WATSON. 



nifttr. About this time Mr. Pitt confulted the biftiops 

 about tlif repeal of the Teft and Corporation Afts ; and of 

 all the bifhops who were alfembled for the difcuffion of the 

 fubjed bifhop Watfon and birtiop Shipley were the only two 

 who voted, that they ought not to be maintained. The 

 queftion was afterwards loll in the commons by a majority 

 of 78 ; 178 to 100. When it was brought forward again 

 in 1789, it was loll by a majority of 20 ; 122 to 102. But 

 in 17901 the majority againfl it was 194 ; 299 to 105 : the 

 clamour of " the church is in danger" having in the mean 

 while been widely and loudly circulated, under the fandlion 

 of fome imprudent or mifunderftood exprelTions in the pub- 

 lications of Dr. Hartley and Dr. Priellley. The bilhop's 

 intereft with the miuifter was not promoted by the part 

 which he took on this occafion, and much lefs by his par- 

 liamentary fpeech againfl Mr. Pitt's commercial treaty with 

 France. Soon after this he was very much enfeebled by a 

 dyfentery ; and upon his return from Bath to Cambridge in 

 1787, the fenate appointed Dr. Kipling to be his deputy 

 as profeflTor, with a falary amounting in a courfe of time to 

 two-thirds of the value of the profeflbrfliip, when Dr. Wat- 

 fon firfl undertook it. At the enfuing commencement he 

 delivered a kind of farewell addrefs to the univerfity, in 

 which he exprefTed his warmeil widies for its profperity ; 

 after having been incelTantly engaged in its bufmefs for more 

 than thirty-three years. After the commencement he took 

 a journey to Weftmoreland, with a view to the re-eftablifh- 

 ment of his health. He now determined to become an 

 agriculturiit ; and his purfuits in this department, as an im- 

 prover of land and planter of trees, were fo favourable to 

 his health, and upon the whole fo profitable, that he fays in 

 the year 1809, " I feel much falisfaftion at this moment in 

 having, by my own exertions, wholly counterafted the ef- 

 fefts which might otherwife have followed the negleft I 

 have experienced from the court or from its minillers, or 

 from both, that I fincerely pity, and cordially forgive the 

 littlenefs of mind, which, in fome one or other, has occa- 

 Coned it." The bilhop relates an incident which occurred 

 on occafion of his attending a levee in November 1787, and 

 which fufficicntly evinced the pains that had been taken to 

 inllil wrong notions of his pohtical principles into his ma- 

 jefty's mind. " 1 was Handing," he fays, " next to a Ve- 

 netian nobleman ; the king was converiing with him about 

 the republic of Venice, and haitily turning to me faid, 

 ' there now, you hear what he fays of a republic' My 

 anfwer was, ' Sir, I look upon a repubhc to be one of the 

 word forms of government.' The king gave me, as he 

 thought, another blow about a republic. I anfwered that 

 J could not live under a repubhc. His majeily ftill pur- 

 fued the fubjeft : I thought myfelf infulted and firmly 

 faid, ♦ Sir, I look upon the tyranny of any one man to be 

 an intolerable evil, and upon the tyranny of a hundred to 

 be a hundred times as bad ;* thus ended the converfation." 



Although Dr. Watfon, as profeflbr of divinity, had been 

 for many years a chartered member of the fociety for pro- 

 pagating the gofpel in foreign parts, he had never fub- 

 Kribed to it nor attended its meetings ; becaufe its miffion- 

 aries were more bufily employed in bringing over DilTenters 

 to epifcopacy than in converting heathens to Chriftianity. 



