One great man after celebrating the just praises of Dr. Watts’s talents, after acknowledging he was such as every christian church would rejoice to adopt, descends to the miserable littleness of cautioning the world against his non-conformity, as if that were a diminution of his literary, or a blot upon his theological reputation. A melancholy proof how far a philosophic mind may sometimes be debased by a churlish bigotry; the very spirit that gave birth to all the persecutions which harassed and oppressed the present established church when she dissented from the church of Rome, and to which we may ascribe all the animosities which divide and degrade those who only deviate in questions of a circumstantial discipline since that period. In Dr. Watts were combined all the excellencies which form a complete reverse of a party zealot, and if a meek and lowly mind could shield the memory of any man from the envenomed influence of this passion, his non-conformity had never been mentioned but with a view of recommending the virtues by which he so greatly adorned it. As an author no man’s posthumous claim upon the gratitude of the church and of his country, can be urged with a more imperative tone: The natural strength of his genius, which he cultivated and improved by a very considerable acquaintance with the most celebrated writers, both ancient and modern, had enriched his mind with a large and uncommon store of just sentiments, and useful knowledge of various kinds. His soul was too noble and large, to be confined within narrow limits, he could not be content to leave any path of learning untried, nor rest in a total ignorance of any science, the knowledge of which might be for his own improvement, or might in any way tend to enlarge his capacity of being useful to others. Though that which gave him the most remarkable pre-eminence was the extent and sublimity of his imagination: how few have excelled, or even equalled him in quickness of apprehension, and solidity of judgment: and having also a faithful memory to retain what he collected from the labours of others, he was able to pay it back again into the common treasury of learning with a large increase. It is a question whether any author before him ever appeared with reputation on such a variety of subjects, as he has done, both as a prose-writer, and a poet. However this we may venture to say, that there is no man now living of whose works so many have been dispersed, both at home and abroad, that are in such constant use, and translated into such a variety of languages; many of which will remain more durable monuments of his great talents, than any representation we can take of them, though it were to be graven on pillars of brass[13].