“Now when you are exposed to the public view these calumnies will immediately vanish, which, methinks, should be a motive not the least considerable. And now we are talking of music, I have a crotchet in my brain, which makes me imagine, that as chords and discords equally please heavy-eared people, so the best divine poems will no more inspire the rude and illiterate than the meanest rhymes, which may in some measure give you satisfaction, in that fear you discover, _ne in rude vulgus cadant_, and you must allow them to be tasteless to many people, tolerable to some, but to those few who know their beauties, to be very pleasant and desirable; and, lastly, if I do not speak reason, I will at present take my leave of you, and only desire you to hear what your ingenious acquaintance in London say to the point, for I doubt not you have many solicitors there, whose judgments are much more solid than mine. I pray God Almighty have you in His good keeping, and desire you to believe me, my dear brother, “Your most affectionate kinsman and friend, “ENOCH WATTS.” But notwithstanding this and other solicitations, the first edition was not published until 1707. The copyright of the hymns was sold to Mr. Lawrence, the publisher, for £10; about half a century before the same sum was given to Milton for his “Paradise Lost;” the volume instantly obtained a very large acceptance, and he then directed his attention to his version of the Psalms; this was only completed by him during the painful and distressing illness from which he suffered about 1712 and the following years, but the Psalms were not published until the year 1719.