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ENGLISH
MEN OF SCIENCE
EDITED BY
J. REYNOLDS GREEN, D.Sc.
JOSEPH PRIESTLEY
_All Rights Reserved_
[Illustration: J Priestley]
JOSEPH PRIESTLEY
BY
T. E. THORPE, F.R.S.
AUTHOR OF
HUMPHRY DAVY, POET AND PHILOSOPHER
ETC., ETC.
PUBLISHED IN LONDON BY
J. M. DENT & CO., AND IN NEW
YORK BY E. P. DUTTON & CO.
1906
PREFACE
In the following account of the life and work of that "hero and type of
the intellectual energy of the eighteenth century"--the "honest
heretic"--Joseph Priestley, I have, to a considerable extent, made the
subject of it tell his own story. After Priestley's death there was
found among his papers a short autobiography, dealing with the main
events of his life up to the time of his settlement in America. This was
subsequently published, with additions and explanatory notes, by his
eldest son. Of this biography I have made full use, considering it, of
course, as the best authority on the matters to which it refers.
For the account of the Warrington Academy, with which institution
Priestley was connected for some years, and which connection profoundly
affected his career, I am mainly indebted to Mr Henry A. Bright's paper
in the _Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and
Cheshire_, 1858-59.
The Yates papers in the possession of the Royal Society have also
afforded me much assistance, and have been freely drawn upon.
I am also indebted to the late Mr Henry Carrington Bolton's collection
for certain letters and for information concerning the Lunar Society of
Birmingham.
For the graphic account of the Birmingham Riots of 1791, when
Priestley's house was wrecked, and his library and laboratory destroyed,
as described by an eye-witness, Miss Martha Russell, I have to express
my obligations to her relative, Dr W. J. Russell, who first made me
acquainted with her narrative. I am also indebted to Dr Russell for a
copy of the print from which has been prepared the illustration showing
the destruction of Priestley's house.
I desire also to acknowledge my indebtedness to Dr Aikin for permission
to publish certain of Priestley's letters to his distinguished
connection, Mrs Barbauld.
I am further under obligations to Lady Priestley, Lady Roscoe and Mr
Sydney Lupton for much useful assistance.
The portrait of Priestley, which forms the frontispiece, has been
reproduced in photogravure from the painting by Artaud, now in Dr
Williams' Theological Library in Gordon Square. I have to thank the
Trustees of the Library for their kindness in allowing the copy to be
made.
T. E. T.
London: _May_ 1906.
CONTENTS
PAGE
Chapter I 1
Birth--Parentage--Home Life--Early Education.
Chapter II 17
Enters the Daventry Academy to be trained for the Ministry--Goes to
Needham Market--His Life, Work and Privations there.
Chapter III 30
Goes to Nantwich--Starts a School--Is appointed a Tutor in the
Warrington Academy--Life at Warrington.
Chapter IV 45
Priestley marries--Is ordained--His Essay on Education--Lectures on
History and General Policy--His Chart of Biography--Becomes a Doctor of
Laws of the University of Edinburgh--His visits to London--Makes the
acquaintance of Dr Price, Canton and Benjamin Franklin--Writes the
_History of Electricity_--Is elected into the Royal Society.
Chapter V 66
Goes to Leeds as minister of the Mill Hill Chapel--Resumes his studies
in Speculative Theology--_The Theological Repository_--Becomes a
Unitarian--Priestley as a controversialist--His Theory and Practice of
Perspective--His literary characteristics--Begins his inquiries on
Pneumatic Chemistry--His invention of soda-water--Receives the Copley
Medal of the Royal Society.
Chapter VI 82
Becomes literary companion to Lord Shelburne--Goes abroad--His visit to
Paris--His scientific work at Calne and in London--Continues his
theological and metaphysical studies--His growing unpopularity--Leaves
Lord Shelburne.
Chapter VII 89
Removes to London--Declines a pension--Renews his acquaintance with
Franklin--Goes to Birmingham--Becomes a member of the Lunar Society.
