.

Episcopal bench. He well knew that it was far from being the intention of the Minister, in appointing him to that see, to banish him to the Welsh mountains for life; nor would he have accepted the appointment on any such understanding. Lord Shelburne told him, at their first interview, that as he had Dunning to assist him in law points, and Barry in army concerns, he should be happy to consult the Bishop of Landaff in church matters. This assurance was highly flattering, and Watson shewed his public spirit, by immediately seizing the opportunity it seemed to present, to do, as he expresses it, some service to religion and to the Established Church. When he found himself left in the lurch, therefore, at Landaff, which he only thought to have taken in his way, one can hardly blame the poor man for being altogether out of temper with his meagre bishoprick, unacquainted, too, as he was with the Welsh language, and for preferring his old quarters in the University, till, when all prospect either of public usefulness, or of further distinction, was lost, he withdrew his attention from Chemistry, and Mathematics, and Theology, and Politics, and set himself to plant larches on the mountains of Westmoreland, with the view of providing better for his family than his country had done for him.

Bishop Watson's first publication was, an Assize Sermon, preached at Cambridge in 1769. In 1772, he published the two brochures, to which we have already adverted, as discovering his attachment to what are termed Whig principles; but as he never owned them, they did not commit his opinions. We find him, however, corresponding, in 1775, with the Marquis of Rockingham, on the occasion of the address from the University, in favour of the American war, as high in the confidence of the noblemen in the Whig interest. This distinction he probably owed, in some degree, to his having been tutor to Lord Granby, with whose education, he tells us, he took singular pains, both before and after his marriage. It is in a letter to this nobleman, from which we have already given an extract, that the following excellent admonition occurs.

Not that you will have too much time on your hands soon, for marriage enlarges the sphere of a man's engagements, and a woman who has sense and goodness enough to relish domestic pleasures (and few other pleasures are either satisfactory or durable, to say no worse of them), has a right to break in upon a man's hours of study, and 'to every attention in his power to shew her. I heartily wish you well in the new mode of life you are entering into; much depends upon your setting out properly; be a Whig in domestic as well as political life, and the best part of Whiggism is, that it will neither suffer nor exact domination.'

Dr. Watson's reply to the Marquis, gives an account of the

unfortunate issue of the contest in the Senate House, owing to the ministerial troops' unexpectedly poured in from the Admiralty, the Treasury, &c. The Tories beat us by eight votes in the Whitehood house.'

'Surely,' (adds the Doctor,) the clergy have a professional bias to support the powers that are, be they what they may. But I will not say all I think on this subject; especially as this bias, if it exists, may proceed as much from the moderation and forbearance incul cated by the general tendency of their studies, as from the more obvious imputation of interested motives. Let the pensioners and placemen say what they will, Whig and Tory are as opposite to each other, as Mr. Locke and Sir Robert Filmer; as the soundest sense, and the profoundest nonsense; and I must always conclude, that a man has lost his honesty, or his intellect, when he attempts to confound the ideas.'

In 1776, it came to the Doctor's turn to preach the Restoration and Accession Sermons, before the University. With regard to the first of these, entitled "The Principles of the Revolution vindicated," he says,

This Sermon was written with great caution, and at the same time, with great boldness and respect for truth. In London it was reported, on its first coming out, to be treasonable; and a friend of mine, Mr. Wilson, (the late Judge,) who was anxious for my safety, asked Mr. Dunning (afterwards Lord Ashburton,) what he thought of it; who told him, that it contained just such treason as ought to be preached once a month at St. James's." It gave great offence to the Court; and was at the time, and has continued to be, an obstacle to my promotion.'

It appears, indeed, to have been the means of his losing the Provostship of Dublin University, so far at least as it depended on the intention of Lord George Germaine and the Archbishop of Armagh, to recommend him to the King; and it drew down upon him the most calumnious abuse from the ministerial writers, who represented him as a man of republican principles. To this calumny, the only answer he deigned' to give, was by printing on a blank page, in subsequent editions of the Sermon, the following interpretation of the terms, from Bishop Hoadly's Works Men of Republican Principles-a sort of dangerous 'men who have of late taken heart, and defended the Revolution 'that saved us.'

of

That Bishop Watson was not attached to a republican form government, is manifest from the whole tenor of his political sentiments, and from the bent of his character. He was sincerely attached to the constitution of his country, and was much more inclined to support the interests of the aristocracy, as constituting the natural and constitutional check upon the royal prerogative, than to indulge in any democratical schemes. İle

justly complains of the designed or ignorant misrepresentation of his sentiments, which founded the charge of republicanism on his being the advocate of the principles of the Revolution. The court-insects had buzzed this calumny, it seems, in the ears of his Majesty, and the following couversation took place, subsequently to his being made a bishop, at the King's levee, in November, 1787.

I was standing next to a Venetian nobleman; the King was conversing with him about the republic of Venice, and hastily turning to me said, "There, now, you hear what he says of a Republic." My answer was, Sir, I look upon a republic to be one of the worst forms of government." The King gave me, as he thought, another blow about a republic. I answered, that I could not live under a republic. His Majesty still pursued the subject; I thought myself insulted, and firmly said, Sir, I look upon the tyranny of any one man to be an intolerable evil, and upon the tyranny of an hundred to be an hundred times as bad." The King went off - This was not quite fair in the King, especially as there is not a word in any of my writings in favour of a republic, and as I had desired Lord Shelburne, before I accepted the bishoprick, to assure his Majesty of my supreme veneration for the constitution. If he thought that in giving such assurance I stooped to tell a lie for the sake of a bishoprick, his Majesty formed an erroneous opinion of my principles. But the reign of George the Third was the triumph of Toryism. The Whigs had power for a moment, they quarrelled among themselves, and thereby fost the King's confidence, lost the people's confidence, and lost their power for ever; or, to speak more philosophically, there was neither Whiggism nor Toryism left; excess of riches, and excess of taxes, combined with excess of luxury, had introduced universal Selfism.'

