contained in two of his chapters, could not be repelled. My answer had a great run, and is still sought after, though it was only a month's work in the long vacation. But if I had been longer about it, though I might have stuffed it with more learning, and made it more bulky, I am not certain that I should have made it better. The manner in which I had treated Mr. Gibbon, displeased some of the doughty polemics of the time; they were angry with me for not having bespattered him with a portion of that theological dirt, which Warburton had so liberally thrown at his antagonists. One of that gentleman's greatest admirers, (Bishop Hurd,) was even so uncandid as to entertain, from the gentleness of my language, a suspicion of my sincerity; saying of the Apology, it was well enough if I was in earnest." Pp. 60, 61. Of a variety of complimentary let ters that Dr. Watson received on the publication of the Apology, he has inserted one from Dr. Jebb, of whom, warmed as appears by the panegyric which it contains, he says that he is desirous that "his name should go down to posterity as his friend." Two friendly notes passed between Mr. Gibbon and Dr. Watson, on this occasion; and when the historian replied to his various antagonists in 1779, he treated Dr. Watson with great courtesy, who sent him a friendly letter, in which there is this passage, agreeing with one which we have already quoted (p. 52), "I have no hope of a future existence, except that which is grounded on the truth of Christianity." "This letter was published in Mr. Gibbon's Miscellaneous Works and Life, in 1796, and no sooner published than noticed by the king, who spoke to me of it at his levee, calling it an odd letter. I did not immediately recollect the purport of it; but on His Majesty's repeating his observation, it occurred to me, and I instantly said to him, that I had frequently met with respectable men who cherished an expectation of a future state, though they rejected Christianity as an imposture, and that I thought my publicly declaring that I was of a contrary opinion might perhaps induce Mr. Gibbon, and other such men, to make a deeper investigation into the truth of religion than they had hitherto done. His Majesty expressed himself perfectly satisfied, both with my opinion and with my motive for mentioning it to Mr. Gibbon." Pp. 66, 67. In the efforts that were made about this time, by the various counties of England, to rouse the legislature to attempt to diminish the influence of the Crown, Dr. Watson took a distinguished part. Seeing an ambiguous advertisement of a County Meeting, published by the Sheriff of Huntingdonshire, where as Regius Professor of Divinity he had considerable property, he wrote two letters to the Duke of Manchester, then Lord Lieutenant of the County, which he has preserved, and which are worthy of the place which they occupy. In the second letter, he says, too truly, Every dom, has a son, relation, friend or deman of consequence almost in the kingpendent, whom he wishes to provide for; and unfortunately for the liberty of of gratifying the expectation of them this country, the Crown has the means all. P. 88. mon before the University, in 1780, The Doctor preached the Fast Serwhich was published and eagerly bought up: the city of London purchased a whole edition of one thousand copies, which they distributed gratis. In relation to this discourse letter, which open a curious scene we have the following passages and of church discord, and in which the biographer begins those complaints of neglect, which are repeated till the reader is tired and filled with a sentiment less flattering than even pity: the conclusion of the extract is finely written: "The Archbishop of Canterbury (Cornlantly, in the presence of Lord Camden, wallis) had expressed himself rather petuagainst my sermon, The Principles of the Revolution vindicated,' and was reproved for it by His Lordship, who told him that it contained the principles in which His Grace, as well as himself, had been educated. I sent a copy of my Fast Sermon to him with the following letter: "Cambridge, Feb. 7, 1780. MY LORD ARCHRISHOP, "One of my sermons, has, I have been informed, met with your Grace's disapprobation; and this may have a similar fate. I have no wish but to speak what appears to me to be the truth upon every occasion, and never get thought of pleasing any person or party when I spoke from the pulpit; so that if I am in an error, it is at least both involuntary and disinterested. I never come to London; but my situation in this place, sufficiently difficult and laborious, gives me, in the opinion of many, a right not to be overlooked, and it certainly gives me a right not to be misunderstood "R. WATSON.' addressed to an anonymous correspondent who attacked his Fast Sermon: he thus delineates his mind, with regard to political principle and feeling: "This letter was not all calculated to promote a good understanding between "I am not the