Priestley continued at Leeds for about six years. Although very happy there he was tempted1 to leave Mill Hill Chapel2 to enter the service of Lord Shelburne. How he was regarded by his flock may be gleaned3 from the addresses which were presented to him on the eve of his departure; these, together with his own farewell letter, are still preserved among the Chapel books of Mill Hill. But a stipend4 of one hundred guineas a year, and a house which was not adequate to contain a family now increased by the birth of two sons, and with no possibility of making any provision for them in the event of his death, induced him to accept Lord Shelburne’s proposals.
Lord Shelburne, afterwards first Marquis of Lansdowne, one of the most enlightened of the many politicians who sought to direct the destinies of this kingdom during the stormy times of the last thirty years of the eighteenth century, had been Secretary of State in Pitt’s administration of 1766, but had been dismissed from office in 1768 on account of his conciliatory policy towards America, and at this particular time was living in retirement5 at Bowood. Under these circumstances his lordship, a man of culture and fond of literature, sought the companionship of some kindred spirit. Through the good offices of Dr Price, a mutual6 83 friend, he was led to make Priestley so generous an offer—viz., two and a half times his Leeds salary, a pleasant house at Calne in the summer and a house in town during the winter, and a retiring allowance for life should their connection be dissolved—that our philosopher was constrained7 to accept a position which, despite its perils8 and possible constraints9, was so alluring10. The engagement seems to have given satisfaction also to Priestley’s friends, if we may judge from the following extract from one of Wedgwood’s letters to his partner at Etruria, Thomas Bentley of Liverpool, one of the founders11 of the Warrington Academy:—
“I am glad to hear of Dr Priestley’s noble appointment, taking it for granted that he is to go on writing and publishing with the same freedom he now does, otherwise I had much rather he still remained in Yorkshire.” Meteyard, II. 451.
In their political sentiments, and in their views on the great questions which at that time divided parties, the two men had much in common. Lord Shelburne was certainly not unaware12 of Priestley’s political proclivities13, and the pamphlet he had written at Franklin’s instigation on the American question probably expressed his Lordship’s own sentiments. At the same time Priestley was under no obligation to serve Lord Shelburne politically, and there is no evidence that any such service was either expected or rendered. His office was nominally14 that of librarian, but he had little to do in that capacity beyond arranging and cataloguing the books and numerous manuscripts at Bowood and Lansdowne House and making an index of Lord Shelburne’s private papers. Indeed, Lord Shelburne treated him rather as a companion and friend than as a servant, taking him, in the second year of his engagement, 84 on a journey through Flanders, Holland and Germany as far as Strasburg, and spending a month in Paris. The time he spent on the Continent made him sensible of the benefit of foreign travel, even without the advantage of much conversation with foreigners. Indeed, he says the very sight of new countries, buildings and customs of an unfamiliar15 type, even the very hearing of a fresh language, however unintelligible16, stimulates17 and widens the mind and gives it new ideas. He saw everything to the best advantage and without any anxiety or trouble, and he had an opportunity of meeting and conversing18 with every person of eminence19 wherever he went, the political characters by Lord Shelburne’s connections and the literary and scientific ones by his own. One of these was Magellan, or Magalh?ns, a Portuguese20 Jesuit descended21 from the great navigator of that name. He resided in England, where he died in, or shortly before, 1790. He had early information on scientific matters from abroad, and was frequently employed in procuring22 English instruments for foreigners. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society and an active correspondent of Lavoisier’s, to whom he sent all scientific memoirs23 published in England, Priestley’s among the number. Magellan was the subject of a notable trial at law—one of the last indeed of its kind in England. He was indicted24 at the suit of a common informer under the statute25 against saying Mass, but the suit, which was heard before Lord Mansfield, was dismissed on some point of legal informality.
It was, no doubt, mainly through Magellan that Priestley was brought into the society of that brilliant galaxy26 of men of science which at that period was the 85 glory of France. In some respects he was out of sympathy with this environment, and, as he confesses, soon tired of Paris. Priestley never obtruded27 his religious convictions on any company he might be in; at the same time he never forgot that he was a Christian28 and a minister of religion. What is now called Agnosticism was at least as prevalent during the latter half of the eighteenth century as at any period of the history of Europe. Priestley tells us that a great part of the company he saw at Lord Shelburne’s did not really know what Christianity was, and Lord Shelburne numbered among his friends and political associates almost all who were intellectually eminent29 at that time in this country. He was not unprepared, therefore, to find that all the philosophers to whom he was introduced at Paris were unbelievers in Christianity and even professed30 Atheists. He was told, indeed, by some of them that he was the only person they had ever met with, of whose understanding they had any opinion, who professed to believe Christianity. It was this experience which caused Priestley to write his Letters to a Philosophical32 Unbeliever. He says that as he had conversed33 so much with unbelievers at home and abroad he thought he should be able to combat their prejudices with advantage. Indeed, he was wont34 to say that the greatest satisfaction he received from the success of his philosophical pursuits arose from the genuine weight it gave to his attempts to defend the principles of Christianity and to free it from those corruptions35 which prevent its reception with philosophical and thinking persons.
