(Thomas Watson is one of the most famous Puritan preachers...)
Thomas Watson is one of the most famous Puritan preachers in history, and his writings during the 17th century are still read across the world today. He was a prodigious writer whose works include All Things for Good (originally published as A Divine Cordial), The Ten Commandments, and more.
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(In this fine study of Romans 8:28, Thomas Watson explains...)
In this fine study of Romans 8:28, Thomas Watson explains how both the best and the worst experiences work for the good of God's people
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Thomas Watson was born in mid-1555, probably in the parish of St Olave, Hart Street, London, to a prosperous Shropshire couple, William Watson and Anne Lee.
His father’s death in November 1559 was followed by his mother's four months later, and Watson and his older brother went to live with their maternal uncle in Oxfordshire.
From 1567, Watson attended Winchester College in Westminster, and later attended Oxford University without gaining a degree.
He proceeded to Oxford, and while quite a young man enjoyed a certain reputation, even abroad, as a Latin poet.
He came back to London and became a law-student.
It is dedicated to Philip Howard, earl of Arundel, who was perhaps the patron of the poet, who seems to have spent some part of this year in Paris.
This is a collection or cycle of 100 pieces, in the manner of Petrarch, celebrating the sufferings of a lover and his long farewell to love.
It seems likely that Watson, who courted comparison with Petrarch, seriously desired to recommend this form to future sonneteers; but in this he had no imitators.
Among those who were at this time the friends of Watson we note Matthew Royden and George Peele.
In 1585 he published a Latin translation of Tasso's pastoral play of Aminla, and his version was afterwards translated into English by Abraham Fraunce (1587).
Watson was now, as the testimony of Nashe and others prove, regarded as the best Latin poet of England.
This is a collection of sixty sonnets, regular in form, so far at least as to have fourteen lines each.
He is mentioned by Meres in company with Shakespeare, Peele and Marlowe among " the best for tragedie, " but no dramatic work of his except the translations above mentioned has come down to us.
It is certain that this poet enjoyed a great reputation in his lifetime, and that he was not without a direct influence upon the youth of Shakespeare.
Watson died young, and he had not escaped from a certain languor and insipidity which prevent his graceful verses from producing their full effect.
(E. G. )The English works of Watson, excepting the madrigals, were first collected by Edward Arber in 1870.
His lyrics aside, he wrote largely in Latin, being the first to translate Sophocles' Antigone from the Greek.
He was the first, after the original experiment made by Wyat and Surrey, to introduce the pure imitation of Petrarch into English poetry.
His incorporation of Italianate forms into English lyric verse influenced a generation of English writers, including Shakespeare, who was referred to in 1595 by William Covell as "Watson's heyre" [heir].
He wrote both English and Latin compositions, and was particularly admired for the ones in Latin.
His unusual 18-line sonnets were influential, although the form was not generally imitated.
(Thomas Watson is one of the most famous Puritan preachers...)
(In this fine study of Romans 8:28, Thomas Watson explains...)
Quotes from others about the person
"He shows his inventiveness by his variety of treatment. .. . It is the number of different ways in which he can introduce these devices in this matter than measures his success as a poet. "
He met Jeannett Kittredge, daughter of a prominent businessman, at a country club dinner, and a year later they were married.
