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Cox v. National Bank Clardy/Opinion of the Court

Bills of exchange are written orders or requests from one party to another for the payment of money to a third person or his order, on account of the drawer, and, if payable at sight or at a date subsequent to the acceptance by the drawee, the instrument must be duly presented for payment, else the parties to the same conditionally liable for the payment of the amount will be discharged. Different rules prevail as to the place where the presentment for payment must be made, dependent upon the form of the instrument and the place where and the terms in which it was accepted.

Such an instrument must first be accepted; and if when presented for that purpose the drawee refuses to accept the same, it must, if it is a foreign bill, be protested for non-acceptance, the rule being that the place of protest is the place where the same is required to be presented for acceptance, unless it is in terms payable at some other place. Due presentment for payment must also be made, the general rule being that the place of payment is the place where the acceptor resides, or where on the face of the bill it is addressed to him, unless some other place is specifically designated in the instrument. Story, Bills, sects. 48, 282.

Sufficient appears to show that the subject-matter of the present controversy is a bill of exchange drawn by the defendant first named, the address to the drawees being 'Messrs. Cox & Cowan, New York, N. Y.,' for the sum of $5,000, payable eighty days from date, value received, and the indorsement on the face of the bill is as follows: 'Accepted. Cox & Cowan.'

That the bill was duly presented for acceptance, and that it was accepted by the drawees in the manner described, is admitted; nor is it denied that it was duly indorsed by the payee, nor that the plaintiff bank became the bona fide holder of the bill by virtue of the second indorsement exhibited in the record.

Payment of the bill at maturity being refused, the plaintiff bank, as the lawful holder of the same, caused it to be protested, and instituted the present action against the drawer, the acceptors, and the payee as the first indorser, to recover the amount. Process was served, and the drawer and indorser appeared and filed separate answers.

Though the answers are separate, yet the material defences in each are the same, and may be considered together. They are as follows: 1. That the bill was not duly presented to the acceptors for payment. 2. That it was not duly protested for non-payment. 3. That due notice was never given to the drawer of the dishonor of the bill or of the failure of the acceptors to pay the same at maturity.

Amended answers having subsequently been filed by the same parties, they went to trial, and the verdict and judgment were in favor of the plaintiff bank against the drawer, acceptors, and indorser for the amount specified in the transcript. Exceptions were filed by the defendants, and they sued out the present writ of error.

Since the cause was entered here, the defendants have assigned for error the following causes: 1. That the Circuit Court erred in instructing the jury that the bill, being addressed to the drawees, 'New York, N. Y.,' is in law payable in New York City. 2. That the Circuit Court erred in refusing to instruct the jury that the acceptance of the bill, as shown in the transcript, was a general acceptance, which made the bill payable at no particular place. 3. That the Circuit Court erred in refusing to instruct the jury that, in order to charge the defendants, the officers of the plaintiff bank, if they knew at the maturity of the bill where the residence and place of business of the acceptors were, as stated in the answers, must show that the bill was presented and that payment was demanded at their residence or place of business. 4. That the Circuit Court erred in instructing the jury that if the notary made reasonable and diligent inquiry for the acceptors and their place of business in the city of New York, and could not find either their residence or place of business, and that he then demanded payment during business hours at the place or places frequented by them when in said city, that such a demand was a sufficient presentment to maintain the action.

Evidence was introduced by the defendants tending to show that throughout the transaction they were all residents of the State of Kentucky, and that the bill in question was drawn and indorsed in the State; that it was sent by one Thompson to the firm of Wright & Co., who delivered the same to the plaintiff bank or their officers, who were informed where the bill was executed by the drawer and indorser. They also introduced testimony showing that the officers of the bank, when they took the bill, knew where the drawer resided when it was forwarded, and afterwards when it was accepted by the drawees. Explanatory evidence was also given by the plaintiff bank showing that no sort of agency existed between the person by whom the bill was forwarded and the firm by whom it was delivered and the plaintiff bank, and that the former never had any communication with the bank, and never informed either the bank or the said firm of the post-office address of any one of the defendants.

Commercial rules everywhere require that to fix the liability of the drawer of a bill of exchange or the indorser of a bill or note there must be a legal presentment of the instrument to the acceptor or maker, or payment must be demanded of such a party on the day the instrument becomes payable. That payment must be demanded from the maker of a note and notice of its non-payment forwarded to the indorser in due time, in order to render him liable, is so firmly settled, says Marshall, C. J., that no authority need be cited to support the proposition. Magruder v. Bank, 3 Pet. 87, 90; The Juniata Bank v. Hale, 16 Serg. & R. (Pa.) 157.

Nobody doubts the correctness of that rule, and it is equally well settled that when a note or bill is expressed to be payable at a particular place, a demand there is always sufficient to charge the indorser. Story, Bills (4th ed.), sect. 357; Chitty, Bills (13th Am. ed.), 407; Rowe v. v. Young, 2 Brod. & B. 165; Picquet v. Curtis, 1 Sumn. 478.

Text-writers of undoubted authority state that an acceptance is an engagement to pay the bill according to the tenor of the acceptance, and that a general acceptance is an engagement to pay according to the tenor of the bill. Bayley, Bills (5th ed.), 154; Chitty, Bills (13th Am. ed.), 342.

Cases arise where the drawer of a bill of exchange designates in the instrument the place of payment, and the decisions are that in such a case both the drawer and the indorser will be discharged unless the bill be there presented for payment at maturity; but the same decisions hold otherwise as to the maker of a note and the acceptor of a bill, the rule being that, unless the restrictive words 'only and not elsewhere' are added, no presentment there at maturity or afterwards is necessary to charge such a party. Foden & Slater v. Sharp, 4 Johns. (N. Y.) 183; Wolcott v. Van Santvoord, 17 id. 248.

Where no place of payment is expressed in a bill or note, the general rule, in the absence of any agreement or circumstances fixing or indicating a different intention, is that the place of presentment is the place where the acceptor or maker resides, or at their usual place of business. Circumstances, however, may control the usual inference arising from the want of any such expression in the instrument which may warrant a very different conclusion. Thus, if a bill were drawn upon a merchant when abroad, and should be addressed to him at Paris or at London, the place of payment would be the place where the drawer accepted the instrument, whether Paris or London, and not the place of his residence when the bill was drawn or at its maturity. 1 Daniel, Negotiable Securities (2d ed.), sect. 90.

Provided no place is designated or agreed or indicated in the form of the address or the terms of the acceptance, the rule then is that the presentment for payment must be made at the home or domicile of the acceptor or maker, or at their usual place of business during business hours. Id., sect. 635.

Parol testimony to show such an agreement is admissible, it being settled law that the introduction of such testimony is not inconsistent with the rule that a written instrument cannot be varied by parol evidence. Brent's Exrs. v. The Bank of the Metropolis, 1 Pet. 89, 92.

Unlike the indorser, the maker of a promissory note is liable without any demand of payment. His undertaking is unconditional, but the indorser only undertakes to pay if the maker does not, which makes it necessary for the holder to take proper steps to obtain payment from the maker, from which it follows that his contract is that due diligence shall be used to that end; and when the parties agree what shall constitute due diligence in the particular case, says Marshall, C. J., they do not alter the written contract, but agree upon an extrinsic circumstance, and substitute that agreement for an act which the law prescribes as such when they are silent.

Acceptors of a bill of exchange stand in the same relation to the drawee of the bill as the maker of a note does to the payee, the acceptor being the principal debtor in a bill precisely as the maker is of a promissory note, the rule being that the liability of the acceptor is governed by the terms of his acceptance, just as the liability of the maker of a note is defined and governed by the terms of a note; nor can the place of payment be of any more importance in the one case than in the other.

When a note or bill is made payable at a particular bank, as is frequently the case, it is well known that, according to the usual course of business, the note or bill is usually lodged in the bank for collection; and if the maker or acceptor calls to take it up when it falls due, and it is delivered to him, and he pays the amount, the business is closed; but if he does not find the note or bill at the bank, he can deposit the money to meet the same when it shall be presented, and the proof of such tender and deposit, in case of a subsequent suit, will exonerate him from all costs and damages. Or should the note or bill be made payable at some other place than a bank, and no deposit should be made, or he should choose to retain the money in his own possession, an offer to pay at the time and place would protect him against interest and costs on bringing the money into court.

Rules of a different character have sometimes prevailed in other jurisdictions, but the principles to be applied in such a case are settled in this court, nor is it necessary, where the note or bill is payable at a specified time and place, to aver in the declaration or prove at the trial that a demand was made at that place in order to maintain the action, the established rule being that if the maker or acceptor was at the place at the time designated, and was ready and offered to pay the money, it is matter of defence to be pleaded and proved. Wallace v. McConnell, 13 Pet. 136, 150; 1 Daniel, Negotiable Securities (2d ed.), sect. 643; Edwards, Bills (2d ed.), 150; Rowe v. Young, 2 Bli. 391, 395.

Beyond doubt, these principles are applicable, as determined by this court, where the suit is against the maker of the note or the acceptor of the bill; but when recourse is had to the indorser of the note or the drawer of the bill, very different considerations arise, as they are not the principal debtors to the holder of the instrument. Their undertaking is not absolute, like that of the maker of the note or the acceptor of the bill, but conditional, that if the maker in the one case or the acceptor in the other refuses to make good the undertaking they will pay the amount. Hence, the holder is bound to use due diligence to obtain payment from the maker or acceptor, as a condition precedent to his right to recover of the parties only conditionally liable. Consequently, when a place of payment is designated in the body of the note or bill, the drawer or indorser has a right to presume that the maker or acceptor has provided funds at such place to pay the note or bill, and to require the holder to apply for payment at such place, unless when the place designated is a bank, and the bank is the holder of the instrument, when the rule does not apply. In all other cases the obligation is absolute, that the holder must aver and prove a presentment at the designated place, unless the necessity is obviated by agreement, or something appearing in the instrument to indicate a different intention. Bank of the United States v. Smith, 11 Wheat. 171, 175.

Suppose that is so, then there never need be any difficulty in determining the rights of the parties in such a case, where the place of payment is specifically designated in the bill, or where the terms of the instrument contain no such designation whatever, as the rule of procedure in each case, though different, is equally plain and unmistakable. Nor do the parties here differ in respect to those rules, but the plaintiff bank contends that the bill in question brings the case within the category of the first case, but the defendants insist that it falls within the second, where no place of payment is designated.

