e years. A syllabus of his Lectures the Theory and History of Language nuch valued by those who have preved it: the Lectures on Oratory and ticism, a continuation of the same rse, were published at large: they excellent, and by applying the Hartin theory to objects of taste, they ked out for Alison the path which has acquired a reputation by pursuThe Lectures on History and gePolicy were worthy in their time e an elementary book with the phiphic politician; but were published te for their greatest possible repute. Lectures on the British Constitution, th were very panegyrical, perished e Birmingham riots: an outline of accompanies the Tract on Edu. Dr. Priestley's stay at Warringwas sweetened by all that private atment can offer of delightful to those blend the social with the intellectual ts: the names of Aikin and Enfield rominent among his acquaintance; aughan and Beaufoy among his s. The Mouse's Petition was found s study; the nap he took over a -board still lives in song. ter the dissolution of the Warrington emy in 1768, Dr. Priestley removed eeds, having accepted there, as he sses it, the pastoral office. It was that he first became a Socinian. His of the Principles and Conduct of rotestant Dissenters, his Harmony e Evangelists, his Duration of t's Ministry, his Institutes of natund revealed Religion, and many r publications, were now the natusult of this zeal for duty, and for terests of his sect. He neglected wever to cultivate a more expanort of patriotism, and published his constitutional Essay on the first ples of Government, as well as the mous pamphlet on the State of Liin this Country, which procured e attentions of sir George Saville. The printed an Examination of Beattie, and Oswald: it was Her wrestling with Geryon the afneglect of the Scotch professors t obliterate this victorious work, ich the German philosopher Kant tes the first hint of his own sysSoon after appeared the abridgeof Hartley, accompanied with tions, and the Disquisitions on - and Spirit. Priestley conducted too about this time, against Dr. Price, a controversy concerning Materialism and Necessity, remarkable for its urbanity. Through the intervention of this friend, or in con sequence of his obtaining the gold medal of the Royal Society in 1772, he acquired the patronage of the marquis of Lansdown, whose hospitalities he accepted in 1773. He took a warm but not a literary interest in the liberty and independence of North America, which was af terwards to afford him a congenial asylum. At Shelburne-house he mixed with Dr. Franklin, Mr. Burke, and others of that cast. He gave some assistance in the education of the earl of Wycombe. He enjoyed the use of a splendid library; and of a laboratory which had been fitted up for him in the family-mansion. The first of his volumes on air was dedicated to his noble patron, who settled, after a stay of seven years, an annuity of 1501. on Dr. Priestley. His discoveries concerning aeriform fluids attracted at this time toward him the admiration of the philosophers of Europe. Especially remarkable are, first, the first discovery of dephlogisticated and nitrous airs; second, the exhibition of the volatile alkalie and many of the acids in the form of air; third, the application of the nitrous test to ascertain the purity of respirable air; fourth, the restoration of vitiated air by vegetation; fifth, the influence of light in evolving pure air; sixth, the use of respiration by the blood parting with phlogiston and absorbing dephlogisti cated air. The experiments which led to these inferences have been condensed into three octavo volumes, printed for Johnson. Academies in every corner of Europe read, admired and showered on Priestley their honours: even the editor of Newton, as if jealous of a rival to his hero, pays an unwilling tribute of applause to the luck of the father of the gazeous philosophy. In 1780 Dr. Priestley removed to Birmingham, and again devoted himself with zeal to the duties of a christian instructor. He audited catechumens, published forms of prayer, sermons, and various tracts, retranslated from the Hebrew the book of Proverbs, and composed his formidable work entitled a History of the Corruptions of Christianity. Dr. Priestley's object was no doubt to retain the substance without the superstitions of religion; and to inculcate the temper without the licence of philosophy. The effect of his book was considerable. The established pulpits trembled to the eloquence of alarmed dignitaries: dissident congregations of arians, of calvinists even, apostatized to socinianism. Many of the cautious friends of civil liberty, who were little attached to any specific tenets, willingly assisted to patronize the unitarian sect, which they might well consider as a safer counterpoise to the progressive incroachment of a highchurch party, than the growth of popular infidelity. A general spirit of enquiry