Watts

“ By his will, dated 5 Sept. (proved 5 Nov.) 1657, Watts left to Lincoln College ‘soe many bookes as cost me threescore pounds,’ to be chosen and valued by Thomas Barlow [q. v.] , then librarian of the Bodleian. Watts was a good preacher and an excellent linguist. Wood says he had ‘so smooth a pen in Latin or English that no man of his time exceeded him.’
Watts translated Bacon's ‘De Augmentis Scientiarum,’ and his rendering called ‘Of the Advancement and Proficience of Learning, of the Partitions of Sciences,’ Oxford, 1640, fol., was highly praised on its appearance. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Telling the gunners to reserve their fire of grape until he gave the word, Watts and the natives now began a heavy musketry fire on the advancing boats, and although they suffered heavily the Frenchmen came on most gallantly. Then when the first two boats, which were pulling abreast, were within fifty yards' distance, Watts and a white seaman sprang to two of the guns and themselves trained them, just as I heard a native near me cry out that in the bows of each boat he could see a man—my husband and his chief mate, who were both bound. ”

“ In "Love Triumphant" Love takes the place of, and transcends Judgment. Time and Death having travelled together through the ages, are in the end overthrown, and Love alone rises on immortal wings. Thus the stoical painter reaches his greatest height—tells his best truth.
The Death Series.—As may be expected, Death has no terrors for the fundamental Watts. Never once does Death look with hollow eyes and sunken cheeks, or grasp with bony fingers at the living. ”

“ Upon Prince Rupert's return to England in 1642, Watts, who had previously held the post of chaplain to the king, became attached to him. He accompanied the prince into the field, and was present throughout many actions. He also attended him at sea, and during the blockade of the royalist ships under the prince in Kinsale Harbour, Watts sickened of an incurable disease, and there died about December 1649. He was buried in Ireland. ”

“ And among his friends, as we have already seen, he kept up a considerable intimacy with his own fellow-townsman and fellow-student, Samuel Say, son of Giles Say, who was ejected from the parish church of St. Michael’s in Southampton, and one of the first ministers of the Nonconformist church of that town, and with which Watts’ family was connected. He was a kind of smaller Watts, a man of large and varied knowledge in the classics, mathematics, astronomy, and natural philosophy. ”

“ Watts answered it, and lighted the gas.
"Tell your wife to prepare my dinner at once," I said to him; "or as soon as possible: Mr. Brightman is coming back to-night. You are going out, are you not?"
"Yes, sir, about that business. Mr. Lennard said I had better go as soon as I had had my tea."
"All right. It will take you two or three hours to get there and back again. See to the fire in the next room; it is to be kept up. And, Watts, tell Leah not to trouble about vegetables to-day: I can't wait for them." ”

“ In seeing her, one felt as if one looked upon a goddess.’
“This afternoon Victoria took me to see Mr. Watts. [516] A drive through wooded lanes and water-meadows; then the carriage stopped at the foot of a wooded knoll, and we walked up little winding paths through the bracken and Scotch firs to the house—a rustic hermitage. You enter directly upon the principal dwelling apartment—two low rooms, with old carved furniture and deep windows, and much colour and many pictures. The ceiling is in panels, decorated in stucco by Mrs. Watts (née Fraser Tytler) . ”

“ Strong exception has been taken to Watts’ verse, on the score of its frequent, almost passionate, expression of Divine love; in this he frequently writes like Madame Guyon, or like some of those old monastic spirits who passed their days in cloisters; and Watts’ life was almost as cloisteral as that of a monk. Unlike his amiable friend, Philip Doddridge, he was never diverted from any of the solemn pursuits of his life by the claims of human passion or affection, although there are not wanting verses which, perhaps, show that he had not been altogether insensible to female charms ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Watts' loquacity, or overpowered by her arguments, went up-stairs into a room on the first floor. A long, low-ceilinged room, containing three beds, and each bed containing four women and a few supplementary children, one affected with a whooping-cough that was evidently fast racking it to death. ”