Looking at the terms of the bill, independent of the address to the drawees and the acceptance written across the face of the bill, it would seem that the theory of the defendants is correct; but the bill is addressed to 'Messrs. Cox & Cowan, New York, N. Y.,' as drawees, and is by them accepted without explanation or condition, from which it follows as a reasonable inference that they accepted the bill as if they were at the time in the city of New York, and having so accepted it without explanation or condition, the legal construction of the instrument is that it became payable when it fell due at the place designated by the address as the place where the acceptance took place. Halstead v. Skelton, 5 Q. B. 86; 1 & 2 Geo. IV. . 78; 38 British Stats. 291.

Bills of exchange, like other written instruments, are subject to legal construction in order to ascertain the intent and meaning of the parties, unless the language employed to express such intent and meaning is clear and unambiguous.

Enough has already been remarked to show that when a bill or note is expressed to be payable at a particular place on demand, it is always sufficient to prove that it was presented there to charge the acceptor or the indorser. Evans v. St. John, 9 Port. (Ala.) 186, 193; McClane v. Fitch, 4 B. Mon. (Ky.) 599. Where a bill is drawn on a firm, as W. M. & Co., at a particular number and street, as at 263 Washington Street, New York, the presentment should be made at their place of business, as presumable from such address, or at the residence of either of the firm. Otsego County Bank v. Warren, 18 Barb. (N. Y.) 291, 293.

If the instrument is payable in a particular town, and the residence of the maker or acceptor is elsewhere, the holder is not bound to make demand anywhere except in that town. Smith v. Little, 10 N. H. 526, 530; 1 Am. Lead. Cas. (5th ed.) 454.

Views equally explicit are expressed by Judge Story, who says that if the bill is drawn upon the drawee domiciled in one place and is payable in another place, and is accepted by him, meaning without qualification, the presentment should be made at the latter place. Thus, if a bill is drawn on the drawees at Liverpool, payable in London, and is accepted, without explanation, the presentment for payment must be in London, if any particular place is there pointed out where demand may be made, and if none, and no one can be found to pay the bill, it may be protested there for non-payment for that very cause. Story, Bills (4th ed.), sect. 353; Boot v. Franklin, 3 Johns. (N. Y.) 208; 2 & 3 Wm. IV., 50 British Stats., c. 98, p. 587; Chitty, Bills (13th Am. ed.), 390.

So where a bill is directed to the drawee at a particular house, and is by him accepted without condition, the going to that house with the bill on the day of payment and finding it closed is a sufficient presentment. Bayley, Bills (5th ed.), 20; Hine v. Allely, 1 Nev. & M. 433; Chitty, Bills (13th Am. ed.), 330.

American authoritis almost universally hold that in such a case no presentment is necessary to charge the acceptor of the bill or the maker of the note,-the only effect of the neglect as to such a party being that it relieves him from cost and damages if he was ready at the time and place named to pay the amount and there was no one to receive it. Such readiness is equivalent to a tender, and an answer pleading that fact and payment of the money into court will be a bar to the recovery of interest and cost. Hills v. Place, 48 N. Y. 520; Caldwell v. Cassidy, 8 Cow. (N. Y.) 271.

Want of due diligence cannot be successfully set up in this case, as the protest was given in evidence, and shows to a demonstration that every thing the law requires was done to find the acceptors or their place of business without success, and that the protest was finally made at the only place in the city of New York where they were accustomed to transact any business.

Diligence is doubtless required of the holder to ascertain the proper place to present the bill for payment; but it is not necessary to give that issue much consideration in this case, as it is not controverted that every needful effort in that regard was made, if the true theory of the bill is that it was payable in the city of New York, which is asserted by the plaintiff bank and denied by the defendants.

Nothing need be added to what has already been remarked to explain the views of the court upon that subject, which are, that the bill having been addressed to the drawees at the city of New York, and they having accepted the same without qualification, explanation, or condition, the bill became payable in that city, even though no mention was made of any dwelling, store, or place of business where the bill should be presented. Freese v. Brownell, 35 N. J. L. 285; 1 Bell, Com. (5th ed.) 412.

Nor is it necessary to repeat the views heretofore expressed, that the acceptor of the bill, like the maker of a note, is the promissory debtor in such a case, and that in respect to such a party to a bill no presentment or demand of payment need be made at the specified place in order to render him liable to an action on the instrument. Story, Notes (7th ed.), sect. 228; 1 Parsons, Bills and Notes, 425-429; Thompson, Bills (2d ed.), 294.

Our decisions are decisive to that effect, and it is equally clear in this case that every step necessary to bind the drawer and the indorser was also taken by the holder of the bill described in the declaration. Story, Notes (7th ed.), 236; Carter v. Smith, 9 Cush. (Mass.) 321.

Presentment at the specified place as against the acceptor of a bill is not necessary, the rule being that, if he was ready at the time and place to pay, he may prove that as a defence; but the rule is otherwise as against the drawer and indorsers. 3 Kent, Com. (12th ed.) 100, 104.

Five other assignments of error are set forth in the brief of the defendants; but it is unnecessary to pursue the discussion, as the remarks already made are sufficient to show that there is no error in the record, and that the judgment should be affirmed.

Exactly the same questions are also involved in the second of the above-entitled cases. Both were argued and submitted at the same time, and must be decided in the same way. In each case

Judgment affirmed.


text: Talk:Cox v. National Bank Clardy/Opinion of the Court

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Rh The Mézenc, the highest of the Cevennes, rises out of a dreary plateau. It is, says M. Paulett Scrope:—

The desolate tableland over which one travels to reach Mézenc is well described by Georges Sand in her novel Le Marquis de Villemer, and the backward and unprogressive character of the inhabitants has not altered since her time.

The carriage is left at the village of Les Estables, a


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 Franklin, John Robertson (1712–1776) [q. v.], and Benjamin Wilson [q. v.]; they reported favourably in 1772.

Watson's electrical experiments became famous outside scientific circles. George III (then Prince of Wales), the Duke of Cumberland, and other fashionable people went to see them at his house in Aldersgate Street.

In 1750 (loc. cit. xlvi. 584) Watson communicated to the Royal Society ‘several papers concerning a new semi-metal called platina.’ The credit of the introduction of platinum has on this account been ascribed to Watson, and also to his namesake, Richard Watson [q. v.], bishop of Llandaff. The first and most important of the papers is by William Brownrigg [q. v.], who had himself been given the specimens of ‘platina di Pinto’ from the Spanish West Indies by Charles Wood nine years previously, and Brownrigg deserves most credit in the matter, Watson's paper being merely a commentary on Brownrigg's. In 1757 (Gent. Mag. xxvii. 6) Watson made the obvious but important practical suggestion that instead of covering the lead water pipes, used to supply houses, with horse-dung, to prevent them from freezing, these should be provided with two cocks, so as to cut off the supply and empty them during frost.

The most important of Watson's botanical papers is that on the Star-puff ball (geaster) which first drew the attention of continental botanists to his work (Phil. Trans. xliii. 234, read 20 Dec. 1744). Many of his botanical papers are historical summaries, showing great knowledge and perspicacity. On 7 May 1752 (ib. xlvii. 445) he read a long account of a manuscript treatise by De Peyssonel, proving that coral was of animal and not vegetable origin, which had been communicated to the Paris Academy of Sciences in 1727, but neglected. In 1754 (ib. xlviii. 615) he recognised that the holly is ‘polygamous.’ In the ‘Gentleman's Magazine,’ 1754, p. 555, Watson published over his initials a notice of Linnæus's Species plantarum, in which the author set forth his new method of nomenclature, and pronounced it to be the ‘masterpiece of the most compleat naturalist the world has ever seen,’ but nevertheless criticises certain details. In the following year (Gent. Mag. xxv. 317) Linnæus replied to his anonymous critic, whom he calls ‘in re herbaria solidissimum et honestissimum, simul et mitissimum judicem.’ Watson did much to introduce the Linnæan system into England. He wrote a number of medical memoirs dealing with cases of poisoning by fungi, &c.; but his chief medical work deals with epidemics. In December 1762 he published (Phil. Trans. lii. 646) a letter to his friend John Huxham [q. v.] on the ‘catarrhal disorder’ (influenza) of May 1762, and the dysentery that followed in the autumn. In February 1763 (loc. cit. liii. 10) he published an interesting cure of severe muscular rigidity by means of electricity. He published various papers in the ‘London Medical Observations’ (iii. 35, iv. 78, 132) ‘on putrid measles’ (see, Epidemics in Britain, ii. 705, iv. 321). In 1768 Watson published as a pamphlet ‘An Account of a Series of Experiments instituted with a view of ascertaining the most successful Method of inoculating the Smallpox.’ Watson found that preparatory drugs had no effect, that matter from natural or inoculated smallpox produced the same result, and that it was inadvisable to inoculate children under three years of age.

A portrait of Watson in oils, by L. F. Abbot, given by the sitter, and an engraving therefrom by Thornthwaite (1767) are in the possession of the Royal Society. He had a massive though not handsome face, with highly arched eyebrows and large orbits.

Watson left one son, and a daughter, married to Edward Beadon, rector of North Stoneham, Hampshire, brother of Richard Beadon [q. v.], bishop of Bath and Wells. The son is probably to be identified with the Author:William Watson (1744-1824) (1744–1825?) jun., M.D., born on 28 Aug. or 8 Sept. 1744. He was knighted on 6 March 1796 (, Hist. of the Royal Society), elected F.R.S. on 10 Dec. 1767, and admitted on 19 May 1768. He contributed a paper on the blue shark to the ‘Philosophical Transactions’ (lxviii. 789). He died about 1825.