Satan you esteem me; the Archbishop and myself: but I was for I do not think with Satan, that it is very indifferent about it, and I never after-better to reign in Hell, than serve in wards troubled myself with him; for I had no opinion of his abilities, and he was so wife-ridden I had no opinion of his politics. My predecessor had been fifteen, and I had been nine years Professor of Divinity, without either of us baving been noticed, as to preferment, by either the Archbishop, or the ministers of the Crown; and I had more pleasure in letting the Archbishop see that I was not to be intimidated, than I should have had in receiving from him the best thing in his gift, after a long servile attention. Heaven.' But I do think, that it is better. to bask in the sun and suck a fortuitous sustenance from the scanty drippings of the most barren rock in Switzerland, with freedom for my friend, than to batten as a slave, at the most luxurious table of the greatest despot on the globe. "My temper could never brook submission to the ordinary means of ingratiating myself with great men; and hence Dr. Hallifax, (afterwards Bishop of St. Asaph,) whose temper was different, called me one of the Biasai; and he was right enough in the denomination. I was determined to be advanced in my profession by force of desert, or not at all. It has been said, (I believe by D'Alembert,) that the highest offices in church and state, resemble a pyramid whose top is accessible to only two sorts of animals, eagles and reptiles. My pinions were not strong enough to pounce upon its top, and I scorned by creeping to ascend its summit. Not that a bishopric was then or ever an object of my ambition: for I considered the acquisition of it as no proof of personal merit, inasmuch as bishoprics are as often given to the flattering dependants, or to the unlearned younger branches of noble families, as to men of the greatest erudition; and I considered the possession of it as a frequent occasion of personal demerit: for I saw the generality of the bishops bartering their independence and the dignity of their order for the chance of a translation, and polluting gospel-humility by the pride of prelacy." Pp. 70, 71. The Doctor relates that at this period, his friend, General Honeywood offered to give him for his life and that of Mrs. Watson, a neat house at the end of his park at Markshall, in Essex; but that though the offer was on many accounts attractive, he refused it on the same ground that Marmontel had declined a similar present, Ce don étoit une chaine, et je n'en coulois point porter. He inserts two letters, which he "The king, notwithstanding, has not a more loyal subject, nor the constitution a warmer friend. "I most readily submit to laws made by men exercising their free powers of deliberation for the good of the whole; but when the legislative assembly is actuated by an extrinsic spirit, then submission becomes irksome to me; then I begin to be alarmed; knowing with Hooker, that to live by one man's will, becomes the cause of all men's misery. I dread despotism worse than death; and the despotism of a parliament worse than that of a king; but hope the time will never come, when it will be necessary for me to declare that I will submit to neither. I shall probably be rotten in my grave, before I see [is seen] what you speak of, the tyranny of a George the Sixth, or of a Cromwell; and it may be that I want philosophy in interesting myself in political disquisitions, in apprehending what may never happen; but I conceive that I am to live in society in another state, and a sober attachment to theoretic principles of political truth cannot be an improper ingredient in a social character, either in this world or in the next." P. 75. He afterwards discovered that his anonymous Correspondent was Cumberland, before mentioned as secretary to Lord George Germaine, who on another occasion was ambitious of contending with him, and published an auswer to his Letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury. The Doctor took no further notice of him, considering that though he had merit as a versifier and a writer of essays, his head was not made for close reason"Cuming. According to Mr. Locke's classification of understandings, berland was at most a two syllogism man." The Cambridgeshire petition against the influence of the Crown, in 1780, was drawn up by Dr. Watson. The Duke of Rutland wished him to be one of the delegates who were to meet in London, but this, from a sense of decorum, he declined. Imagining that his refusal proceeded from an apprehension of being ill thought of at court, the duke jocularly said, You must be forced down the king's throat, as well as the rest of us. In the same year, Dr. Watson published a Charge to the Clergy of the Archdeaconry of Ely, at his Primary Visitation, principally intended to recommend an establishment at Cambridge, for the express purpose of translating and printing Oriental Manuscripts, which