3-003-720 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Watts Memorial Statue at Southampton, 1861. 'A handsome work of art has been erected in the public park at Southampton to the memory of Dr. Isaac Watts, who was a native of that town, and Wednesday week, being an anniversary (the 187th) of the poet's birthday, was appropriately chosen for its inauguration...The statue [by Richard Cockle Lucas]...is of the finest white Sicilian marble. There are three basso-relievos, also in Sicilian marble...One of them, in the front, represents Dr. Watts as a teacher of the young, surrounded by a group of children, who are repeating to him their first lessons, and under which is inscribed the following words: "He gave to lisping infancy its earliest and purest lessons;" another, on one side, represents him as a philosopher, with the following quotation from Dr. Johnson, in his life of Dr. Watts, inscribed beneath: "He taught the art of reasoning and the science of the stars;" while a third, on the other side, represents him as a youthful poet with upturned look, under which are placed the following appropriate lines from one of his own hymns: 'To heaven I lift my waiting eyes, There all my hopes are laid'. The pedestal is of the finest polished grey granite, and has been executed by Macdonald and Co., of Edinburgh'. From "Illustrated London News", 1861.