Chapter VIII 103
Priestley at Birmingham--His theological work there--His love of
literature--His catholicity--His personal characteristics.
Chapter IX 120
The Birmingham riots of 1791.
Chapter X 145
Determines to leave England--His arrival in America--Settles in
Northumberland--His closing days--His death.
Chapter XI 167
Priestley as a man of science--His characteristics as a
philosopher--_Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of
Air_--His discovery of the influence of vegetation on vitiated
air--Atmospheric air not elementary--His researches on nitric
oxide--Eudiometry--Nitrous oxide--Discovers hydrogen chloride--Prepares
oxygen from nitre (1771)--Isolates ammonia gas--Discovers sulphur
dioxide--Dephlogisticated air (oxygen)--Discovers silicon
fluoride--Intra-diffusion of gases--Respiration--Priestley's opinions of
the value of experimental science in education--Discovers nitrosulphuric
acid--Notes the constancy of composition of the atmosphere--Prepares
chlorine--Sound in "air"--Experiments relating to phlogiston--The
seeming conversion of water into air--Watt and the compound nature of
water--Discovers sulphuretted hydrogen--Priestley's confession of faith
in phlogiston.
Index 225
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Joseph Priestley, from the portrait in Dr Williams' Library by Artaud
(_Photogravure_) _Frontispiece_
Birthplace of Priestley, from a drawing by J. A. Symington after a
photograph _page_ 5
The Pillaging of Priestley's House during the Birmingham Riots _facing
page_ 120
Joseph Priestley
CHAPTER I
Birth--Parentage--Home Life--Early Education
"If," says Mr Frederic Harrison, "we choose one man as a type of the
intellectual energy of the eighteenth century we could hardly find a
better than Joseph Priestley, though his was not the greatest mind of
the century. His versatility, eagerness, activity and humanity; the
immense range of his curiosity in all things, physical, moral or social;
his place in science, in theology, in philosophy and in politics; his
peculiar relation to the Revolution, and the pathetic story of his
unmerited sufferings, may make him the hero of the eighteenth century."
In these few lines Mr Harrison has indicated, in terms sufficiently
precise, the leading features in the character and life-history of one
of the most remarkable men of the eighteenth century. To what extent he
may be regarded as a hero and as a type of the intellectual energy of
that century it is the purpose of the following pages to make clear.
Joseph Priestley was born at Fieldhead, in the parish of Birstall, near
Leeds, on March 13 (Old Style), 1733.[1] He was named after his paternal
grandfather, "an eminent tradesman, as much famed for his heavenly
conduct as his grandson (Joseph) has since been for natural abilities."
"The Priestleys," writes Madame Belloc, the great-granddaughter of the
subject of this memoir, in her charming essay, "Joseph Priestley in
Domestic Life" (_Contemporary Review_, October 1894), "were of an old
Presbyterian stock; one branch of the family acquired wealth and lived
at Whiteways, but his (Joseph's) own immediate ancestors were farmers
and clothiers, people of substance in the yeoman class. We can trace
them accurately as far as the middle of the seventeenth century, when
one Phoebe Priestley, after wrestling with fever in her household, was
herself stricken, and 'lay like a lamb before the Lord' on her
deathbed. Her husband wrote a long and touching account of all she
said and did, that her children might know what manner of mother they
had lost. These people were presumably of the same stock as the
Priestleys of Soylands, who ran back into the Middle Ages.
"The children of the Priestley families were all named after
scriptural characters. They were Josephs, Timothys and Sarahs from one
generation to another. The Bible was stamped into them, and from it
they drew all the inspiration of their lives."
Joseph Priestley the elder was born in 1660, and died on August 2, 1745.
