PRIESTLEY. 417 



Lansdowne, to fill the place of librarian and philoso- 

 phic companion, with a salary of 250/., reducible to 

 150/. for life should he quit the employment. An 

 additional allowance of 40/. a-y ear 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 made 

 under his roof, and with the funds which his disin- 

 terested liberality had provided for his philosophic 

 guest. With whatever difference of sentiments states- 

 men may at any time view Lansdowne House, the 

 lovers of science to the latest ages will gaze with 

 veneration on that magnificent pile, careless of its 

 architectural beauties, but grateful for the light which 

 its illustrious founder caused to beam from thence over 

 the whole range of natural knowledge ; and after the 

 structure shall have yielded to the fate of all human 

 works, the ground on which it once stood, consecrated 

 to far other recollections than those of conquest or of 

 power, will be visited by the pilgrim of philosophy with 

 a deeper fervour than any that fills the bosom near the 

 forum or the capitol of ancient Rome. 



In 1780 Priestley settled at Birmingham, where he 

 was chosen minister of the principal Dissenting con- 

 gregation. He had left Lansdowne House without 

 any difference to interrupt the friendship of its inmates ; 

 and some years afterwards an offer to return, made on 

 the death of Lord Lansdowne's friends, Dunning and 



2 E 



