Life, with reflections on the manners and dispositions of mankind," 12mo, Edinburgh. In the same year he contributed papers on "Periodical Jactitation, or Chorea," to the Medico-Chirurgical Transactions; and on the influence of vaccination on other diseases, and on population in general, to the Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal. His last contribution to science was a paper on the formation of the rainbow, which appeared in Thomson's Annals of Philosophy, February, 1819. Soon after his removal to Glasgow, Dr. Watt was chosen president of the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons of that city. He died at Campvale, near Glasgow, on the 12th March, 1819, aged forty-five. His great work, the "Bibliotheca Britannica, or a general index to British and Foreign literature," is arranged in two parts—the first being a catalogue of authors, with the titles of their works ranged under each; the second a catalogue of subjects with a list of the books written on each, and references to the same in the first part. The enormous labour of this compilation occupied several years. But the author in 1817, finding himself the subject of a chronic disease, relinquished professional duties, and devoted the remainder of his life to the completion of his work. He died, however, before its publication. This useful work appeared in four volumes at Edinburgh, 1819-24.—F. C. W.
WATTEAU, Antoine, a most skilful painter of fêtes-champétres and such works as show groups of well-dressed people, acquired a great reputation in France in the time of Louis XIV. He was born at Valenciennes, where his father was a carpenter, in 1684, and developed his art, under various ordinary masters and dealers, in Paris, and finally attracted the notice of Crozat, the collector, who confirmed him in the style for which he is now celebrated. In 1709 Watteau contended for the travelling pension of the Academy, but lost it; he, however, became an academician in 1717 for his picture of "The Embarkation of Venus for the Island of Cythera," which is now in the Louvre. In 1720 he visited this country, but found the climate too severe for him. He returned to France, and died of consumption at Nogent-sur-Marne, 28th July, 1721, in his thirty-seventh year. Watteau's groups are gracefully, but also often carelessly drawn, but they are generally brilliant in effect and in colour. He was also an engraver, and his etchings are signed sometimes Vateau. There is a small collection of eight plates by him, published under the title "Figures de modes dessinées et gravées à l'Eau forte, par Vatteau, et terminées au burin par Thomassin le fils." The plates engraved after Watteau's pictures and designs amount to several hundreds. Watteau has had many imitators, of whom the principal is R. Lancret; J. B. Pater was another good imitator of this master.—R. N. W.
* WATTS, George Frederick, an eminent historical and portrait painter, was born in London in 1818. Mr. Watts was, we believe, a student of the Royal Academy. His name occurs in the exhibition catalogues as early as 1836; but he first obtained notice in 1843, when, at the cartoon competition, his "Caractacus "obtained a first-class prize of £300. Mr. Watts now went to Italy in order to study the great master of religious and historical painting, and in so doing acquired the bias for the severe early Roman manner which has characterized all his subsequent productions. On his return to England he engaged in the fine arts competition of 1847, and was again successful; his oil painting of "Alfred encouraging the Saxons to resist the Danish Invaders," having been awarded a first-class premium of £500. But though thus successful in the competitions, Mr. Watts was only employed to paint one of the actual decorations of the new houses of parliament—the comparatively unimportant fresco of St. George, in the Poets' hall. He has, however, had other opportunities afforded him for displaying his power in mural painting. His most important work of the kind is "The School of Legislation "in the great hall of Lincoln's inn—a picture in which are assembled the great law-givers of every age and country, somewhat in the manner in which Raphael has assembled the great teachers of religion in his "School of Theology." The Lincoln's inn fresco is the largest yet executed in this country, being fifty feet by thirty-four. Another important fresco by Mr. Watts is the Majesty in the church of St. James the Less, Westminster. His easel pictures are not very numerous: among them are some poetical subjects which display subtlety as well as refinement of thought—such as the "Fata Morgana," and "Life's Illusions." His latest subject-piece was "Sir Galahael," 1862. Mr. Watts has of late years painted several portraits, which differ very much from the fashionable style of portraiture, aiming rather at severe truth than brilliancy. He is engaged on a series of heads of eminent contemporaries. Those of Tennyson and Sir H. Lawrence, which were in the International Exhibition of 1862, are a part of the series.—J. T—e.