Of the many advantages he enjoyed through his connection with Lord Shelburne, Priestley was always 86 fully36 sensible. It came to him at the most opportune37 period of his career, and in the full tide of his intellectual vigour38. The years he spent in this association were, so far at least as science is concerned, the most fruitful of his life. Lord Shelburne was a generous patron, and particularly encouraged Priestley in his chemical inquiries39, affording him ample opportunity for their prosecution40 and defraying much of the expense they occasioned. He had pleasure in witnessing his experiments, and frequently requested him to exhibit them to his guests, particularly to foreigners, by whom a knowledge of Priestley’s work was thus spread abroad.
Priestley’s energies were, however, not wholly engrossed41 by his scientific labours. Theology and metaphysics still claimed much of his time, and to this period belongs the concluding portion of his Institutes of Natural and Revealed Religion and his Harmony of the Gospels, and his Disquisitions relating to Matter and Spirit. He also at this time wrote some Miscellaneous Observations relating to Education, and published his Warrington Lectures on Oratory42 and Criticism, which he dedicated43 to his patron’s eldest44 son, Lord Fitzmaurice.
Certain of these publications occasioned considerable uproar45 at the time of their appearance: the outcry indeed was such, he says, as could hardly have been imagined. He was attacked in almost every newspaper, and in the greater number of the periodicals, as an unbeliever in revelation and no better than an Atheist31. In the preface to his Institutes of Natural and Revealed Religion he had been led to question the principles of Reid, Beattie and Oswald with respect to their doctrine46 of common sense, which they had made to supersede47 all 87 rational inquiry48 into the subject of religion, and he subsequently developed the attack in a separate publication. He expressed his belief in the doctrine of philosophical necessity and his admiration49 of Hartley’s theory of the human mind. He had uttered some doubt of the immateriality of the sentient50 principle in man, and after giving, as he says, the closest attention to the subject, he was firmly persuaded that man is wholly material, and that our only prospect51 of immortality52 is from the Christian doctrine of a resurrection.
Priestley clearly recognised that many of these publications were not calculated to improve his relations with Lord Shelburne. Indeed, he says several attempts were made by Lord Shelburne’s friends, though none by himself, to dissuade53 him from persisting in them.
He goes on to say that:—
“In order to proceed with the greatest caution in a business of such moment I desired some of my learned friends, and especially Dr Price, to peruse54 the work before it was published, and the remarks that he made upon it led to a free and friendly discussion of the several subjects of it, which are afterwards published jointly55, and it remains56 a proof of the possibility of discussing subjects mutually considered as of the greatest importance with the most perfect good-temper and without the least diminution57 of friendship.”
Lord Shelburne’s political enemies were not slow to take advantage of the outcry raised against Priestley by the orthodox and to strike at the patron through the philosopher.
It is obvious, from Priestley’s letters to his friends at about this period, that he was sensible that his relations with Pitt’s Secretary of State had become somewhat strained, and when he received an intimation through Dr Price that Lord Shelburne wished to give him an 88 establishment in Ireland, where he had large property, he interpreted this as signifying that the Minister desired that their connection should be severed58. They parted amicably59, Lord Shelburne continuing to pay him the promised annuity60 of ￡150 until the end of his days, paying it, too, contrary to the insinuation of his enemies, with perfect punctuality. That there was no unfriendly feeling on the part of Lord Shelburne at a separation which seemed to be dictated61 solely62 by considerations of political exigency63 would appear from the circumstance that a few years later he sent a common friend to Priestley, who was then settled in Birmingham, to invite him to resume his old position, accompanying his request with expressions which left no doubt of the value he set upon the companionship. Sensible as Priestley was of Lord Shelburne’s feelings towards him, he was in no mind to return to a situation which experience had shown might be incompatible64 with independence.
