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77, 3 vols. 8vo, 2d edit., 1781-86, 6 vols. 8vo; Abridged, with Additions, 1790, 5 vols. 8vo; Harmony of the Evangelists in Greek, 1777, '88, 4to; in English, 1780, 4to; Experiments and Observations relating to Natural Philosophy, 1779-86, 3 vols. 8vo; History of the Corruptions of Christianity, Birm., 1782, 2 vols. 8vo, 2d ed., 1793, 2 vols. 8vo; History of Early Opinions concerning Jesus Christ, compiled from Original Writers; Proving that the Christian Church was at first Unitarian, Birm., 1786, 4 vois. 8vo, 2d edit., 1806, 4 vols. 8vo.

it would not have been a pertinent answer to the lawyer's question, nor would it have taken the effect which our Lord's answer actually took with the subtle disputants with whom he was engaged, that no man durst ask him any more questions." The lawyer's question was not, what thing might, in its own nature, be the best to be commanded. To this indeed it might have been wisely answered, that the love of God is the best of all things, and that the next best is the love of man; although Moses had not expressly mentioned either. But the question was, Which is the great commandment in "He laid the basis of the chemistry of the gases, the law?"—that is, in Moses's law; for the and of those modes of investigation in the preu expression "the law," in the mouth of a matic branch of the science which are still por Jew, could carry no other meaning. To this sued. He discovered a great variety of facts in it had been vain to allege "the love of God this department of the science. To him we are or man," had there been no express requisi-indebted for the knowledge of oxygen, binoxide tion of them in the law, notwithstanding the confessed natural excellence of the things; because the question was not about natural excellence, but what was to be reckoned the first in authority and importance among the written commandments. Those masters of sophistry with whom our Saviour had been for some hours engaged, felt themselves overcome when he produced from the books of the law two maxims which, forming a complete and simple summary of the whole,and not only of the whole of the Mosaic law, but of every law which God ever did or ever will prescribe to man,-evidently claimed to be the first and chief command

ments.

Sermons: Sermon xi.

of nitrogen, sulphurous acid, fluosilicic acid, mu-
carbonic acid."-DR. R. D. THOMPSON.
riatic acid, ammonia, carburetted hydrogen, and

"Dr. Priestley's metaphysical creed embraces four leading doctrines: he adopted the theory of vibrations, the association of ideas, the scheme of philosophical necessity, and the soul's materiality. On all these topics he has furnished us with extended dissertations; and, whatever opinions may be entertained of any or all of them, there are few persons but will readily admit that the doctor has displayed both great zeal and great ability in de fence of them. . . . Dr. Priestley is Dr. Reid's most able and popular opponent."-BLAKEY: Hist of Philos. of Mind, iii. 202, 303.

FRANKLIN AND THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.

NORTHUMBERLAND, Nov. 10, 1802. TO THE EDITOR OF THE MONTHLY MAGAZINE. SIR-I have just read in the [London] Monthly Review, vol. 36, p. 357 [359], that the late Mr. Pennant said of Dr. Franklin that "living under the protection of our mild government he was secretly playing the incendiary, and too successfully indam ing the minds of our fellow-subjects in Amer ica, till that great explosion happened, which forever disunited us from our once happy colonies [colonists]." As it is in my power, as far as my testimony will be regarded, to refute this charge, I think it due to our friendship to do it. It is probable that no

JOSEPH PRIESTLEY, LL.D., a Unitarian divine, born near Leeds, England, 1733, died at Northumberland, Pennsylvania, 1804, published 141 works and treatises, great and small, for a list of which we must refer to Rutt's Collection of his Theological and Miscellaneous Works (excluding the Scientific), Hackney, 1817-32 (new title-page 1824), 26 vols. 8vo. Vols. i. and ii. comprise his Life and Correspond-person now living was better acquainted ence. Among his works are the following: History and Present State of Electricity, Lond., 1767, 4to, 5th edit., 1794, 4to; Essays on the Principles of Government, and on the Nature of Political, Civil, and Religious Liberty, 1768, 8vo. 1771, 8vo: Chart of History, 1770, 8vo; History and Present State of Discoveries relating to Vision, Light, and Colours, 1772, 2 vols. 4to; Institutes of Natural and Revealed Religion, 1772-3-4, 3 vols. 12mo; On the Elements of Natural Religion, 1772, 8vo; Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air, 1774

with Dr. Franklin, and his sentiments on all subjects of importance, than myself, for several years before the American war. I think I knew him as well as one man cas generally know another. At that time I spent the winters in London, in the family of the Marquis of Lansdown, and few days passed without my seeing more or less of Dr. Franklin; and the last day that he passed in England, having given out that he should depart the day before, we spent together, without any interruption, from morning to night.

