I 2 Literary and Philosophical Society. 



After all they found at last something to quarrel about ; 

 but it appears that one great reason was their miserable 

 pay : they might have been expected to be attached to 

 each other as men are when all are sinking in the same 

 boat. It does, however, appear that want of attention to 

 the formal and, as we may say, external business of the 

 establishment was one main reason of the decay of the 

 school, although the want of success which followed its 

 successors in York and Manchester must prevent us from 

 looking too much to unbusiness-like habits for an explana- 

 tion of that occurrence. 



In after times Dr. Priestley remembered the happy 

 days at Warrington, and wrote, * In the whole time of 

 my being at Warrington I was singularly happy in the 

 society of my fellow tutors and of Mr. Seddon and the 

 minister of the place. We drank tea together every 

 Saturday, and our conversation was equally instructive 

 and pleasing. I often thought it not a little extra- 

 ordinary that four persons, that had no previous know- 

 ledge of each other, should have been brought to unite in 

 conducting such a scheme as this, and be all zealous 

 necessarians, as we were. We were likewise all Arians, 

 and the only subject of much consequence on which we 

 differed was respecting the doctrine of the Atonement, 

 concerning which Dr. Aikin held some obscure notions.* ^ 



Still the result was that in 1783 the academy was dis- 

 solved. It is often said that it went to Manchester; and this 

 is not far wrong, as a certain remnant of its organisation still 

 exists there. Much of its spirit went decidedly, and some 



* From a paper by Mr. H. A. Bright of Liverpool, on the Life and Letters 

 of the Rev. John Seddon^ minister and tutor at Warrington. — Christian Re- 

 former^ 1 854, p. 224. 



