another cause of animosity was added by the different feelings concerning that great event, the French Revolution. It is scarcely necessary here to observe, that in its early periods, whilst it was hailed by the warm friends of liberty and reform in Eng land, as a noble assertion of the natural rights of man, it was viewed with apprehension and dislike by those attached to the existing order of things. In every considerable town divisions took place on this subject, which became the more rancorous, as the events attending the revolution were more awful and interesting. The anniversary of the capture of the Bastille, July 14, had been kept as a festival by the friends of the cause, and its celebration was prepared at Birmingham in 1791. Dr. Priestley declined being present; but in the popular tumult which ensued, he was particularly the mark of party fury. His house, with his library, manuscripts, and apparatus, were made a prey to the flames; he was obliged to fly for his life, and with some difficulty made his escape to a place of safety, while he was hunted like a proclaimed criminal. That this scene of outrage, attended with the conflagration of many other houses and places of worship, was rather favoured than controuled by whose duty ought to have led them to active interference for the preser vation of the public peace, is undoubt ed; at the same time it is not surprising that the rage of party was especially directed against one who had so much distinguished himself as a champion on the adverse side, and who had made his attacks without any regard to caution or policy. The legal compensation which he obtained for this cruel injury was far short of the amount of his losses. There were, however, many admirers of his virtues and talents, who, regarding him as a sufferer for his principles, and a man deeply injured, exerted themselves to support him under this calamity.25 He

some

25 In his Appeals, published soon after the Riots, Dr. Priestley has described the alarms andinjuries which he suffered,and acknowledged the respectful attentions which he received from societies of various descriptions. His letter on receiving an address from a society which was not formed till the following year will be found in M. Repos. ii. 6, 7. VOL. X.

was not long after chosen to succeed his deceased friend, Dr. Price, as minister to a congregation at Hackney; and he joined to it a counexion with the new dissenting college established in that place. Resuming his usual occupations of every kind, he passed some time in comfort and tranquillity, for no man was ever blessed with a mind more disposed to view every event in life on the favourable side, or less clouded by care and anxiety. But party dissension still retaining all its malignity, he found himself and his family so much molested by its assaults, that he resolved finally to quit a country so hostile to his person and principles.

He chose for his retreat the United States of America, induced partly by family reasons, and partly by the civil and religious liberty which so eminently prevails under their constitution. He embarked for that country in 1794,26 and took up his residence

26 The friends of Dr. Priestley were by of his emigration, and he might, perhaps, no means equally convinced of the necessity have abandoned the design had he remained in England a few months longer, till the administration of Pitt, foiled in their attempt to destroy Mr. Hardy and his associates, by the forms of law, had lost much of its imposing influence on popular opinion. That Dr. Priestley for some time hensive as to himself, we can state from after he resided at Clapton was unapprethe most intimate knowledge of the fact. He was prevented only by the very natural fears of Mrs. Priestley, and the opinion of some of his more timid friends from attending the Anniversary of the Revolution Society, in 1792, and moving the address then voted to the National Convention of France. During the next year, Mr. Burke appeared foremost in the attempt to excite a popular odium against his quondam aethat purpose Dr. Priestley's election to the quaintance, employing most illiberally for National Convention from several departments, while the same compliment was paid to Mr. Wilberforce. Family reasons, at length, such as Dr. Priestley has explained in the Preface to his Fast Sermon for 1794, and his Memoirs, p. 125, determined his resolution. It happened that at the same period his friend Mr. Palmer, with Mr. Muir, &c. were exiled to New South Wales. The present writer, who has never ceased to regret the late commencement of his personal acquaintance with Dr. Priestley, was taking leave of him at the house of his friend, Mr. W. Vaughan, the day before his departure from London, when the Doc

10 Memoir of the late Rev. Joseph Priestley, LL. D. F. R. S. §e.

at the town of Northumberland in Pennsylvania, which he was first in duced to visit on account of a settlement in that part of the state projected by his son and some other gentlemen, but which did not take place. It was a considerable labour in this remote situation to get about him a well-furnished library and a chemical laboratory, but this he at length effected.27 Having declined a chemical professorship in Philadelphia, and being engaged in no public duty, he was able to devote his whole time to his accustomed pursuits; and the world was soon informed of his proceedings as an experimental philosopher, and as a writer. Theology continued to be the subject nearest to his heart, and his sense of its importance increased with his years, Political animosity pursued him in some degree to the Western world, and during the administration of Mr. Adams he was regarded by the American government with suspicion and dislike. That of Mr. Jefferson, however, was friendly to him, and he outlived all dis. quiet on this head. The death of

tor received a pious and affectionate letter from W. Skirving, one of the exiles from Scotland, then a prisoner awaiting his deportation, to whom he was a personal stranger, and who probably held a different creed, but who appeared from passages in the letter, to have attached himself to the study of prophecy, and to have been strongly attracted to some of Dr. Priestley's speculations on that subject.

W. Skirving was not a young man when exiled, and died soon after his arrival in New South Wales. One of his letters, interspersed with scriptural allusion, was read by the prosecutors of Mr. Hardy, and came under the observation of Lord Chief Justice Eyre, who exclaims, "What does this mysterious man mean? What is this tabernacle of righteousness to be erected at once without anarchy and confusion?" Trial, iv. 426. Gallio cared for none of these things.

