Note 96 — IV Eighteenth-century Hymns

Watts has been unfortunate in his biographers. Mr. Paxton Hood’s book is lively and interesting, but its style is amazingly slovenly. Here is a curious sentence: ‘His daughter and sole heiress, Margaret, married Thomas, Duke of Norfolk, so the estate descended to the Howard family, and became the Duke’s place; he lost his head; passing to his eldest son, he sold it in 1592 to the mayor, corporation, and citizens of London.’ The writer adds, naïvely, ‘This is a singular piece of history’ (p. 55).