wealth could some excuse for idleness, extravagance, and plead none for me.

"When I used to be returning to my room at one or two in the morning, after spending a jolly evening, I often observed a light. in the chamber of one of the same standing with myself; this never failed to excite my jealousy, and the next day was always a day of hard study. I have gone without my dinner a hundred times on such occasions. I

thought I never entirely understood a proposition in any part of mathematics or natural philosophy, till I was able in a solitary walk, obstipo capite atque exporrecto labello, to draw the scheme in my head, and go through every step of the demonstration without book or pen and paper. I found this was a very difficult task, especially in some of the perplexed schemes, and long demonstrations of the Twelfth Book of Euclid, and in L'Hospital's Conic Sections, and in Newton's Principia. My walks for this purpose were so frequent, that my tutor, not knowing what I was about, once reproached me for being a lounger. I never gave up a difficult point in a demonstration till I had made it out proprio Marte; I have been stopped at a single step for three days. This perseverance in accomplishing whatever I undertook, was, during the whole of my active life, a striking feature in my character."

In the tenor of his studies there is nothing remarkable, save an early predilection for metaphysical speculations. In 1759, he took the degree of Bachelor of Arts. He was the second wrangler of his year, and but for the partiality of the moderator towards a student of his own college, and one of his private pupils, would have been the first.

Mr. Watson was afterwards moderator himself, and to prevent similar acts of injustice, instituted the practice of examining the candidates for the degree of Bachelor of Arts, in classes formed according to the abilities of the pupils in the schools. To illustrate the advantage of this method, he adduces a case.

"The first year I was moderator, Mr. Paley (afterwards known to the world by many excellent productions, though there are some ethical and some political principles in his philosophy which I by no means approve,) and Mr. Frere, a gentleman of Norfolk, were examined together. A report prevailed, that Mr. Frere's grandfather would give him a thousand pounds, if he were senior wrangler: the other moderator agreed with me in thinking, that Mr. Paley was his superior, and we made him senior wrangler. Mr. Frere, much to his honour,

on an imputation of partiality being thrown on my colleague and myself, publicly acknowledged, that he deserved only the second place; a declaration which could never have been made, had they not been examined in the presence of each other."

Of Dr. Paley he further says"Paley, I remember, had brought me, for one of the questions he meant for his act, Eternitas panarum contradicit Divinis attributis. I had accepted it; and indeed I never refused a question either as moderator or as professor of divinity. A few days afterwards, he came to me in a great fright, saying, that the master of his College (Dr. Thomas, Dean of Ely,) had sent to him, and insisted on his not keeping on such a question. I readily permitted him to change it, and told him, that if it would lessen his master's apprehensions, he might put in non, before contradicit, and he did so. Thomas, I had little doubt, was afraid of being looked upon as an heretic at Lambeth, for suffering a member of his college to dispute on such a question, notwithstanding what Tillotson had published on the subject many years before."

Dr.

"It is, however, a subject of great difficulty. It is allowed on all hands that the happiness of the righteous will be, strictly speak ing, everlasting; and I cannot see the justness of that criticism which would interpret the same word in the same verse in different senses. And these shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into everlasting life. Mat. xxv. 46. On the other hand, reason is shocked at the idea of God being considered as a relentless tyrant, inflicting everlasting punishment, which answers no benevolent end. But how is it proved that the everlasting punishment of the wicked may not answer a benevolent end, may not be the mean of keeping the righteous in everlasting holiness and obedience? How is it proved that it may not answer, in some other way unknown to us, a benevolent end in promoting God's moral government of the universe "

In October, 1760, Mr. Watson was chosen Fellow of Trinity College, over the heads of two of his seniors of the same year. In 1762 he took the degree of Master of Arts, and in the ensuing October was made Moderator for Trinity College. He speaks of this office, as one of the most important and arduous offices in the University. In 1763, he was appointed Moderator for St. John's College; and in 1764 for Christ's College. In the year 1764, he evinced the warmth of his heart and the sincerity of his friendship towards his college friend Mr. Luther, who, as will be seen in the sequel, generously repaid the obligation.

