A nonconformist, Watts was born in Southampton and after a relatively brief career as tutor, writer of a 1714 textbook on logic and the conduct of life used at Oxford, and minister of an independent congregation in Mark Lane, London, he retired in 1712 owing to illness and lived for many years as guest of Sir Thomas Abney at his estate Theobalds in Hertsfordshire.

• Craik, Katharine A. "Warner, William (1558/9–1609)." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Online ed. Ed. Lawrence Goldman. Oxford: OUP, 2004.

• Probyn, Clive. "Swift, Jonathan (1667–1745)." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Online ed. Ed. Lawrence Goldman. Oxford: OUP, 2004.

A standard edition is The Works of Edmund Spenser: A Variorum Edition, ed. Edwin Greenlaw, et al. (9 vols.; Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1932-49). A good single-volume edition, without notes, is The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, ed. J. C. Smith and E. de Selincourt (London: Oxford University Press, 1912).

• Jeffares, A. Norman. "Sheridan, Richard Brinsley (1751–1816)." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Ed. H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison. Oxford: OUP, 2004. Online ed. Ed. Lawrence Goldman. Jan. 2008.