[Clark's Georgian Era, iii. 166; Chalmers's Biogr. Dict.; Gent. Mag. 1787, i. 454; Robinson's Reg. of Merchant Taylors' School, ii. 68; Poggendorff's Biogr. Literar. Handwörterbuch, 1863 passim; Pulteney's Sketches of the Progress of Botany in England, 1790, ii. 295–340 (the most complete memoir; probably written from personal knowledge); Munk's Coll. of Phys. ii. 298; Thomson's Hist. of the Royal Soc., 1812, App. p. xlii; Record of the Royal Soc., 1897; Creighton's Epidemics in Britain, 1894, ii. passim; Maty's Index to the Phil. Trans. vols. i–lxx.; Watson's own papers; Priestley's Hist. of Electricity, 5th edit. 1794, passim; Hoppe's Geschichte der Elektricität, passim; Wiedemann's Lehre von Elektricität, passim; information from Prof. Marcus Hartog of Queen's Coll., Cork.]  WATSON, WILLIAM HENRY (1796–1860), baron of the exchequer, born at Bamborough in 1796, was the son of John Watson, captain in the 76th foot, by Eliza-


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70 poor and dirty place, where the natives shiver through half the year. Their condition is indeed miserable. Their cottages, built of lava-blocks, are thatched with straw, or roofed with clinkstone (phonolith). The street is filthy, encumbered with stones and deep in slime. Were it not for the lace industry and for the violet harvest, the place would be deserted. The cattle are lean and poor in quality, from lack of lime in the soil; the harvests ripen so late that when gathered in the crops are frequently spoilt.

At Ste. Eulalie, on the Sunday after the 12th July, is held the Foire aux Violettes. To that stream the cottagers from Les Estables and all the hamlets about Mézenc, laden with baskets heaped up with violets, and not violets only, but also the thousand aromatic herbs that luxuriate in this desolate region. The violets of Mézenc are so numerous and so large that in spring the mountain is arrayed in royal purple. The Mézenc violet is, moreover, more intense in colour than that of the Alps, and it retains its colour longer when dried. To this fair come the merchants of Lyons, Marseilles, and Nîmes. Every kind of simple used by druggists, every herb used for the production of essences, is there to be procured. But the violet is the staple of the trade. The air is scented with it, but the sweetness cannot neutralise the bad savour of the village—that defies suppression.

The flowers are gathered at the end of May by women and children. Then they are dried in the hayloft, never allowed so to do in the sun. And when we buy the crystallised violet at Gunters, or try the withered flowers as a cure for cancer, ten to one but we are employing the produce of Mézenc, and putting a few


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 beth, daughter of Henry Grey of Bamborough, Northumberland. He was educated at the Royal Military College, Marlow, and given a commission in the 1st royal dragoons by the Duke of York on 7 May 1812, serving with his regiment in the Spanish peninsula. When it was reduced in 1814 he exchanged into the 6th dragoons on 13 April 1815, with whom he served in Belgium and France. He was present at the battle of Waterloo and at the entry of the allied armies into Paris.

He was placed on the half-pay list on 25 March 1816, and the next year entered as a student at Lincoln's Inn, and by hard work soon became competent to practise as a special pleader, and continued to do so until 1832, when he was called to the bar in Lincoln's Inn. He joined the northern circuit, where he found work and became popular. In 1841 he entered the House of Commons as liberal member for Kinsale, for which borough he sat till 1847. In 1843 he became a Q.C. and a bencher of his inn. He was an unsuccessful candidate for Newcastle-on-Tyne in the liberal interest, July 1852, but in 1854 he was elected member for Hull, and sat as such until on 3 Nov. 1856 he was created baron of the exchequer, to succeed Sir [q. v.] He was knighted on 28 Nov. of the same year. Watson proved himself a judge possessed of clear head and strong mind, but his career on the bench was very short. On the conclusion of his charge to the grand jury at Welshpool, 12 March 1860, he was seized with apoplexy, and died the next day.

Watson married, first, in 1826, a daughter of William Armstrong of Newcastle-on-Tyne, and sister of Lord Armstrong; secondly, in 1831, Mary, daughter of Anthony Hollist of Midhurst, Sussex.

He was distinguished as an advocate by honesty and earnestness rather than eloquence, but was a sound lawyer and the author of two (for a time) standard professional works:
 * 1) ‘A Treatise on Arbitration and Award,’ London, 1825, 8vo; 3rd ed. 1846.
 * 2) ‘A Treatise on the Law relating to the Office and Duty of Sheriff,’ 8vo, 1827; 2nd ed. 1848, by  [q. v.]

WATSON-WENTWORTH, CHARLES, second (1730–1782), born on 13 May 1730, was fifth and only surviving son of Thomas Watson-Wentworth, marquis of Rockingham, by Mary, daughter of, second earl of Nottingham and sixth earl of Winchilsea [q. v.] He descended from Sir, first baron Rockingham [q. v.] His grandfather, Thomas Watson, third son of Edward Watson, second baron Rockingham, by Anne, first daughter of Thomas Wentworth, first earl of Strafford, inherited the Wentworth estates, and assumed the additional surname of Wentworth. His father—created on 28 May 1728 Baron Wentworth of Malton, Yorkshire, and on 19 Nov. 1734 Baron of Harrowden, and Viscount Higham of Higham Ferrers, Northamptonshire, and Baron of Wath and Earl of Malton, Yorkshire—succeeded to the barony of Rockingham on the death (26 Feb. 1745–6) of his cousin, Thomas Watson, third earl of Rockingham—the earldom and associated honours, except the barony, then becoming extinct—and was created on 19 April 1746 Marquis of Rockingham.

Charles Watson-Wentworth, styled in his father's lifetime Viscount Higham and Earl of Malton, was educated at Westminster school and St. John's College, Cambridge. He was created on 17 Sept. 1750 an Irish peer by the titles of Baron and Earl of Malton, co. Wicklow, and on the death of his father on 14 Dec. the same year succeeded to all his honours. He took his seat in the House of Lords on 21 May 1751, and in the following July was appointed lord-lieutenant of the North and East Ridings of Yorkshire. He was elected F.R.S. on 7 Nov. 1751, and F.S.A. on 13 Feb. 1752. On 27 Feb. 1755 he was appointed vice-admiral of Yorkshire. He was installed K.G. on 6 May 1760, and on the accession of George III continued in the office of lord of the bedchamber, which he had held since 1751. In 1763 he was appointed (14 April) trustee of Westminster school and (11 Oct.) governor of the Charterhouse; in 1766 (7 April) high steward of Hull. Rockingham was bred in the strictest whig principles, and even in boyhood was so full of zeal for the house of Hanover that during the winter of 1745–6 he slipped away from Wentworth and joined the Duke of Cumberland's standard at Carlisle. He never coquetted with Leicester House, or showed the slightest disposition to compromise with the party of prerogative which, on the accession of George III, Lord Bute began to organise under the specious designation of ‘king's friends.’ On the eve of the signature of the preliminaries of the peace of Paris, he followed the example of Devonshire [see ,


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Works

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title: Author:Charles George Crump


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 458 Those who would drink of it must enter the cave with a torch or lamp in one hand and pitcher in the other, which they must fill with the water, and, leaving some scrap of their clothing behind them, must turn round without being scared by the noises they may hear within, and quit the cave without ever looking back."

In the district of Vynnytzia, government of Podolia in Ukrainia, there is a mineral spring much resorted to. The sick, after bathing, hang to the branches of the trees their shirts, handkerchiefs, and other articles, "as a mark", says M. Volkov, who reports the case, "that their diseases are left there". Whether this be the original notion we shall consider presently.

Parallel superstitions exist in India. A festival called Mela is held at the beginning of the month of Mágha (about the middle of January) at the island of Ságar, atthe mouth of the Hugh. A temple of Kapila, who is held to be an incarnation of Vishnu, stands on the island, and in front of it is (or was) a Bur tree, beneath which were images of Rama and Hanuman, while an image of Kapila, nearly of life-size, was within the temple. The pilgrims who crowd thither at the festival commonly write their names on the walls, with a short prayer to Kapila, or suspend a piece of earth or brick to a bough of the tree, offering at the same time a prayer and a promise, if the prayer be granted, to make a gift to some divinity. Elsewhere in India, as well as in Arabia and Persia, strips of cloth are suspended from shrubs and trees, which, for some reason or other, are venerated; and, in Persia at all events, not only are rags, amulets, and other votive offerings found upon the trees, but the trees are also covered with nails.

Mr. J. F. Campbell records having found in Japan "strips


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 fourth ] in resigning his place in the bedchamber (3 Nov. 1762). He was thereupon dismissed from his lieutenancies (December) and the office of vice-admiral of Yorkshire (29 Jan. 1763). A hesitant speaker, he made no brilliant parliamentary début, and meddled little with politics until, in March 1765, he was induced by Lord John Cavendish to accompany him to Hayes to solicit Pitt's counsel and aid in organising opposition to the arbitrary measures taken by the Grenville-Bedford administration against the supporters of Wilkes. From this mission Rockingham returned very dissatisfied with Pitt. He in consequence drew closer to Newcastle [see ], by whom he was consulted during the prolonged struggle on the regency bill. During the crisis which resulted Rockingham received through Cumberland separate overtures, concurrent with those made to Pitt, for the formation of a coalition administration, and, on Pitt's definitive refusal of office, accepted the treasury, was sworn of the privy council (10 July), and reappointed lord lieutenant of the west and north ridings of Yorkshire (7 Aug.) The great seal was retained by Northington and the first lordship of the admiralty by Egmont, but Keppel was made a junior lord [see, first ; , second ; and ]. Grafton and Conway were made secretaries of state for the northern and southern departments respectively [see, third ; and ]. William Dowdeswell (1721–1775) [q. v.] took the seals of the exchequer and Newcastle the privy seal, Daniel Finch, seventh earl of Winchilsea, became president of the council, and William Legge, second earl of Dartmouth [q. v.], president of the board of trade. Lord John Cavendish [q. v.], Thomas Townshend (afterwards Viscount Sydney) [q. v.], and George (afterwards Lord) Onslow [q. v.] were provided with seats at the treasury board. Barrington [see, second ] was made secretary at war, and Charles Townshend [q. v.] paymaster of the forces. Chief-justice Pratt was created Baron Camden [see, first ]. In the lower house the government was strengthened by the return of Rockingham's private secretary, Edmund Burke [q. v.], for the borough of Wendover.

