observes: "My bookseller [John Law

rence] urges me to reprint my Hymns, 25. "Give me

and talks of another edition of the Poems [Hora Lyrica]. I earnestly

the Wings of Faith to Rise."

beg you to point me those lines in either which are offensive to the weak and pious, and shocking and disgustful to the polite, or obscure to the vulgar capacity, or in short, whatever you think should be mended, and, if you please, with your amendment; but I entreat it, especially for the Hymns, in a fortnight's time." Watts also wrote in similar strain to others. On receiving their replies he "got a friend or two together and spent a whole day in perusing and considering the remarks." "I agreed," he tells Say (12th March, 1709), "to their judgments, I think, in all things; in the whole there are near half a hundred lines altered, I hope always for the better. Some that were less offensive were let pass; for the bookseller desired I would not change too much; besides that, lesser faults would not be spied by the vulgar, nor much offend the polite. But I have added above a hundred, and most of them to the first book. I hope all now more approvable, for their chief design, than the foregoing edition." He comments also on the progress of the new edition through the press, remarking that "the printer," John Humphries, "by the cold weather, and by working off a supplement of the new Hymns apart, has been made so

dilatory that he has not yet printed all the first book," and he invites further criticisms on the second and third books "in a week or two."

The second edition appeared in April, 1709, and, as I have already observed, the additions were: Hymns, Book i. 72 [79-150]; Book ii. 60 [111-170]; Book iii. 3 [23-26]; Doxologies 8. Thus to the 210 hymns of the first edition were added 135, making a total of 345.

Of the hymns added to Book i., the best are No. 87, which begins:

"Life is the time to serve the Lord,
The time to insure the great reward;
And while the lamp holds out to burn,
The vilest sinner may return,"

and that perfectly cut gem, No. 101, "Who can describe the joys that rise?" Of those added to Book ii., the finest is the magnificent "Give me the wings of faith to rise" (No. 140), foolishly altered by some compilers to "Give us the wings of faith to rise," in which there is a loss under the score of euphony while the gain is nothing. This is how Watts wrote it:

"Give me the wings of faith, to rise
Within the veil and see

The saints above, how great their joys,
How bright their glories be.

Once they were mourning here below,
And wet their couch with tears;

They wrestled hard, as we do now,

With sins, and doubts, and fears.

I ask them, whence their victory came,
They, with united breath,

Ascribe their conquest to the Lamb,
Their triumph to His death.

They mark'd the footsteps that He trod
(His zeal inspir'd their breast;)
And, following their incarnate God,
Possess the promis'd rest.

Our glorious Leader claims our praise
For His own pattern given,

While the long cloud of witnesses

Show the same path to heaven."

Very fine, too, is No. 142, "Not all the blood of beasts." The additions to Book iii. do not call

for special comment.

The third edition of the Hymns appeared in 1712, the fourth in 1714. John Lawrence still controlled the work, but there was a new printer, S. Keimer,' who was a distinct improvement on dilatory John Humphries. The fourteenth edition. appeared in 1740.

26. Miss Singer

marriage.

Hora Lyrica also went into a second edition, and in it were included recommendatory verses by various admirers, inagain. Her cluding the Rev. Henry Grove, Miss Singer (Philomela), and the Countess of Hertford (Eusebia). These two ladies indeed became to Watts what Mrs. Unwin and Lady Austen afterwards were to Cowper-the inspirers

1 For account of him see my Life of Daniel Defoe, p. 199.

2 Presbyterian minister at Taunton where, with the Rev. Stepher. James, he conducted an Academy for the training of young men for the ministry.