SOURCE: Davis, Arthur Paul. “Sermon and Essay” and “The Adventurous Muse.” In Isaac Watts: His Life and Works, pp. 127-187. New York: The Dryden Press, 1943.

In the following essays, Davis provides an analysis of Watts's prose and its orientation, and argues that Watts's poetry deserves a place in English literary history not only because of its intrinsic worth, but also “because it is the best lyrical expression of eighteenth century evangelicalism.”

Sermon and Essay1

Watts's period of literary activity covered forty-two years (1705-1747) of one of England's most important literary eras. During this interval the modern novel was born, the familiar essay under Addison and Steele developed into full maturity, and prose satire under Swift reached a height never equalled before or since. But these phenomenal activities seem to have passed over Watts as though he were in another age, and in one sense his prose works belonged...