demonstrations of the 12th book of Euclid, and in L'Hopital's Conic sections, and Newton's Principia." "I never gave up a difficult point in a demonstration till I had made it out proprio marte; I have been stopped at a single step for three days." In January, 1759, Mr Watson took his bachelor of arts' degree; he was the second wrangler of his year, and, but for academical intrigue, would have borne away the first honour. He took his master of arts' degree in 1762; and, in the course of the following five years, was four times appointed to the difficult office of moderator. On the first occasion of his filling this office, the celebrated Paley took his degree and was senior wrangler.

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In the year 1764, on the death of Dr Hadley, Watson was unanimously elected professor of chemistry,-a science with which he was at the moment wholly unacquainted, having "never read a syllable on the subject, nor seen a single experiment in it." But his ambitious industry, as usual, bore him through all difficulties. "I sent," he says, immediately after my election, for an operator to Paris; I buried myself as it were in my laboratory, at least as much as my other avocations would permit; and in fourteen months from my election, I read a course of chemical lectures to a very full audience, consisting of persons of all ages and degrees in the university." No stipend had been hitherto annexed to the chemical chair in Cambridge. "I was told," says the bishop, "that the professors of chemistry in Paris, Vienna, Berlin, Stockholm, &c., were supported by their respective monarchs: and I knew that the reading a course of lectures would every year be attended with a great expense," on these grounds, the newly elected professor applied to the crown for a stipend, and obtained the "drop" of £100 per annum. The premier offered to settle the stipend upon Mr Watson himself for life; but this he very properly refused, and desired to have it only whilst he continued professor of chemistry, and discharged the duty of the office. Similar stipends have been subsequently procured for the professors of anatomy, botany, and common-law.

After seven years of brilliant success in this chair, he was chosen professor of divinity, in 1771, on the death of Dr Rutherforth, the regius professor of divinity. Watson was at this period only thirty-four years of age, and not even a bachelor in divinity; and of the science itself he fairly confesses that, remote as all his studies had lain from divinity, he knew very little; but formidable as both these obstacles certainly were, he had been for years determined in his own mind to endeavour to succeed Dr Rutherforth, and he was not the man to flinch from his purpose without a desperate effort to accomplish it, and on this occasion too, his intrepidity was triumphant,-a royal mandate procured his investment, with the requisite degree, on the day previous to the examination of the candidates, and his unanimous election instantly followed. "On being raised to this distinguished office," he says, "I immediately applied myself with great eagerness to the study of divinity. Eagerness, indeed, in the pursuit of knowledge was a part of my temper ;" and he expresses himself as looking back with a kind of terror on the application to which, at about this period of his life, he was accustomed. His style of theologizing was a singular one for those days, and the seat of learning to which he belonged; he fairly turned his back upon the formidable array of Fathers and Councils, and Critics, and Commentators, who had been hitherto sup

posed to encircle every divinity chair, and betook himself to the study of the scriptures as at once the safest and clearest, and the only real authority in religion: “I reduced the study of divinity," he says, "into as narrow a compass as I could, for I determined to study nothing but my Bible." "I never troubled myself with answering any arguments which the opponents in the divinity-schools brought against the articles of the church,-nor ever admitted their authority as decisive of a difficulty; but I used on such occasions to say to them, holding the New Testament in my hand, En sacrum codicem !' Here is the fountain of truth! Why do you follow the streams derived from it by the sophistry, or polluted by the passions of man? If you can bring proof against any thing delivered in this book, I shall think it my duty to reply to you. Articles of churches are not of divine authority; have done with them, for they may be true, they may be false, and appeal to the book itself." Of the same liberal character were the doctrines delivered by this avrodidaxros, this self-taught divine— as the master of Peterhouse used to call him—on the subject of national establishments and subscription.

In 1773 Dr Watson married the eldest daughter of Edward Wilson, Esq. of Dallum Tower in Westmoreland; and immediately set off to take possession of a sinecure rectory in North Wales which had been procured for him by the duke of Grafton, in consideration of his being ill provided for at Cambridge. "At the time the duke did me this favour," he says, "we thought differently on politics. I had made no scruple of every where declaring that I looked upon the American war as unjust in its commencement, and that its conclusion would be unfavourable to this kingdom." In 1775 he opposed a university address to the king urging the continuance of this war; and soon afterwards, in a letter addressed to his patron, the duke of Grafton, he animadverted with some severity on the course pursued by Junius.