What were his real sentiments on political matters, the Bishop has taken no pains to disguise, and we shall now endeavour to collect them, as they are to be found scattered through the present volume, into something like a summary, though without any attempt at arrangement.

The political doctrine which he avowed in his Sermon on the Principles of the Revolution, and which gave so great offence, may be gathered from the following anecdote. Mr. Fox, in the debate on the Sedition Bill, in December, 1795, said, 'That the measures of the united branches of the legislature might be so bad, as to justify the people in resisting the government. This doctrine he had been taught not only by Sidney and Locke, but by Sir George Savile, and the late Earl of Chatham; and if these authorities would not suffice, he would refer the House to a Sermon preached by Dr. Watson, the present Bishop of Landaff, which, in his opinion, was replete with manly sense and accurate reasoning, upon that delicate but important subject. The Bishop expresses himself as being much gratified by this compliment. Such language would now be represented

as treasonable; it was the language however of men, who, if they were traitors, were traitors of the most dangerous descrip tion, for they were in league with the constitution, and their talents and their virtues have cast a glory around their crime.

You mistake me, Sir,' writes the Bishop to an anonymous correspondent, if you suppose that have the most distant desire to make the democratical scale of the constitution outweigh the mo narchical. Not one jot of the legal prerogative of the Crown do I wish to see abolished; not one tittle of the King's influence in the state to be destroyed, except so far as it is extended over the representatives of the people.'

It afforded some proof at least of the sincerity of this declaration, that when he was written to by the Minister, (the Duke of Portland,) to come up to town for the purpose of supporting Mr. Fox's India Bill, a measure brought forward by a party which considered him as attached to them, he sent the following answer, taiaking it, as he expresses himself, a great violation of the constitution to transfer influence from the Crown to the friends of a Minister in the House of Commons? It was an answer ill-adapted to promote his interest with the then administration.

Cambridge, Nov. 4, 1783.

My Lord Duke, It is impossible for me who have, on all occasions, opposed the corrupting influence of the Crown, to support the measure which is pregnant with more seeds of corruption than any one which has taken place since the revolution This at least is the light in which it appears to me; I may have formed an erroneous judgment, but I cannot act in opposition to it. I had intended to have come up to town and spoken against the bill, but I will not do that; I will for once so far distrust the solidity of my reasoning on the subject, as not to oppose a measure which has the approbation of Your Grace, and of that part of the administration of whose regard for the public good I can entertain no doubt.

I am, &c.

R. LANDAEF."

And the Bishop intimates, that even his Majesty's unconstitutional interference in procuring that bill to be thrown out by the Lords, by means of a private message, was justified by the attack which the Commons had made on the royal prerogative, by passing the bili.

It was nevertheless his deep, his unalterable conviction, that the ever increasing influence of the executive over the legislative part of the constitution, was fraught with the most dangerous consequences to our constitutional liberties; that unless a check was given to the progress of this mighty evil, the forms of the constitution might remain, but its substance would cease to exist; and that to protect the representatives of the people

from this corrupting influence, was an object which demanded the utmost exertions of every friend of his country. The petition which he drew up for the county of Cambridge, expresses this sentiment with admirable force and propriety.

It sheweth,

That the petitioners do thus publicly declare their entire and zealous approbation of the legislature of this country, as placed in the free and independent concurrence of King, Lords and Commons, in preference to any other mode of civil government.

That they anxiously wish the blessing of this form of legislation to be continued to their latest posterity, in its constitutional purity. That they seriously apprehend this form of legislation will be essentially vitiated, if not virtually changed, whenever the treasure and of fices of the community shall be successfully employed to bring the representatives of the people under the undue influence of the executive government. That they conceive a strong tendency to the change is at present, and has formerly been too notorious to admit of doubt or to require proof. That they conceive every system of administration carried on by means of parliamentary corruption, however sanctioned by time, precedent or authority, to be absolutely unjustifiable upon every principle of good sense and sound policy; to be as dishonourable to the upright intentions of the Crown, as it is burdensome to the property, and dangerous to the liberty of the people.'

A few days after the county meeting had been held, at which this petition was adopted, the House of Commons took the petitions of the people into consideration, and authenticated the grievances therein complained of.' A majority of 233 to 215 decided, in opposition to the Minister, that it was necessary to declare, that the influence of the Crown has increased,

6

is increasing, and ought to be diminished.' This declaration was followed up by two other resolutions, and they are justly termed glorious resolutions'; but upon subsequent questions .which tended to realize the general proposition, the Minister (Lord North) so successfully exerted the influence of which it was declared necessary to attempt the reduction, that nothing effectual was done, and

•he continued in office, contrary to the sense of the people, shewn not only by the petitions of the people out of Parliament, but by their representatives in Parliament, who had, on more occasions than one, out-voted him on important questions. In preceding reigns, ministers were dismissed when they lost the confidence of the people, but there was no Pretender to the reign of George the Third."

When, however, in 1784, Mr. Pitt continued in office, in direct opposition to the majority of the House of Commons, it was sufficiently evident from the numerous addresses presented to the King against the coalition ministry, as well as by the result of the subsequent election, that the sense of the nation