was re-published at Calcutta in 1785, in the first volume of the Asiatic Miscellany. He received a complimentary letter on this occasion from Dr. Keene, Bishop of Ely, in which that prelate expressed his wishes that Dr. Watson had formed his character solely upon his learning and ability, and not on politics. This episcopal rebuke provoked our biographer; especially as Keene had been made a bishop by the Duke of Newcastle, for supporting the Whig interest in the University of Cambridge in the late reign: he therefore returned him instantly the following answer, which he says on the review of it, "was no more than his apostacy deserved: "Cambridge, May 28, 1786 (1780). "MY LORD, "I am much flattered by your Lord. ship's approbation of my Charge: my politics may hurt my interest, but they will not hurt my honour. They are the politics of Locke, of Somers, and of Hooker, and in the reign of George the Second they were the politics of this University. "I am, &c. "R. WATSON." At the instigation of Dr. Watson, the Duke of Rutland offered his brother, Lord Robert Manners, to the county of Cambridge, at the general election, in 1780. The whole planning and conducting of the election fell upon Dr. Watson. It was successful, in a great measure through the support of the Dissenters, whose esteem he had gained by his tolerating principles. The electors of Cambridge shire will not now be disposed to thank Dr. Watson, or the Dissenters his co-adjutors, for their putting the lower members of the Rutland family He washes his hands, upon them. however, of the sin of making the town of Cambridge a rotten borough, the property of the house of Man ners. The next year, he received from the Duke the presentation to the rectory of Knaptoft, in Leicestershire, in his patronage; and he says with great naïveté, that this favour was given him, he believes, not so much for the service he had rendered the Duke in the Cambridgeshire election, as for the extraordinary attention he had paid to him during the course of his education at Cambridge. In return, the Doctor dedicated to His Grace the two first volumes of his Chemical Essays, which he was then printing. He relates that in July, 1781, he was seized with a dangerous fever, and when the faculty had given him over, and he was in a state of insensibility, his wife saved his life by boldly giving him at once a whole paper of James's Powder. P. 87. He published, in 1782, a hasty answer to the seventh of Soame Jenyns's Disquisitions, which he thought glanced at his sermon on the Principles of the Revolution. At the suggestion of Lord John Cavendish, the representative of the wishes of the Marquis of Rockingham just deceased, through the recommendation of the Duke of Grafton, and under the influence of the Duke of Rutland, Dr. Watson was, in 1782, raised by Lord Shelburne, the then minister, to the see of Landaff. He kissed hands on the 26th of July in that year, "and was received, as the phrase is, very graciously;" this was the first time that he had ever been at St. James's. But, he says, he had no great reason to be proud of his promotion: Lord Shelburne expected that he would write pamphlets in behalf of the Administration! He happened to please a party, and they made him a bishop. P. 94. Not thinking that by becoming a bishop he ought to change the principles which he had imbibed from the works of Mr. Locke, (so the Bishop himself states the matter,) he immediately began to propose to Lord Shelburne an ecclesiastical reform. The minister caught at the proposal and asked, en passant, if nothing could mon Prayer, and even of the preben- The Bishop made his first speech in Parliament, on the S0th of May, 1788, in the case, brought up from the Court of King's Bench, of the Bishop of London and Disney Fytche, Esq. respecting the validity of general bonds of resignation: it displayed great logical acuteness and precision. At the end of this year the Bishop's independence was severely tried. The Duke of Portland, the minister, sent for him to come up to town and yote for Mr. Fox's East India Bill: his patron, the Duke of Rutland, who had joined Mr. Pitt, pressed him on the other side: he disapproved of the bill, but he would not oppose Mr. Fox; and by his neutrality he offendect and lost both parties. His conduct in this dilemma was truly dignified. · "Soon after this I went to London, and on calling on the Duke of Rutland, I thought there was an unusual distance in his manner, not great enough to found a direct quarrel on, and yet too great for me to submit to without assuming an equal distance on my part; this soon brought him to a little better temper. Lord Shelburne told me at the time, that he was afraid somebody had been endeavouring Rutland and myself, on account of my not coming to oppose the India Bill. He did not tell me who the person was who had done me this injury, nor did my suspicion, till several years afterwards, fall on Mr. Pitt; nor do I know whether