Correspondence of Lieut.-Col. J. L. Philips. 53 



with age, but retaining a clearness of caligraphy, an expres- 

 siveness of diction, an epistolary thoroughness which is 

 almost a lost art, they seem still fresh from the minds and 

 hearts of the writers. They bring us into touch with a 

 vigorous and adventurous time, when the sons of local mer- 

 chants and tradesmen, and weavers from the looms, found an 

 attractive career in the army and navy, and the advertise- 

 ments of coasting vessels significantly announced the number 

 of guns they carried. Compared with the present city, Man- 

 chester was but a small provincial town, surrounded by bogs, 

 and, in a sense, remote even from Liverpool and Buxton. 

 Yet it was recognised as a centre of science and of literary 

 and artistic culture throughout the country. During the 

 period covered by these letters it became a famous medical 

 school ; it was not less prominent in the development of 

 chemistry and physics ; and it produced a really remarkable 

 number of successful painters and engravers. It formed 

 academies for the diffusion of knowledge in literature, 

 science, and art, and established hospitals and a great public 

 library, which were undoubtedly the fruitful parents of the 

 more numerous and extensive institutions of to-day. To 

 that period we must trace the birth of the aspirations 

 which have made Manchester a leader in the modern 

 educational movement ; the local love of botany and 

 horticulture, to which a powerful stimulus had lately 

 been given by the work of Linneus ; and the traditional 

 reputation of the city as, at least, a market for fine 

 pictures, choice books, good plays, and good music. 

 The philosophical spirit of the men with whom Leigh 

 Philips associated founded our own Society and gave it, 

 from its birth, that character and prestige which have 

 enabled it during its quiet, unobtrusive, self-sustaining life, 

 to give Daltons and Joules to the world. These faded 

 leaves bring before us the cotton-spinner and merchant, the 

 active magistrate, the friend of many soldiers who was 



