Thomas Watts

“ Thomas Rowe, whose son, we believe, became the husband of the celebrated Elizabeth Rowe, the once popular author of 'Letters from the Dead to the Living.' The Rowes belonged to the Independent body. At this academy Watts began to write poetry, chiefly in the Latin language, and in the then popular Pindaric measure. At the age of twenty, he returned to his father's house, and spent two quiet years in devotion, meditation, and study. He became next a tutor in the family of Sir John Hartopp for five years. ”

“ Watts was on terms of close intimacy with him, and they must have been congenial in their lives of elevated and profoundly cultured piety.
And there were men around Watts in the ministry with whom he had great congeniality of sentiment. Eminent among these was Samuel Rosewell, the son of Thomas Rosewell, celebrated for his trial for high treason and unjust condemnation before the impious Jefferies. Watts gives an interesting account of his visit to him on his death-bed in one of his sermons preached at Bury Street. “Come, my friends,” says he, “come into the chamber of a dying Christian ”

“ Watts-Dunton was born in the microcosm which was in those corn law repeal days a little metropolis in Cowslip Country—Buttercup Land, as the Ouse lanes are sometimes called, and therefore he was born to good luck. Cowslip Country will be as closely associated with him and with Rhona Boswell as Wessex is associated with Thomas Hardy and with Tess of the D’Urbervilles. For the poet born in a microcosm becomes identified with it in the public eye, whereas the poet born in a macrocosm is seldom associated with his birthplace. ”

“ Watts, basket-maker, Bromley House, Nottingham, he made the acquaintance of Thomas Bailey [q. v.] , then editing the ‘Good Citizen,’ who encouraged him to print ‘Songs of the Sea Nymphs,’ 1832. This work gained him many friends, and enabled him to start a business on his own account at Swan's Yard, Long Row. ”

“ Among these I must prominently mention one to whom I have been specially indebted for reminiscences of Mr. Watts-Dunton and his circle. This is Mr. Thomas St. E. Hake, eldest son of the ‘parable poet,’ a gentleman of much too modest and retiring a disposition, who, from Mr. Watts-Dunton’s first appearance in London right onwards, was brought into intimate relations with himself, his relatives, Rossetti, William Morris, Westland Marston, Philip Bourke Marston, Madox Brown, George Borrow, Stevenson, Minto, and many others. ”

“ Fili: Dei: miserere: mei:’ caused his bells to be called Watts's Nazarenes. He worked the bell-foundry of Leicester until his death, at the age of sixty, in February or March 1642–3, and was buried in St. Mary's Church, Leicester. Shortly after the death of Watts the business was wound up and partly taken over by Nottingham founders. Watts's son, also named Hugh (1611–1656) , to whom the bell-metal and bell-founding appliances were bequeathed, married a daughter of Sir Thomas Burton of Stockerston. ”

“ APPENDIX II So many questions about the characters depicted in Aylwin were put to the editor of Notes and Queries that he suggested that a key to the novel would he found acceptable. Some weeks after this suggestion was made there appeared in that journal (7th June 1902) the following contribution by Mr. Thomas St. E. Hake, an intimate friend of Rossetti, and of other leading characters of the story. The republication of it here has been kindly sanctioned by Mr. J. C. Francis, a name so indissolubly associated both with the Athenæum and Notes and Queries. Mr. ”

“ It is singular that in these three canvases the painter avoids the attempt to draw the face of the mother of the race. In the first the face is upturned, covered in shadow; in the second it is hid from view by the leaves of the forbidden tree, while in the third Eve turns her back and hides her weeping face with her arms. This habit of Watts to obscure the face is observed in "The Shuddering Angel," Judgment in "Time, Death, and Judgment," in "Love and Death," "Sic Transit," "Great Possessions," and some others. Often indeed a picture speaks as much of what is not seen as of what is seen. ”