"On the 12th of February, 1764, I received a letter informing me that a separation

had taken place between my friend Mr.
ther, then one of the members for Ess
and his wife, and that he was gone has
abroad. My heart was ever warm in frie
ship, and it ordered me, on this occasion
follow my friend. I saw he was deser
and unhappy, and I flew to give him
possible, some consolation. I set off fi
Cambridge on the same day I had recei
the account. I could read, but I could
speak a word of French; I had no serv
nor any money; I presently borrowed fitty
pounds, and bought a French and English
Dictionary, and thus equipped, I went post
to Dover, without so much as knowing
whether my friend was gone to France, and
from thence, almost without sleeping, I got
to Paris and enquired him out. The meet-
ing was such as might have been expected.
I did not stay above twelve hours in Paris,
but immediately returned to England, and,
after a variety of accidents and great fatigue,
for I crossed the channel four times, and tra-
velled twelve hundred miles, in very bad
weather, in a fortnight, I brought my friend
back to his country and his family. His ap-
pearance in the House of Commons instantly
quashed all the injurious reports which, from
his hasty manner of leaving the country,scan-
dal had raised to his disadvantage. He was a
thorough honest man, and one of the friends
I ever loved with the greatest affection. His
temper was warm, and his wife (a very de-
serving woman) had been over-persuaded
to marry him,-had she loved him as he
loved her, she would have borne with his
infirmity of temper. Great are the public
evils, and little the private comforts attend-
ing interested marriages; when they become
general, they not only portend but bring on

a nation's ruin."

On the 19th of November, 1764, Mr. Watson was unanimously elected, Professor of Chemistry, on the death of Dr. Hadley. Of this subject, at that time, he was utterly ignorant. He sent, however, for an operator from Paris, and buried himself for a while in his laboratory. In the course of fourteen months from his election he was able to read a course of chemical lectures, "to a very full audience, consisting of persons of all ages and degrees in the University."

"There was no stipend annexed to the Professorship of Chemistry, nor any thing furnished to the Professor by the University, except a room to read lectures in. I was told that the Professors of Chemistry in Paris, Vienna, Berlin, Stockholm, &c. were supported by their respective monarchs; and I

knew that the reading a course of lectures would every year be attended with a great expense; and being very hearty in the design of recommending chemistry to the attention of the youth of the University and of the country, I thought myself justified in applying to the minister for a stipend from

the crown. Lord Rockingham was then minister (1766), and Mr. Luther, who had lately spent above twenty thousand pounds in establishing the whig interest in Essex, undertook to ask for it. Though an hundred a year, given for the encouragement of science, is but as a drop in the ocean, when compared with the enormous sums lavished in unmerited pensions, lucrative sinecures, places, and scandalous jobs, by every minister on his flatterers and dependents, in order to secure his majorities in Parliament, yet I obtained this drop with difficulty, and, unless the voice of a member of Parliament had seconded my petition, I doubt whether I should have succeeded. I sent up to the duke of Newcastle, Chancellor of the University, a testimonial from the Vice-Chancellor, that I had read with credit a course of chemical lectures; and that a chemical establishment would be highly useful to the University; together with this testimonial, I sent my petition to lord Rockingham, requesting the duke to present it to him.

"The petition was presented in March, but I heard nothing about it till the July following; when, waiting upon the duke of Newcastle, he asked if my business was done? I answered, No, and that I thought it never would be done. I own I had been so much vexed at the delay, that I was very indifferent whether it ever was done or not, and therefore answered with more firmness than the old man had been used to. He then asked why it had not been done. My answer was, 'Because lord Rockingham says your grace ought to speak to the king, as Chancellor of the University; and your grace says, that lord Rockingham ought to speak to the king, as minister.' He stared at me with astonishment; and, calling for paper, he instantly wrote a letter, and sealing it with his own seal, ordered me to go with it immediately to lord Rockingham, who had a levee that day. I did so (and it was the only time in my life that I ever attended a minister's levee,) and sent in my letter, before the levee began. I understood it was whispered, that lord Rockingham and the whigs were to go out of administration; and it was so: for their dismission was settled that day. Lord Rockingham, however, undertook to ask the king; and, apologizing for not having done it sooner, offered in a very polite manner to have the stipend (I asked only for 100l. a year,) settled upon me for life. This I refused, and desired to have it only whilst I continued Professor of Chemistry; and discharged the duty of the office.

