“I believe it to have been a very happy circumstance for Mr. Secker[4], that he was educated in a dissenting academy, and under so good a tutor. I attribute much of his future eminence to this circumstance, as well as to the connection he fortunately formed there, that purity, that dignity, that decency of character, which enabled him to fill the great offices of the church with singular weight and efficacy. Educated in a dissenting persuasion, and under dissenting tutors, he had paid less attention to polite letters, and more to divinity, than is usually bestowed by students in the universities. Young men in Oxford and Cambridge, frequently arrive at an age for orders, and become successful candidates for them, who have studied scarcely any other divinity, than such as is to be found in Ovid’s Metamorphosis, and Tooke’s Pantheon. Few regularly-bred divines, as they are termed, apply themselves to divinity at so early an age; and, indeed, through the defect of a knowledge, and of a taste for it, in youth, many, after obtaining orders, still continue to study, if they study at all, the theology of Athens and Rome. But the dissenters study divinity at an early age, and if they had united the study of the belles lettres with it in due proportion, I believe their divines would have made a still more honourable appearance than they have done, though they are, and ever have been, highly respectable[5].” What Mr. Watts was as a _student_, the testimony of his tutor sufficiently evinces: He never, Mr. Rowe declared, gave him any occasion for reproof; but was so exemplary, that he often proposed him as a pattern for the imitation of other pupils. The great ends of his studies were fixed, and the subjects of them were substantial, he well knew the value of his opportunities, nor was he at any loss as to the best means of improving them. No time was given to vain amusements, or to unnecessary indulgencies. The seasons of rest and exercise (so essential to health) were curtailed, and so passionately was he devoted to the increase of his knowledge, that he either laid the foundation of disorders, which imbittered his future life, or, if latent, armed them with the power which resisted all medical skill. The operations of his own mind, his reading, his observation, and his social intercourse were all made subservient to the great designs of his station. With the hands of a Midas, he had the art of turning whatever he touched into gold: the treasures of knowledge, both philosophical and theological, opened to the world, so early after he left the academy, shew the intenseness of his application, and the capaciousness of his mind during his residence there. The most important works in every science engaged his attention; and as he had no tedious hours to amuse, nor any fugitive curiosity to gratify, his reading uniformly promoted the increase of his mental riches. He did not rove about in the fields of science to gather