He married Sarah Healey and had by her eight children, five sons and
three daughters, of whom Jonas, the father of Joseph Priestley the
younger, born about 1700, was the seventh child and fourth son. Jonas
Priestley married Mary, a daughter of Joseph Swift, a farmer and
maltster of Shafton, near Wakefield, and had by her six children, four
sons and two daughters, of whom Joseph was the eldest and Timothy the
second; Martha, the elder girl, who died in 1812, married John Crouch,
and was left a widow in poor circumstances in 1786. Another member of
the Priestley family who requires mention for the purpose of this
narrative is Sarah, the sister of Jonas and second daughter of Joseph
Priestley the elder. She was born in 1692 and married John Keighley--"a
man who had distinguished himself for his zeal for religion and for his
public spirit." She was left a widow in 1745. Three years before this
she took her nephew Joseph, the subject of this memoir, to live with
her, and "was fond of him in the extreme." She died in 1764. Her brother
John, Joseph Priestley the younger's uncle, died on February 28, 1786,
aged ninety-two. "He was a remarkable man and of a singularly happy
constitution, both of body and mind."
This happy constitution of body and mind seems indeed to have been a
characteristic of many members of the family, the several branches of
which were remarkably healthy and long-lived.
Priestley says of his father Jonas that he had uniformly better spirits
than any man he ever knew, and by this means was as happy towards the
close of life, when reduced to poverty and dependent upon others, as in
his best days. These facts are not without interest as serving to
account for much that we shall have occasion to note in the character
and temperament of the subject of this biography.
Fieldhead, the house in which he first saw the light, had been occupied
by the family for several generations. It was a small two-storey
building, built of stone and slated with flag, similar in character to
many of the houses still standing in the district, the long, low windows
in the upper storeys betokening that they were formerly occupied by
weavers. It was last lived in by Martha Priestley (Mrs Crouch), but on
the death of her husband in 1786 was abandoned by the family, and,
falling into decay, was pulled down about fifty years ago.
The Priestleys were a simple, sober, honest, God-fearing folk, staunch
Calvinists, and deeply religious. Jonas Priestley was a manufacturer of
"home-spun"--a weaver and cloth dresser--two trades now distinct but
then practised in common--who took his week's work on ass-back, on roads
little better than bridle-paths, to the Sunday market in Leeds. He was
of a class characteristic of the district.
These hand-loom weavers, who lived in the hill country lying to the west
of Leeds, were generally men of small capitals; they often annexed a
small farm to their business, or possessed a field or two on which to
support a horse and cow, and were for the most part blessed with the
comforts without the superfluities of life. During five or six days of
the week they dwelt in their own little village, among trees and fields,
taking no thought of the outside world and contenting themselves with
the homely gossip of their farmstead or hamlet. On market day they came
into the town in shoals, clad in their quaint corduroy breeches,
broad-brimmed hats, and brass-buttoned coats of antique cut, bringing
their produce on pack-horses, to await the visits of the merchants--the
commercial aristocracy of Leeds, then a town of some 16,000 or 17,000
inhabitants--who were the agents through which the outer world received
its supply of Yorkshire woollen goods. They were a shrewd, careful race,
somewhat stolid and slow of speech and not given to great mental
briskness or activity, keenly appreciative of the blessings of liberty
and usually in sympathy with the political party to whom the cause of
liberty was for the moment entrusted; sober, godly souls for the most
part; regular in their attendance at public worship, and upon the whole
preferring the plebeian zeal of the Chapel to the aristocratic repose of
the Church.[2]
[Illustration: BIRTHPLACE OF PRIESTLEY.]
And what a world it was in which they thus serenely dwelt apart.