On the American question ministers (except Northington, Barrington, and Townshend) were inclined to be accommodating. Nevertheless they hesitated, and it was not until the spring of 1766, and then only under pressure from Pitt and Camden, that they proposed the repeal of the Stamp Act. The measure was carried in the teeth of the determined opposition of the Grenville-Bedford faction, reinforced in some degree by the king's friends. The king himself was known to prefer the modification of the measure to its repeal. The repeal was facilitated by a concurrent statutory declaration of the absolute supremacy of parliament over the colonies, to which practical effect was given by a new Mutiny Act, under which the provincial assemblies were required to appropriate funds for the quartering and maintenance of the troops. The colonies were granted a more favourable tariff, the evasion of the navigation laws by the Spanish bullion ships was sanctioned, and the laws themselves were slightly relaxed in regard to the West Indies. To the chagrin which the repeal of the Stamp Act caused the king, ministers added the further mortification of refusing an allowance to his brothers and carrying (22, 25 April) resolutions condemnatory of general warrants. On 14 May Grafton resigned, and, though his successor was found in Richmond [see, third ], a negotiation which had long been pending between Pitt and the court ended in Rockingham's dismissal and Pitt's return to power at the close of the following July [see ]. Immediately after the prorogation of 2 July 1767 Rockingham was commissioned by Grafton to form an administration upon an extensive plan; but, after prolonged discussion, the irreconcilable divisions of the whigs caused the abandonment of the project. Rockingham was disheartened by the subsequent fusion of the Bedford faction with the king's friends, and except to join in the protest against the limitation of the East India Company's dividend on 8 Feb. 1768, and to move in March 1769 for detailed accounts preliminary to the discharge of the debt on the civil list, he took little part in public affairs until Chatham's return to St. Stephen's.

A call of the House of Lords moved by Rockingham in consequence of the removal of Camden was defeated by an adjournment, against which he entered his protest in the journal (15 Jan. 1770). He moved for (22 Jan.), and with Chatham's aid obtained (2 Feb.), a committee of the whole house on the state of the nation; in which he was


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 defeated on a resolution censuring the proceedings of the House of Commons in the matter of the Middlesex election [see ]. The minority recorded their protest in the journal of the house, and replied by a similar protest to a vote deprecating interference by either house in matters of which the other had exclusive cognisance. Rockingham also supported Chatham's motion for an account of the expenditure on the civil list (14 March), joined in the protest against the rejection of his bill to reverse the adjudications of the House of Commons in the matter of the Middlesex election (1 May), but declined to follow him in his attempt to force an immediate dissolution (14 May). He followed Richmond's lead in censuring the directions issued by Hillsborough for the dissolution of the assembly of Massachusetts Bay and the suspension of the revenue laws in Virginia (18 May). He also supported Richmond's motion for papers relative to the Falkland Islands question (22 Nov.), and joined (10 Dec.) in the protest against the forcible clearance of the house by which debate on the state of the national defences was stifled. Rockingham paid a tribute to civic virtue by visiting Lord-mayor Brass Crosby [q. v.] and Alderman Oliver in the Tower (30 March 1771). He resented the extension of the prerogative effected by the Royal Marriage Act of 1772, and perpetuated the grounds of his opposition in an able protest (3 March). In 1773 he supported (2 April) the measure relieving protestant dissenters and schoolmasters from the partial subscription to the Thirty-nine articles of religion required by the Toleration Act, joined (10 June) in the protest against the rejection of Richmond's motion for a message to the House of Commons praying disclosure of the evidence on which the India bill was founded, and in the subsequent protest (19 June) against the measure itself. He opposed the measures of 1774–5 enabling a change of venue for trials of persons prosecuted in Massachusetts Bay for acts done in execution of the law, and laying the external and internal trade of the colonies under interdict; supported (20 Jan. 1775) Chatham's motion for the recall of the troops from Boston; and, after moving to the address on 31 Oct. 1776 an amendment deprecating the continuance of the struggle, recorded his protest against its rejection, and virtually seceded from the house. The office of vice-admiral of Yorkshire was thereupon restored to him (18 Dec.)

Emerging from his cave on the conclusion of the Franco-American alliance, Rockingham censured North's conciliatory bills [see, second ] as inadequate, and declared for the immediate recognition of the independence of the colonies (9, 17 March 1778). The subsequent denunciation of war à outrance against the colonies by the peace commissioners drew from him an indignant remonstrance (7 Dec.) In the interval he had lent his support to Sir George Savile's measure for the partial enfranchisement of Roman catholics (25 May).

Rockingham was assiduous in attendance on Keppel during his court-martial at Portsmouth, and, on the admiral's acquittal, moved in the House of Lords a vote of thanks for his eminent services (16 Feb. 1779). He also in the course of 1779 moved an address (11 May) on the distressed state of Ireland, led the attack on Lord Sandwich's administration of the navy (25 June), and on the criminal negligence which sent Kempenfeldt to sea with an inadequate force founded a motion for the withholding of further supplies (19 Dec.). He also supported (1, 7 Dec.) Shelburne's censure upon the government's neglect of Irish affairs, and Richmond's motion for reform of the civil list establishment. Discountenancing the agitation of the following year for short parliaments and a wide suffrage, he received but rejected North's overtures for a coalition (8 July). In 1781 he censured the rupture with Holland as both unjust and impolitic (25 Jan.), and exposed the corrupt and improvident manner in which the loan was raised (21 March). On the eve of the fall of North's administration Rockingham received through Thurlow [see, first ] overtures which, after some delay, resulted in the formation of a coalition (27 March 1782). Rockingham received the treasury, Lord John Cavendish the exchequer, Shelburne was made home and colonial secretary, Charles James Fox [q. v.] foreign secretary, Camden president of the council. Thurlow retained the great seal, and Grafton received the privy seal. Richmond became master-general of the ordnance, Keppel first lord of the admiralty, Conway commander-in-chief. Portland went to Dublin as viceroy. The administration was dissolved by Rockingham's death (1 July 1782), but not before legislative independence had been conceded to Ireland, and the power of the crown considerably curtailed by the reduction of the household, the disfranchisement of revenue officers, and the exclusion of government contractors from the House of Commons [see, first , and ].

Rockingham was buried (20 July) in the choir of York Minster. By his wife Mary


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 Rh of cloth, bits of rope, slips of paper, writings, bamboo strings, flags, tags, and prayers hanging from every temple", and small piles of stones at the foot of every image and memorial stone, and on every altar by the wayside; and he draws attention to the similarity of the practices implied to those of his native country. Another traveller in Japan states that women who desire children go to a certain sacred stone on the holy hill of Nikko, and throw pebbles at it. If they succeed in hitting it their wish is granted. They seem very clever at the game, he says maliciously. Further, the same writer speaks of a seated statue of Buddha in the park of Uyeno at Tokio, on whose knees women flung stones with the same object. Describing a temple elsewhere, he records that the grotesque figures placed at the door were covered—or, as he more accurately puts it, constellated—with pellets of chewed paper shot through the railing that surrounded them by persons who had some wish to be fulfilled. A successful shot implied the probability of the attainment of the shooter's desire.

As might be anticipated, practices of this kind are not confined to Europe and Asia. A French traveller in the region of the Congo relates with astonishment concerning the n'doké—which he portrays as "fetishes important enough to occupy a special hut, and confided to the care of a sort of priests, who alone are reputed to have the means of making them speak"—that when it is desired to invoke the fetish, one or more pieces of native cloth, and the like, are offered to the fetish, or to the fetish priest; and the worshipper is then admitted to plant a nail in the statue, the priest meanwhile, or the worshipper himself, formulating his prayer or his desires.

To sum up. We find widely spread in Europe the practice of throwing pins into sacred wells, or sticking pins


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 Little Children,’ after Eastlake, 1859. Watt died in London on 18 May 1867.

WATT, ROBERT (1774–1819), bibliographer, son of John Watt (d. 1810), was born at Bonnyton farm in the parish of Stewarton, Ayrshire, on 1 May 1774. At an early age he was sent to school, but when about thirteen worked as a ploughboy to a neighbouring farmer. A love of adventure gave him the desire to be a chapman. With some others he made a trip into Galloway to work on stone-dyking and road-making. At Dumfries they boarded on the farm of Ellisland, in the possession of Robert Burns, and lived for some days in the old house which he and his family had recently occupied. ‘During the summer I spent in Dumfriesshire I had frequent opportunities of seeing Burns, but cannot recollect of having formed any opinion of him, except a confused idea that he was an extraordinary character’ (Autobiographical Fragment in Biographical Dict. of Eminent Scotsmen, 1856, p. 433). Even while carting stones he found opportunities for reading. His elder brother, John, who had been a cabinet-maker in Glasgow, returned home and persuaded Watt to join him in business as carpenter and joiner. His devotion to study became stronger, and young Watt in October or November 1792, having been prepared by an hour's tuition each morning in Greek and Latin by Duncan Macfarlane, schoolmaster in Stewarton, entered the classes for those languages at Glasgow University in 1793, and for the Greek and logic classes the following year. He gained a prize bestowed by Professor (d. 1820) [q. v.] for Greek, and in 1795 and 1796 attended the moral and natural philosophy classes at Edinburgh. During the summer recesses he supported himself by teaching, and in 1796 had a school in Kilmaurs parish, where he became acquainted with the Rev. [q. v.] of Kilmarnock—Burns's ‘Rumble John.’ In 1796 and 1797 he studied anatomy and divinity at Edinburgh, and obtained a prize of 10l. for an essay on ‘Regeneration,’ highly praised by Professor Hunter. He acted as parochial schoolmaster in Symington, near Kilmarnock, in 1797 and 1798, but resolved to give up the study of divinity for that of medicine, which he followed at Glasgow in 1798 and 1799. He was not, however, apprenticed to a surgeon, although Peter Mackenzie states that in 1793 Watt ‘got into the apothecary shop of old Moses Gardner’ in Glasgow (Reminiscences, vol. iii.).

Having secured the license of the Glasgow Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons on 6 April 1799, Watt commenced as a general practitioner at Paisley, contributed to the ‘Medical and Physical Journal’ (London, March and August 1800, and May 1801), and published his first book, ‘Cases of Diabetes, Consumption, &c., with Observations on the History and Treatment of Disease in general’ (Paisley, 1808, 8vo), a work long held in esteem. His practice and reputation increased, and he became a ‘member’ of the Glasgow faculty on 5 Jan. 1807. Two years later he journeyed south to see if he could find a suitable opening in England. He received the degree of M.D. from King's College, Aberdeen, on 20 March 1810, took a large house in Queen Street, Glasgow, practised as a physician, and delivered courses of lectures on medicine. His system of teaching was ‘to have recourse to original authors,’ and he established a well-chosen library, described in a ‘Catalogue of Medical Books for the use of Students attending Lectures on the Principles and Practice of Medicine; with an Address to Medical Students on the best Method of prosecuting their Studies’ (Glasgow, 1812, 8vo), now extremely rare, and specially interesting as the starting point of the famous ‘Bibliotheca Britannica,’ the plan for which had been developing from the time he matriculated in 1793. The ‘Catalogue’ includes over a thousand entries; ancient and modern literature are well represented. He also had a collection of a thousand theses available for reference, and ‘manuscript catalogues, arranged alphabetically according to the authors' names and the subjects treated, may be seen in the library, and will be printed as soon as the collection is completed.’ He made some progress in the formation of a pathological museum.