97 In M. Repos. (vi. 72,) are two letters from Dr. Priestley, dated June, 1794, soon after his arrival in America. They serve to shew the difficulties and delays he encountered in resuming his experiments. These leters were addressed to Mr. Parker, whose father, one of the few survivors among Dr. Priestley's early benefactors, is mentioned by him (Mem. p. 93,) as a generous contributor to his philosophical pur suits.

his youngest son, and afterwards of his excellent wife, together with other domestic calamities, were severe trials of his fortitude; but his temper and principles carried him through without any diminution of his habitual serenity and pious resignation.28 A severe illness which he suffered in Philadelphia laid the foundation of a debility of his digestive organs, which gradually brought on a state of bodily weakness whilst his mind continued in full possession of all its faculties. In January, 1804, it became manifest to himself and others that he had not long to live, and this warning operated upon him to lose no time in finishing the literary tasks in which he was engaged, and particularly in putting into a state fit for the press a work in which he was greatly interested. He had long been preparing two considerable publications, which were, a Church-history, and notes on all the books of Scripture, and had learned with great satisfaction that his friends in England had raised a subscription to enable him to print them without risk. Like a man setting his affairs in order previously to a journey, he continued, to the last hour of his life, with the utmost calmness and self-collection, giving directions relative to his posthumous publication, intermixed with discourses expressive of the fullest confidence in those cheering views of future existence that his theological system opened to him; and on Feb. 6, 1804, in the 71st year of his age, sat beside him did not perceive the he expired so quietly, that they who last struggle.

Dr. Priestley was a man of perfect simplicity of character, laying open his whole mind and purpose on

99 His youngest son, Henry, died in 1795. There is an edifying account of the father's deportment at the grave of this promising child, by a witness of the scene, in M. Rep. i. 396. Mrs. Priestley survived her son not many months, leaving behind her another son, who describes her in the continuation of his father's Memoirs, p. 193, as "supporting him under all his trials and sufferings with a constancy and perseverance" well deserving her husband's eulogium, as expressed in his diary, that she "was of a noble and generous mind and cared much for others, and little for herself through life."

all occasions, and always pursuing avowed ends by direct means. In integrity and disinterestedness, in the strict performance of every social duty, no one could surpass him. His temper was easy and cheerful, his affections were kind, his dispositions friendly. Such was the gentleness and sweetness of his manner in social intercourse, that some who had entertained the strongest prejudices against him on account of his opinions, were converted into friends on a personal acquaintance. Of the warm and lasting attachment of his more intimate friends a most honourable proof was given, which he did not live to know. It being understood in England that he was likely to suffer a loss of 2007. in his annual income, about forty persons joined in making up a sum of 450l., which was meant to be continued annually during life. No man who engaged so much in controversy, and suffered so much from malignity, was ever more void of ill-will towards his opponents. If he was an eager controversialist, it was because he was very much in earnest on all the subjects into which he entered, not because he had any personalities to gratify. If now and then he betrayed a little contempt for adversaries whom he thought equally arrogant and incapable, he never used the language of animosity. Indeed, his necessarian principles coincided with his temper in producing a kind of apathy to the rancour and abuse of antagonists. In his intellectual frame were combined quickness, activity, acuteness, and that inventive faculty which is the characteristic of genius. These qualities were less suited to the laborious investigations of what is termed eru. dition, than to the argumentative deductions of metaphysics, and the experimental researches of natural philosophy. Assiduous study had, however, given him a familiarity with the learned languages sufficient in general to render the sense of authors clear to him; and he aimed at nothing more. In his own language he was contented with facility and perspicuity of expression, in which he remarkably excelled.

The writings of Dr. Priestley were so numerous, that they form a number of articles in each of the follow

ing classes: General Philosophy;
Pneumatic Chemistry; Metaphysics;
Civil Liberty; Religious Liberty;
Ecclesiastical History; Evidences of
the Christian Revelation; Defences
of Unitarianism; Miscellaneous Theo-
'logy; Miscellaneous Literature. A
particular enumeration of them can-
not here be expected; and in addi-
tion to what has already been noticed,
it will only be attempted to give a
concise view of what he effected in
the three branches of science for
which he was most distinguished.

It is as a chemical philosopher that he stands highest in the capacity of an inventor or discoverer, and it is in this character that his name will probably be chiefly known to posterity.29 The manner in which his inquiries into the nature of aëriform fluids commenced has already been mentioned. They had conducted him before 1772 to the knowledge of the nitrous and muriatic airs, the application of the former as a test of the purity of common air, and many facts respecting the processes by which air is diminished or deteriorated. In 1774 he made his fundamental discovery (which was also made about the same time by Scheele) of pure, or what he termed dephlogisticated air. In 1776 he communicated to the Royal Society some curious remarks on respiration, and the mode in which the blood acquires its colour from the air; and in 1778 he discovered the property of vegetables growing in the light to correct impure air. By his subsequent experiments, a variety of other aëriform bodies, and new modes of the production of those already known, the revivification of metallic calces in in

29 If Dr. Priestley, approved himself, as we believe, an eminent instrument of the Divine Goodness, in displaying the simplicity that is in Christ, so long obscured by the forms of man's invention, we trust there is a character, far above that of a philosopher, by which he will be known to late posterity, and with increasing veneration. Dr. Priestley, as our friend, whose interesting biography we have attempted to illustrate in these notes, will readily admit, appears always to have esteemed a Christian the highest style of man, and to have valued his scientific reputation chiefly as it might attract attention to his theological pursuits.

Natural Arguments for a Future State.

P