PRIESTLEY. 73 



this to students, especially, he says with some naivete, 

 such as have no fine ear, " for they will be the less 

 annoyed by bad music." 



As early as during his education at Daventry he 

 had written a work which, however, was not published 

 till twenty years later ; it was the ' Institutes of Natu- 

 ral and Revealed Religion.' But having once begun 

 to publish in 1 761, his appeals to the press were in- 

 cessant, and on almost every subject. A ' Theory of 

 Language,' books on * Oratory and Criticism,' on 

 ' History and General Policy,' on the ' Constitution 

 and Laws of England,' on ' Education,' a ' Chart of 

 Biography,' a 'Chart of History;' these and others 

 were all written while he resided at Warrington, from 

 1761 to 1769. How well he was qualified to write 

 on oratory and on English law, we may easily con- 

 jecture, from the circumstance that he could never 

 have heard any speaking save in the pulpits of meeting- 

 houses, and in all probability had never seen a cause 

 tried ; but even if he had been present at debates and 

 trials, it is difficult to imagine anything more adven- 

 turous than the tutor of an academy, afflicted with an 

 incurable stutter, and who devoted his time to teaching 

 and to theology, promulgating rules of eloquence and 

 of jurisprudence to the senators and lawyers of his 

 country. That we may come without interruption to his 

 really useful studies, it may be well here to take notice 

 of his other controversial writings. In consequence of 

 a disagreement with the Warrington trustees in 1767 

 he removed to Leeds, where he became minister of the 

 Mill-Hill chapel, and wrote many controversial books 

 and pamphlets. In after times he wrote ' Letters to a 

 Philosophical Institution;' 'An Answer to Gibbon;' 

 'Disqusitions on Matter and Spirit;' 'Corruptions of 

 Christianity ;' ' Early Opinions on Christ ;' ' Familiar 

 Letters to the Inhabitants of Birmingham ;' ' Two Dif- 

 ferent Histories of the Christian Church ;' ' On Edu- 

 cation ;' ' Comparison of Heathen and Christian Phi- 



