This anecdote gives a fair idea of the character of the man; one more utterly unlike Isaac Watts it is impossible to conceive; he was a man whose learning was limited, he had neither taste nor capacity for those refined subtleties either of argument or imagination into which Watts was forced by the necessities of controversy in his times; also, Bradbury was a rugged, rough-and-ready speaker and thinker, possessed of a dangerous prompt wit, not always free from a coarse disregard of the feelings of others; nor can we fail to see that there mingled, perhaps unconsciously to himself, a considerable amount of jealousy of his more eminent and illustrious brother. 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; it was perhaps not likely to improve his temper, and Watts, although exceedingly firm in his own convictions, as he had not the strength so neither had he the disposition for any vehement political action, and if he stepped aside slightly to use his influence in political partisanship, it was unfortunately not to aid the particular persons espoused by Bradbury. And so it was that in the sermons of this free-spoken man there are handed down to us perhaps the most harsh and unjust words which ever assailed the ministry of Isaac Watts. It was at a later period of life, when Watts was very infirm, that, at a meeting of the ministers in the Redcross Street Library, he rose to propose some resolution, and, with his weakly constitution and feeble voice, he found considerable difficulty in making himself heard, when Bradbury called out to him in the meeting, “Brother Watts, shall I speak for you?” The quiet little Doctor turned to him and said, “Why, Brother Bradbury, you have often spoken _against_ me.” At first he had encouraged the idea of Watts’ publication of his Paraphrase of the Psalms and of his Hymns, but when they came forth, although they proved so acceptable to congregations in general, he continued to use the dull version of Dr. Patrick until his dying day in his own place, New-court Chapel, and prevented their introduction into the service at Pinners’ Hall. There, however, on one occasion the clerk happened unluckily to give out one of Watts’ pieces; up rose Bradbury immediately, exclaiming, “Let us have none of Watts’ _(w)hims_.”