William Watson

“ The thirty-nine letters given in the fourth volume of Buxton Forman’s edition of Keats’s Works tell the story of this affair of a poet’s heart. These are the letters which Mr. William Watson says he has never read, and at which no consideration shall ever induce him to look. But Mr. Watson reflects upon people who have been human enough to read them when he compares such a proceeding on his own part (were he able to be guilty of it) to the indelicacy of ‘listening at a keyhole or spying over a wall.’ This is not a just illustration. ”

“ It is important in the study of a poet's development. It would seem that the William Watson of the last twenty-five years, a fiery, eager, sensitive man, with a burning passion to express himself on moral and political ideas, learned the mastery of his art before he had anything to say.
Perhaps, being a thoroughly honest craftsman, he felt that he ought to keep his thoughts to himself, until he knew how to express them. After proving it on an impersonal romance, he was then ready to speak his mind. No poet has spoken his mind more plainly. ”

“ William Watson, a Yorkshireman by birth and ancestry, was born on the second of August, 1858. His first volume, The Prince's Quest, appeared in 1880. Seldom has a true poet made a more unpromising start, or given so little indication, not only of the flame of genius, but of the power of thought. ”

“ WATSON, RICHARD (1612–1685) , royalist divine, controversialist and poet, son of William Watson, merchant, was born in the parish of St. Katharine Cree, London, in 1612, and is said to have studied for five years in the Merchant Taylors' school under Mr. ”

“ To-morrow evening they hope to have better luck, and nothing will give me greater happiness than to be able to show them some of those beautiful objects with which the heavens are so gloriously ornamented. Carolina's diary goes on:
"Sir William Watson returned to Bath after a fortnight or three weeks' stay. From him we heard that my brother was invited to Greenwich with the telescope, where he was met by a numerous party of astronomical and learned gentlemen, and trials of his instrument were made. ”

“ 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 contributed 'The Political Character of the Working Class' to 'Essays on Reform' (London, 1867, 8vo) , and 'Reciprocity' to a volume of 'Lectures on Economic Science,' published by the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science (London, 1870, 8vo) . In 1899 a volume of selections from Hutton's writings in the 'Spectator,' entitled 'Aspects of Religious and Scientific Thought,' was, published under the editorship of his niece, Miss Elizabeth Mary Roscoe. William Watson's 'Lachrymæ Musarum and other Poems' (London, 1893, 8vo) was dedicated to Hutton and Townsend. ”

“ WATSON, Sir WILLIAM (1715–1787) , physician, naturalist, and electrician, born on 3 April 1715 in St. John's Street, near Smithfield, London, was the son of a tradesman. He was entered at the Merchant Taylors' school in 1726, and in 1730 was apprenticed to an apothecary named Richardson. From his youth he made many excursions into the country to search for plants, having a strong taste for botany, and he obtained the premium given annually by the Apothecaries' Company for proficiency in that subject. In 1738 Watson married and set up in business for himself. ”

“ 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. ”

“ An Oxford man, who took no degree, and a lawyer, who did not practise, Watson became an elegant writer of English and Latin verse. He won the patronage of Walsingham at Paris in 1581, and became a member of the literary circle of Lyly and Peele. His most important volume of verse is the Hekatompathia (1582) dedicated to the Earl of Oxford. At the time of his death in Sept. 1592 he was in the service of William Cornwallis, who afterwards wrote to Heneage that he ‘could devise twenty fictions and knaveryes in a play which was his daily practyse and his living’ (Athenaeum, 23 Aug. 1890) . ”

“ Watson is full of romantic interest. She was Priscilla Thomas, a daughter of Caleb and Priscilla (Capen) Thomas of Marshfield. She became engaged to Noah Hobart, a divinity student, who was at the time teaching school in Duxbury. John Watson of Plymouth, who had married in 1715, Sarah, daughter of Daniel Rogers of Ipswich, lost his wife, and not knowing of the engagement of Miss Thomas, made through her father, an offer of marriage. As Mr. Watson was a man of high standing and abundant means, Mr. Thomas was favorably impressed by the offer, and said that he would consult his wife and daughter. ”

“ Watson is, in common parlance, a self-made man. Left alone in the world and dependent entirely on his own exertions for a livelihood, he learned the carpenter's trade, learned it well, and followed it industriously through life. Mr. Watson was born in Lycoming county, Pennsylvania, Sept. 13, 1823, and came to the St. Croix valley in 1849. He lived a few years in Hudson, and then removed to Stillwater, where he has the credit of building many fine structures. He was married in 1860 to Frances Lyman, of Stillwater. ”

“ De La Mare received homage everywhere; "Riley day" is now a legal holiday in Indiana; Rupert Brooke has been canonized.
Mr. Watson is surely mistaken when he offers "his poetical contemporaries in England" his "most sincere condolences on the hard fate which condemned them to be born there at all in the latter part of the nineteenth century." But he is not mistaken in wishing that more people everywhere were appreciative of true poetry. I wish this with all my heart, not so much for the poet's sake, as for that of the people. But the chosen spirits are not rarer in our time than formerly. ”