In 1813 he published ‘A Treatise on the History, Nature, and Treatment of Chin-cough, including a Variety of Cases and Dissections; to which is subjoined an Inquiry into the relative Mortality of the principal Diseases of Children and the numbers who have died under ten years of age in Glasgow during the last thirty years,’ Glasgow, 8vo. The ‘Inquiry’ was the fruit of a laborious investigation of the registers of the Glasgow burial-places, and suggested that the diminution in deaths by smallpox due to vaccination was compensated by the increase in deaths by measles (cf., Life of Jenner, ii. 392; Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal, April 1814, p. 177; Sir Gilbert Blane in Medical and Chirurgical Trans. of London, 1813, iv. 468; Dr. Farr in Registrar-


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 Rh is, however, I think, exceptional. Where the pin or button is dropped into the well, the patient does not trouble about the rag, and vice versâ. Professor Rhys only cites one case to the contrary. There the visit to the well was prescribed as a remedy for warts. Each wart was to be pricked with a pin, and the pin bent and thrown into the well. The warts were then to be rubbed with tufts of wool collected on the way to the well, and the wool was to be put on the first whitethorn the patient could find. As the wind scattered the wool the warts would disappear. Upon this one or two observations may be made. It may be assumed that, when any tree, or any tree of a special kind, is prescribed, rather than some particular tree, for the doing of such an act as this, the rite only survives in a degraded form, and that originally some definite sacred tree was its object. If this be so, the rite is here duplicated. For if the pins were really offerings, to be distinguished in character from the deposits of wool, the prescription to touch the warts with them would be meaningless. But we must surely deem that whatever value attached to the rubbing of the warts with wool would equally attach to their pricking with the pins.

Moreover, the curious detail mentioned by Mrs. Evans in reference to the rags tied on the bushes at Elian's Well—namely, that they must be tied on with wool—points to a further degradation of the rite in the case we are now examining. Probably at one time rags were used, and simply tied to the sacred tree with wool. What may have been the reason for using wool remains to be discovered. But it is easy to see how, if the reason were lost, the wool might be looked upon as the essential condition of the due performance of the ceremony, and so continue after the disuse of the rags.

Nor can we stop here. From all we know of the process of ceremonial decay, we may be tolerably sure that the rags represent entire articles of clothing, which were at an earlier period deposited. There is no need to discuss


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 460 or nails into sacred images or trees, or into the wall of a temple, or floor of a church, and—sometimes accompanying this, more usually alone—a practice of tying rags or leaving portions of clothing upon a sacred tree or bush, or a tree or bush overhanging, or adjacent to, a sacred well, or of depositing them in or about the well. The object of this rite is generally the attainment of some wish, or the granting of some prayer, as for a husband, or for recovery from sickness. In the Roman instance it was a solemn religious act, to which (in historical times at least) no definite meaning seems to have been attached; and the last semblance of a religious character has vanished from the analogous performances at Angers and Vienna. In Asia we have the corresponding customs of writing the name on the walls of a temple, suspending some apparently trivial article upon the boughs of a sacred tree, flinging pellets of chewed paper or stones at sacred images and cairns, and attaching rags, writings, and other things to the temples. On the Congo the practice is that of driving a nail into an idol, in the Breton manner. It cannot be doubted that the purpose and origin of all these customs are identical, and that an explanation of one will explain all.

The most usual explanations are, first, that the articles left are offerings to the god or presiding spirit, and, secondly, that they contain the disease of which one desires to be rid, and transfer it to anyone who touches or removes them. These two explanations appear to be mutually exclusive, though Professor Rhys suggests that a distinction is to be drawn between the pins and the rags. The pins, he thinks, may be offerings; and it is noteworthy that in some cases they are replaced by buttons or small coins. The rags, on the other hand, may be, in his view, the vehicles of the disease. If this opinion were correct, one would expect to find both ceremonies performed by the same patient at the same well: he would throw in the pin and also place the rag on the bush, or wherever its proper place might be. The performance of both


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  Report, 1867 pp. 213–14, 1872 p. 224, and his Vital Statistics, 1885, pp. 321–2). Watt's tables were reproduced by John Thomson, Glasgow, 1888 (see, Story of a Great Delusion, 1885, pp. 439–52; , Vaccination Vindicated, 1887, p. 161; , History of Epidemics, 1894, ii. 652–60).

Watt published anonymously at Edinburgh in 1814 a small octavo volume entitled ‘Rules of Life, with Reflections on the Manners and Dispositions of Mankind,’ containing a thousand and one aphorisms. At this period he was leading a very active professional life. He was a member of the Medical and Chirurgical Society of London, and contributed papers to that body; he was a founder and first president of the Glasgow Medical Society; and in 1814 was elected president of the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons, and physician to the Royal Infirmary of Glasgow. From 1816 to 1817 he was president of the Glasgow Philosophical Society. But the continuous labour of preparing the ‘Bibliotheca’ impaired his health, and he withdrew from practice about the beginning of 1817. He retired to Campvale, a suburb of Glasgow, where he remained until his death. In the compilation of the ‘Bibliotheca,’ which he directed from a sick bed, he was assisted by his sons John and James, [q. v.], and Alexander Whitelaw. A sea voyage to London and a tour in England failed to restore his vigour. ‘Proposals’ for the publication of the work by subscription were circulated; the first part was advertised on 1 Dec. 1818 as ready to be issued in February 1819, but Watt ‘died when only a few of its sheets were printed off’ (Preface, p. v), on 12 March 1819 (Glasgow Herald, 22 March 1819).

He married Marion Burns (d. 1856), who bore him nine children, of whom John, the eldest, died in 1821, and James in 1829, both, like their father, victims to their devotion to bibliography. A daughter is said to have died in the workhouse at Glasgow in 1864 (London Reader, 28 May 1864).

Two portraits of Watt are preserved in the hall of the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons at Glasgow, one as a young man; the other, in mature age, is said to be painted by Raeburn. A third portrait, of a date between the two, was exhibited at the Old Glasgow Exhibition in 1894. Watt was a tall and handsome man, and very robust in early life.

A month after Watt's death Dr. [q. v.] and some others issued a circular to assure the subscribers that the manuscript of the ‘Bibliotheca’ had been left by the author in an advanced state of readiness, and that his son would see it through the press. The work was finally completed in 1824, under the title of ‘Bibliotheca Britannica; or a general Index to British and Foreign Literature, by Robert Watt, M.D. In two parts, Authors and Subjects’ (Edinburgh, 4 vols. 4to). It came out in parts, of which Nos. 1 to 4 had the imprint of Glasgow, 1819–20, and 5 to 9 that of Edinburgh, 1821–4. The publication brought nothing but evil fortune to the Watt family. The author and his two sons were killed by it, and the Constables failed before they paid to Mrs. Watt a sum of 2,000l. which had been agreed upon for the compilation. Watt was ‘a practitioner of great sagacity and a philosophical professor of medicine’ (Farr in Reg.-Gen. Report, 1867, p. 214), but it is as a bibliographer that his fame will live. His industry and perseverance under difficulties were remarkable. The plan of a catalogue of authors, followed by an index of subjects, grew from the arrangement of his own medical collection; he enlarged this to include all medical works published in England, then to law and other subjects, and finally to foreign and classical literature. Articles from periodicals and the productions of famous printing presses were also included. In spite of many imperfections and the increase of modern requirements, the book is still one of the handiest tools of the librarian and bibliographer. After the death of Watt's last surviving daughter in 1864 the original manuscript was discovered, consisting of two large sacks full of slips. It is now preserved in the free library at Paisley, arranged in sixty-nine volumes.


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 Rh them as offerings and as vehicles of disease, the analogy of the gifts at the shrine of Saint Michel-la-Rivière favours the former. Under ecclesiastical patronage, however, the rite had doubtless been manipulated to the benefit of the officials; and we can use the instance no further than as proof that the deposit of garments was ambiguous enough to develop sometimes into pious gifts, if it developed at other times into devices for the shuffling of disease off the patient on another person.

M. Monseur, fixing his attention on instances like those of the Croix Saint Zè and Saint Guirec, in which pins or nails were stuck into the cross, or tree, or figure of the saint, suggests that the aim was, by causing pain or inconvenience to the object of worship, to keep in his memory the worshipper's prayer. And he refers, by way of illustration, to the tortures inflicted on children at the beating of boundaries, and to the flogging said to have been given to children in Lorraine on the occasion of a capital punishment, the intention of which incontestably was to preserve a recollection of the place or the incident. M. Gaidoz, dealing with similar cases, and similar cases only, propounded ten years ago a theory somewhat different. In replying recently to M. Monseur, he recalls his previous exposition, and reiterates it in these words: "The idol is a god who always appears somewhat stupid; it moves not, it speaks not, and, peradventure, it does not hear very well. It must be made to understand by a sign, and a sign which will be at the same time a memento. In touching the idol, especially in touching the member corresponding to that which suffers, its attention is directed to the prayer. And more than that is done in leaving a nail or a pin in its body, for this is a material memento for the idol." In putting it in this way, the learned professor does not desire to exclude the ideas of an offering and a transfer of disease, for he expressly adds that both these ideas are mingled with that of a memento.


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176 they have shown the peasantry of the High Cevennes how to improve the quality of the land by the use of lime and artificial manures, and they have also improved the breed of the sheep and cattle.

But these are side products of monachism, and they are benefits that might just as well be rendered by laymen; and, in fact, the examination of the silkworm moths is carried out in laboratories established for the purpose in some of the large towns of Languedoc.

The Trappist Order is the severest of all. The members are condemned never to speak, never to eat meat or fish, are denied even butter and oil. They have but two meals a day, and these of vegetables only. They never take off their garments to wash or to sleep,and do not wear linen. They go to bed at 8 p.m. in the summer, at 7 p.m. in winter, and rise at 2 a.m., but have no meal of any sort till midday. Every day part of their duty is to dig a portion of their future grave.

