Isaac Watts was born in Southampton, England, on 17 July 1674, into a household where religious conviction was inseparable from risk. He died on 25 November 1748, having become one of the most widely read and sung English writers of his age. To later generations he would be called the “father of English hymnody,” a title that is not merely honorary. Before Watts, English Protestant congregations, especially among the…
“The passions are the winds of life; the sails of the vessel are spread by them, and without them the vessel would scarcely move.”
Neighbourhood:
Devotional Poets, Hymn Writers, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Spirituality, Sorrow, Despair
Charles Sackville, sixth Earl of Dorset, was born on 24 January 1638 and died on 29 January 1706. Although his birth year is occasionally given incorrectly as 1643, the date generally accepted by modern biographical scholarship is 1638. He was one of the most vivid aristocratic personalities of Restoration England: a court wit, lyric poet, naval volunteer, political officeholder, patron of writers, and, in his youth,…
Neighbourhood:
Georgian Poets, Light Verse Poets, Restoration Poets, Social Justice Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Tenderness, Sorrow