“ Few men have been so richly endowed with great friendships as Theodore Watts-Dunton: Swinburne, the Rossettis, William Morris, Matthew Arnold, Tennyson, Borrow, Lowell, Latham, men of vastly dissimilar temperaments; yet he was on terms of intimacy with them all, and as they one by one passed away, to him was left the sad duty of giving to the world by far the most intimate picture of their various personalities. There was obviously some subtle quality in Watts-Dunton’s nature that not only attracted to him great minds in the world of art and letters ”

“ A life of Watts would be quite incomplete which did not give some account of his very eminent but now almost forgotten assailant and enemy, Thomas Bradbury. Born at Wakefield, in Yorkshire, he had all the characteristics of a typical Yorkshireman; he was a bold and hearty, and possibly, whatever that may be worth, well-meaning man; he possessed a considerable amount of natural genius, especially for doubtful drollery and expletive. ”

“ Rowe was a lady quite famous in her own time; to an elevated piety she united in her style of composition many of the faults of the age in which she lived; her works were tinctured by an ardent mode of expression little in harmony with the more frigid expressions of our own day. For Dr. Watts she entertained the highest esteem. She died suddenly, but in her cabinet were found letters for two or three of the friends who held the highest place in her affections, especially for the Countess of Hertford and Dr. Watts ”

“ Thus we have the early and tender connection of Watts with this village. And not [223] long since the old house was standing. An amiable and accomplished man of our time writes, in a letter dated May, 1840: “On my return to town I stopped at Stoke Newington, and paid a promised visit to an old friend and colleague at Abney House, where he has charge of the literary education of some twenty candidates for the ministry. ”

“ After tea Mr. S. and I walked out a little while, first to a large cemetery, where repose the ashes of Dr. Watts. This burying ground occupies the site of the dwelling and grounds formerly covered by the residence of Sir T. Abney, with whom Dr. Watts spent many of the last years of his life. It has always seemed to me that Dr. Watts's rank as a poet has never been properly appreciated. If ever there was a poet born, he was that man; he attained without study a smoothness of versification, which, with Pope, was the result of the intensest analysis and most artistic care. ”

“ At the end of a long life by no means devoid of mistakes and disappointments, it would seem as though Watts attained to his desires. The man has passed away, while the witness of his aspirations remains. ”

“ Nature had endowed Watts with the best of ‘hands.’ Perhaps he was seen to chief advantage on an inexperienced two-year-old, employing gentle persuasion with admirable effect, although he was equal to strenuous measures at need.
In 1900 Watts began to train racehorses at Newmarket. That season he only saddled one winner of a 100l. plate; but in 1901 he turned out seven winners of fifteen races worth 5557l., and in 1902 four winners of five races valued at 1327l., between March and July. ”

“ There must have been a pleasant fellowship and community of tastes, certainly a fitting harmony of character; reminding us of Robert Boyle with his sister Lady Ranelagh, or William Cowper with Mary Unwin; such relationships are very beautiful in their serene, unselfish character. Beneath the roof of Lady Abney Watts died. Within two months of his departure to Bunhill Fields, she was taken to her resting-place in the vaults of Stoke Newington Church. But the family in which Dr. Watts was for more than half his life an honoured guest merits some more particular mention. ”

“ Before Watts had received his invitation to become the co-pastor or successor of Dr. Chauncy, the congregation had heard Mr. Bradbury; it is easily understood that the courtly, polished, and perhaps fastidious people would scarcely appreciate an eloquence like that of “bold Bradbury”—a term by which Queen Anne designated him. Then, at the first signal of his hostility to Watts, one of his own most distinguished people, Watts’ friend, Lord Barrington, forsook him ”

“ In "Time and Oblivion," one of the earliest of the symbolical paintings, Time is again the stalwart man of imperishable youth, while Oblivion, another form of Death, spreads her mantle of darkness over all, claiming all.
Landscapes.—Although Watts will ever be remembered for his allegorical, biblical, and portrait painting, yet he was by no means deficient in landscape art. Indeed, he carried into that branch of work his peculiar personality. ”

“ 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. ”