In Quarles' Hieroglyphics of the Life of Man, published in 1635, is an emblem of a dark lantern placed on a coffin and the sun in total eclipse, and this is above a poem, of which I give two stanzas:—


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 462 the principle of substitution and representation, so familiar to all students of folk-lore. It is sufficient to point out that, since the rite is almost everywhere in a state of decay, the presumption is in favour of entire garments having been originally deposited; and that, in fact, we do find this original form of the rite in the Ukrainian example I have cited and (as I read the record) at Saint Michel-la-Rivière and elsewhere in the diocese of Bordeaux, under the fostering care of ecclesiastical officials. If we may trust the somewhat slovenly compilation of Mr. R. C. Hope on the holy wells of Scotland, a traveller in 1798 relates of the Holy Pool of Strathfillan in Perthshire, that "each person gathers up nine stones in the pool, and, after bathing, walks to a hill near the water, where there are three cairns, round each of which he performs three turns, at each turn depositing a stone; and if it is for any bodily pain, fractured limb, or sore, that they are bathing, they throw upon one of those cairns that part of their clothing which covered the part affected; also, if they have at home any beast that is diseased, they have only to bring some of the meal which it feeds upon, and make it into paste with these waters, and afterwards give it to him to eat, which will prove an infallible cure; but they must likewise throw upon the cairn the rope or halter with which he was led. Consequently the cairns are covered with old halters, gloves, shoes, bonnets, night-caps, rags of all sorts, kilts, petticoats, garters, and smocks. Sometimes they go as far as to throw away their halfpence." From this account it appears that stones from the pool, rags, garments which had covered the diseased parts of the devotees, and halfpence, had all the same value. The stones could not have been offerings, and it was evidently not usual to throw away halfpence. The gifts of rags and articles of clothing are ambiguous. If we must choose between regarding


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 WATTS, ALARIC ALEXANDER (1797–1864), poet, born in London on 16 March 1797, was the youngest son of John Mosley Watts, the representative of a respectable Leicestershire family, by Sarah, daughter of Samuel Bolton of Fair Mile, near Henley-on-Thames. His grandfather, Dr. William Watts, a physician, who married Mary, daughter of George Whalley (of the regicide family), was one of the founders of the Leicester Infirmary (see, Hist. of Leicestershire). The misconduct of his father occasioned a separation between his parents, whose affairs were further complicated by an interminable chancery suit. Young Watts was brought up by his mother, who placed him in 1808 at Wye College grammar school, Kent, and two years later at Power's ‘Academy’ at Ashford. On leaving school in 1812 he became successively usher in a school at Fulham; a private tutor in the family of Mr. Ruspini, dentist to the prince regent; and temporary clerk in the office of the controller of army accounts. Leaving this employment in consequence of the reduction of the army, he filled some tutorships in the north of England, and eventually, about 1818, returned to London as sub-editor of the ‘New Monthly Magazine.’ In 1819 he superintended the production of Charles Robert Maturin's unsuccessful tragedy of ‘Fredolpho,’ and in the same year made the acquaintance of Jeremiah Holmes and [q. v.], whose sister, Priscilla Maden, usually known as ‘Zillah,’ he married at Woburn on 16 Sept. 1821. He was at this time a contributor to the ‘Literary Gazette,’ where a series of papers on the ‘Borrowings of Byron’ had attracted considerable attention, and had become intimate with many literary and artistic celebrities, but had no certain means of income until, in 1822, Mr. J. O. Robinson, of the firm of Hunt & Robinson, for whom he had performed some literary work, offered him the editorship of the ‘Leeds Intelligencer.’ He somewhat prejudiced the paper at first by an advocacy of the fencing of machinery in factories which astonished and exasperated the employers; but in the opinion of his friend Croly ‘his extracts and literary notices placed his work above the level of any country newspaper,’ and he conducted it successfully until, in 1825, he left Leeds for Manchester to edit the ‘Courier.’ His connection with Messrs. Hunt & Robinson, however, was not dissolved, but became more intimate through the establishment under his editorship in 1824 of the ‘Literary Souvenir,’ partly an imitation of the German periodicals of the class, but substantially the parent of the numerous tribe of annuals and pocket-books which absorbed so much of English art and literature for the next fifteen years. Watts spared no pains to secure first-rate contributors in both departments, and his editorship brought him into friendly relations with Scott, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Praed, Sidney Walker, Mrs. Hemans, and many other leading writers. Such work was more congenial to him than the editorship of the ‘Courier,’ and he resigned that post in 1826; he now became proprietor of the ‘Literary Souvenir,’ the original publishers having sunk in the commercial tempest of the time. He had obtained reputation as a poet by a pleasing volume, ‘Poetical Sketches,’ privately printed in 1822 (London, 8vo) and published in 1823 (4th edit. 1828); and in 1828 he collected some of the best fugitive poetry of the day in the ‘Poetical Album.’ A second series followed in 1829, and was succeeded by two similar collections, ‘The Lyre’ and ‘The Laurel,’ together reprinted in 1867 as ‘The Laurel and the Lyre.’ In 1827 he took part in establishing the ‘Standard’ newspaper [see ], and in 1833 he founded the ‘United Service Gazette,’ which he conducted for some years. The ‘Literary Souvenir,’ long exceedingly successful, was by this time declining, and expired in 1838, after having being carried on for three years as the ‘Cabinet of British Art.’ Watts attributed this to the attacks of [q. v.] in ‘Fraser's Magazine,’ where a libellous but irresistibly comical caricature portrait by Maclise had appeared, representing Watts carrying off pictures with a decidedly furtive expression. An action for libel resulted, in which Watts obtained 150l. damages. The decline of the ‘Souvenir’ led him to become what Maginn contemptuously called ‘head nurse of a hospital of rickety newspaperlings,’ a description the truth of which is admitted by his son. These speculations, chiefly minor provincial papers established in the conservative interest, involved him in litigation with his partner in the ‘United Service Gazette;’ he retired from all connection with the press in 1847, and in 1850 became a bankrupt. In the same year, nevertheless, appeared a collective edition of poems, which long retained popularity, entitled ‘Lyrics of the Heart.’ In 1853 he accepted an inferior appointment in the inland revenue office, where his son had obtained a high position; a civil list pension of 100l. a year was conferred upon him by Lord Aberdeen in January 1854. His later days were thus rendered comfortable. In 1856 he initiated a very useful class


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178 continue steadfast to their convictions and to their prejudices. In the spring of 1668, near Castres, a shepherdess, aged ten, had a vision of an angel, who forbade her to attend Mass. The news spread everywhere, and crowds went to see the girl and hear her narrative from her own lips. This was the first manifestation, but it was not till twenty years had elapsed that such became common. A preacher, Corbière, from the same district, by some trickery caused two angels armed with sticks to enter the assembly where he was haranguing and to well thrash and expel such as had attended Mass. The intendant of the province sent his agents to take him. Corbière was surprised whilst holding a meeting in a wood. He drew a circle about him with a stick, and thundered, "Get thee behind me, Satan!" The dragoons hesitated, but the commandant shot him through the head.

Now appeared in Dauphiné la belle Isabeau, a shepherdess of about seventeen, who went into trances and preached and prophesied when in them. When she emerged from one of these ecstasies she remembered nothing about what she had said and done when in it. Usually to prophesy she lay on a bed, and this was the position almost always adopted by the prophets and prophetesses who succeeded her.

She was arrested and imprisoned, but treated with the utmost kindness, well fed, and visited daily by good charitable ladies. Under this influence, and when well nourished, her fits became fewer, and finally totally left her. Then she married a lusty young peasant, and ceased to be of consequence in the movement.

Meanwhile a pastor, Jurieu, from the place of his exile, Rotterdam, had proclaimed himself to be


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 464 Let us take stock of the conditions to be fulfilled in order to a satisfactory solution of the problem. It must be equally applicable to sacred images, crosses, trees, wells, cairns, and temples. It must account not merely for the pins in wells and the rags on trees, but also for the nails in trees, the pins in images, the earth or bricks hung on the sacred tree in India, the stones or cairns, the pellets which constellate Japanese idols, the strips of cloth and other articles which decorate Japanese temples, the pilgrims' names written on the walls of the temple of Kapila, on the banks of the Hugli, the nails fixed by the consuls in the Cella Jovis at Rome, and those driven into the galleries or floors of Protestant churches in Eastern France. These are the outcome of equivalent practices, and the solution of their meaning, if a true one, must fit them all. M. Gaidoz' suggestion of a memento comes nearer to this ideal than any other hitherto put forward. But does it touch cases like those of the Lapalud, the Stock im Eisen, and the Cella Jovis, where the rite was unaccompanied by any prayer? The two former cases, indeed, if they stood alone, might be deemed worn and degraded relics of a rite once gracious with adoration, prayer, and thanksgiving. But nothing of the sort accompanied the driving of a nail into the wall of the temple of Jupiter, nor, so far as we can learn, the yet older custom observed by the Etruscans at Vulsinii, of sticking a nail every year in the temple of Nortia, the fate-goddess. On the contrary, in both these classical instances was the rite so bare and so ill-understood, that it was looked upon merely as an annual register or record. Almost as little does M. Gaidoz' explanation seem to fit the throwing of pins into a well, the burial of a coin, as in Mecklenburg, under a tree, or the marriagenails of Montbéliard. Like M. Monseur's theory, it is applicable in its full significance only to examples of the rite as practised on statues, and it assumes that trees and crosses and other rude forms are mere makeshifts for the carven image, deteriorated survivals of idols strictly so


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 Rh called. But this is to put the cart before the horse. There is no reason to suppose that the practices I have described originated later than the carving of sacred images, and were at first a peculiarity of their worship. There is every reason to suppose exactly the reverse. And in this connection it is significant that neither at Rome nor at Vulsinii (the earliest examples we have in point of time) were the nails fastened into the image, but into the temple wall.