it has fallen rightly at last. I hope it has not; for though I must ever consider it as a bad trait in Mr. Pitt's character, that I never experienced from him the slightest return of gratitude, for the services which I had rendered him when he stood most in need of them at Cambridge; yet I am unwilling to think of him as having possessed a little and revengeful mind, stooping to injure those who would not become the blind instruments of his ambition. I gave Lord to make mischief between the Duke of Shelburne to understand, that the Duke of to give him more with respect to his private concerns; but as to my public conduct, I would ever assert to myself the right of private judgment, independent of all parties. This doctrine, I could perceive, was quite new to Lord Shelburne, and, in truth, few great men can relish it; they want adherents, and they esteem no man who will not be their instrument. This plain dealing with men in power, made many persons say that I knew not the world; they were mistaken; I knew it, but I despised it; I knew well enough that it was not the way to procure preferment; I remembered what I had learned as a boy, the different effects of obsequiousness and of truth, 'Obsequium amicos, veritas odium parit;' and I preferred, as a man, the latter. My friend the Bishop of Peterborough once said to me, You are the most straight-forward man I ever met with.' I was not displeased at his remark, for the rule of rectitude is but one, whilst the deviations from it may be infinite." Pp. 126—128. Mr. Pitt established himself in power in the teeth of a majority of the House of Commons; " a dangerous precedent," as the Bishop remarks, and one of the innumerable proofs of the ascendancy of the prerogative of the Crown over the voice of the Commons during the present reign. On this subject, Dr. Watson wrote and spoke to the Premier, and was, we dare say, and as the event proved, regarded as a patriotic intruder. He was not more successful in a suggestion which he made to Mr. Pitt and to the Duke of Rutland, who had obtained the Lord-Lieutenancy of Ireland as the reward of his political flexibility, that the maladies of Ireland could be healed only by an union of the two kingdoms, on an equal and liberal footing. He takes credit to himself for having advised a measure, which sixteen years afterwards Mr. Pitt accomplished, though not on the terms of his proposal. The Bishop has republished the letter which he wrote to Mr. Wakefield, on his Inquiry concerning the Person of Christ, in 1784, and which is to be found in Wakefield's Life. He has also interwoven with his nar rative one which, in the same year, he addressed to the venerable Mr. Wyvil, [Wyvill,] who informed him that "Mr. Pitt had promised him to exert his whole power as a man and a minister, to bring about a reform in the representation of the people," and requested that he would use his influence in Cambridgeshire, to the same end. The Doctor's letter in reply is cautious and desponding: so much public wealth and so many public honours, he thinks, insure the hope," he asks in a paragraph followcontinuance of corruption. "What ing the letter on the same subject, 66 can we have that a public body will reform itself?" "Since the miserable event of the French Revolution, it may be said,” he concludes, “to every man in England and in Europe, who attempts to reform abuses either in church or state-Desine, jam conclasentiment, but too much justified by matum est." This is a paralyzing the course of events. The Bishop gives the following account of the publication of his Tracts: "In March, 1785, I published a collection of Theological Tracts, in six volumes, pally intended for the benefit of young men closely printed on a large paper, princiwho had not money to purchase books in divinity. This book was very well received by the world, near a thousand copies having been sold in less than three months ; and very ill received by the bishops, on account of my having printed some tracts originally written by Dissenters. Till I was told of it, I did not conceive that such bench, and, I trust, it can be found there bigotry could then have been found on the no longer. The Archbishop of Canterbury, to whom I sent a set, had never the good present, and the Archbishop of York obmanners to acknowledge the receipt of the jected to the collection being given by the associates of Dean Bray to a young divine who was going out as chaplain to a nobleman in Canada. I was not at all mortified by this conduct of the two Archbishops, for I had but a poor opinion of the theological knowledge of either of their Graces." Pp. 136, 137. To counterbalance the disapprobation of these official judges of theology, the biographer relates that the work speedily went through two large editions; that Dr. Kippis, in the Life of Lardner, extolled the Preface; that Mr. Lambe, an eminent attorney in Cambridge, bequeathed a great part of his property to a grandson of the |