"The ice being thus broken by me, similar stipends have been since procured from the crown, for the Professors of Anatomy and Botany, and for the recent established Professor of Common Law."

In 1767, he was chosen one of the head tutors in Trinity College. In 1768, he composed and printed his Institutiones

Metallurgica; and in the same year was chosen a Fellow of the Royal Society.

In 1771, on the death of Dr. Rutherforth, Mr. Watson was chosen Regius Professor of Divinity.

"This professorship, as being one of the most arduous and honourable offices in the University, had long been the object of my ambition; I had for years determined in my own mind to endeavour to succeed Dr. Rutherforth, provided he lived till I was of a proper age, and fully qualified for the undertaking. His premature and unexpected I knew as death quite disheartened me. much of divinity as could reasonably be expected from a man whose course of studies had been directed to, and whose time had been fully occupied in other pursuits; but, with this curta supellex in theology, to take possession of the first professional chair in Europe, seemed too daring an attempt even for my intrepidity."

It was, however, the general expectation that he would offer himself as a candidate for the vacant chair- and he pub-. licly announced himself as such. But there was still a difficulty to be overcome.

"I was not, when Dr. Rutherforth died, either Bachelor or Doctor in Divinity, and without being one of them I could not become a candidate for a professorship. This puzzled me for a moment; I had only seven days to transact the business in; but by complished my purpose, obtained the king's hard travelling and some adroitness I acmandate for a doctor's degree, and was created a doctor on the day previous to that appointed for the examination of the candidates."

"Thus did I," he continues, " by hard and incessant labour for seventeen years, attain, at the age of thirty-four, the first office for honour in the University; and, exclusive of the Mastership of Trinity College, I have made it the first for profit. I found the professorship not worth quite 3301. a year, and it is now worth 1000l. at the least.”

Of his conduct in the theological professorship, Dr. Watson gives the following candid account.

"I reduced the study of divinity into as narrow a compass as I could, for I determined to study nothing but my Bible, being much unconcerned about the opinions of councils, fathers, churches, bishops, and other men, as little inspired as myself. This mode of proceeding being opposite to the general one, and especially to that of the Master of Peterhouse, who was a great reader, he used to call me autodidantos, the self-taught divine.--The Professor of Divinity had been nick-named Malleus Hæreticorum; it was thought to be his duty to demolish every opinion which militated against what is called the orthodoxy of the Church of England. Now, my mind was wholly unbiassed; I had no prejudice

"At the time I published this letter," he says, "I knew very little of the duke of Grafton as an acquaintance; I had afterwards more intimacy with him, and I was for many years, indeed as long as he lived, happy in his friendship. It appears from

some hundreds of his letters which he had ordered at his death to be returned unread to me, that we had not always agreed either in our political or religious opinions; but we had both of us too much sense to suffer a diversity of sentiment to deaden the activity of personal attachment. I never attempted either to encourage or discourage his profession of Unitarian principles, for I was happy to see a person of his rank, professing with intelligence and with sincerity Christian principles. If any one thinks that an Unitarian is not a Christian, I plainly say, without being myself an Unitarian, that I think otherwise.""