In 1776 he rendered himself particularly conspicuous by publishing two sermons, which he had preached before the university, one of which was entitled, 'The Principles of the Revolution Vindicated,' and the other, On the Anniversary of the King's Accession.' Shortly afterwards, appeared his famous apology for Christianity, in answer to Gibbon. In January, 1780, he became archdeacon of Ely; and in May, delivered a primary visitation-sermon to the clergy of the diocese, in which he strongly rcommended the formation of a society at Cambridge, for the purpose of making and publishing translations of oriental manuscripts. In the following August, Bishop Keene presented him to the rectory of Northwold, in Norfolk. During the next year appeared the first two volumes of his Chemical Essays,' of which he subsequently published three others.

In 1782, through the influence of the duke of Rutland, he was elevated to the bishopric of Landaff. “The duke of Grafton," says our bishop, "told me that the bishop of Landaff (Barrington) would probably be translated to the see of Salisbury, which had become vacant a few days before the death of Lord Rockingham, and that he had asked Lord Shelburne, who had been appointed first lord of the treasury, to permit me to succeed to the bishopric of Landaff. This unsolicited kindness of the duke of Grafton gratified my feelings very much, for my spirit of independence was ever too high for my circumstances.

Lord Shelburne, the duke informed me, seemed very well disposed towards me, but would not suffer him to write to me; and he had asked the duke whether he thought the appointment would be agreeable to the duke of Rutland. Notwithstanding this hint I could not bring myself to write to the duke of Rutland, who had not at that time forsaken the friends of Lord Rockingham. I knew his great regard for me, but I abhorred the idea of pressing a young nobleman to ask a favour of the new minister, which might, in its consequences, sully the purity of his political principles, and be the means of attaching him, without due consideration, to Lord Shelburne's administration. Not that I had any reason to think ill of the new minister: I was personally unacquainted with him, but I was no stranger to the talents he had shown in opposing Lord North's American war; and Lord Rockingham had told me, that Lord Shelburne had behaved very honourably to him in not accepting the treasury, which the king had offered to him in preference to Lord Rockingham. I mention this circumstance in mere justice to Lord Shelburne, whose constitutional principles, and enlarged views of public policy, rendered him peculiarly fitted to sustain the character of a great statesman in the highest office. On the 12th of the same month the duke of Rutland wrote to me at Yarmouth, that he had determined to support Lord Shelburne's administration, as he had received the most positive assurances that the independency of America was to be acknowledged, and the wishes of the people relative to a parliamentary reform granted. He further told me that the bishopric of Landaff, he had reason to believe, would be disposed of in my favour if he asked it; and desired to know, whether, if the offer should be made, I would accept it. I returned for answer that I conceived there could be no dishonour in accepting a bishopric from an administration which he had previously determined to support, and that I had expected Lord Shelburne would have given me the bishopric without application; but that, if I must owe it to the interposition of some great man, I had rather owe it to that of his grace than to any other. On Sunday, July 21st, I received an express from the duke of Rutland, informing me that he had seen Lord Shelburne, who had anticipated his wishes, by mentioning me for the vacant bishopric before he had asked it. I kissed hands on the 26th of that month, and was received, as the phrase is, very graciously; this was the first time that I had ever been at St James's. In this manner did I acquire a bishopric. But I have no great reason to be proud of the promotion; for I think I owed it not to any regard which he who gave it me had to the zeal and industry with which I had for many years discharged the functions, and fulfilled the duties, of an academic life; but to the opinion which, from my sermon, he had erroneously entertained, that I was a warm, and might become an useful partisan. Lord Shelburne, indeed, had expressed to the duke of Grafton his expectation that I would occasionally write a pamphlet for their administration. The duke did me justice in assuring him that he had perfectly mistaken my character; that, though I might write on an abstract question, concerning government or the principles of legislation, it would not be with a view of assisting any administration. I had written in support of the principles of the Revolution, because I thought those principles useful to the state, and I saw them vilified and neglected; I had taken part with the people in their petitions against

the influence of the crown, because I thought that influence would destroy the constitution, and I saw that it was increasing; I had opposed the supporters of the American war, because I thought that war not only to be inexpedient but unjust. But all this was done from my own sense of things, and without the least view of pleasing any party: I did, however, happen to please a party, and they made me a bishop. I have hitherto followed, and shall continue to follow, my own judgment in all public transactions; all parties now understand this, and it is probable that I may continue to be bishop of Landaff as long as I live. Be it so. Wealth and power are but secondary objects of pursuit to a thinking man, especially to a thinking Christian."

