150 MEMOIR OF PRIESTLEY. 



Birmingham, and among the numerous manufactures of that city, 

 there is scarcely one which does not owe some improvement in its pro- 

 cesses to the discoveries of Priestley. 



But what avails gratitude against the spirit of party, or does the 

 people know ought of services of this kind ? All was laid in ashes ; 

 apparatus, in which experiments designed for the solution of import- 

 ant questions had been for months in process of development, records 

 of the observations of many years, works in course of preparation, a 

 large library, enriched with notes, additions and commentaries, were, 

 in a few moments, with the house itself, utterly destroyed. 



It was truly afflictive that such a man should thus see the fruits of 

 forty years of honorable assiduity and wise economy suddenly snatched 

 away — a loss not merely of his moderate fortune, which he might 

 have disregarded, but of the works of his hand, the conceptions of his 

 genius, the fund which he had reserved for the meditations and em- 

 ployment of his remaining life. Fortunately his family had been 

 apprised of the approach of the mob, and had withdrawn him in time 

 from the dreadful spectacle. 



The riot continued three days^ and the houses of his friends under- 

 went the same fate with his own. As usual, it M^as the victims who 

 were accused, and the public journals failed not to announce that there 

 had been discovered among the papers of Priestley the proofs of a 

 wide-spread conspiracy. 



This calumny is sufficiently refuted by the fact that he openly resided 

 two years more near London, in the college of the dissenters at 

 Hackney, where he succeeded the celebrated Dr. Price in the professor- 

 ship of chemistry. There was time enough to bring him to justice, 

 and no want of zeal on the part of his accusers, if there had existed 

 the slightest proof. 



They confined themselves to painting him in the most odious colors 

 in political pamphlets and periodicals. Few instances can be found 

 of such overflowing rancor, nor would it be easy to credit this rage 

 of defamation against a man who conferred so much honor on his 

 country, had we not before our eyes the examples which the last fifteen 

 years have furnished of the power of party spirit to envenom men's 

 opinions, and those which the last fifteen centuries exhibit of the fury 

 with which personal crimination may be urged when the pretext is 

 religion. 



Nothing in the character of Priestley seemed calculated to produce 

 such hostility ; his sentiments were never influenced by his contro- 

 versies, as might be shown by his friendly intimacy with Dr. Price, 

 though they had often written against each other. So far from any 

 turbulence or haughtiness of manner, his conversation was always 

 noted for the same modesty which pervades his writings, and nothing 

 was easier with him than to say, I do not knoio — words which the 

 generality of professedly learned men find it so difficult to pronounce. 

 His countenance bore rather the impression of melancholy than of 

 animation, though he was by no means indifterent to the company of 

 his friends, and enlivened their intercourse with a natural and becom- 

 ing gaiety. This man, so profound in many parts of science, passed 

 several hours of each day in teaching the young. This was with him 