“ Though suffering from bodily ailments during the greater part of his adult life, he was robust in his thinking and became a bold and sturdy fighter for the cause of intellectual and religious freedom. Watts was one of the gentlest and kindest of men and a friend of the young. His wide intellectual interests enabled him to write textbooks on logic, geography, and astronomy, which were used in the universities of England as well as Harvard and Yale. ”

“ It is a terrible picture of the god to whom many bow the knee—"dedicated to his worshippers." His leaden face shows a consciousness of power, but not happiness arising from power; his dull eyes see nothing, though his mind's eye sees one thing clearly—the money bags on his lap. The two frail creatures of youth and maiden, "types of humanity" as Watts said, are crushed by his heavy limbs, while behind a fire burns continuously, perhaps also within his massive breast. ”

“ Fortune has a lock of hair on her forehead by which alone she may be captured, and as she glides mockingly along, she leads her pursuers across rock, stream, dale, desert, and meadow typical of life. The pursuit of the elusive is a favourite theme with Watts, and is set forth by the picture "Mischief." Here a fine young man is battling for his liberty against an airy spirit representing Folly or Mischief. Humanity bends his neck beneath the enchanter's yoke—a wreath of flowers thrown round his neck—and is led an unwilling captive ”

“ At an age when many men (far from being blockheads) are painfully striving after a literary command of their mother-tongue, young Watts had showed himself to be master of two several clusters of the great Indo-European family, and to have a very respectable acquaintance with a third. ”

“ This man, however, never appears in the pictures; when once in his studio, alone facing his canvas, Watts is final, absolute, an undisturbed and undistracted unity, conscious of that overwhelming "rightness" known to a Hebrew prophet. Whatever Time or Death may have in store for him or any man, there riding swiftly above them is Judgment the Absolute One; whatever theories may be spun from the perplexed mind of the magazine writer about Expansion and Necessity, there sits the terrible "Mammon" pilloried for all time. ”

“ There the young man who went away sorrowful with bowed head, scarcely knowing what he has lost, is used by Watts as one of his most powerful criticisms of modern life. Although the incident is a definite isolated one, yet the costume, figure, chain of office, and jewelled fingers, clutching and releasing, are of no time or land in particular. ”

“ In the gallery in Melbury Road hung all manner of pictures and numerous portraits, amongst which I recognised those of Tennyson, the Prince of Wales, his former wife Ellen Terry, and Violet Lindsay—one of his favourite models—besides many more; but almost seventy were then being exhibited at Manchester, which somewhat denuded the walls.
In personal appearance Watts was a gracious, kindly old gentleman, with white hair and a closely trimmed beard. He wore a tight tweed suit and a scarlet ribbon loosely tied round his neck, besides a black velvet skull-cap, head-gear of so many “old masters178.” ”

“ From the last years of the reign of Charles II. to the closing years of George II. constitutes the era of Watts. Every age seems eminently important to its actors—sometimes even to spectators—and yet that age stands out with singular distinctness. How different the times of Watts’ birth and those of his death: the infant in the arms of a weeping mother, beneath the bars of the dungeon of the imprisoned Nonconformist, and the old man, that same infant, passing away, with the great Methodist movement rising into activity over the whole nation. ”

“ The career of Watts as a public man began in 1843 when he had reached the age of 26. The British Government, not often guilty of fostering art or literature, may claim at least the credit for having drawn him out of his seclusion at the very moment when his genius was ripening to bear fruit. In 1834 the Palace of Westminster, so long the home of the Houses of Parliament, had been burnt to the ground. ”

“ Charles Watts, is a gentleman of sound, logical mind; one who knows what he wants to say and how to say it; who is familiar with the organization of Secular societies, knows what we wish to accomplish and the means to attain it. I am glad that he is about to make this country his home, and I know of no man who, in my judgment, can do more for the cause of intellectual liberty. ”

“ Besides the twenty-five which are in the Tate Gallery, the thirty-six in the National Portrait Gallery, and a large number at Limnerslease, others have through the generosity of the artist found homes in most of the important public galleries of the United Kingdom and the colonies; the rest remain scattered in private hands.
To his contemporaries Watts set a great example by unremitting industry and lofty purpose, by sweetness, dignity, and generosity of mind and character, and by the absolute devotion of all his powers to the benefit of his race and country as he conceived it. ”