“ This story he seemed to regard as proving conclusively that he wrote the poem.
It is the hard fate of anthologists that they have to decide such controversies as this, and when William Cullen Bryant was compiling his Library of Poetry and Song, he assembled all the evidence and decided in favor of Mr. Watson. There has never been any serious reason to question his verdict.
John Whitaker Watson was a prolific writer, a hack of Grub Street, but “Beautiful Snow” is the only thing of his that still lives—if it can be said to live. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Watson has no rival in Victorian or in contemporary verse. The epigram is a quite definite form of art, especially cultivated by the poets in the first half of the seventeenth century. Their formula the terse expression of obscene thoughts. Mr. Watson excels the best of them in wit, concision, and grace; it is needless to say he makes no attempt to rival them as a garbage-collector. Of the large number of epigrams that he has contributed to English literature, I find the majority not only interesting, but richly stimulating. ”

“ I am sensible of the peril in which I stand. But I am no Facing-Both-Ways. I hold by my conscience, i' faith."
"Sir," he rapped out, harsh and sudden, "I have laid you by the heels within the precincts of the compter once, and there I will lay you again, if you brandish your impudence before me."
"In the which case, my lord," quoth I, coldly, "you will be nothing bettered, and King William would have a loyal servant to avenge." ”

“ WATSON, WILLIAM, Lord Watson (1827–1899) , judge, son of the Rev. Thomas Watson, minister in the church of Scotland, by Eleonora, daughter of David McHaffie, was born at the Manse, Covington, Lanarkshire, on 25 Aug. 1827. He was educated at the universities of Glasgow and Edinburgh, the latter of which conferred upon him the degree of LL.D. in 1876. He was admitted advocate in 1851, but nearly a decade elapsed before he entered upon his career, and then he owed his introduction to practice to the illness of a friend who recommended him as a substitute. ”

“ The main work of Watson's life began in 1880, when he accepted an invitation to form a new presbyterian charge in the Sefton Park district of Liverpool. There he remained exactly twenty-five years, and established a congregation which for wealth, culture, and influence became one of the foremost in the Presbyterian Church of England. His attractive personality and public spirit drew to him all sorts and conditions of people. ”

“ Tolpeden will be mortgaged as now. Will she object? Not if she have any regard for Mr. Randolph. I can implicate him in the burning of Pendarrel. His life will be in danger. She will consent, in order to save him. What hinderance is there then?"
Mrs. Pendarrel approached the bell-rope, but before she could pull it, Michael boldly interposed. He had now regained his audacity.
"Hark! ma'am," he said. "Before you venture to scorn this offer, remember what you owe me. I am not to be paid with money. Well paid, did you say? No, ma'am. The triumph you have gained hangs upon my word. ”

“ Then mayst thou conceive the curious beauty of this little herb—a plant so unlike all others that we would fain believe it the reanimated spirit of a race that flourished in former ages, with those hideous monsters whose bones alone remain to tell the history of their existence. ”

“ It has become familiar to the English reader through the pages of Watson, who has deservedly found favor with the public for the perspicuity of his style,—a virtue, however, not uncommon in his day,—for the sobriety of his judgments, and for the skill he has shown in arranging his complicated story, so as to maintain the reader's interest unbroken to the end. ”

“ It was just then that Mildred summoned her father and mother to the window.
"Hark!" she said, "Was not that a shout? See, there are people running across the lawn, and under the trees. But, oh, what a light!"
Terrified domestics rushed into the parlour.
"The house is beset—hundreds of men—What can be done? What can be done?"
These exclamations were mingled with loud cries of "fire," from within and without the mansion. In the confusion, Esther Pendarrel seemed alone to preserve her presence of mind.
"Done!" she said. "The engine! The horses! Ride! Run! ”

“ He later removed to Washington, where for some years he rendered valuable service as correspondent of leading newspapers in New England and New York. His artistic taste and literary ability attracted the attention of Mr. Corcoran, the wealthy banker and patron of art, and in his service he performed appreciative work. I doubt whether any man ever lived in Washington who came in contact with more persons of distinction, and could portray their characters and habits more thoroughly, than Mr. Watson. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Watson was assisted, both in this work and the survey, by two very able young men, his nephew David Dundas (1735–1820) [q. v.] and William Roy (1726–1790) [q. v.] Roy joined him in 1746, and Dundas six years later. Watson carried out in 1748, in addition to his other work, improvements to the defences of the castles of Braemar and Corgarff. Four plans by him of these castles (dated 25 April 1748) are among the war office records. On 31 Dec. 1752 Watson was promoted to be engineer in ordinary. In 1754 he completed his great survey ”

“ You see, sir, we think Pendar'l ha' got quite enough as was ours, and we ought to have some back, rather than give up any more. And the country's a little unquiet just now, and there's no saying exactly what may happen."
"And I am sorry to hear, Edward," Randolph said, "that you have been concerned in the disquiet. It will lead to no good."
"Sir," answered Owen, colouring, "you do not know how I have been urged on. And, for the others, there's a deal wrong in the country at this time." ”

“ I imagined war as a desperate continuous series of battles, in which I should ride along the trenches picturesquely haloed with bursting shell, varied by innumerable encounters with Uhlans, or solitary forest rides and immense tiring treks over deserted country to distant armies. ”