It is instructive to compare the Preface to Watt's Hora Lyricæ, published in 1706, with Giles Fletcher's Preface to his Christ's Death and Victory, published in 1610.1 We have seen that all through James I.'s reign there was a strong tendency to choose religious subjects for poetical treatment. Fletcher merely notices the omission of his poetical predecessors to occupy the field of sacred song, and, as I observed in examining his style, his own poem is chiefly remarkable as one of the earliest examples in the school of Theological "Wit." But a hundred years later Watts has to apologise for writing at all on the subject of religion. His Preface is a vehement protest against the immoral poetry of his day. "This profanation and debasement of so divine an art," says he, "has tempted some weaker Christians to imagine that poetry and vice are naturally akin." In opposition to this opinion he gives instances of poetical passages in the Bible (quoting also Longinus' reference to "Let there be Light"), and shows by examples the superiority of Hebrew over Pagan poetry, as illustrating the Divine Nature. He attacks Boileau's aphorism : De la foi d'un Chrétien les mystères terribles and confutes it by pointing to the choice of Christian subjects by Corneille and Racine, Cowley and Blackmore. Continuing his argument, he dwells on the poetical fertility of Christian themes, in a passage which deserves to be compared with Giles Fletcher's summary of the subject matter in Christ's Death and Victory :: The affairs of this life, with a reference to a life to come, would shine bright in a dramatic description; nor is there any need of any reason why we should always borrow the plan or history from the ancient Jews or primitive martyrs; though several of these would furnish out noble materials for this sort of poesy: but modern scenes would be better understood by most readers, and the application would be much more easy. The anguish of inward guilt, the secret stings, and racks, and scourges of Conscience; the sweet retiring hours and seraphical joys of 1 Vol. iii. p. 119. devotion; the victory of a resolved soul over a thousand temptations, the inimitable love and passion of a dying God; the awful glories of the last tribunal; the grand decisive sentence from which there is no appeal; and the consequent transports or horrors of the two eternal worlds; these things may be variously disposed and form many poems. The Hora Lyricæ are divided into three books containing: (1) Poems Sacred to Devotion and Piety; (2) Poems Sacred to Honour, Virtue, and Friendship; (3) Poems Sacred to the Memory of the Dead. Of these the first book is the most characteristic, and perhaps the leading feature in it is the resolute determination of the poet to exclude from his thoughts all but religious themes: we everywhere breathe the atmosphere of the Nonconformist congregation, secluded from the press and clamour of the world. As Watts says in The Atheist's Mistake: Hence, ye profane, I hate your ways; I walk with pious souls; There's a wide difference in our race, We find, however, in Hora Lyrica none of the Pharisaism which usually accompanies a religious attitude of this kind, nor, on the other hand, any of the vulgar familiarity of tone often noticeable in those who monopolise an intercourse with Heaven. The "pious souls" whom Watts addresses are men and women of refinement; and his devotional enthusiasm is reverent and selfrestrained. Many of the subjects he treats are of an abstract nature-"Divine Judgments," "Felicity Above," "God's Dominion and Decrees," "The Creator and Creatures," "God's Absolute Dominion," "The Incomprehensible," etc.-materials which he sometimes casts into a Latin mould, sometimes into English odes, imitated from the Latin of Casimir Sarbiewski. It is only when he treats of the Doctrine of Atonement, or of Repentance for Sin, that he allows himself anything like an unchecked flow of emotion. He evidently recognised the distinction. between religious Odes and Hymns, for he says: In the first book are many Odes, which were written to assist the meditation and worship of vulgar Christians, and with a design to be published in the volume of Hymns which have now passed a second impression; but upon the review I found some expressions which were not suited to the plainest capacity, and the metaphors are too bold to please the weaker Christians: therefore I have allotted them a place here. In these last words he perhaps alluded to the subject of Divine Love, of which he says: Among the songs that are dedicated to divine love, I think I may be bold to assert that I never composed one line of them with any other design than what they are applied to here; and I have endeavoured to secure them all from being perverted and debased to wanton passions, by several lines in them that can never be applied to a meaner love. In Watts' age the allegorical interpretation of "Solomon's Song" was an accepted principle in theology, nor was there any offence to general taste in applying its amorous imagery to the ideal of religious love; yet the poet's right instinct showed him that the aspirations in the following lines-beautiful in themselves were not suitable for expression in a Hymn : FORSAKEN YET HOPING Happy the hours, the golden days, Near to my heart, within my arms, And now He's gone (O mighty woe!) Break, break my heart, complain my tongue! Angels, assist my doleful song, If you have e'er a mourning string! But ah! your joys are ever high ; Ever His lovely face you see ; Yet let my hope look through my tears, Swift as a roe flies o'er the hills, There smiling joy for ever reigns; Something of the religious emotion of George Herbert, something of the amorous amorous imagination of Crashaw may be noted in these verses; and by such links the devotional poetry of Watts is connected with the theological school of the seventeenth century. But the element of mysticism is modified in the Hymns, published in 1707. Here the austere beliefs of the Calvinist congregation had to be satisfied, and, accordingly, though the expression of individual emotion is still strong, Watts lays stress on those points of doctrine which all members of the congregation held in common. The excess of Calvinism in many of his hymns has made such compositions distasteful to modern feelings. As his biographer, Milner, says: The theology of his day was of a somewhat different mould to that embraced at the present day by the majority of the dissenting Churches: it had sterner features, and at the same time those which were more timid; it spoke in severer accents to the sinner, and in a more glowing and mystic style to the saint; it delighted too much in presenting to the one elements of gathering wrath, without a shelter from the storm, and in pampering the other with the gay and ardent fancies of impassioned Eastern poetry.1 1 Milner's Life and Times of Dr. Isaac Watts, p. 270. Examples of what is meant by these words may be found in Watts' presentation of the Calvinist doctrine of the reconciliation of God's attributes of Justice and Mercy by the Atonement of Christ :—— Once 'twas a seat of dreadful wrath, Our God appeared consuming fire, And vengeance was His name. Rich were the drops of Jesus' blood, That calmed His frowning face, That sprinkled o'er the burning throne, On the other hand the intense gratitude of the individual for Salvation, when admitted by the free choice of God into the company of the elect, is expressed as follows: Pause, my soul, adore and wonder: Ask, "O why such love to me?" Hallelujah! Thanks, eternal thanks, to Thee. Such emotions, common, no doubt, to members of the instructed congregations which preserved the hereditary scholastic principles of Calvin, were by no means shared by all who sought to satisfy their religious instincts with the Christian faith: yet, as Watts said, hymns were plainly designed for use in the "worship of vulgar Christians." Hence a natural tendency drove devotional poets to make the sentiment of their hymns as wide and undogmatic as possible; and, when the large number of Watts' hymns still in use among all English-speaking Christian congregations is considered, his artistic success appears very remarkable. The gradual extension of this religious movement is illustrated by the letter from Doddridge to Watts of May 1731 On Wednesday last I was preaching in a barn to a pretty large assembly of plain country people at a village a few miles off. 1 Waits, Psalms and Hymns (Rippon), Book ii. hymn 108. |