The father began tutoring his son in Latin when the boy was four. The poet's first biographer, Thomas Gibbons, records a specimen of the seven-year-old Isaac's early poetry:
I am a vile polluted lump of earth,
S o I've continued ever since my birth,
A lthough Jehovah grace does daily give me,
A s sure this monster Satan will deceive me,
C ome therefore, Lord from Satan's claws relieve me.
W ash me in thy blood, O Christ,
A nd grace divine impart,
T hen search and try the corners of my heart,
T hat I in all things may be fit to do
S ervice to thee, and sing thy praises too.
Somber religious conviction and precocity in versification both inform this acrostic.
Watts continued his education at the Free-School in Southampton, learning Greek, French, and Hebrew. In 1690 he refused a university scholarship with its requisite allegiance to the articles of the Church of England and went instead to London to study at the Newington Green Academy of Thomas Rowe, a leading liberal academic light among the Dissenters.
This is a free page. This page contains 172 words. This
biography contains 4,116 words (approx. 14 pages at 300
words per page).
Read the rest of this Biography with our Isaac Watts Access Pass.