I believe that a profounder thought forms the common ground in which all the customs we are discussing—or, as I should prefer to say, all the variations of a single custom—are rooted. When a witch is desirous of injuring a person, the first step is to get hold of something that once formed part of her foe's body, such as hair, finger-nails, or excrement. Upon this she may work her will; and whatsoever she does to it will be done to the body of which it once formed part. Wherefore men everywhere burn, or hide, the combings or the cuttings of their hair, the shavings of their nails, the teeth extracted from their heads. Failing these things, however, the earth from their footprints, the remnants of their food, any articles of clothing they have once worn, or indeed any other portions of their property, are obnoxious to the same danger. Even their names may be used for the same end. A rough image is made: it is identified with the person who is to be bewitched by being dubbed with his name: any injury thenceforth inflicted on the image is inflicted on the bearer of the name, wherever he may be. These are means and methods of witchcraft all over the world. And they are based upon the hypothesis that, although the hair, the nails, the clothing, or property may be to all appearance severed from the object of the witch's wrath, yet there is, notwithstanding, a subtle physical connection still subsisting between the one and the other, just as if no severance had taken place. Equality of reasoning applies to the name, which is looked upon as a part of its owner, and, being conferred on an


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 of publication by editing the first issue of ‘Men of the Time,’ remarkable for an unparalleled misprint en bloc at the expense of the bishop of Oxford, and the portentous length of the article on the editor, who has awarded himself three times as much space as he has bestowed on Tennyson.

Besides his poems, he was the author of several prose works, of which, as he says, ‘he did not think it worth while to claim the paternity.’ His most noteworthy compilation is the memoir and letterpress accompanying the beautiful issue of Turner's ‘Liber Fluviorum’ in 1853. He died on 5 April 1864 at Blenheim Crescent, Notting Hill, whither he had moved from St. John's Wood in 1860. His widow survived until 13 Dec. 1873, and was buried beside her husband in Highgate cemetery. Their son Alaric Alfred (1825–1901), married in 1859 Anna Maria, elder daughter of William and Mary Howitt, and was well known as a spiritualist. Etchings of Watts and his wife are prefixed to the two volumes of the ‘Life’ by Alaric Alfred Watts.

[Alaric Watts: a Narrative of his Life, by his son, Alaric Alfred Watts, 1884; Maginn and Bates in the Maclise Portrait Gallery.]  WATTS, GILBERT (d. 1657), divine, a younger son of Richard Watts, by his wife Isabel, daughter of Arthur Alcock of St. Martin's Vintry, London, widow of his cousin, Thomas Scott (d. 1585) of Barnes Hall, Ecclesfield, Yorkshire, was grandson of John Watts (1497?–1601) of Muckleton, Shropshire, by his wife Ann, daughter of Richard Scott of Barnes Hall. Watts was thus of kin to Thomas Rotherham [q. v.], archbishop of York and second founder of Lincoln College, whose arms he quartered with his own. His elder brother, Richard, M.A., fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, vicar of Chesterton, Cambridgeshire, and chaplain to Thomas Wentworth, earl of Strafford [q. v.], became the owner of Barnes Hall after the death, on 17 July 1638, in Ireland, of his elder half-brother, Sir Richard Scott, comptroller of the household to the same earl.

Gilbert was born at Rotherham, Yorkshire. He studied for a few terms at Cambridge, and on his admission as batler or servitor at Lincoln College, Oxford, in 1607, he was permitted to reckon them towards qualifying for a degree (Oxford Univ. Reg. i. 371). He graduated B.A. on 28 Jan. 1610–1611, M.A. on 7 July 1614, was elected a fellow in 1621, and became B.D. on 10 July 1623. On 1 Nov. 1642 Watts was created D.D. during the king's visit to Oxford, having been presented on 11 July previous to the rectory of Willingale Doe, Essex. His rectory was sequestrated by the Westminster assembly in August 1647; but although the clerk of the committee for plundered ministers was ordered to show cause for the act, the ground of complaint against Watts does not appear.

He returned to Oxford, died at Eynsham on 9 Sept. 1657, and was buried in the chancel of All Saints. By his will, dated 5 Sept. (proved 5 Nov.) 1657, Watts left to Lincoln College ‘soe many bookes as cost me threescore pounds,’ to be chosen and valued by Thomas Barlow [q. v.], then librarian of the Bodleian. Watts was a good preacher and an excellent linguist. Wood says he had ‘so smooth a pen in Latin or English that no man of his time exceeded him.’

Watts translated Bacon's ‘De Augmentis Scientiarum,’ and his rendering called ‘Of the Advancement and Proficience of Learning, of the Partitions of Sciences,’ Oxford, 1640, fol., was highly praised on its appearance. His translation of D'Avila's ‘History of the Civil Wars of France’ was never published; and he left other works in manuscript, including ‘A Catalogue of all the works of Charles I,’ which is preserved among the manuscripts at Corpus Christi College, Oxford.

[Wood's Athenæ Oxon. ed. Bliss, iii. 433; Wood's Colleges and Halls, ed. Gutch, p. 248; Foster's Athenæ, 1500–1714, iv. 1584; Burrows's Visitation, p. 508; Newcourt's Repert. Eccles. ii. 668; Addit. MS. 15671, ff. 172, 174; Will P.C.C. 472 Ruthen; Hunter's Hallamshire, p. 443; J. R. Scott's Family of Scott of Scots Hall, p. 157.]  WATTS, HENRY (1815–1884), chemist, was born in London on 20 Jan. 1815. He went to a private school, and was articled at the age of fifteen as an architect and surveyor; but, finding himself unsuited for this profession, supported himself by teaching, chiefly mathematical, privately and at a school. He then went to University College, London. In 1841 he graduated B.A. in the university of London. In 1846 he became assistant to George Fownes [q. v.], then professor of practical chemistry at University College, and occupied this post, after Fownes's death in 1849, until 1857, under Professor Alexander William Williamson. Owing to an incurable impediment in speech he found himself unable to obtain a professorship, and, on this account, was ultimately induced to devote himself entirely to the literature of chemistry. In 1847 he was elected fellow of the Chemical Society. In 1848 he was engaged by the Cavendish Society to translate into English and enlarge Leopold Gmelin's classical ‘Handbuch


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 466 effigy, identifies the effigy with the real owner of the name I will not waste time in illustrating either the practices or the hypothesis. What I want to suggest is that, in the customs to which I have called your attention at wells and trees and temples, we have simply another application of the same reasoning as that which underlies the practices of witchcraft. If an article of my clothing in a witch's hands may cause me to suffer, the same article in contact with a beneficent power may relieve my pain, restore me to health, or promote my general prosperity. A pin that has pricked my wart, even if not covered with my blood, has by its contact, by the wound it has inflicted, acquired a peculiar bond with the wart; the rag that has rubbed the wart has by that friction acquired a similar bond; so that whatever is done to the pin or the rag, whatever influences the pin or the rag may undergo, the same influences are by that very act brought to bear upon the wart. If, instead of using a rag, or making a pilgrimage to a sacred well, I rub my warts with raw meat and then bury the meat the wart will decay and disappear with the decay and dissolution of the meat. The principle was once exalted into serious surgery, when, three centuries ago, the learned chirurgeon used to anoint and dress the weapon, instead of the wound which the weapon had caused. In like manner my shirt or stocking, or a rag to represent it, placed upon a sacred bush, or thrust into a sacred well—my name written upon the walls of a temple—a stone or a pellet from my hand cast upon a sacred image or a sacred cairn—is thenceforth in continual contact with divinity; and the effluence of divinity, reaching and involving it, will reach and involve me. In this way I may become permanently united with the god.

This is an explanation which I think will cover every case. Of course, I cannot deny that there are instances, like some of the Japanese and Breton cases, where, the real object of the rite having been forgotten, the practice has become to a slight extent deflected from its earlier


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Rh. He had a medal struck with "Jurius Propheta" on it, and largely circulated in the Cevennes. Moreover, he printed his prophecies in 1686, and they passed from hand to hand. In them he announced that the Papacy would fall in the year 1690, and that the Reformation would be established throughout France.

But the spirit was not quenched when la belle Isabeau gave up prophesying. It broke out in a peasant of twenty-two named Gabriel Astier, of Clieu. His first solicitude was to communicate the spirit to his father, his mother, and his sisters; then he inoculated his neighbours and all the inhabitants of his village. Finding himself an object of pursuit by the police, he escaped over the Rhône into the Vivarais, and, followed by a troup of prophets and prophetesses, he went through the Boutières. His words propagated the agitation; men, women, and children went into fits and preached and announced the future. The epidemic passed through the country with the rapidity of a fire driven by the wind. No preacher, even at the time when the inspiration was at its height, possessed the power over crowds that Astier exercised.

Vast multitudes attended his assemblies in the mountains, and the meetings were always held in places which commanded a view of the country round, so that they might be dispersed in the event of the dragoons being seen to approach. Often the wandering multitude remained for many days away from their homes, feeding on apples and chestnuts. Nothing like it had been seen since John the Baptist drew crowds to the banks of the Jordan, or the Son of Man had preached in the wilderness of Judea.

The theme of the preacher was always the same:


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468 is said to have given his sanction to a similar measurement purporting to be the "true and correct length of Our Lord Jesus Christ", found in the Holy Sepulchre. Copies of this measurement were current in Germany up to a comparatively late date.

It may be worth while to ask whether the offerings of the worshippers' own blood, as practised by the peoples of Central America, had not for their object not so much the gratification of the gods as the union of the worshippers with the deity. Dr. Stoll describes the priest in Guatemala as drawing blood from his tongue and other members and anointing with it the feet and hands of the image. I am led to put this question because I find that, among the ceremonies of purification imposed by some of the non-Aryan tribes of Bengal upon women after childbirth, is that of smearing with vermilion the edge of the village well. Now the vermilion in use in the wedding and other ceremonies of these peoples is, there can be little doubt, a substitute for blood. It would seem probable, therefore, that the well was originally smeared with blood, and that blood drawn from the offerer's veins. Other ceremonies point to the sacred character of the well, and I can only suggest that the smearing with blood had the same object as that I have ascribed to the observances at holy wells in Europe. By the ceremonial union thus effected with the divinity the woman would be purified.

A German writer, whose authority for the statement I have been unable to trace, mentions another ceremony performed at wells in Wales. He says it is the custom for a bride and bridegroom to go and lie down beside a well or fountain and throw in pins as a pledge of the new relation into which they have entered. And he adds that in clearing out an old Roman well in the Isle of Wight, some forty


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 Rh form. But it is not difficult to trace the steps whereby the idea and practice of divination became substituted for that of union with the object of devotion. Still less can I deny that, where the practice has not been deflected, the real intention has in most places been obscured. These phenomena are familiar to us everywhere, and will mislead no one who understands that the real meaning is not what the people who practise a rite say about it, but that which emerges from a comparison of analogous observances.

