The authors of the esssays in prose seem, generally, to have imitated,
or tried to imitate, the copiousness and luxunance of Mrs. Rowe; this,
however, is not all their praise, they have laboured to add to her
brightness of imagery, her purity of sentiments. The poets have had Dr.
Watts before their eyes, a writer who, if he stood not in the first
class of genius, compensated that defect, by a ready application of his
powers to the promotion of piety. The attempt to employ the ornaments of
romance in the decoration of religion was, I think, first made by Mr.
Boyle's Martyrdom of Theodora; but Boyle's philosophical studies did not
allow him time for the cultivation of style, and the completion of the
great design was reserved for Mrs. Rowe. Dr. Watts was one of the first
who taught the dissenters to write and speak like other men, by showing
them, that elegance might consist with piety. They would have both clone
honour to a better society, for they had that charity which might well
make their failings forgotten, and with which the whole Christian world
might wish for communion. They were pure from all the heresies of an
age, to which every opinion is become a favourite, that the universal
church has, hitherto, detested.
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