into the number and nature of the laws concerning religion was excited. A determination ensued to apply to the legislature for a repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts. Dr. Priestley preached and published in behalf of unqualified toleration. His subsequent literary exertions (bating a sermon on the slavetrade) have chiefly tended to diffuse the notions started in the Corruptions of Christianity, a work which from its extensive influence forms an epocha in religious controversy. Of these writings one of the more remarkable is a History of Early Opinions, which, if not admired as a monument of erudition, contains a sketch of that ingenious theory of ecclesiastical history, which is further evolved in his General History of the Christian Church. The Defences of Unitarianism for the years 1788, 1789, 1790, and the Familiar Letters to the Inhabitants of Birmingham, had a popular circulation, and produced a popular antipathy. A party of gentlemen having dined together on the 14th July 1791, the anni. versary of the destruction of the Bastile, and the more eminent friends of Dr. Priestley (he was not present) having promoted the meeting; that moment of inflammation was chosen to arouse the populace against him. Like Faustus Socinus, he was obliged to fly from his home, alone and by night, and to leave his books, his laboratory, and his manuscripts, to be destroyed by a swinish multitude. A spark from his electric machine furnished the means of kindling the fuel on which his papers were thrown. The houses of many friends of liberty, and two christian temples of the One God, were also given to plunder and conflagration. Dr. Priestley henceforward led bat an unsettled life. The great men of the land took no pains to shew by an ostentatious hospitality how much they disap proved the conduct of his persecutors. He was indeed invited to Hackney a successor to Dr. Price, and taught at the then new college there. He ad dressed Letters to Mr. Burke in defence of the French extinction of religious t tablishments. But as he continued to experience the frowns of power and the gnat-stings of contiguous intolerance, he determined in 1791 to embark for North America. Dr. Priestley derived great consolation in his adversity from the friendship of Mr. Lindsey, whose mild virtues he had learned to know and love during a former residence in Lo don. This is the christian friend to whom he pours on his departure a fare well sigh of lingering regret. who His reception in North America was natural and proper; the friends of liberty came to congratulate his arrival: the constituted authorities invoked on some public occasions his ability as a preacher, without betraying any symptoms of pre judice for or against his doctrinal supp sitions: the presidents of congress, were, alternately of opposite parties, both noticed the philosopher with reve rential welcome: the university of Philadelphia offered him but in vain the chair of chemical professor: the perple facilitated his comfortable settleme among other emigrants of his connexi Northumberland on the Susquehannal was the place of his final abode: it there that in 1796 he lost his wife: it there that in 1802 he dates the dedicat: "# of his Church History to Jefferson: is there that he died on the 6th Febru 1804, and was buried, after the Arr rican manner, in a grove near his res dence. The wise and good will veneti the spot which affords him a last shelterScience shall discriminate his mould religion be a pilgrim at his tomb; and liberty enroll his name among her stea diest supporters. The congregation at Birmingha have erected a marble cenotaph to memory, inscribed with the following words: This Tablet is consecrated to the Memory of their Gratitude for his faithful Attention to their spiritual Improvement; of their Respect for his great and various Talents, animated him with the Hope of a blessed Immortality. have conferred just and lasting Celebrity on his Name His Firmness as an Advocate of Liberty, and his Sincerity as an Expounder of the Scriptures endeared him to many of his enlightened and unprejudiced Cotemporaries • His Example as a Christian will be instructive to the Wise and interesting to the Good He was born near Leeds in Yorkshire 24 March 1733; ach are the principal occurrences of e here detailed with greater extent, provided with much private and peranecdote. It well deserves to be rded. The utility of Dr. Priestley to cotemporaries in diffusing knowledge promoting enquiry cannot but be ly felt and highly valued; but its of information, such as his lectures histories of science, will always rete, by their very nature, to be written for each generation, in order to orporate the progressive accretions of wledge. His enduring and perpeI reputation must chiefly be hinged on metaphysical disquisitions, and on his mical experiments. As a reasoner, is plain, clear, direct, and