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1
tempted
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| v.怂恿（某人）干不正当的事；冒…的险（tempt的过去分词） | |
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2
chapel
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| n.小教堂，殡仪馆 | |
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3
gleaned
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| v.一点点地收集（资料、事实）( glean的过去式和过去分词 )；（收割后）拾穗 | |
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stipend
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| n.薪贴；奖学金；养老金 | |
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5
retirement
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| n.退休，退职 | |
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6
mutual
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| adj.相互的，彼此的；共同的，共有的 | |
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7
constrained
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| adj.束缚的,节制的 | |
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8
perils
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| 极大危险( peril的名词复数 )； 危险的事（或环境） | |
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9
constraints
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| 强制( constraint的名词复数 )； 限制； 约束 | |
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10
alluring
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| adj.吸引人的，迷人的 | |
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founders
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| n.创始人( founder的名词复数 ) | |
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12
unaware
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| a.不知道的，未意识到的 | |
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13
proclivities
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| n.倾向，癖性( proclivity的名词复数 ) | |
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nominally
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| 在名义上，表面地； 应名儿 | |
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15
unfamiliar
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| adj.陌生的，不熟悉的 | |
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16
unintelligible
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| adj.无法了解的，难解的，莫明其妙的 | |
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17
stimulates
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| v.刺激( stimulate的第三人称单数 )；激励；使兴奋；起兴奋作用，起刺激作用，起促进作用 | |
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18
conversing
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| v.交谈，谈话( converse的现在分词 ) | |
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19
eminence
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| n.卓越，显赫；高地，高处；名家 | |
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20
Portuguese
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| n.葡萄牙人；葡萄牙语 | |
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21
descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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22
procuring
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| v.（努力）取得， （设法）获得( procure的现在分词 )；拉皮条 | |
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23
memoirs
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| n.回忆录；回忆录传( mem,自oir的名词复数) | |
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24
indicted
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| 控告，起诉( indict的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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25
statute
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| n.成文法，法令，法规；章程，规则，条例 | |
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galaxy
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| n.星系；银河系；一群(杰出或著名的人物) | |
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27
obtruded
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| v.强行向前，强行，强迫( obtrude的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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28
Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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29
eminent
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| adj.显赫的，杰出的，有名的，优良的 | |
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30
professed
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| 公开声称的，伪称的，已立誓信教的 | |
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31
atheist
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| n.无神论者 | |
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32
philosophical
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| adj.哲学家的，哲学上的，达观的 | |
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33
conversed
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| v.交谈，谈话( converse的过去式 ) | |
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34
wont
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| adj.习惯于；v.习惯；n.习惯 | |
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35
corruptions
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| n.堕落( corruption的名词复数 )；腐化；腐败；贿赂 | |
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36
fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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opportune
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| adj.合适的，适当的 | |
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38
vigour
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| （=vigor）n.智力，体力，精力 | |
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39
inquiries
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| n.调查( inquiry的名词复数 )；疑问；探究；打听 | |
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40
prosecution
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| n.起诉，告发，检举，执行，经营 | |
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41
engrossed
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| adj.全神贯注的 | |
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42
oratory
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| n.演讲术；词藻华丽的言辞 | |
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43
dedicated
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| adj.一心一意的；献身的；热诚的 | |
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44
eldest
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| adj.最年长的，最年老的 | |
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45
uproar
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| n.骚动，喧嚣，鼎沸 | |
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46
doctrine
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| n.教义；主义；学说 | |
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47
supersede
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| v.替代；充任 | |
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48
inquiry
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| n.打听，询问，调查，查问 | |
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49
admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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50
sentient
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| adj.有知觉的，知悉的；adv.有感觉能力地 | |
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51
prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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52
immortality
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| n.不死，不朽 | |
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53
dissuade
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| v.劝阻，阻止 | |
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54
peruse
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| v.细读，精读 | |
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55
jointly
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| ad.联合地，共同地 | |
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56
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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57
diminution
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| n.减少；变小 | |
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58
severed
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| v.切断，断绝( sever的过去式和过去分词 )；断，裂 | |
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59
amicably
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| adv.友善地 | |
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60
annuity
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| n.年金；养老金 | |
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61
dictated
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| v.大声讲或读( dictate的过去式和过去分词 )；口授；支配；摆布 | |
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62
solely
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| adv.仅仅，唯一地 | |
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63
exigency
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| n.紧急；迫切需要 | |
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64
incompatible
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| adj.不相容的，不协调的，不相配的 | |
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