against, no predilection for the Church of anonymous letter to his grace, compliEngland; but a sincere regard for the menting him on the firmness and inteChurch of Christ, and an insuperable objec-grity of his character and conduct. tion to every degree of dogmatical intolerance. I never troubled myself with answering any arguments which the opponents in the divinity schools brought against the articles of the church, nor ever admitted their authority as decisive of a difficulty; but I used on such occasions to say to them, holding the New Testament in my hand, En sacrum codicem! Here is the fountain of truth, why do you follow the streams derived from it by the sophistry, or polluted by the passions of man? If you can bring proofs against any thing delivered in this book, I shall think it my duty to reply to you; articles of churches are not of divine authority; have done with them; for they may be true, they may be false; and appeal to the book itself. This mode of disputing gained me no credit with the hierarchy, but I thought it an honest one, and it produced a liberal spirit in the University." In 1772, Dr. Watson published two short letters to the members of the House of Commons, under the feigned name of a "Christian Whig,"-and in 1773 a tract entitled, “A brief State of the Principles of Church Authority." He was opposed to requiring a subscription "to any human confession of faith further than a declaration of belief in the Scriptures, as containing a revelation of the will of God."

In 1773, Dr. Watson married. He thus notices this change in his situation.

"My constitution was ill fitted for celibacy, and as soon, therefore, as I had any means for maintaining a family I married. My wife was the eldest daughter of Edward Wilson, Esq. of Dallum Tower in Westmoreland. We were married at Lancaster on the 21st of December, 1773. During a cohabitation of above forty years, she has been every thing I wished her to be; and I trust I have lived with her, and provided for her, as a man, not unconscious of her worth, ought to have done."

Through the kind intervention of the duke of Grafton, he now obtained a sinecure living of the Bishop of St. Asaph, which he afterwards exchanged for a prebend in the church of Ely. To this nobleman Dr. Watson was sincerely attached, till his death, in 1810. The calumnies of Junius have made the name of the duke of Grafton familiar to most

of our readers. It is pleasing to see him exhibited in these memoirs in a very different light from that in which a partisan has attempted to place him. On his secession from the administration in 1775, Dr. Watson, who was a zealous opposer of the American war, addressed an

The Marquis of Granby had been one of Dr. Watson's pupils,-and to all who had been under his particular care, he in the after periods of life continued his paternal friendship. In a letter to this nobleman, in 1775, he thus expresses himself:

"Persevere, I beg of you, in the resolution of doing something for yourself; your ancestors have left you rank and fortune; these will procure you that respect from the world, which other men with difficulty obtain, by personal merit. But if to these you add your own endeavours to become good, and wise, and great, then will you deserve the approbation of men of sense.

"General reading is the most useful for men of the world, but few men of the world have leisure for it; and those who have courage to abridge their pleasures for the improvement of their minds, would do well to consider that different books ought to be read with very different degrees of attention: or, as lord Bacon quaintly enough expresses it, some books are to be tasted or read in part only; some to be swallowed or read wholly, but not cursorily; and some and well considered. Of this last kind are to be digested, or read with great diligence, the works of lord Bacon himself. Nature has been very sparing in the production of such men as Bacon; they are a kind of snperior beings; and the rest of mankind are usefully employed for whole centuries in picking up what they poured forth at once. Lord Bacon opened the avenues of all science, and had such a comprehensive familiarity with his writings cannot fail of way of thinking upon every subject, that a being extensively useful to you as an ora tor; and there are so many shrewd observations concerning human nature dispersed through his works, that you will be much the wiser for them as a private man.

"I would observe the same of Mr. Locke's writings, all of which, without exception (even his letters to the Bishop of Worcester will teach you acutenese in detecting sophistry in debate,) may be read over and over again with infinite advantage. His reasoning is every where profound, and his language masculine. I hate the flimsy womanish eloquence of novel readers, I mean of such as read nothing else, and wish you, therefore, to acquire both justness of sentiment and strength of expression, from the perusal of works of great men. Make Bacon, then, and Locke, and why should I not add that sweet child of nature, Shakespeare, your chief companions through life, let them be ever upon your table, and when you have an hour to spare from business or pleasure, spend it with them, and I will answer for their giving you entertainment and instruction as long as you live.