JOSEPH PRIESTLEY.

Now, he was so far from wishing for a rupture with the colonies, that he did more than most men would have done to prevent it. His constant advice to his countrymen, he always said, was "to bear everything from England, however unjust;" saying, that "it could not last long, as they would soon outgrow all their hardships." On this account, Dr. Price, who then corresponded with some of the principal persons in America, said, he began to be very unpopular there. He always said, If there must be a war, it will be a war of ten years, and I shall not live to see the end of it." This I have heard him say many times.

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It was at his request, enforced by that of Dr. Fothergill, that I wrote an anonymous pamphlet, calculated to show the injustice and impolicy of a war with the colonies, previous to the meeting of a new parliament. As I then lived at Leeds, he corrected the press himself; and to a passage in which I lamented the attempt to establish arbitrary power in so large a part of the British empire, he added the following clause, "to the imminent danger of our most valuable commerce, and of that national strength, security, and felicity which depend on union and on liberty."

The unity of the British empire, in all its parts, was a favourite idea of his. He used to compare it to a beautiful China vase, which, if once broken, could never be put together again: and so great an admirer was he, at the time, of the British constitution, that he said he saw no inconvenience from its being extended over a great part of the globe. With these sentiments he left England; but when, on his arrival in America, he found the war begun, and that there was no receding, no man entered more warmly into the interests of what he then considered as his country, in opposition to that of Great Britain. Three of his letters to me, one written immediately on his landing, and published in the collection of his Miscellaneous Works, pp. 365, 552, and 555, will prove this.

By many persons Dr. Franklin is considered as having been a cold-hearted man, so callous to every feeling of humanity, that the prospect of all the horrors of a civil war could not affect him. This was far from being the case. A great part of the day, above mentioned, that we spent together, he was looking over a number of American newspapers, directing me what to extract from them for the English ones; and in reading them, he was frequently not able to proceed for the tears literally running down his cheeks. To strangers he was cold and reserved; but where he was intimate, no man indulged in more pleasantry and good hu

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mour. By this he was the delight of a club, to which he alludes in one of the letters above referred to, called the Whig-club, that met at the London coffee-house, of which Dr. Price, Dr. Kippis, Mr. John Lee, and others of the same stamp, were members.

Hoping that this vindication of Dr. Franklin will give pleasure to many of your readers, I shall proceed to relate some particulars relating to his behaviour when Lord Loughborough, then Mr. Wedderburn, pro nounced his violent invective against him at the privy-council, on his presenting the complaints of the province of Massachusetts (I think it was) against their governor. Some of the particulars may be thought amusing.

On the morning of the day on which the cause was to be heard, I met Mr. Burke in Parliament-street, accompanied by Dr. Douglas, afterwards bishop of Carlisle; and, after introducing us to each other, as men of letters, he asked me whither I was going. I said I could tell him where I wished to go. He then asked me where that was. I said to the privy-council, but that I was afraid I could not get admission. He then desired me to go along with him. Accordingly I did; but when we got into the ante-room we found it quite filled with persons as desirous of getting admittance as ourselves. Seeing this, I said we should never get through the crowd. He said, "Give me your arm;" and locking it fast in his, he soon made his way to the door of the privy-council. I then said, "Mr. Burke, you are an excellent leader;" he replied, "I wish other persons thought

so too."

After waiting a short time, the door of the privy-council opened, and we entered the first; when Mr. Burke took his stand behind the first chair next to the president, and I behind that the next to his. When the business was opened, it was sufficiently evident, from the speech of Mr. Wedderburn, who was counsel for the governor, that the real object of the court was to insult Dr. Franklin. All this time he stood in a corner of the room, not far from me, without the least apparent emotion.

Mr. Dunning, who was the leading counsel on the part of the colony, was so hoarse that he could hardly make himself heard; and Mr. Lee, who was the second, spoke but feebly in reply; so that Mr. Wedderburn had a complete triumph. At the sallies of his sarcastic wit all the members of the council, the president himself (Lord Gower) not excepted, frequently laughed outright. No person belonging to the council behaved with decent gravity, except Lord North, who, coming late, took his stand behind the chair opposite to me.

