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 connexion 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, and took up his residence 26 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 26 The friends of Dr. Priestley were by obliged to fly for his life, and with some difficulty made his escape to a of his emigration, and he might, perhaps, no means equally convinced of the necessity place of safety, while he was hunted have abandoned the design had he remained like a proclaimed criminal. That this in England a few months longer, till the scene of outrage, attended with the administration of Pitt, foiled in their atconflagration of many other houses tempt to destroy Mr. Hardy and his assoand places of worship, was rather fa- ciates, by the forms of law, had lost much voured than controuled by of its imposing influence on popular opiwhose duty ought to have led them nion. That Dr. Priestley for some time after he resided at Clapton was unappreto active interference for the preser hensive as to himself, we can state from vation of the public peace, is undoubt the most intimate knowledge of the fact. ed; at the same time it is not sur- He was prevented only by the very natural prising that the rage of party was es fears of Mrs. Priestley, and the opinion of pecially directed against one who had some of his more timid friends from attendso much distinguished himself as a ing the Anniversary of the Revolution Sochampion on the adverse side, and ciety, in 1792, and moving the address who had made his attacks without then voted to the National Convention of any regard to caution or policy. The France. During the next year, Mr. Burke legal compensation which he obtained appeared foremost in the attempt to excite for this cruel injury was far short of a popular odium against his quondam aethe amount of his losses. There were, that purpose Dr. Priestley's election to the quaintance, employing most illiberally for however, many admirers of his virtues National Convention from several departand talents, who, regarding him as a ments, while the same compliment was paid sufferer for his principles, and a man to Mr. Wilberforce. Family reasons, at deeply injured, exerted themselves to length, such as Dr. Priestley has explained support him under this calamity. He 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 25 some * In his Appeals, published soon after the Riots, Dr. Priestley has described the alarms and injuries which he suffered,and acknowledged the respectful attentions which be received from societies of various destriptions. 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. TOLA X. 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 cannot here be expected; and in addition 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 retion to his theological pursuits. putation chiefly as it might attract atten 12 Memoir of the late Rev. Joseph Priestley, LL.D. F. R.S. ye. flammable air, and the generation of air from water, were added to the stock of facts in this branch of chemistry. On the whole, it may be affirmed that to no single inquirer has pneumatic chemistry been indebted so much as to Dr. Priestley, whose discoveries gave it a new form, and chiefly contributed to make it the basis of a system which has superseded all prior ones, and opens a boundless field for improvement in the knowledge of nature and the processes of art. It is remarkable however that he himself remained to the end of his life attached to that phlogistic theory which he had im bibed, and which the French chemists had been supposed entirely to have overthrown. Some of his latest writings of this class were attacks upon the antiphlogistic theory, of which he lived to be the sole eminent opposer. It is proper to observe, that no experimentalist was ever more free from jealousy, or the petty vanity of prior discovery. The progress of knowledge was his sole object, regardless whether it was pro: moted by himself or another; and he made public the results of his experiments while they were yet crude and unsystematic, for the purpose of engaging others in the same track of inquiry. In the science of metaphysics, Dr. Priestley distinguished himself as the strenuous advocate of Dr. Hartley's theory of association, upon which he founded the systems of materialism and of necessity, as legitimate inferences. No writer has treated these abstruse subjects with more acuteness and perspicuity; and notwithstanding the load of obloquy heaped upon him on account of the supposed tendencies of his doctrines (obloquy which he disregarded, and tendencies which he denied), he established a high reputation in this branch of philosophy, and effected a great change in the mass of public opinion. Indifference may hereafter prevail respecting these topics; but as long as they remain subjects of discussion, his writings will probably be considered as the ablest elucidations and defences of the theories proposed in them. In theology, Dr. Priestley, if not absolutely the founder of a sect, is yet to be regarded as a great leader among a particular class of Christians. Passing through all the changes from Calvinism to Arianism, Socinianism, and finally to an Unitarian system in some measure his own, he remained through the whole progress a firm believer in the Jewish and Christian revelations, and their zealous defender against all attacks. As it was not in his temper to be either dubious or indifferent, he entered with greater earnestness than most of those called rational dissenters into disputations upon doctrinal points;30 and, 30 Dr. Priestley, in 1772, when he quitted the congregation at Leeds, appears to have regarded the pulpit as "almost entirely sacred to the important business of inculcating just maxims of conduct, and recommending a life and conversation becoming the purity of the gospel." Pref. Farewell Serm. p. 7. This inoffensive, though as experience has shewn, inadequate method of Christian teaching, has adopted by some who have not Dr. Priestbeen highly approved and is probably still ley's opportunities of fully declaring themselves on other occasions. Dr. Priestley himself must have gradually made his pulpit-instructions more declaratory of his opinions, while he so generally preferred the primitive custom of an exposition to the comparative innovation of a sermon. The Biographer bas well remarked that Dr. Priestley "entered more than rational dissenters" in general" into doctrinal points." He had indeed reason to complain of those dissenters who, confining their published sentiments to Christian generatities, left him to be regarded as almost singular in his heretical aberrations, a very monster in theology. An excellent man, whom we had the happiness to know, the early and constant friend of Dr. Priestley, fell, we think, under this charge, probably from his mildness of disposition, certainly from no sordid motive. Dr. Kippis, in his Life of Lardner, 1788 (p. 61), proposes, "when certain pressing engagepublic a few candid reflections on some ments are discharged, to impart to the late, and indeed still subsisting theological disputes." Yet it was left to his friend who preached the sermon on his justly lamented death to inform the congregation whose Christian instruction and devotion Dr. K. had promoted for many years, that he was an Unitarian. The present writer well knew a lady, who had been long of who expressed surprise and disapprobahis congregation, and his intimate friend, him. It must, we think, be admitted, tion when once Dr. Priestley preached for that neither this excellent man, nor Lardner, not to mention Locke and Newton, |