acute; he contributed much to popularize to illustrate the Hartleyan theory of ad: some of his writings on this topic ere unfortunately burned at Birmingm. He founded, and almost completed gazeous philosophy; and alone added e facts to science than any subsequent col of chemists. As a theologian his ne may justly be cherished by the uniarians for the attention he drew to their nets, and for the persevering industry e devoted to the evulgation of their octrine. To the learned public it was ANN. REV. VOL. III. not his habit to appeal: in his manner of discussing scriptural questions, there was perhaps some want of pious reverence, which however favourable to the dismissal of superstition, tends also to enfeeble religious impressions: this must deter many fellow-labourers from the indiscriminate citation and commendation of his writings, and consequently infringe on their lasting popularity. But these writings form a storehouse of arguments which may be selected with severer criticism, and corroborated with deeper learning. He was rather the thunderbolt of socinianism, than a star in the galaxy of its watchers. "His sons to whose illumin'd minds he gave To view the rays that shine beyond the grave, His pastoral sons, bedew his corse with his works, and do not let them, as is alme always the case, disapprove of his sentimen without examination. "A few narrow-minded individuals z endeavour to decry their once persecute countryman, but surely the majority of u biassed Britons are too magnanimous to member only the errors of a man like tselves. They cannot forget his eminen vices. His venerable remains, it is true, interred in another country far distant f his native land: 68 By strangers honour'd and by stra mourn'd." "But though dead, he yet speaket. his excellent moral and philosophical which remain an honourable memoria genius and his virtue. "The man resolv'd and steady to his t The tyrant's fierceness he beguiles, Mr. Corry seems to have placed his idea of perfect conduct in the practice of virtue, and the pursuing of truth: we do not entirely agree with him (page 72) in ascribing this last quality so eminently to his hero. He who does not detect, with equal pleasure, an addi. tional argument bearing either way on the question he is investigating, cannot be said to pursue truth. He is only pur. suing the defence of preconceived opinion, if he catches with more eagerness at the new authority, or sophism operat ing in his own direction. Surely no reader of Priestley will contend that he does not preferably select the arguments of the one side or party; and assign, with honest prejudice, a something more than due validity to their grounds and reasons. This is no reproach; the office of a controversial theologian is far better performed by zeal than by equity; pleading ought to be conducted by rival advocates, and not by the judge; the pursuit of truth is necessarily confined to the sceptical school; but the dogmatist is fitter far to overawe hesitation and inspire confidence; now merit consists not so much in the choice of the part as in performing well the part allotted, or assumed. On the contrary we hold the following panegyrical paragraph to be He unconcern'd would hear the might strictly just: "Joseph Priestley was, perhaps, the best representative of the old English character, that has appeared in the present age of insincere and foppish_ refinement; and he may be compared with Daniel De Foe, and Andrew Marvel, who so nobly stemmed the torrent of corruption in worse times. Let those persons then, who yet may be inclined to condemn this philosopher, first candidly peruse defies, And with superior greatness smiles, Not the rough whirlwind that deform storms, Nor the red arm of angry Jore, That flings the thunder from the sko. And gives it rage to roar and strea Av, The stubborn virtue of his sc move! Should the whole frame of nature roun! break, In ruin and confusion hurl'd, And stand secure amidst a falling w We still wish that some much extensive life of Priestley might be dertaken, incorporating an analysis perishable works, and introducing a and shortened edition of his peri.. ones. Where so much has been w and sometimes hastily, Oeuvres C or Select Works, would outlast an c edition. ART. XIV. Letters written by the late Earl of Chatham to his Nephew Ther Esq. (afterwards Lord Camelford, then at Cambridge. 