In the same year our bishop delivered into Lord Shelburne's hands the following paper, "the subjects of which," says he, "had much engaged my attention before I was a bishop, and I did not think that by becoming a bishop I ought to change the principles which I had imbibed from the works of Mr Locke. There are several circumstances respecting the doctrine, the jurisdiction, and the revenue of the church of England, which would probably admit a temperate reform. If it should be thought right to attempt making a change in any of them, it seems most expedient to begin with the revenue. The two following hints on that subject may not be undeserving your lordship's consideration :—First, A bill to render the bishoprics more equal to each other, both with respect to income and patronage; by annexing, as the richer bishoprics become vacant, a part of their revenues, and a part of their patronage, to the poorer. By a bill of this kind, the bishops would be freed from the necessity of holding ecclesiastical preferments, in commendam,-a practice which bears hard on the rights of the inferior clergy. Another probable consequence of such a bill would be, a longer residence of the bishops in their several dioceses; from which the best consequences, both to religion, the morality of the people, and to the true credit of the church, might be expected; for the two great inducements to wish for translations, and consequently to reside in London, namely, superiority of income and excellency of patronage, would in a great measure be removed. Second, A bill for appropriating, as they become vacant, a half, or a third part, of the income of every deanery, prebend, or canonry, of the churches of Westminster, Windsor, Canterbury, Christ Church, Worcester, Durham, Ely, Norwich, &c. to the same purposes, mutatis mutandis, as the first-fruits and tenths were appropriated by Queen Anne. By a bill of this kind a decent provision would be made for the inferior clergy, in a third or fourth part of the time which Queen Anne's bounty alone will require to effect. A decent provision being once made for every officiating minister in the church, the residence of the clergy on their cures might more reasonably be required than it can be at present, and the license of holding more livings than one be restricted."

In 1785 the bishop published a useful collection of theological tracts. In the following year he received a legacy of £20,000 from his friend Mr Luther. During the French revolution the bishop paid considerable attention to public affairs, and, although he at first deprecated intervention on our part, yet he afterwards gave his sanction to the war with France. In the following passage he expresses his political creed with his usual force and brevity: "Would to God the king of England

had men of magnanimity enough in his councils, to advise him to meet, at this juncture, the wishes of his people; he would thereby become the idol of the nation, and the most admired monarch in Europe. You mistake me, Sir, if you suppose that I have the most distant desire to make the democratic scale of the constitution outweigh the monarchical. Not one jot of the legal prerogative of the crown do I wish to see abolished; not one tittle of the king's influence in the state to be destroyed, except so far as it is extended over the representatives of the people. 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 I 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 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.

"The whig part of the coalition ministry which was formed in April, 1783, forced themselves into the king's service. His majesty had shown the greatest reluctance to treating with them. Their enemies said, and their adherents suspected, that if poverty had not pressed hard upon some of them, they would not, for the good of their country, have overlooked the indignities which had been shown them by the court; they would have declined accepting places, when they perfectly knew that their services were unacceptable to the king. They did, however, accept; and, on the day they kissed hands, I told Lord John Cavendish (who had reluctantly joined the coalition) that they had two things against them, the closet and the country; that the king hated them, and would take the first opportunity of turning them out; and that the coalition would make the country hate them. Lord John was aware of the opposition they would have from the closet, but he entertained no suspicion of the country being disgusted at the coalition. The event, however, of the general election, in which the whig interest was almost every where unsuccessful, and Lord John himself turned out at York, proved that my foresight was well founded. It is a great happiness in our constitution, that, when the aristocratic parties in the houses of parliament flagrantly deviate from principles of honour, in order to support their respective interests, there is integrity enough still remaining in the mass of the people, to counteract the mischief of such selfishness or ambition."

When a meeting of the bishops was convened at the Bounty-office, on a summons from the archbishop of Canterbury, and at the instance of Mr Pitt, who wanted to know the sentiments of the bench relative to the repeal of the test and corporation acts: "I was the junior bishop," says Dr Watson, "and, as such, was called upon to deliver my opinion first, which I did in the negative. The only bishop who voted with