Let me, before closing, refer to one or two other practices having some bearing on those we have been discussing. The Athenian women who for the first time became pregnant used to hang up their girdles in the temple of Artemis. Here surely the meaning is clear, if read in the light of the ceremonies of witchcraft And not less clear is the meaning of the converse case of the Ursuline nuns of Quintin. They keep one of the principal schools in Brittany. When a girl who has been their pupil marries and enters the interesting situation of the Athenian women just referred to, the pious nuns send her a white silken ribbon, painted in blue (the Virgin's colour) with the words: "Notre Dame de Delivrance, protégez-nous." Before sending it off, they touch with it the reliquary of the parish church, which contains a fragment of the Virgin Mary's zone. The recipient hastens to put the ribbon around her waist, and does not cease to wear it until her baby is born. For the ribbon, having thus been in contact with divinity, though that contact has ceased to outward appearance, is still in some subtle connection with the goddess.

This is a method of conveying the divine effluence parallel to one which was a favourite during the Middle Ages. The latter consisted in measuring with a string or fillet the body of a saint, and passing the string afterwards round the patient. Many miracles performed in this way were attributed to Simon de Montfort. Pope Clement VIII


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 der Chemie,’ a work which occupied much of his time till 1872, when the last of its eighteen volumes appeared. On 17 Dec. 1849 he was elected editor of the Chemical Society's ‘Journal,’ and about the beginning of 1860 he also became librarian to the society. Early in 1871 it was decided to print in the society's journal abstracts of all papers on chemistry appearing in full elsewhere. In February 1871 a committee was appointed to superintend the publication of the journal and these summaries, but the scheme ‘very soon proved to be unworkable, and the revision of the abstracts was left entirely in the hands of … Watts, with the most satisfactory results.’ The abstracts in the ‘Journal’ may be regarded as models, and the success of this scheme must be attributed to Watts. In 1858 he was engaged by Messrs. Longmans & Co. to prepare a new edition of the ‘Dictionary of Chemistry and Mineralogy’ of [q. v.]; but, finding this book too much out of date, he transformed it, with the help of a numerous and distinguished staff, into a real encyclopædia of chemical science. The first edition of Watts's ‘Dictionary of Chemistry,’ in five volumes, was completed in 1868; supplements were published in 1872, 1875, and 1879–81. A new edition, revised and entirely rewritten by Professor M. M. Pattison Muir and Dr. H. Forster Morley, was published 1888–94, 4 vols. 8vo. The dictionary contains excellent summaries of the facts and theories of chemistry, presented in an unusually readable and attractive form. In 1866 Watts was elected F.R.S., and in 1879 he was elected fellow of the Physical Society.

Watts died on 30 June 1884. He had married in 1854 Sophie, daughter of M. Henri Hanhart, of Mülhausen in Alsace, by whom he had eight sons and two daughters.

Besides the works mentioned above, Watts edited the tenth, eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth editions of Fownes's ‘Manual of Chemistry.’ He was an honorary member of the Pharmaceutical Society and life-governor of University College, London.

WATTS, HUGH (1582?–1643), bell-founder, the second son of Francis Watts, bell-founder of Leicester (d. 1600), and sometime partner with the Newcombes, was born about 1582. His grandfather may have been the Hew Wat who in 1563 cast a bell for South Luffenham, Rutland.

In 1600, the year of his father's death, Watts cast for Evington in Leicestershire a bell bearing his own name and the shield with the device of three bells used by Francis Watts. The same device was borne by Northamptonshire and Bedfordshire bells made by a William Watts, and in 1450 by Richard Brayser of Norwich, to whom the original bell-founder Watts may have been apprenticed.

In 1611 Watts was admitted to the chapman's or merchant's guild; in 1620–1 he was elected chamberlain of the borough, and in 1633–4 mayor of Leicester (‘Payed to Mr. Hugh Watts maior for his yearly allowance according to the ancient order, 3l. 6s. 8d.’). A stately reception of Charles I and his queen on their progress in August 1634 marked the year of Watts's mayoralty.

There remain in the county of Leicester many examples of Watts's famous work, including several complete rings, admired for the beauty of their tone. The peal of ten bells for St. Margaret's, Leicester, was said to be the finest in England. His favourite inscription: ‘J. H. S.: Nazareus: rex: Iudeorum: Fili: Dei: miserere: mei:’ caused his bells to be called Watts's Nazarenes. He worked the bell-foundry of Leicester until his death, at the age of sixty, in February or March 1642–3, and was buried in St. Mary's Church, Leicester. Shortly after the death of Watts the business was wound up and partly taken over by Nottingham founders. Watts's son, also named Hugh (1611–1656), to whom the bell-metal and bell-founding appliances were bequeathed, married a daughter of Sir Thomas Burton of Stockerston.

WATTS, ISAAC (1674–1748), hymn-writer, was born at Southampton on 17 July 1674. His grandfather, Thomas Watts, a commander of a man-of-war under Blake in 1656, died in the prime of life through an explosion on board his ship. His father, Isaac, occupied a lower position, being described as ‘a clothier’ of 21 French Street, Southampton (1719). As deacon of the independent meeting, he was imprisoned for his religious opinions in the gaol of Southampton at the time of the birth of his son Isaac and in the following year (1675). In 1685 also he was for the same cause obliged to hide in London for two years. In later years he kept a flourishing boarding-school at Southampton. He had a liking for the composition of sacred verses. One or two of his pieces appear in the posthumous works of his son (1779), and several others in that volume are


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 credited to him by Gibbons in his biography. He died in February 1736–7, aged 85. His wife was daughter of an Alderman Taunton at Southampton, and had Huguenot blood in her veins.

Isaac Watts was the eldest of nine children, of whom Richard lived to be a physician, Enoch was bred to the sea, and Sarah married a draper named Brackstone at Southampton. Watts received an excellent education at the grammar school from John Pinhorne, rector of All Saints, Southampton, prebendary of Leckford, and vicar of Eling, Hampshire: a Pindaric ode to Pinhorne, by Watts, describes the wide range of his classical teaching. His facility in English verse showed itself very early. The promise of his genius induced Dr. John Speed, a physician of the town, to offer to provide for Watts at the university; but, as he preferred ‘to take his lot among the dissenters,’ he was sent (1690) to an academy at Stoke Newington, under the presidency of [q. v.], pastor of the independent meeting in Girdlers' Hall. The teaching in classics, logic, Hebrew, and divinity was excellent, as the notebooks of Watts show; and he owed to the academy his after habits of laborious analysis and accuracy of thought. Among his contemporaries were (1677–1720) [q. v.], one of the contributors to the ‘Spectator;’ [q. v.], who succeeded Calamy as pastor in Westminster; Daniel Neal; and [q. v.] (afterwards bishop of Kilmore and Ardagh, and archbishop of Tuam). Watts was admitted to communion in Rowe's church in December 1693. After leaving the academy (1694), he spent two years and a half at home, and commenced the composition of his hymns. The first of these, ‘Behold the glories of the Lamb,’ was produced as an improvement on the hymns of [q. v.], and others then sung in the Southampton chapel. Several other pieces followed: they were circulated in manuscript, and given out line by line when sung. In October 1696 he became tutor to the son of Sir John Hartopp, bart., at Stoke Newington, and held the post five years, devoting all his leisure to Hebrew and divinity. He preached his first sermon on 17 July 1698, and in the following year was chosen assistant pastor to [q. v.] in the chapel at Mark Lane. On 18 March 1702 he succeeded to the pastorate. The congregation was a distinguished one: [q. v.] and (1616–1683) [q. v.] had formerly ministered to it; it numbered among its members Mrs. Bendish, Cromwell's granddaughter; Charles Fleetwood, Charles Desborough, brother-in-law of Cromwell; as well as the Hartopps, and Sir Thomas and Lady Abney. It removed successively to Pinners' Hall (1704) and Bury Street, St. Mary Axe (1708). Watts, however, soon proved unequal to its single supervision. The intense study to which he had devoted himself had undermined his constitution and made him subject to frequent attacks of illness. As early as 1703 Samuel Price began to assist him, and was afterwards chosen co-pastor (1713). A visit to Sir Thomas and Lady Abney at Theobalds in 1712 led to a proposal from them that Watts should reside permanently in their house; and the remainder of his days was spent under their roof, either at Theobalds or at Stoke Newington, to which Lady Abney removed (1735) after the death of Sir Thomas Abney (1722). The kindness of the Abneys gave him a sheltered and luxurious home. He drove in from Theobalds for his Sunday ministrations when his health permitted. In the fine house at Stoke Newington, which stood in what is now Abney Park cemetery, some figures on the panelling, painted by Watts, were formerly shown. His attacks of illness increased as years went on: he only reluctantly consented to retain his pastorate, and had scruples as to taking any salary; but the congregation refused to break the connection with one so famous and beloved as Watts became.

Watts was one of the most popular writers of the day. His educational manuals—the ‘Catechisms’ (1730) and the ‘Scripture History’ (1732)—were still standard works in the middle of this century. His philosophical books, especially the ‘Logic’ (1725), had a long circulation; so also had his ‘World to Come’ (1738) and other works of popular divinity. The best of his works is ‘The Improvement of the Mind’ (1741), which Johnson eulogises. In two fields his literary work needs longer notice. His ‘Horæ Lyricæ.’ (1706) gave him his niche in Johnson's ‘Lives of the Poets.’ It was a favourite book of religious poetry, and as such was admitted into a series of ‘Sacred Classics’ (1834), with a memoir of Watts from Southey's pen. But his poetical fame rests on his hymns. At the beginning of the eighteenth century the stern embargo which Calvin had laid on the use in the music of sacred worship of everything except metrical psalms and canticles had been broken by the obscure hymns of Mason, Keach, Barton, and others; and hymns were freely used in the baptist and independent congregations. The poetry of Watts took the religious world of dissent by storm. It gave an utterance, till then unheard in England, to the spiritual


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 470 that of the union by means of the nail or the rag with divinity, but apparently to a somewhat later stratum of thought. Since the spread of Christianity the reason for the sacredness of many trees or wells has passed from memory; and it has consequently been natural to substitute any tree or any well for a particular one. This substitution has favoured the idea of transfer of disease, which has thus become the ordinary intention of the rite in later times.