James Watson

“ At the churching, on 19 May 1605, of Queen Anne after the birth of Princess Mary, at Greenwich, Watson preached the sermon (Nichols's Progresses of James I, vol. i. p. 514) . He died, unmarried at Cheam on 10 Sept. 1605, and was buried in the parish church on 19 Sept. He had held the rectory of Cheam for twenty-four years, and it is interesting to note that after four years' interval Watson was in 1609 succeeded at Cheam by Lancelot Andrewes [q. v.] , who followed him immediately as bishop of Chichester. ”

“ When Elizabeth died, Watson hastened to Scotland to assure James I. of the loyalty of his party, and to forestall the Jesuits, who were suspected of intriguing with Spain. The new king did not, however, as was hoped, cease to exact the necessary fines; and the general dissatisfaction felt by the Roman Catholics gave rise to the “Bye plot,” or “Watson's plot,” in which connexion this priest's name is best known, and to its sequel the Main or Cobham's, plot. ”

“ He was born in England on the 31st of December, 1854, and was a son of Porter and Susan (Talbot) Watson, both of whom were natives of England, where they spent their entire lives. James P. Watson was educated in the public schools of his native country and in 1871, when a youth of seventeen years, bade adieu to friends and country in order to come to the United States. He first made his way to Kansas, where he remained for four years, and in 1875 he came west to the Pacific coast country. ”

“ Don’t move, I beg you, Watson. He is a professional brother of yours, and your presence may be of assistance to me. Now is the dramatic moment of fate, Watson, when you hear a step upon the stair which is walking into your life, and you know not whether for good or ill. What does Dr. James Mortimer, the man of science, ask of Sherlock Holmes, the specialist in crime? Come in!”
The appearance of our visitor was a surprise to me, since I had expected a typical country practitioner. ”

“ Well asked, Watson. You would certainly fall down badly if you did not know the value of your own wares. This saucer was got for me by Sir James, and comes, I understand, from the collection of his client. You will not exaggerate if you say that it could hardly be matched in the world. ”

“ He says James is up to his pranks, and that the clan are scared to death at the very sight of you in the heart of their country. It is away we must go, Rob," and summoning his men they prepared to set out, leaving their camp fires burning in case their flight was suspected. Over the cleft in the hills they went, and crossing the top of Beinn-an-Shithein, came down on Strathyre and Castle Murdoch.
"There is a strange man lives there," said the gipsy to Rob, "it's like enough he will send us about our business should we stop." ”

“ Watson was a man of considerable learning, and his works preserved his fame long after his death. According to Doddridge, his ‘Christian Soldier, or Heaven taken by Storm,’ was the means of converting Colonel James Gardiner (1688–1745) [q. v.] His most famous work, the ‘Body of Practical Divinity,’ appeared after his death, in 1692 (London, fol.) It consists of 176 sermons on the catechism of the Westminster assembly of divines. Numerous subsequent editions have been printed, the last being issued in 1838 (London, 8vo) and in 1855 (New York, 8vo) . ”

“ I've known Mr. Watson all my life, and he's one of the best men I ever met with. He was as glad to see me as I was to see him."
But now the boys stopped talking, for the scene around them began to grow exciting. In front of them was the settlement, and in the yard below was a crowd who had assembled to see the launch. Behind them was the broad expanse of the Petitcodiac River, beyond which lay the opposite shore, which went back till it terminated in wooded hills. Overhead arose the masts, adorned with a hundred flags and streamers. The deck showed a steep slope from bow to stern. ”

“ WATSON, Sir THOMAS (1792–1882) , first baronet, physician, eldest son of Joseph Watson of Thorpe-le-Soken, Essex, and his wife Mary, daughter of Thomas Catton, was born at Montrath, near Cullompton in Devonshire, on 7 March 1792. He was educated at the grammar school of Bury St. Edmunds, where Charles James Blomfield [q. v.] , afterwards bishop of London, was his contemporary; they continued friends throughout life. ”

