ISAAC WATTS AND HIS FAMOUS HYNNS.

Manawatu Times, Volume LXV, Issue 1882, 29 March 1913, Page 3

ISAAC WATTS AND HIS FAMOUS HYNNS.

HIS LATEST BIOGRAPHER INTERVIEWED. Tile third volume ot' Mr Thomas Wright's '-Lives of British Hymn Writers: The Life et Dr. Issac Watts," is finished, and when the list of 600 subscribers is complete it will be published at 5:; fid by Messrs Farncombe and Son. Yesterday, at Olney, tlie little Bucks town made famous by other hymn writers our representative had a chat with Mr Wright in his booklined study at the Cowper School. He had not. discovered any unpublished hymns by the author of "Our God, Our help iu ages past." but the book he has prepared so carefully contains many letters that have escaped other biographers. "My aim, in fact," said Mr Wright, "has been to give new material and trespass as little as possible 011 grouud that has been gone over before." DR. WATTS'S DIVINE SONGS. In doing this he lias collected a little library of early editions of Watts's famous "Moral and Divine Songs, attempted in easy language for the use of children." These appeared at frequent intervals from 1707 to 1823 and later, and children of an older generation were apt to regard them as an apocryphal portion of the Scriptures. Perhaps the most famous of them all is the song against quarrelling and fighting beginning "Let dogs delight to bark and bite." Above the homely lines appears a quaint woodcut of a mother reproving her daughter for some such offence as "quarrelling and fighting," and at the top of the equally famous song against idleness and mischief is a woodcut of an excellent tiffness representing some hives of bees. The song itself: How doth the little busy bee Improve each shining hour, And gather honey all the day From every opening flower, was, and deserves to remain, a classic. In another, less known, against "pride in clothes," occurs the chastening thought: Let me be drest fine as I will, Flies, worms, and flowers exceed me still. "TOO GCOD-NATURED." In explanation of Dr. Watts's relation with "Bold" Bradbury, of Fetter-lane Chapel, or "Make-a-Noise" Bradbury, as he was sometimes called, Mr Wright said he found that Watts's mistakes were due to the fact that he was too goodnatured. "He feared to hurt anyone's feelings, and carried his good nature to an extreme point." Bradbury and he were like brass and earthen pots, but in spite of their differences they continued to be friendly. After the debate at Salters' Hall, when Bradbury and 69 others formed a separat- assembly, Watts accused Brauuury 'of disrespect and in gratitude. To this the latter roughly replied: "Do you think that the ministers of the Lord are to stand still while you tear in pieces eight great articles of faith?" A FRATERNAL OFFER. Yet on another occasion, when Watts was ill and could scarcely make himself heard, Bradbury offered to speak for him. "Brother Bradbury," replied Watts, "you have often spoken against me. " "I like to think of him," *Mr Wright continued, "in a phrase Waterland uses in 'Remedies for a Dejected Mind,' for it suits him admirably, 'He sat as loose as possible to this world.' "In matters of taste he was an excellent arbiter, and as an illustration of his moral and spiritual bent, this quotation from a letter to Mr Richier will serve: 'The smiles of tire world, and the universal ease of the flesh are much more dangerous than the frowns of Providence and the pains of nature.' "