When the business was over, Dr. Frank

lin, in going out, took me by the hand, in a manner that indicated some feeling. I soon followed him, and going through the anteroom, saw Mr. Wedderburn there surrounded with a circle of his friends and admirers. Being known to him, he stepped forwards as if to speak to me; but I turned aside, and made what haste I could out of the place.

The next morning I breakfasted with the doctor, when he said, “He had never before been so sensible of the power of a good conscience; for that, if he had not considered the thing for which he had been so much insulted as one of the best actions of his life, and what he should certainly do again in the same circumstances, he could not have supported it." He was accused of clandestinely procuring certain letters, containing complaints against the governor, and sending them to America with a view to excite their animosity against him, and thus to embroil the two countries. But he assured me that he did not even know that such letters existed till they were brought to him as agent for the colony, in order to be sent to his constituents; and the cover of the letters on which the direction had been written being lost, he only guessed at the person to whom they were addressed by the contents.

tions Moral and Critical; in the same year, Lond., 2 vols. 12mo, Evidences of the Christian Religion, reprinted 1788, 2 vols., 1814, 1 vol.; in 1788, 8vo, Theory of Language (first published in his Dissertations, supra); in 1790-93, 2 vols. 8vo, Elements of Moral Science, reprinted, Edin., 1807, 2 vols. 8vo, and in 1817, 2 vols. 8vo; in 1779, Lond., 12mo, he published the Miscellanies of his son, James Hay Beattie. See Account of the Life and Writings of James Beattie, LL.D., including many of his Original Let ters, by Sir W. Forbes, Edin., 1805, 2 vols. 4to, some large paper; again, 1807, 3 vols. 8vo, and 1824, 2 vols. 8vo.

"Beattie, the most agreeable and amiable writer I ever met with, the only author I have seen whose critical and philosophical researches are diversified and embellished by a poetical imagination, that makes even the driest subject and the leanest a feast for an epicure in books. He is so much at his ease, too, that his own character appears in every page, and, which is very rare, we see not only the writer, but the man; and the man so gentle, so well-tempered, so happy in his religion, and so humane in his philosophy, that it is necessary to love him if one has any sense of what is lovely."-CowPER.

"Superior to the whole crew of Scotch metaphysicians."-BISHOP WARBURTON.

FORBES.

That Dr. Franklin, notwithstanding he did TO THE RIGHT HON. THE DOWAGER LADY not show it at the time, was much impressed by the business of the privy-council, appeared from this circumstance: when he attended there, he was dressed in a suit of Manchester velvet; and Silas Deane told me that, when they met at Paris to sign the treaty between France and America he purposely put on that suit.

Hoping that this communication will be of some service to the memory of Dr. Franklin, and gratify his friends, I am, sir, yours,

&c.

J. PRIESTLEY.

Monthly Magazine, Feb. 1803.

JAMES BEATTIE, LL.D., born 1735, Professor of Moral Philosophy and Logic in Marischal College, Aberdeen, from 1760 until within a short time before his death in 1803, published in 1770 An Essay on Truth (7th edit., Lond., 1807, Svo), intended as an antidote to the sceptical philosophy of Hume; in 1771 Book First, and in 1774 Book Second (Book Third by Mr. Merivale, 1808, 4to), of The Minstrel (with other Poems, and Life by Alex. Chalmers, Lond., 1811, 12mo); in 1776, Edin., 4to, a new edition of An Essay on Truth, with Essays on Poetry and Music, etc.; in 1786, Lond., 2 vols. 8vo, Disserta

ABERDEEN, 12th October, 1772. I wish the merit of the "Minstrel" were such as would justify all the kind things you have said of it. That it has merit, every body would think me a hypocrite if I has even considerable merit; and I acknowlwere to deny I am willing to believe that it edge, with much gratitude, that it has obtained from the public a reception far more favourable than I expected. There are in it many passages, no doubt, which I admire more than others do; and, perhaps, there are some passages which others are more struck with than I am. In all poetry this, I believe, is the case, more or less; but it is much more the case in poems of a sentimental cast, such as the "Minstrel' is, than in those of the narrative species. In epic and dramatic poesy there is a standard acknowledged, by which we may estimate the merit of the piece: whether the narrative be probable, and the characters well drawn and well preserved: whether all the events be conducive to the catastrophe; whether the action is unfolded in such a way as to command perpetual attention, and undiminished curiosity,

these are points of which, in reading an epic poem, or tragedy, every reader possessed of good sense, or tolerable knowledge of the art, may hold himself to be a competent judge. Common life, and the general tenour