"You can no more have an intimacy with all books than with all men, and one should take the best of both kinds for one's peculiar friends; for the human mind is ductile to a degree, and insensibly conforms itself to what it is most accustomed to. Thus with books as with men, a few friends stand us in better stead than a multitude of folks we know little of."

We wish we could afford room for the whole letter, which is replete with wholesome instruction.

In 1776, Dr. Watson preached the Restoration and Accession Sermons before the University-both of which he published. The first, which was entitled "The Principles of the Revolution Vindicated," gave great offence at court, and ever afterwards constituted an obstacle to the author's preferment.

Notwithstanding Dr. Watson's distaste for religious controversy, he did not hesitate to enter the lists with Mr. Gibbon, when that gentleman assailed the outposts of Christianity. He conducted the discussion, however, with a temper as admirable as singular in such disputes. He gives us the following account of the publication of his Apology for Christianity, and his intercourse with Mr. Gibbon in regard to it.

"In the summer of 1776, I published my Apology for Christianity. I was induced to look into Mr. Gibbon's History, by a friend, (Sir Robert Graham,) who told me, that the attack upon Christianity, contained in two of his chapters, could not be repelled. My answer had a great run, and is still sought after, though it was only a month's work in the long vacation. But if I had been longer about it, though I might have stuffed it with more learning, and made it more bulky, I am not certain that I should have made it better. The manner in which I had treated Mr. Gibbon displeased some of the dough

ty polemics of the time; they were angry
with me for not having bespattered him with
a portion of that theological dirt, which
Warburton had so liberally thrown at his
antagonists. One of that gentleman's great-
est admirers, (Bishop Hurd,) was even so
uncandid, as to entertain, from the gentle-
ness of my language, a suspicion of my sin-
cerity; saying, of the Apology, it was well
enough, if I was in earnest.'

"I sent a copy, before it was published, to
Mr. Gibbon, from whom I received the fol-
lowing note.

"MR. GIBBON takes the earliest opportu-
nity of presenting his compliments and
thanks to Dr. Watson; and of expressing
his sense of the liberal treatment which he
has received from so candid an adversary.
Mr. Gibbon entirely coincides in opinion
with Dr. Watson, that as their different sen-
timents on a very important point of history
are now submitted to the public, they both
may employ their time in a manner much
more useful, as well as agreeable, than they
can possibly do by exhibiting a single com-
bat in the amphitheatre of controversy. Mr.
Gibbon is therefore determined to resist the
temptation of justifying, in a professed reply,
any passages of his history, which it might
perhaps be easy to clear from censure and
misapprehension. But he still reserves to
himself the privilege of inserting, in a future
edition, some occasional remarks and ex-
planations of his meaning. If any calls of
pleasure or business should bring Dr. Wat-

son to town, Mr. Gibbon would think him-
self fortunate in being permitted to solicit
the honour of his acquaintance.

"Bentick-street, Nov. 2d, 1776.'

"Answer to Mr. Gibbon's Note.

"DR. WATSON accepts with pleasure Mr. Gibbon's polite invitation to a personal acquaintance, and, if he comes to town this winter, will certainly have the honour of waiting upon him; begs at the same time to assure Mr. Gibbon, that he will be very hap Py to have an opportunity of showing him every civility, if curiosity or other motives should bring him to Cambridge. Dr. Wat

son can have some faint idea of Mr. Gibbon's

difficulty, in resisting the temptation he
speaks of, from having of late been in a si-
tuation somewhat similar himself. It would
be very extraordinary if Mr. Gibbon did not
feel a parent's partiality, for an offspring
which has justly excited the admiration of
all who have seen it, and Dr. Watson would
be the last person in the world, to wish him
to conceal any explanation which might
tend to exalt its beauties.

"Cambridge, Nov. 4th, 1776.'

"In the beginning of the year (1779,) Mr. Gibbon published an answer to his various antagonists, who had animadverted on his History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. This answer was distinguished by great severity towards other men, but by great courtesy towards myself. I thought

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