The efforts he made to create a sacred congregational psalmody exposed him, as we know, in his own times to obloquy, singular as it seems, even to contempt, and this contempt has been renewed in our own day. In a paper, understood to be from the pen of John Keble, in the “Quarterly Review,” it is said, “Watts was an excellent man, a strong reasoner, of undoubted piety, and perhaps—a rarer virtue—of true Christian charity; but in our opinion he laboured under irreparable deficiency for the task he undertook—_he was not a poet!_ He had a great command of Scriptural language, and an extraordinary facility of versification; but his piety may induce us to make excuses for his poetry—_his poetry will do little to excite dormant piety_.” The writer then goes on to remark upon the rude, homely, and unequal strains of Watts, there follows something like a history of psalmody in England, but not another word about our author.[20] George Macdonald, the novelist, has condescended to sneer at Watts and to travesty his verses, while another writer in a fierce attack upon evangelicalism—the predominance of which in Watts’ verses we presume to be the spring of the hatred they often inspire—informs us that “most of Dr. Watts’ hymns are doggerel;” and after quoting some passages he considers to deserve this appellation—and which some of them do—he closes by saying, “These may possibly be poetry, but if they are, it is extremely plain that ‘Paradise Lost’ and ‘In Memoriam’ are not poetry.” Thus by many it has come to be settled that Watts must take a very low place in English literature, if, indeed, he can be considered in any sense worthy of a place at all. Let us see how the case stands. The man who has no sympathy with Nature is not to be expected to find beauty or melody in the poetry of Burns or Wordsworth. Men who have no sympathy with evangelical truth can scarcely be expected to have much admiration for Watts; yet the gifted nobleman, who was the Mecænas of the past age, was not an indifferent critic, and when called on to cite the most perfect verse in the language he immediately instanced There shall I bathe my weary soul In seas of heavenly rest, And not a wave of trouble roll Across my peaceful breast. A friend who, to his other attainments adds those of scholar and a critic, suggests how interesting it would be to analyze the verses of Watts, for the purpose of noting how often he evidently thought in foreign languages, and especially the Latin, with which he was so familiar; and hence we have lines which, while to some readers they appear to be doggerel, are indeed illustrations that he was using words in their real etymological sense, and thus imparting to his verse a singular beauty; thus: How _decent_ and how wise, How glorious to behold, Beyond the pomp that charms the eyes And rites adorned with gold. Thus, again, of God: He sits on no _precarious_ throne, Nor borrows leave to be.