JAMES BEATTIE.

of human affairs, is the standard to which these points may be referred, and according to which they may be estimated. But of sentimental poetry (if I may use the expression) there is no external standard. By it the heart of the reader must be touched at once, or it cannot be touched at all. Here the knowledge of critical rules, and a general acquaintance of human affairs, will not form a true critic: sensibility and a lively imagination are the qualities which alone constitute a true taste for sentimental poetry. Again, your ladyship must have observed that some sentiments are common to all men; others peculiar to persons of a certain character. Of the former sort are those which Gray has so elegantly expressed in his "Church-yard Elegy," a poem which is universally understood and admired, not only for its poetical beauties, but also, and perhaps chiefly, for its expressing sentiments in which every man thinks himself interested, and which, at certain times, are familiar to all men. Now the sentiments expressed in the "Minstrel," being not common to all men, but peculiar to persons of a certain cast, cannot possibly be interesting, because the generality of readers will not understand nor feel them so thoroughly as to think them natural. That a boy should take pleasure in darkness or a storm, in the noise of thunder, or the glare of lightning; should be more gratified with listening to music at a distance than with mixing in the merriment occasioned by it; should like better to see every bird happy and free than to exert his ingenuity in destroying or ensnaring them, these and such like sentiments, which, I think, would be natural to persons of a certain cast, will, I know, be condemned as unnatural by others who have never felt them in themselves, nor observed them in the generality of mankind. Of all this I was sufficiently aware before I published the "Minstrel," and, therefore, never expected that it would be a popular poem. Perhaps, too, the structure of the verse (which, though agreeable to some, is not to all) and the scarcity of incidents may contribute to make it less relished than it would have been if the plan had been different in these particulars.

From the questions your ladyship is pleased to propose in the conclusion of your letter, as well as from some things I have had the honour to hear you advance in conversation, I find you are willing to suppose that in Edwin I have given only a picture of myself, as I was in my younger days. I confess the supposition is not groundless. I have made him take pleasure in the scenes in which I took pleasure, and entertain sentiments similar to

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those of which, even in my early youth, I had repeated experience. The scenery of a mountainous country, the ocean, the sky, thoughtfulness and retirement, and sometimes melancholy objects and ideas, had charms in my eyes, even when I was a school-boy; and at a time when I was so far from being able to express, that I did not understand, my own feelings, or perceive the tendency of such pursuits and amusements; and as to poetry and music, before I was ten years old I could play a little on the violin, and was as much master of Homer and Virgil as Pope's and Dryden's translations could make me. But I am ashamed to write so much on a subject so trifling as myself and my own works. Believe me, madam, nothing but your ladyship's comments could have induced me to do it.

ON THE LOVE OF NATURE.

Homer's beautiful description of the heavens and earth, as they appear in a calmn evening by the light of the moon and stars, concludes with this circumstance,-" And the heart of the shepherd is glad." Madamo Dacier, from the turn she gives to the pas sage in her version, seems to think, and Pope, in order perhaps to make out his couplet, insinuates, that the gladness of the shepherd is owing to his sense of the utility of those luminaries. And this may in part be the case; but this is not in Homer; nor is it a necessary consideration. It is true that, in contemplating the material universe, they who discern the causes and effects of things must be more rapturously entertained than those who perceive nothing but shape and size, colour and motion. Yet, in the mere outside of nature's works (if I may so express myself), there is a splendour and a magnificence which even untutored minds cannot attend without great delight.

Not that all peasants or all philosophers are equally susceptible of these charming impressions. It is strange to observe the callousness of some men before whom all the glories of heaven and earth pass in daily succession, without touching their hearts, elevating their fancy, or leaving any durable remembrance. Even of those who pretend to sensibility how many are there to whom the lustre of the rising or setting sun, the sparkling concave of the midnight sky, the mountain forest tossing and roaring to the storm, or warbling with all the melodies of a summer evening; the sweet interchange of hill and dale, shade and sunshine, grove, lawn, and water, which an extensive landscape offers to the view; the scenery of the ocean, so lovely, so majestic, and so tremendous, and the many pleasing varieties of the animal and vegetable kingdom, could never

afford so much real satisfaction as the steams and noise of a ball-room, the insipid fiddling and squeaking of an opera, or the vexations and wranglings of a card-table!

