43 
essence into a hard substance. Whatever rapid genius may claim as his own, 
- that Dr. Brownrigg was the legitimate father of these vast discoveries, was not 
only known at the time to the doctor’s intimate and domestic circle, but also to 
the President of the Royal Society, Sir John Pringle ; who, when called upon 
to bestow upon Dr. Priestly the gold medal for his paper of ‘ Discoveries of the 
Nature and Properties of Air,’ thus critically observes : ‘And it is no disparagement 
to the learned Dr. Priestly that the vein of these discoveries was hit upon, and 
and its course successfully followed up, some years ago, by my very learned, 
very penetrating, very industrious, but too modest friend Dr. Brownrigg.’ 
To habits, indeed, of too much diffidence, and to too nice scrupulosity of 
taste, formed, perhaps, in the absence of keen animal spirits, the world has to 
attribute the fewness of his publications, and the difficulties which always 
; impeded his road to the press. Had our Doctor’s productions been allowed to 
make their own way into the world in due time, many a jay would have been 
_ plucked of his plume, and another philosopher of the western hemisphere had 
not been tempted to publish notes and observations which had been taken 
- down at Ormathwaite, and to give them to the world without the candid 
addition of the date of their origin. 
The writer of this article says he had “grounds for believing 
that a General History of the County of Cumberland was one of 
the Doctor’s literary projects, and that he had made several 
arrangements subservient to such an undertaking, particularly in 
the department of Natural History.” 
_ “Advanced in years, and increased in honours as he was, no 
_ Swiss ever pined more ardently for his native mountains and lakes 
than Dr. Brownrigg. The entreaties and solicitudes of the un- 
healthy, and the anxious prayers of a fond wife, might perhaps 
have retarded, but could not prevent his departure from White- 
haven, and sole residence at Ormathwaite. 
“The Doctor was overjoyed to see his native country become the 
_ object of travel, and the topic of praise and admiration; and 
observed with delight the taste for foreign tours cried down, whilst 
the new, the romantic, and the remote in our own island lay 
‘unexplored. It gladdened the heart of the veteran herbalist to 
behold young troops of both sexes ransacking the fields for botanic 
“rarities; and he seemed to congratulate with the spirit of Boer- 
haave when informed that Chemistry, always acknowledged as the 
" most important, was now coming ‘forth as the most popular of the 
