assist in the publication of a whole Bible, from the several
translations of particular books, smoothing and correcting them
where I can.
January of 1804 brought him many interesting, splendid and valuable
books from friends in London. He was overjoyed on their arrival.
Promptly he gave himself to their perusal because his deafness confined
him to home and his extreme weakness forbade any excursions. Then the
winter kept him from his laboratory, and his sole occupation was reading
and writing. He entertained a variety of plans, proceeding with some
but in the midst of these tasks of love--in the very act of correcting
proof, he quietly breathed his last! It was Monday, February 6, 1804,
that Thomas Cooper, the devoted friend of Priestley, wrote Benjamin
Rush:--
Dear Sir:
Mr. Joseph Priestley is not at present in spirits to write to his
friends, and it falls to my lot therefore to acquaint you that Dr.
Priestley died this morning about 11 o'clock without the slightest
degree of apparent pain. He had for some time previous foreseen
his dissolution, but he kept up to the last his habitual
composure, cheerfulness and kindness. He would have been 71 the
24th of next month. For about a fortnight there were symptoms of
dropsy owing to general debility: about two days before his death,
these symptoms disappeared, and a troublesome cough came on
perhaps from a translation to the chest.
Yesterday he had strength enough to look over a revise of the
_Annotations_ he was publishing on the Old and New Testament, and
this morning he dictated in good language some notices which he
wished his son Mr. Priestley to add to his unpublished works. I
am sure you will sincerely regret the decease of a man so highly
eminent and useful in the literary and philosophical world, and so
much presumably your friend.
Yes, the valiant old champion of a lost cause was no more. Two days
before his death "he went to his laboratory"--but, finding his weakness
too great, with difficulty returned to his room. Loyal to his science to
the very end!
To American chemists he appeals strongly because of his persistent
efforts in research. His coming to this country aroused a real interest
in the science which has not waned in the slightest since his demise.
When the sad news reached the Hall of the American Philosophical
Society, Dr. Benjamin Smith Barton was chosen to eulogize Priestley.
This notable event took place on January 3rd, 1805. The _Aurora_
reported:
Dr. Benjamin Smith Barton, one of the vice-presidents of the
American Philosophical Society, having been previously appointed
by the society to deliver an eulogium to the memory of their late
associate, Dr. Joseph Priestley, the same was accordingly
delivered in the First Presbyterian Church in this city, on
Thursday the 3rd inst. before the society, who went in a body from
their hall to the church, preceded by their patron, the governor
of the state. Invitations were given on this occasion to the Revd.
Clergy of the city; the college of Physicians; the Medical
Society; the gentlemen of the Bar, with the students at Law; the
trustees and faculty of the University of Pennsylvania, with their
students in the Arts and in Medicine; the judges and officers of
the federal and state Courts; the foreign ministers and other
public characters then in the city; the mayor; aldermen and city
councils: the trustees and session of the First Presbyterian
Church; the directors of the City Library; the directors and
Physicians of the Pennsylvania Hospital, of the Alms House, and of
the Dispensary; the proprietor and Director of the Philadelphia
Museum; and the contributors towards the Cabinet and Library of
the Society. After the conclusion of a very interesting eulogium,
the society returned their thanks to the orator, and requested a
copy for the purpose of publication.
One's curiosity is quickened on thinking what Barton said in his
address. Search in many directions failed to bring forth the Eulogium.
It had been ordered to be printed in the Transactions of the Society.
This was never done. But there was a minute (seven years later) in the
meeting of the Society (Nov. 6, 1812) to the effect that
Dr. Barton's request for permission to withdraw it (Eulogium) to
be enlarged and published separately was referred for
consideration to the next meeting.
The request was granted at the next meeting, but nowhere among Barton's
literary remains was the precious document to be found. Lost very
probably--when it might have revealed so much.
Priestley's death was deeply mourned throughout the land. The public
prints brought full and elaborate accounts of his life, and touching
allusions to the fullness of his brilliant career. Such expressions as
these were heard,--
As a metaphysician he stands foremost among those who have
attempted the investigation of its abstruse controversies.
As a politician he assiduously and successfully laboured to
extend and illustrate those general principles of civil liberty
which are happily the foundation of the Constitution of his
adopted Country,--
His profound attention to the belles-lettres, and to the other
departments of general literature, has been successfully
exemplified among his other writings, by his lectures on oratory
and criticism, and on general history and policy,--
Of the most important and fashionable study of _Pneumatic
Chemistry_ he may fairly be said to be the father.
He was a man of restless activity, but he uniformly directed that
activity to what seemed to him the public good, seeking neither
emolument nor honour from men. Dr. Priestley was possessed of
great ardour and vivacity of intellect.... His integrity was
unimpeachable; and even malice itself could not fix a stain on his
private character.
And what a splendid tribute is contained in the following passages from
Cuvier:
Priestley, loaded with glory, was modest enough to be astonished
at his good fortune, and at the multitude of beautiful facts,
which nature seemed to have revealed to him alone. He forgot that
her favours were not gratuitous, and if she had so well explained
herself, it was because he had known how to oblige her to do so by
his indefatigable perseverance in questioning her, and by the
thousand ingenious means he had taken to snatch her answers from
her.
Others carefully hide that which they owe to chance; Priestley
seemed to wish to ascribe all his merit to fortuitous
circumstances, remarking, with unexampled candour, how many times
he had profited by them, without knowing it, how many times he was
in possession of new substances without having perceived them; and
he never dissimulated the erroneous views which sometimes directed
his efforts, and from which he was only undeceived by experience.
These confessions did honour to his modesty, without disarming
jealousy. Those to whom their own ways and methods had never
discovered anything called him a simple worker of experiments,
without method and without an object "it is not astonishing,"
they added, "that among so many trials and combinations, he should
find some that were fortunate." But real natural philosophers were
not duped by these selfish criticisms.
Many encomiums like the preceding--yes, a thousandfold--could easily be
gathered if necessary to show the regard and confidence held for this
remarkable man to whom America is truly very deeply indebted.
Some years ago the writer paid a visit to the God's Acre of
Northumberland. He arrived after dark and was conveyed to the sacred
place in an automobile. Soon the car stopped. Its headlights illuminated
the upright flat stone which marked the last resting place of the great
chemist, and in that light not only was the name of the sleeper clearly
read but the less distinct but legible epitaph:
Return unto thy rest, O my soul, for the Lord hath dealt
bountifully with thee. I will lay me down in peace and sleep till
I wake in the morning of the resurrection.
Pondering on these lines there slowly returned to mind the words of
Franklin's epitaph,--Franklin, who, years before, had encouraged and
aided the noble exile, who was ever mindful of the former's goodness to
him:
The Body
of
Benjamin Franklin
Printer
(Like the cover of an old book
Its contents torn out
And stript of its lettering and gilding)
Lies here food for Worms
But the work shall not be lost
For it will (as he believed) appear
once more
In a new and more elegant Edition
Revised and corrected
by
The Author
And then, by some strange mental reaction, there floated before the
writer the paragraph uttered by Professor Huxley, when in 1874 a statue
to Priestley was unveiled in the City of Birmingham:
Our purpose is to do honour ... to Priestley the peerless defender
of national freedom in thought and in action; to Priestley the
philosophical thinker; to that Priestley who held a foremost place
among the 'swift runners who hand over the lamp of life,' and
transmit from one generation to another the fire kindled, in the
childhood of the world, at the Promethean altar of science.