“ He squinted, and (according to a Jesuit) to such an extent that 'he looked nine ways at once.' ↑ There were two secular priests leaders in the 'Bye,' viz. : Watson and Clarke. Of these, Watson had been completely deceived by James's false promises to help the Romanists on his accession to the English throne. He was strongly opposed to the Jesuits' schemes for demanding the intervention of Spain ↑ 'Poor William Watson was betrayed by the man (Garnet) who, two years after, would not betray his friend Catesby; and the virulent opponent (Watson) of the Jesuits expiated his treason on the scaffold. ”

“ The good Watson had at that time deserted me for a wife, the only selfish action which I can recall in our association. I was alone.
It is my habit to sit with my back to the window and to place my visitors in the opposite chair, where the light falls full upon them. Mr. James M. Dodd seemed somewhat at a loss how to begin the interview. I did not attempt to help him, for his silence gave me more time for observation. I have found it wise to impress clients with a sense of power, and so I gave him some of my conclusions.
“From South Africa, sir, I perceive.” ”

“ In 1909 appeared an important volume of New Poems.
Mr Watson's poetry falls chiefly into the classes above indicated—critical, philosophical and political—to which may be added a further class of Horatian epistles to his friends. This classification indicates the high character and also the limitations of his poetry. It is contemplative, not dramatic, and only occasionally lyrical in impulse. In spite of the poet's plea in his “Apologia” that there is an ardour and a fire other than that of Eros or Aphrodite, ardour and fire are not conspicuous qualities of his verse. ”

“ He is said to have married in 1793 Cecilia, widow of the sixth Lord Rollo, and sister of James Johnstone (1719–1800?) [q. v.] , the Chevalier de Johnstone; but Rollo lived to marry a second wife. Watson, however, appears to have been connected by marriage with Johnstone, whose manuscripts he sold in 1820 to Messrs. Longmans [see art. Johnstone] .
Watson's chief work is a ‘Life of Lord George Gordon, with a Philosophical Review of his Political Conduct’ (London, 1795, 8vo) . He also edited in 1798 the ‘Political Works’ of Fletcher of Saltoun, with notes and a memoir ”

“ All Rob could see was a very broad back and a great red neck. He took him to be an exceedingly powerful individual, and one more used to the saddle or the hills than taverns.
"Have they passed?" growled the man at the fire, in a deep contemptuous voice.
"They have," replied Castleleathers, shutting the door, "and Frasers amongst them."
"Like enough, and the Master but a boy, James, fresh from college. His father has muckle to answer for."
"I ken fine, but who knows how this will end? I'd no break my heart if old Sim had his neck thrawn...." ”

“ Except in his political verse there is more thought than passion. Bearing trace enough of the influence of the romantic epoch, his poetry recalls the earlier classical period in its epigrammatic phrasing and Latinized diction. By the distinction and clarity of his style and the dignity of his movement William Watson stands in the true classical tradition of great English verse, in a generation rather given over to lawlessness and experiment. ”

“ Watson was moderator and examiner during 1860–1 in the Cambridge mathematical tripos, and an additional examiner in 1877. From 1893 to 1896 he was examiner in mathematics at London University. One of the founders of the Birmingham Philosophical Society, he was president 1880-1. He was elected F.R.S. on 2 June 1881. Cambridge University conferred the honorary Sc.D. degree in 1883. ”

“ The explanation is given, I think, in some remarks made by my father to Mr Watson. My father held that the University system of distributing honours was very faulty. Men, he said, wanted all the confidence they could acquire in their own powers for the struggle of life. Whatever braced and stimulated self-reliance was good. [111] The honour system encouraged the few who succeeded and inflicted upon the rest a 'demoralising sense of failure.' I have no doubt that my father was, in fact, generalising from the case of Fitzjames. ”

“ WATSON, HENRY WILLIAM (1827–1903) , mathematician, born at Marylebone on 25 Feb. 1827, was son of Thomas Watson, R.N., by his wife Eleanor Mary Kingston. Educated at King's College, London, he won the first mathematical scholarship instituted there, proceeding in 1846 to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was scholar. He graduated as second wrangler and Smith's prizeman in 1850, Dr. W. H. Besant being senior wrangler. He became fellow in 1851, and from 1851 to 1853 was assistant tutor. ”

