or who read are instantly able to apprehend the meaning. Thus he himself translates his favourite Horace: Smooth be your style, and plain and natural, To strike the sins of Wapping or Whitehall; While others think this easy to attain, Let them but try, and with their utmost pain, They’ll sweat and strive to imitate in vain. Another attribute, to which Gibbons alludes, in Watts’ style is his _dignity_, especially in the use of his metaphors and in the restraint he puts upon himself in his most ardent and animated passages. A wise use of the passions is a marked characteristic of his writings, as he says, “Did the Great God ever appoint statues for His ambassadors to invite sinners to His mercy; words of grace written upon brass or marble would do the work almost as well; where the preachers are stone no wonder if the hearers are motionless.” And in a fine passage in which he reprobates the philosophy of the Earl of Shaftesbury, under the name of Rhapsodus, who affirms that neither the fear of future punishment, nor the hope of future reward, can possibly be called good affections, Watts exclaims: “Go, dress up all the virtues of human nature in all the beauties of your oratory, and declaim aloud on the praise of social virtue and the amiable qualities of goodness, till your hearts or lungs ache, among the looser herds of mankind, and you will ever find, as your _heathen fathers_ have done before you, that the wild appetites and passions of men are too violent to be restrained by such mild and silken language. You may as well build up a fence of straw and feathers to resist a cannon-ball, or try to quench a flaming granado with a shell of fair water, as hope to succeed in these attempts. But an eternal heaven and an eternal hell carry a Divine force and power with them. This doctrine, from the mouth of Christian preachers, has begun the reformation of multitudes. This Gospel has recovered thousands among the nations from iniquity and death. They have been awakened by these awful scenes to begin religion, and afterwards their virtue has improved itself into superior and more refined principles and habits by Divine grace, and risen to high and eminent degrees, though not to consummate state. The blessed God knows human nature better than _Rhapsodus_ doth, and has throughout His Word appointed a more proper and more effectual method of address to it by the passions of hope and fear, by punishments and rewards.”