WERE it asked, what Theologian of recent times was most likely to have taken a liberal and manly, yet decidedly sound and scriptural, view of a great Christian question, I know not that any name would so readily occur, as that of Richard Watson. Now, by a sound view of a great question in Christianity, I mean one divested of all prejudices of profession, and all peculiarities of creed, and based on the sole glorious principle, Christ Jesus the Saviour of sinners, through whom alone life and immortality have been clearly brought to light. Few men, also, both from the temper of his mind and the nature of his studies, could sooner have detected illogical inferences in an argument, or have included in their premises a wider range of practical intelligence, than Bishop Watson; certainly, there never existed a man, the moral history of whose life gives higher assurance that he would fearlessly have declared what he conscientiously believed.

This distinguished divine, to whose labours such confidence thus attaches, was born at Heversham in Westmoreland August, 1737. His father, Thomas Watson, had for forty years filled with reputation the head mastership of the grammar school there, a situation which he resigned only a few months before our author's birth. The family, however, were originally from Hardindale near Shrop in the same county, where they possessed a small freehold estate. "When the Monastery of Shrop," says the bishop himself, "was dissolved by Henry VIII., of the thirteen monks who were in it, two had the name of Watson; these ecclesiastics were probably dedicated to the Church by some of my progenitors, and I can give no farther account of any of them, except I mention the tradition that the part of the family who settled near Shrop came from Scotland."

Richard being the youngest of three children, with a brother and sister grown up when he was born, and his father stricken in years, passed in some degree an isolated infancy. To his mother, whose maiden name was Newton, he has recorded, with filial gratitude, his obligations for having imbued his mind with those early impressions of piety and religion, whose comforts he enjoyed through life, and which in their fruits have bequeathed so valuable an inheritance to posterity. His education in other respects he received at the seminary over which his father had presided, but unfortunately under a successor very inferior, a disadvantage the effects of which, in his classical studies especially, he long felt, and perhaps never completely surmounted. To this school were attached two exhibitions of £50 per annum each, on one of which, at the age of seventeen, Watson was admitted a sizar of Trinity College, Cambridge, on the 3d November, 1754.

Endowed with great ardour of mind, and knowing that a small patrimony of £300 left by his father, with his own exertions, formed all his resources, the youth applied to study with untiring diligence. Within six months we find him already remarked in his college. The cause of this distinction, in his

own words, " was in itself perhaps trivial," but certainly influ enced in no small degree his future life, inasmuch as it directed his mind to metaphysical disquisitions. It happened at one of the public examinations, that he was asked "whether Clarke," (on the Attributes,) "had demonstrated the absurdity of an infinite succession of changeable and dependent beings?" Watson's reply in the negative, awakening the head lecturer's surprise, he was asked to explain, which he did, by objecting to the terms of the proposition, seeing there could be no origin in a series which by the supposition was eternal, neither could there be a first term, since it was assumed to be infinite. Though far from unexceptionable in metaphysical soundness, such a defence of an independent opinion, on a topic of this nature, indicated, in one so young, habits of intellectual exercase, much more surprising than the acuteness of the objection.

Observing that, by a very unjust distinction, sizars were regarded as occupying a less honourable position than the students holding college presentations, he resolved to sit for a scholarship. This he obtained, though sustaining the competition a year earlier than usual, and in so creditable a manner, as introduced him to the particular notice and friendship of Dr Smith, then master of Trinity. He had now resided two years and seven months at college, without having spent a single entire day beyond its walls. By way of relaxation, he went to visit his elder brother, then one of the clergymen at Kendal. This excursion afforded him but a scanty pleasure. His brother, of whom, from their disparity of years, he previously knew little, he found a man of lively parts, but in a situation affording little room for the exercise of talent, and "much temptation to convivial festivity." Accordingly, after a few months' residence he returned to college, with a determination of making his alma mater the mother of his fortunes. It deserves, however, to be mentioned here, that ten years afterwards, this brother died of an impaired constitution, and ruined in fortune. Dr Watson instantly, and with no claim upon him to do so, discharged the debts of his unfortunate relative, though at the sacrifice of almost all he himself possessed.

In January, 1759, he took his first or bachelor's degree. This, in order the first of college honours, is also the highest in estimation with candidates for academic distinction. It fixes a man's character in the University; and all the objects of subsequent ambition, are in their main point affected by this trial. Mr Watson was declared only second wrangler of his year. To one who looked upon his college as his "sole world," for exertion, and for recompense, this must at first have proved a sore disappointment. The general sense of the examiners, however, was in favour of our author's claims to the first honours, which by the Moderator were awarded to a pupil of his own. Accusations of partiality can more easily be brought against men in such situations, than proved, but here the injustice appears to have been so marked, that "it was remembered as long as Mr Watson lived in the university, and the