80 PRIESTLEY. 



cal turn of mind what Mr. Watt, in a letter, calls 

 " his random haphazarding." 



In 1779, when Captain Cook was preparing to sail 

 upon his second voyage, Mr. Banks, who took a great 

 interest in it from having been engaged in the first, 

 invited Dr. Priestley to accompany the Captain as 

 astronomer to the expedition. Advantageous terms 

 were proposed, including a provision for his family. 

 He entertained the proposal, and then agreed to it ; 

 but objections were taken by the clerical members of 

 the Board of Longitude, not to his ignorance of astro- 

 nomy and of natural history, but to his Socinian prin- 

 ciples in religion, which one might have supposed 

 could exercise but a limited influence upon his obser- 

 vations of the stars and of plants. I know not if the 

 same scientific authorities objected, on like grounds, 

 in the council of the Royal Society, to receiving papers 

 upon his chemical discoveries. It is certain that a 

 like influence prevented Professor Playfair from after- 

 wards proceeding to India, where he had designed to 

 prosecute his inquiries into the science of the Hindoos. 

 Such passages stamp the history of a great nation with 

 indelible infamy in the eyes of the whole world. 



In 1773, when his fame had been established by his 

 first discoveries, and the Royal Society had crowned 

 his paper with their medal, Priestley accepted an in- 

 vitation from Lord Shelburne, afterwards first Marquis 

 of Lansdowne, to fill the place of librarian and philo- 

 sophic companion, with a salary of 250, reducible to 

 150 for life should he quit the employment. An 

 additional allowance of 40 a-year was given by this 

 truly munificent patron for the expense of apparatus 

 and experiments ; homes were provided for his family 

 in the neighbourhood both of Lord Shelburne's town 

 and country residence ; nor can anything be easily 

 conceived more truly gratifying to a man of right 

 feelings, and of a noble ambition, than the reflection 

 must have been, that the discovery of oxygen was 