“ Fitzjames's position in regard both to theology and politics requires a little further notice. At this time my brother was not only a stern moralist, but a 'zealous and reverential witness on behalf of dogma, and that in the straitest school of the Evangelicals.' Mr. Watson mentions the death at college of a fellow-student during the last term of my brother's residence. In his last hours the poor fellow confided to his family his gratitude to Fitzjames for having led him to think seriously on religious matters. ”

“ And Waggie has some tricks, hasn’t he?”
“He can play dead dog—and say his prayers—and howl when I sing—and do some other tricks.”
“Then I’ve got the whole scheme in my mind,” said Watson, with enthusiasm. “Let me play a blind man, with you as my leader. I think I can fix my eyes in the right way. We can go from farm to farm, from house to house, begging a meal, and you can sing, and put the dog through his tricks. People are not apt to ask the previous history of beggars—nor do I think any one will be likely to connect us with the train-robbers.” ”

“ Sometimes he felt so lonely that he could not read, and then he sat looking into the fire hour after hour in bitter wretchedness.
He had spent three months in London now, and except for that one Sunday at Hampstead had never talked to anyone but his fellow-clerks. One evening Watson asked him to dinner at a restaurant and they went to a music-hall together; but he felt shy and uncomfortable. Watson talked all the time of things he did not care about, and while he looked upon Watson as a Philistine he could not help admiring him. ”

“ He was a convert to unitarianism, to which sect Paley had a strong leaning.
[493] Watson (1737-1816) was a strange kind of man for a bishopric. He was professor of chemistry at Cambridge (1764) at the age of twenty-seven. It was his experiments that led to the invention of the black-bulb thermometer. He is said to have saved the government £100,000 a year by his advice on the manufacture of gunpowder. Even after he became professor of divinity at Cambridge (1771) he published four volumes of Chemical Essays (vol. I, 1781) . He became Bishop of Llandaff in 1782. ”

“ The works of his with which I am acquainted are the volumes entitled Wordsworth's Grave and Other Poems, The Father of the Forest and Other Poems, Lachrymæ Musarum, and the series of sonnets upon Armenia, called The Purple East. There is in Watson nothing of the dramatist or of the epic writer. He is a lyrist and a sonneteer. He is also a critic, and might very conceivably be a satirist. But, whatever he is in writing, he is mainly and before all things an intellectual rather than an emotional poet; he is an artist rather than a seer. ”

“ With wide reading in all branches of standard literature, but especially historical and political, and with a retentive memory, Watson combined a rare power of coordinating what he knew. The characteristics of decision and determination which his features suggested were quite overborne by his gentleness and benevolence. Reserved and retiring to an unusual degree, he yet in social converse put his stores of wit and learning at the free disposal of his guests. Throughout his life he was a convinced liberal, and a considerable force in Oxford politics. ”

“ He also encouraged the young men of Liverpool to volimteer for active service in South Africa. In 1901 ill-health led him to pass the winter in Egypt. On his return he delivered a short course of lectures at the Royal Institution, London, entitled 'The Scot of the Eighteenth Century: his Religion and his Life.' The lectures were repeated at Cambridge, and were published posthumously in 1907.
In February 1905 Watson celebrated the conclusion of twenty-five years' ministry at Sefton Park, and in October he resigned owing to ill-health and pressure of other work. ”

“ His father, a schoolmaster, sent him to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was elected a fellow in 1760. About the same time he had the offer of the post of chaplain to the factory at Bencoolen, in the Straits Settlements. “You are too good,” said the master of Trinity, “to die of drinking punch in the torrid zone”; and Watson, instead of becoming, as he had flattered himself, a great orientalist, remained at home to be elected professor of chemistry, a science of which he did not at the time possess the simplest rudiments. ”