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Dr. Watts' “Flights of Fancy”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 August 2011

Robert Stevenson
Robert Stevenson
Affiliation:
Princeton, New Jersey
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Extract

The year 1948 drew to a close with a spate of articles appearing in religious magazines honoring the memory of Watts. Along with the King James Version, Dr. Watts' hymns have become a symbol of Protestantism's underlying unity in a day of proliferating denominations. Around his hymns there now cluster historic associations and fond memories that endear Watts to the entire Protestant community.

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 42 , Issue 4 , October 1949 , pp. 235 - 253
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1949

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References

1 Dearmer, Percy, Songs of Praise Discussed, London, 1933, p. xviiGoogle Scholar.

2 Watts, I., Hymns and Spiritual Songs …. With an Essay Towards the Improvement of Christian Psalmody …. London, 1707, p. vGoogle Scholar.

3 Romaine, William, The Whole Works, London, 1787, p. 990Google Scholar.

4 I. Watts, The Works of the late Reverend and Learned Isaac Watts …. Now first published from his Manuscripts …. revised and corrected by D. Jennings … and … P. Doddridge …. London, 1753, vol. IV, p. 79.

5 Amos, Flora R., Early Theories of Translation, New York 1920, p. 151Google Scholar.

6 John Dryden, in his preface to the Aeneid, had announced a similar purpose: “I have endeavored to make Virgil speak such English as he would himself have spoken if he had been born in England and in this present age.” (The Works of John Dryden, Scott-Saintsbury, ed., Edinburgh, 1889, vol. XIV, p. 220.)

7 Watts, , The Works (1753), vol. IV, p. 66Google Scholar.

8 Ibid., vol. IV, p. 86.

9 Ibid., vol. IV, p. 54.

10 Watts, I., The Psalms of David Imitated in the Language of the New Testament, London, 1719, p. 39Google Scholar.

11 Watts, , The Works (1753), vol. IV, p. 40Google Scholar.

12 Ibid., vol. IV, p. 40.

13 Watts, The Psalms (1719), p. 170.

14 Ibid., pp. 195–6.

15 Watts, I. D. D., Reliquiae Juveniles; Miscellaneous Thoughts in Prose and Verse …. Glasgow, 1786, p. 219Google Scholar.

16 Watts, The Psalms (1719), p. 256.

17 Ibid., p. 271.

18 Ibid., p. 303.

19 Ibid., pp. 386–7.

20 Ibid., p. 286.

21 W. Romaine, op. cit., p. 999.

22 Ibid., p. 990.

23 Massachusetts Historical Society, Proceedings, 2nd series, vol. IX, Boston, 1895, p. 365Google Scholar.

24 Ibid, p. 365.

25 F. R. Amos, op. cit., p. 165.

26 Quotation in Amos, D. G. Rossetti, Preface to Translations, n. d., p. xiv.

27 Phillimore, J. S., Some Remarks on Translation and Translators, Oxford, 1919, p. 16Google Scholar.

28 Amos, op. cit., p. 173.

29 Ibid., p. 156.

30 Throughout this discussion the name “David” has been used generically todesignate the authors of the Biblical Psalms, in the same sense in which “Homer” is designated the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey.

31 These four Psalm-imitations were copied almost exactly from the 1706 volume into the 1719 volume. As example of the kind of change Watts made, we quote a stanza first from the 1706 volume, and below it the same stanza from the 1719 volume:

In the actual singing of the last line of this stanza “trickled to his Toes” lined out alone might have caused some hesitation, or perhaps merriment.

32 The language of physical rapture occurs frequently in the mystical religious poetry of the preceding century. See, for instance, Richard Crashaw's Hymn to the Name and Honour of the Admirable Saint Teresa.

33 Davis, Arthur P., Isaac Watts, New York, 1943, p. 177Google Scholar.

34 Wesley, John, The Works of the Rev. John Wesley, New York, 1856, vol. II, p. 443Google Scholar.

35 Ibid., p. 444.

36 Watts, I., Horae Lyricae, Poems Chiefly of the Lyric Kind, London, 1706, p. 67Google Scholar.

37 Ibid., p. 70.

38 Ibid., p. 75.

39 Ibid., p. 79.

40 Ibid., p. 80.

41 Ibid., p. 81.

42 Ibid., p. 83.

43 Ibid., p. 84.

44 Ibid., p. 84.

45 Ibid., p. 86.

46 Ibid., p. 87.

47 Ibid., p. 92.

48 Lyell, James P. R., Mrs. Piozzi and Isaac Watts, London, 1934, p. 42Google Scholar. Mrs. Piozzi (p. 26) apostrophizes: “This is like Ajax's Prayer in the Iliad. Scarce inferior to Homer in poetical expression. O admirable Isaac Watts.” Her comments on Watts cultivate the same rapturous vein which was apparent during the Bicentenary Commemoration in 1948.

49 Pratt, Anne S., Isaac Watts and His Gifts of Books to Yale College, New Haven, 1938, p. 21Google Scholar.

50 Ibid., p. 67. See also p. 25.

51 Massachusetts Historical Society, Collections, 7th series, vol. VIII (Diary of Cotton Mather, 1709–1724), Boston, 1912, p. 816.

52 A. S. Pratt, op. cit., p. 14.

53 Watts, I., Discourses, Essays, and Tracts, on Various Subjects, vol. VI, London, 1753, P. 749Google Scholar.

54 Ibid., p. 749.

55 Ibid, p. 749. (“And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon. … ” Since Christ is head of the host marching against Satan, Watts infers that Michael in this passage must mean Christ — such logic from the author of a text on Logic!)

56 Ibid., p. 749. (Watts coyly hides this observation away in a footnote.)

57 Ibid, p. 752.

58 Ibid., p. 763.

59 Ibid., p. 778.

60 Ibid., p. 782.

61 Ibid., p. 785.

62 Ibid., p. 785.

63 Ibid., p. 786.

64 Ibid., p. 787.

65 Ibid., p. 787.

66 Ibid., p. 789. Locke was a favorite of Watts; in Horae Lyricae (1706) we find the lines (p. 118): Locke “hath a soul wide as the sea, calm as the night, bright as the day.” Watts commented on Locke's “spacious mind,” his “vast ideas.”

67 Ibid, p. 792.

68 Ibid., p. 806.

69 Benson, Louis F., The Early Editions of Doctor Watts' Hymns, Philadelphia, 1902, p. 15Google Scholar.

70 Wesley, John, The Works, New York, 1856, vol. VII, p. 82Google Scholar.

71 Watts, I., The Works, London, 1753, vol. IV, p. 641Google ScholarPubMed.

72 Ibid., p. 641.

73 Dr. Johnson claimed no acquaintance with Watts' prose. “Of his life I know very little,” he said on occasion. Southey was the first literary critic who gave any attention to Watts' theological opinions. See Johnson, , Lives of the English Poets, Oxford, 1905, vol. III, p. 302Google Scholar.

74 Housman, A. E., The Name and Nature of Poetry, Cambridge, 1933, p. 30Google Scholar.