at the town of Northumberland in Pennsylvania, which he was first in duced to visit on account of a settle ment 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. 27 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 habi tual serenity and pious resignation.❤ 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, he expired so quietly, that they who sat beside him did not perceive the last struggle. Dr. Priestley was a man of perfect simplicity of character, laying open his whole mind and purpose on 28 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 hus band'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 arowed 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 2001. 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 I 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 erudition, 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; Metaphysica Civil Liberty; Religious Liberty; Ecclesiastical History; Evidences of the Christian Revelation; Defences of Unitarianism; Miscellaneous Theology; 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 poste. rity.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 appli cation 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 19 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 ob scured 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 re putation chiefly as it might attract attention to his theological pursuits. flanımable 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 imbibed, 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, quitted the congregation at Leeds, appears 30 Dr. Priestley, in 1772, when he 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. a The Biographer has 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 tities, left him to be regarded as almost published sentiments to Christian generasingular in his heretical aberrations, very monster in theology. An excellent mau, 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 engage public 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 disapprobabis 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, has been already observed, carried further than they did, his notions of religious discipline. In short, religion was to him the most important of all concerns, and that which chiefly excited the ardour of his mind. The essentials of the system in which he finally settled were, the proper humanity of Christ, including the rejection of his miraculous conception, and of the doctrine of atonement; and a future state, in which punishment is to be only emendatory, and all rational beings are to be finally happy: this was an inference from the doctrine of necessity combined with that of the benevo lence of the Deity. He rejected an intermediate state of existence, and founded all his expectations of a future life upon revelation alone. Of the very numerous publications in which he proposed and defended his theological opinions, a great part were temporary and occasional. Those which may be deemed most durable and important are, bis “Institutes of Natural and Revealed Religion," his "Letters to a philosophical Unbeliever," his explanations of Scripture, and his inquiries into the faith of the early Christians, which he endeavoured to prove to have been conformable to the Unitarian system. To the study of scripture he was extremely attached, and he paid a reverent respect to its historical and prophetic authority. He published several works in practical divinity, of which, two sermons, on Habitual Devotion, and on the Duty of not living to ourselves, are of singular excellence.31 did justice to their opinions or their characters in their faint and tardy declarations against generally received and established errors. It is painful to those who revere the memory of the latter, to find them praised as enlightened believers, by a Wilberforce or a More, in the same work where they censure Unitarians as, according to Baxter, scarce Christians. 31 These Discourses have been largely circulated among the tracts of the Unitarian Society. For a complete enumeration of Priestley's works we must refer to a catalogue annexed to his Mcm. Vol. ii. Their number (108) and their variety serve to shew how constantly the author bore in mind the sentiment which he adopted from Hippocrates, as a motto to his seal, Ars Of his other writings, the most important have been mentioned in the narrative of his life. Among these, his Histories of Electricity, and of Vision, are perhaps the only ones by which his name would have been perpetuated, had it been devoid of so many other passports to immortality.32 A Short Memoir of the Rev. Robert Edward Garnham. [Printed but not published.] GARNHAM was born at MBury St. Edmunds, May 1st, 1753, and was the only surviving child of the Rev. Robert Garnham, many years master of the Free Grammar School at Bury, and rector of Nowton and Hargrave, in Suffolk.* His mother was Mary, daughter of Mr. Benton, and sister of the late Edward Benton, Esq. secondary in the Court of King's Bench. Garnham received his school-education under the tuition of his father. who justly supported a considerable reputation for classical learning. He was removed from Bury school, and admitted of Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1770, and the following Mr. longa, vita brevis. We trust that a plan now in contemplation, for publishing by subscription, the whole of Priestley's works, except the scientific, will very soon be communicated to the public. 