70 PRIESTLEY. 



used always to read the Scriptures in the original 

 tongues. Even in chemistry, the science which he 

 best knew, and in which he made so important a 

 figure, he was only half taught ; and he himself ac- 

 knowledged, after having failed to obtain a chemical 

 lectureship, that he "never could have acquittedhimself 

 properly in it, never having given much attention to the 

 common routine of the science, and knowing but little 

 of the common processes." " When I began my ex- 

 periments," he says, " I knew very little of chemistry, 

 and had, in a manner, no idea of the subject before I 

 attended a course of lectures at an academy where I 

 taught." So that he was not well-informed, and had 

 never studied either the theoretical or the practical 

 parts of it, but just got possession of such portions of 

 the subject as occasionally came within the scope of the 

 experiments he was making, and the doctrines he was 

 discussing at the time. His whole writings, which 

 are numberless, and without method, or system, or 

 closeness, or indeed clearness, bear ample testimony 

 to what we might expect would be the result of so 

 very imperfect a foundation as his scanty and rambling 

 education had laid. That education, however, far from 

 redounding to his discredit, very greatly enhances the 

 merit of the man. He presents one of the memorable 

 examples of knowledge pursued, science cultivated, 

 and even its bounds extended, by those whose circum- 

 stances made their exertions a continued struggle 

 against difficulties which only virtue and genius like 

 theirs could have overcome. 



He went to study for some years at the dissenting 

 academy founded by Mr. Coward, at Daventry, and 

 since transferred to London, where it is in a kind of 

 union, mutually beneficial, with the University College. 

 Mr. Ashworth had succeeded the learned and pious 

 Dr. Doddridge as its principal teacher, and under him 

 Priestley remained till 1755. During the three years 

 that he studied here, he and his intimate friends used 