WATTS, Isaac, D.D., born at Southampton, July 17, 1674. His father kept a boarding-school for boys, but was much harassed on account of his nonconformity. At last he was thrown into prison, and on his release had to quit his family for two years and conceal himself from his persecutors in London. This good man, who had a turn for poetry, lived to witness the fame of his son, and to enjoy for nearly fifty years the happier times which succeeded the Revolution. As befitted the son of a scholastic sire, Isaac was early initiated into the alphabetic mystery, and showed from the very outset a staid and studious turn. At three years of age he could read the Bible, and if he received any little present of money, he would come running to his parents, crying eagerly, "A book, a book! Buy a book!" It is recorded that the poetical propensity was also early developed. On rainy afternoons, by way of amusing her husband's pupils, Mrs. Watts sometimes offered a prize of a farthing for the best essay in rhyme; and on one such occasion she received from Isaac the following couplet:—
" I write not for a farthing, but to try
How I your farthing writers can outvie."
Afterwards, at the grammar-school of Southampton he learned Latin, Greek, French, and the elements of Hebrew: and, with the piety which he so early exhibited, it is not wonderful that his parents hailed with delight his resolution to study for the ministry. In order to carry out this purpose he repaired to London, and became a student under the Rev. Thomas Rowe in the dissenting academy at Newington. With his thirst for knowledge, with his musing spirit, with a timid retiring temperament, and with a frame too fragile for the more active pursuits and recreations, it may be said that Isaac Watts was born to be a student. He set to work systematically, and strove to make the most of his opportunity. He became a leading member of a society which the students formed among themselves for mutual improvement, and found time for a more extensive course of study than that prescribed by his tutor. Besides numerous papers and sketches in prose, he wrote great store of verse, both English and Latin, and practised largely those compositions of which we have maturer specimens in his "Miscellanies" and "Lyrics." He then also commenced those useful plans which in the "Improvement of the Mind" he recommends to others. Taking some standard work in theology or science, he either wrote a careful abstract, which from time to time he reperused till its contents were familiar to his memory; or, procuring an interleaved copy, with a supply of blank pages at the end, he made it a receptacle for all the cognate facts or thoughts which he encountered in his various readings. In this way from three years' residence at the academy, he returned to Southampton an elegant and accomplished scholar, and, as many would have deemed, well-furnished for the ministry. Such, however, was not his own judgment. He was still very young, and knew how much there was which as yet he did not know. Accordingly, he was thankful to obtain a farther respite of two years and a half, which he spent under his father's roof in adding to those acquisitions which were to prove the solace of his after life, and to make him the benefactor of posterity. From Southampton Watts was recalled to London, in 1696, to become tutor in the family of Sir John Hartopp. This appointment he held for five or six years, and they seem to have been years of much happiness. Sir John, who had married a daughter of General Fleetwood, was a man of vigorous intellect as well as christian worth; and his hospitable abode at Newington became the resort of the more distinguished nonconformists. Watts was also fortunate in his pupil. The younger Hartopp was an amiable and exemplary youth; and, to show the zeal with which the tutor discharged his duties, we may mention that it was for his use that the treatise on logic was originally prepared.
The Hartopps attended the meeting in Mark Lane, of which Joseph Caryl and John Owen had once been ministers; but under the pastorate of Dr. Isaac Chauncey, a man too dull to be popular, but too able to be altogether deserted, the congregation had sadly dwindled, and it was with forlorn and sulky loyalty that remnant clung together. Here Isaac Watts preached his first sermon on his twenty-fourth birth-day. In the same year (1698) he was invited to become Dr. Chauncey's assistant, and, on the doctor's resignation, he was in March, 1702,