“ The death of this amiable, excellent, and promising young man stands out as probably the most intense grief of Watts’ life. As there was a community of taste, leisure for the indulgence of the pursuits of the intellect and the heart, and the strong wish to gratify the instincts of a noble nature, it is not wonderful that Watts poured out his feelings in so lengthy a poem.
The young man appears to have come of a high-spirited family; his father, John Gunston, befriended many of the ministers when they fell beneath the arm of persecution ”

“ Not to perpetuate a name which must endure while the peaeful arts flourish, but to show that mankind have learned to honour those who best deserve their gratitude, the King, his ministers, and many of the nobles and commoners of the realm, raised this monument to James Watt, who, directing the force of an original genius, early exercised in philosophical research, to the improvement of the steam-engine, enlarged the resources of his country, increased the power of man, and rose to an eminent place among the most illustrious followers of science and the real benefactors of the world. ”

“ Watts was modest; in every estimate of himself he disclaimed any title to the rank of a poet; but in truth his powers, as manifested in his writings, whether we regard him as a preacher, theologian, or metaphysician, are all equally luminous and instructive. Beyond all these, a character exalted by seraphic piety and all-embracing charity makes the narrative of such a life well worthy of the study of all to whom it is pleasant to contemplate human nature in the finer proportions of genius, sanctified and illustrated by Divine grace. ”

“ In "The All-pervading," there sits the Spirit of the Universe, holding in her lap the globe of the systems, the representation of the last conclusions of philosophy. This mysterious picture is very low in tone, conforming to Watts' rule to make the colouring suit the subject. Here there is nothing hard or defined; the spirit of the universe is merely suggested or hinted at, his great wings enclose all. The elliptical form of this composition is seen again in "Death Crowning Innocence" and "The Dweller in the Innermost," and the same expressive indefiniteness and lowness of the colour tones. ”

“ The intense antipathy to Rome and the Papacy, so manifest in the writings of Watts, and in the wild passions of the times, was not without a cause, and a cause which would make itself especially felt in the City of London. When Watts was ordained over the church in Mark Lane, only fifteen years had elapsed since the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes; that dreadful act of persecution had poured over many parts of England and of America the noble refugees of freedom and Protestantism; multitudes found their way to the neighbourhood of London ”

“ There are Christians still who delight in this doubtful method of expressing and setting forth the holiest affections. Watts in all his religious works had at all times the ardent and fervent words of a poetic and imaginative nature, but he considerably pruned both thought and speech as the years passed in study and seclusion brought a riper wisdom; he did not repress the ardours of the heart, but he gave to their expression a chastened and colder form; he was not satisfied indeed by light without love, but he clothed that love with a more sacred reticence. ”

“ Those of John Bright, by Frank Holt, R.A.; of George Dawson, by H. T. Munns; of William Murdock, by John Graham; of Arthur Ryland, the founder of the Birmingham and Midland Institute, and sometime Mayor of the town, by Sir J. W. Gordon; and of Sir John Franklin, by T. Phillips, R.A., also deserve note in this connexion.
Watts and Portraits.—The large room of the Art Gallery is nearly filled with a collection of Mr. Watt’s pictures, kindly lent by the artist. Much interest now attaches to these works, as Mr. Watts has just offered them, with others, to the nation. ”

“ Watts's early years were spent at Salem and Smithland, Kentucky, but he later went to New Orleans as a clerk in the firm of Givens, Watts and Company, cotton brokers. He shortly afterwards joined the New York branch of this New Orleans house, known as Watts, Crowe and Company, as a partner in the business; and from New York Watts went to Liverpool, England, to represent the firm of W. C. Watts and Company, which was the foreign title for the New Orleans and New York houses. For some years the business was very prosperous, and Watts, of course, shared largely in the firm's success. ”