8vo. pp. 104. THE public character of lord Chatham is one of the most splendid of those, by which the pages of British history are adorned. The esteem and confidence of the people he possessed in almost an unbounded degree. The integrity of his public conduct seems liable to no impeachment. The stations of eminence to which he was raised, he neither purchased nor retained by any servile or degr compliances. Though the instrum.. the sovereign power, the privileges people, and the principles of the constitution of England were alway cred in his eyes. As an orator h vived in the British senate the bes riods of Rome and Athens, when sistless eloquence wielded at will fierce democracy." As a statesman he seems equally to have excelled in those enlarged views which 'give birth to great designs, and in that patient attention to detail which is necessary to carry them into effect. What he planned with skill, he executed with vigour and decision; every thing yielded to the predominance of his genius, and inferior agents became out instruments in his hands, the most ficacious to complete his purposes. Under his administration all seemed to move is under the direction of one master-mind. We shall not attempt to deduct from this rilliant character, by enquiring whether mbition, the common infirmity of noble pirit, the love of undivided power, and he desire of appearing as the arbiter of Europe, may not have possessed too reat a preponderance in his breast. It is a gratification of no common naare to be admitted to the privacies of en who have attained such eminence celebrity as deservedly fell to the share f lord Chatham, to be the witnesses of eir conduct in the relations of domesc life and social intercourse, to follow cm even into their retirements and ours of relaxations, and to observe all e peculiarities of habit by which they ay have been distinguished. These letters however are not calculatto afford us much minute information pecting the private or public life of rd Chatham. They are addressed to single person, a youth, a beloved neew, then residing at Cambridge for e purpose of his education. They wever communicate very pleasing eas of the amiable qualities, both of the iter and the person to whom they ere addressed. In the letters of lord atham we find nothing of that veheence which formed his characteristic public; all is mild and gentle, his insels are not the dictates or solemn monitions of a superior, but the kind inuating advice of a friend and equal, to profits by age and experience to dit and smoothen the path, in which has already trodden, and which those, whose welfare he is interested, are beaning to pursue. We are happy to d also, on the authority of the editor, at the pupil of lord Chatham continued his latest hour, such as the solicitude such a man may induce us to infer that was in the period of youth. "The ne suavity of manners and steadis of principle, the same corrects of judgment and integrity of rt distinguished him through life, and = same affectionate attachment from those who knew him best, has followed him beyond the grave." The letters which form this volume were addressed, principally in 1754 and the two succeeding years, to Thomas Pitt, afterwards lord Camelford, and nephew of the great earl of Chatham. The editor is lord Grenville, who has prefixed a dedication to Mr. Pitt, and an elegant and sensible preface. The observations relative to lord Clarendon, and his connection with the events of the memorable period in which he lived, from which England may date the establishment of her liberties, are very just and candid. The subjects of advice included in these letters are chiefly three-the obligations of religion and morality, the observances of polite intercourse in the world, and the choice and regulation of studies for the improvement of the mind. It must give the reader pleasure to ob serve, that amidst the splendour of a court, the contests of rivalry, and the almost incessant engagements of a political life, lord Chatham appears to have lost no portion of his reverence for the christian religion. He omits no opportu nity which occurs of inculcating religi ous sentiments, as the best tests of virtuous principles, and surest spring of virtuous conduct. It may be easily concluded that a man who had lived so much in the world as lord Chatham, was fully sensible of the importance of those petites morales, those minute observances of respect and deco. rum, which serve to smoothen the move. ments of the great machinery of social intercourse. In the politeness which he recommends there is however nothing false and dissembling; it is only that useful and ornamental polish and brightness, of which, if placed under proper influences, the best and most generous natures, like the noblest metals, will be most susceptible. The course of study which lord Chatham marks out in these letters, as the editor justly observes, is not to be con sidered as complete. Many points in which they will be found deficient, were undoubtedly supplied by frequent opportunities of personal intercourse, and much was left to the general rules of study established at an English university." The dissuasion of his nephew from the cultivation of Greek literature, arose not from any general opinion established by him on that subject, but from some previous neglect of his friend's education, which rendered it unadvisable for him to L12 |