3 Besides various particulars respecting the character and opinions of Priestley, interspersed through successive volumes of the M. Repos., we may refer especially to his "Historical Eulogy," by Cuvier, Secretary to the National Institute of France, i. 216, 328, to an account of him in his residence at Northumberland, America, by Mr. Wm. Bakewell, of Melbourn, i. 393, 505, 564, 622, to his eulogium by the venerable Christian Patriot, and Philanthropist, Wyvill, ii. 464, to the character of Priestley by his successor at Leeds, the late Mr. Wood, iii. 401, and to V. F's. interesting sketch of that part of his life, in which he was connected with the Warrington Academy, viii. 226–231. R. He was formerly Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and took the degree of B. A. 1737, and M. A. 1747. After having retired some years from his school, he died at Bury, Nov. 8th, 1798, aged 82. His widow survived him little more than twelve months, dying at Bury, Dec. 6th, 1799, aged 79. They were buried in the chancel of the parish church of Nowton. year was elected scholar. In 1774, he was admitted to his degree of B. A. which he obtained with credit to his College and himself, and was elected Fellow in 1775, and proceeded M. A. in 1777. In 1798, he was elected college-preacher, and, in November, 1797, was advanced into the Seniority. He was ordained deacon, March 3d, 1776, in Park-street Chapel, Westminster, by Dr Philip Young, then Bishop of Norwich; and afterwards entered on the curacies of Nowton and Great Welnatham, in the neighbourhood of Bury. On June 15th, 1777, he was ordained priest in Trinity College Chapel, by Dr. Hinchliffe, then Bishop of Peterborough and Master of the College. But in the course of his studying the scriptures, he was led to distinguish between the revealed word of God, and the accumulated and heterogeneous doctrines and commandments of men. He seriously considered and weighed the respect which was severally due to divine and human authority; and the unqualified assent which every official repetition of the public service of the church not only implied, but was understood to express. It was not, however, till after the coolest deliberation, and most entire conviction, that he determined never to repeat his subscription to the thirtynine articles for any preferment which he might become entitled to from the college patronage, or which might be offered to him from any other quarter. Agreeably to and consistently with this state of mind, he resigned, at Midsummer, 1789, the curacies in which he was then engaged, and resolved thenceforward to decline officiating in the ministry. Mr. Garnham's health was never robust, and during the last five or six years of his life he suffered much from sickness, which prevented his residing at Cambridge, after the death of his father, in 1798, and indisposed and disqualified him from pursuing his former application to his studies. His indisposition and infirmities continued to increase, and, in the sum mer of 1801, he evidently appeared to be much broken. He was long sensible of his generally declining health; and so lately as the 4th of May, a few weeks before his death, he expressed this sentiment, in a pri vate letter, to the writer of this short memoir.-" I shall never again (said he) be able to read through an octavo volume; and I have several times the last winter seriously thought my death was not far distant. Perhaps, if the ensuing summer be a favourable one, I may rally a little; if not, I shall despair, and expect to depart, without either feeling or occasioning a prodigious quantity of regret." For some short time he had complained of an asthma, and on the Saturday preceding his death, was attacked with an inflammation on the lungs and breast. He continued till the morning of the following Thureday, June 24th, 1802, when he departed this life, in the 50th year of his age; and was buried in the chancel of Nowton Church, on Tuesday the 29th, with all the privacy consistent with customary decency, which he enjoined his executors to observe. Mr. Garnham was well qualified, from his store of general learning, and from his excellent judgment, to have shone in the most distinguished society; but his natural temper disposed him to retirement from the busy hum of men. He was, therefore, generally reserved in mixed and numerous companies; but he greatly enjoyed the social intercourse of rational and liberal minds. With his select and confidential friends, he was unrestrained in his communications; nor was he less confidential in any trust reposed in him, than he was devoted to support every profession of friendship. His attainments, taste, and success in biblical criticism, and generally in classical literature, as also his acumen in theological controversy, may be satisfactorily ascertained by a reference to his writings. These were, indeed, anonymous; but the means of access to them will be made easy by the subjoined catalogue: and, if an ardour for truth, acuteness of discernment, soundness of judgment, and clearness of reasoning, if freedom of inquiry, conducted with a happy mixture of wit and argument, where the subject or occasion admitted, can recommend theological literature, his writings will be read and respected wherever they are known. His private correspondence was peculiarly marked by accurate observations on the signs of |