JOSEPH PRIESTLEY. 93 



The first outcome of Priestley's chemical work, published in 1772, 

 was of a very practical character. He discovered the way of impreg- 

 natino- water with an excess of " fixed air," or carbonic acid, and 

 thereby producing what we now know as " soda-water " a service to 

 naturally, and still more to artificially, thirsty souls, which those, 

 whose parched throats and hot heads are cooled by morning draughts 

 of that beverage, cannot too gratefully acknowledge. In the same 

 year Priestley communicated the extensive series of observations which 

 his industry and ingenuity had accumulated, in the course of four 

 years, to the Royal Society, under the title of " Observations on Dif- 

 ferent Kinds of Air" a memoir which was justly regarded of so 

 much merit and importance, that the society at once conferred upon 

 the author the highest distinction in their power, by awarding him 

 the Copley Medal. 



In 1771 a proposal was made to Priestley to accompany Captain 

 Cook in his second voyage to the South Seas. He accepted it, and 

 his congregation agreed to pay an assistant to supply his place during 

 his absence. But the appointment lay in the hands of the Board of 

 Longitude, of which certain clergymen were members ; and whether 

 these worthy ecclesiastics feared that Priestley's presence among the 

 ship's company might expose his majesty's sloop Resolution to the 

 fate which aforetime befell a certain ship that went from Joppa to 

 Tarshish, or whether they were alarmed lest a Socinian should under- 

 mine that piety which, in the days of Commodore Trunnion, so strik- 

 ingly characterized sailors, does not appear ; but, at any rate, they 

 objected to Priestley, " on account of his religious principles," and 

 appointed the two Forsters, whose " religious principles," if they had 

 been known to these well-meaning but not far-sighted persons, would 

 probably have surprised them. 



In 1772 another proposal was made to Priestley. Lord Shelburne, 

 desiring a " literary companion," had been brought into communica- 

 tion with Priestley by the good offices of a friend of both Dr. Price 

 and offered him the nominal post of librarian, with a good house 

 and appointments, and an annuity in case of the termination of the 

 engagement. Priestley accepted the offer, and remained with Lord 

 Shelburne for seven years, sometimes residing at Calne, sometimes 

 traveling abroad with the earl. 



Why the connection terminated has never been exactly known, 

 but it is certain that Lord Shelburne behaved with the utmost con- 

 sideration and kindness toward Priestley; that he fulfilled his en- 

 gagements to the letter ; and that, at a later period, he expressed a 

 desii-e that he should return to his old footing in his house. Probably 

 enough the politician, aspiring to the highest offices in the state, may 

 have found the position of the protector of a man, who was being de- 

 nounced all over the country as an infidel and an atheist, somewhat 

 embarrassing. In fact, a passage in Priestley's " Autobiography," on 



