year of the publication of this volume a building has been erected in the City of London for the same order of communicants as those in Bury Street, at a cost of £55,000. The two sums are very suggestive of a comparison and contrast between the Nonconformists of the time of Watts and of to-day. [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER V. First Publication as a Sacred Poet. The fact that the first work published by Watts was the “Sacred Lyrics” may justify this early estimate of his character as a sacred poet. It is probable, nay it is certain, that the time bestowed by Watts upon poetry was very slight and insignificant compared with that which he devoted to the graver pursuits of life, and the various studies connected with philosophy, theology, preaching, and education. He first, however, appeared in print as the author of the “Horæ Lyricæ,” the Lyrical Poems: and Dr. Johnson judges that they entitled him to an honourable place amongst our English poets. Watts himself thought very modestly of his claims in this way, and speaks concerning his own compositions in the humblest language. “I make no pretences,” he says, “to the name of a poet, or a polite writer in an age wherein so many superior souls shine in their works through the nation.” In many of his hymns he unquestionably deserves the highest honour: but for the most part it is not in the lyrics we are to seek, as we certainly shall not find, the noblest illustrations of his poetical genius; nor, perhaps, is it probable that we should turn to them with much interest or expectation but that they are the production of Dr. Watts, and that he was the author of those hymns so dear to the Church of Christ, and the “Divine and Moral Songs for Children.” In all our judgments and criticisms upon Watts as a poet, two things must be borne in mind: first, as we have seen above, that he not only disclaimed the character himself, but proved his sincerity by regarding it only as the recreation of grave and serious studies, and the very natural occupation of a man of fine taste and largely cultivated sensibility; and next, we must remember, that the poetry of the age in which he lived was artificial, formed for the most part upon classical models, whose rules were very greatly inapplicable to English verse. The sweetest and most perfect poet in any near approach to those times was Oliver Goldsmith, and he was the writer least imbued with classical lore, and the one who left all classical rules and allusions furthest behind him, content to express himself in simple and pleasing English. Johnson was a poet, and Joseph Addison, but although so much more ambitious and devoted to the pursuit, they neither of them have produced sentiments or expressions which charm us more than those we find in the productions of Watts. Thomas Gray was a poet, but only in two or three instances did the simplicity and purity of the English language, and the simple metre, succeed in winning him from the trammels of