In the year 1788 he publifhed a charge which he had deli- 

 Tered at his vifitation, entitled " An Addrefs to Young Per- 

 fons after Confirmation." Towards the clofe of this year and 

 the commencement of the next, he took an adtive part in the 

 bufinefs of the regency, occafioned by the king's mental de- 

 rangement ; and in an elaborate fpeecli delivered m tiie houfe of 

 lords Jan\iary 22d, 17S9, he difcufled, with fingular ability, 

 <:\k fubjed in debate between Mr. Fox, who afTcrted "that 



theprince of Wales had a right to affume the'regency," and 

 Mr. Pitt, who had faid, " that the prince of Wales had no 

 more right to alfume the regency than any other man in the 

 kingdom had." The part he took on this occafion is faid 

 to have offended the queen ; who, as he fays, " diftinguifhed 

 by different degrees of courtefy on the one hand, and by 

 meditated affronts on the other;, thofe who had voted with, 

 and thofe who had voted againfl the minifler." At the 

 drawing-room, held on the king's recovery, the bifliop was 

 received with a degree of coldnefs, " which would have ap- 

 peared to herfelf ridiculous and ill-placed could fhe have 

 imagined how little fuch a mind as mine regarded, in its ho- 

 nourable proceedings, the difpleafure of a woman, though 

 that woman happened to be a queen." The prince of Wales, 

 who was witnefs to this conduft, paid particular attention 

 to the bifhop, invited him to dine at Carlton-houfe, and en- 

 tered into a familiar conference with him ; the bifhop on the 

 occafion " advifing him to perfevere in dutifully bearing 

 with his mother's ill-humour, till time and her own good 

 fenfe lliould difentangle her from the web which minillerial 

 cunning had thrown around her." When the bifhop, before 

 the clofe of the inter i^iew, declared that he was fick of 

 parties, and fhoiild retire fiom all public concerns, " No," 

 faid the prince, " and mind wh': it is tiiat tells you fo, you 

 fhall never retire ; a man of your talents fhall never be lofl 

 to the public." The bifhop's rcfleftion fubjoined to this 

 anecdote is, " I have now lived many years in retirement, 

 and, in my 75th year, I feel no wilh to live otherwife." 

 About ten years after the pubhcation of the traft which he 

 had given to the young perfons of his diocefe, already men- 

 tioned, Mr. Afhdown of Canterbury addreffed two letters 

 to him, in whicli he contended that the diflindlion of ordi- 

 nary and extraordinary operations of the Holy Spirit is 

 not founded in fcripture, and that if it were, both opera- 

 tions ceafed with the apottolic age. In reference to this 

 opinion, the bifhop declares, " I am not afhamed to own, 

 that I give a greater degree of affent to the doftrine of the 

 extraordinary operation of the fpirit in the age of the 

 apoftles, than I do to that of his immediate influence, 

 either by illumination or fanftification, in fucceeding ages. 

 Notwitlillanding this confefGon, I am not prepared to fay, 

 that the latter is an unlcriptural doftrinc : future inveftiga- 

 tion may clear up this point, and God, I trufl, will pardon 

 me an indecifion of judgment proceeding from an inability 

 of comprehenfion. If it fhall ever be fliewn, that the doc- 

 trine of the ordinary operation of the Floly Ghofl is not a 

 fcripture doftrine, Methodifm, Quakerifm, and every de- 

 gree of enthufiafm, will be radically extinguifhed in the 

 Chrillian church ; men, no longer believing that God does 

 that by more means which may be done by fewer, will 

 wliolly rely for religious injlrultion, confequent converfion, 

 and fubfequent /d/iirt/ion, on his tVord." 



In the fummer of 1789, our bifliop, in purfuit of his 

 plan for retiring from public life, laid the foundation of his 

 houfe on the banks of the Winandermere ; where he con- 

 tinued till his death. On occafion of the publication of 

 " Hints to the New Affociation, recommending a Revifal of 

 the Liturgy, &c." in 1789, by the duke of Grafton, two 

 pamphlets were in the following year publifhed in oppofition 

 to thefe " Hints." The bifliop made a reply to thefe at- 

 tacks ; and took a comprehenfive view of the fubjeft. Al- 

 though he was diffuaded from publilhing his trail, it foon 

 appeared under the title of " Confiderations on the Expe- 

 diency of revifing the Liturgy and Articles of the Church 

 of England," by a Confiftent Proteftant. Moreover, it 

 was propofed, in converfation with the duke of Grafton, to 

 commence a reform, by the introduAion of a bill into the 

 A a 2 houfe 