But some minds there are of a different make, who, even in the early part of life, receive from the contemplation of nature a species of delight which they would hardly exchange for any other; and who, as avarice and ambition are not the infirmities of that period, would, with equal sincerity and rapture, exclaim,-

"I care not, Fortune, what you me deny:

You cannot rob me of free nature's grace; You cannot shut the windows of the sky, Through which Aurora shows her brightening face;

You cannot bar my constant feet to trace The woods and lawns by living streams at eve." Such minds have always in them the seeds of true taste, and frequently of imitative genius. At least, though their enthusiastic or visionary turn of mind, as the man of the world would call it, should not always incline them to practise poetry or painting, we need not scruple to affirm that, without some portion of this enthusiasm, no person ever became a true poet or painter. For he who would imitate the works of nature must first accurately observe them, and accurate observation is to be expected from those only who take great pleasure in it.

object of contempt and abomination. An intimate acquaintance with the best descrip tive poets,-Spenser, Milton, and Thomson, but above all with the divine Georgics,joined to some practice in the art of drawing, will promote this amiable sensibility in early years; for then the face of nature has novelty superadded to its other charins, the passions are not pre-engaged, the heart is free from care, and the imagination is warm and romantic.

But not to insist longer on those ardent emotions that are peculiar to the enthusiastic disciple of nature, may it not be affirmed of all men without exception, or at least of all the enlightened part of mankind, that they are gratified by the contemplation of things natural as opposed to unnatural? Monstrous sights please but for a moment, if they please at all; for they derive their charm from the beholder's amazement, which is quickly over. I have read, indeed, of a man of rank in Sicily who chooses to adorn his villa with pictures and statues of most unnatural deformity; but it is a singular instance; and one would not be much more surprised to hear of a person living without food, or growing fat by the use of poison. To say of anything that it is contrary to nature denotes censure and disgust on the part of the speaker; as the epithet natural intimates an agreeable quality, and seems for the most To a mind thus disposed, no part of crea- part to imply that a thing is as it ought to tion is indifferent. In the crowded city and be, suitable to our own taste, and congenial howling wilderness, in the cultivated prov- with our own constitution. Think with ince and solitary isle, in the flowery lawn what sentiments we should peruse a poem and craggy mountain, in the murmur of the in which nature was totally misrepresented, rivulet and in the uproar of the ocean, in and principles of thought and of operation the radiance of summer and gloom of winter, supposed to take place repugnant to everyin the thunder of heaven and in the whisper thing we had seen or heard of: in which. of the breeze, he still finds something to for example, avarice and coldness were rouse or to soothe his imagination, to draw ascribed to youth, and prodigality and pasforth his affections, or to employ his under- sionate attachment to the old; in which standing. And from every mental energy men were made to act at random, sometimes that is not attended with pain, and even according to character, and sometimes confrom some of those that are, as moderate trary to it; in which cruelty and envy were terror and pity, a sound mind derives satis-productive of love, and beneficence and kind faction exercise being equally necessary to the body and the soul, and to both equally productive of health and pleasure.

This happy sensibility to the beauties of nature should be cherished in young persons. It engages them to contemplate the Creator in his wonderful works; it purifies and harmonizes the soul, and prepares it for moral and intellectual discipline; it supplies a never-failing source of amusement; it contributes even to bodily health; and, as a strict analogy subsists between material and moral beauty, it leads the heart by an easy transition from the one to the other, and thus recommends virtue for its transcendent loveliness, and makes vice appear the

affection of hatred; in which beauty was invariably the object of dislike, and ugliness of desire; in which society was rendered happy by atheism and the promiscuous perpetration of crimes, and justice and fortitude were held in universal contempt. Or think how we should relish a painting where no regard was had to the proportions, colours, or any of the physical laws of nature; where the eyes and ears of animals were placed in their shoulders; where the sky was green and the grass crimson; where trees grew with their branches in the earth, and their roots in the air; where men were seen fighting after their heads were cut off, ships sailing on the lard, lions entangled

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