"It was," writes Madame Belloc, "the time of Louis the Fifteenth in
France and of George the Second in England, and the nephews and nieces
of Charlotte Princess Palatine were still living, and her letters,
whose name is legion, yet lay stored in the cabinets of her
correspondents, full of inexpressible details discussed in most
expressive language. It was the time when Jeanie Deans walked from
Scotland to beg her sister's life of Queen Caroline, and met Madge
Wildfire in the way. It was the time when the polite world was
composed of 'men, women and Herveys'; when Squire Pendarves was found
dead in his bed in Greek Street, Soho, leaving his young widow to be
courted by John Wesley and wedded by Dr Delany; when statesmen bribed,
and young blades drank, and Sir Harbottle carried off Harriet Byron,
whose shrieks brought Sir Charles Grandison to the rescue, sword in
hand. It was the period when the Jacobite Rebellion flamed up and
expired; when the Young Pretender marched to Derby and the heads of
the decapitated lords were exposed on Temple Bar; tragedies, agonies,
highway robberies, Dick Turpin, Jack Sheppard, smugglers, the
press-gang; Frederick Prince of Wales quarrelling in Leicester Square;
Queen Caroline on her death-bed telling her weeping little George,
'que l'un n'empêche pas l'autre'; Horace Walpole making the grand
tour; Dean Swift dying in agonised misery. Merciful Heavens! What an
England, of which we possess the daily diary! We can see Hogarth at
his easel, and Sir Joshua taking his first stiff portraits, and
Garrick going on pilgrimage to Stratford, and the young king courting
Hannah Lightfoot and marrying his little bride from Mecklenburg.
Without too much verifying of dates it is certain that all this was
happening before Dr Priestley was thirty years of age, and that of
none of it is there the faintest mention in the account he has drawn
up of his own childhood, youth and young manhood, though he was
himself destined to be one of the principal illustrations of the
Georgian era. For anything which appears to the contrary, he and his
friends might have dwelt in some far-distant planet whose inhabitants
were wholly given up to study and to prayer."
Priestley says of his father that he had a strong sense of religion,
praying with his family morning and evening, and carefully teaching his
children and servants the Assembly's Catechism, which was all the system
of which he had any knowledge.
"In the latter part of his life he became very fond of Mr Whitfield's
writings and other works of a similar kind, having been brought up in
the principles of Calvinism, and adopting them, but without ever
giving much attention to matters of speculation, and entertaining no
bigoted aversion to those who differed from him on the subject."
We may well imagine that Jonas, with his "strong sense of religion," was
one of that earnest band of "several hundreds of plain people" who
listened, spellbound, to the eloquence of John Wesley on that memorable
day of May 1742, on which, on Birstall Hill, began the great Yorkshire
"Revival."
Of his wife, "a woman of exemplary piety," the mother of the future
philosopher, little has been recorded beyond the fragmentary notice in
her son's autobiography. He says of her:--
"It is but little that I can recollect of my mother. I remember,
however, that she was careful to teach me the Assembly's Catechism,
and to give me the best instructions the little time that I was at
home. Once in particular, when I was playing with a pin, she asked me
where I got it; and on telling her that I found it at my uncle's, who
lived very near to my father, and where I had been playing with my
cousins, she made me carry it back again; no doubt to impress my mind,
as it could not fail to do, with a clear idea of the distinction of
property and of the importance of attending to it. She died in the
hard winter of 1739,[3] not long after being delivered of my youngest
brother; and having dreamed a little before her death that she was in
a delightful place, which she particularly described and imagined to
be heaven, the last words which she spake, as my aunt informed me,
were, 'Let me go to that fine place.'"
During some considerable portion of his mother's short period of married
life, Joseph Priestley, together with his brother Timothy, was committed
to the care of his grandfather Swift, with whom he remained with little
interruption until his mother's death. From this we may infer that the
domestic circumstances of his parents were far from easy, or that the
accommodation at Fieldhead was unequal to the support of the
cloth-dresser's rapidly-increasing family.
Timothy, who, after following his father's business as a cloth-dresser
for a time, became an Independent minister, and died in London, has left
us reminiscences of his brother's boyhood. He seems to have been
particularly impressed with his ability to repeat the Assembly's
Catechism "without missing a word," and by being made to kneel down with
him while he prayed. "This was not at bed-time, which he never
neglected, but in the course of the day."
On the death of his mother, the eldest boy, then barely six years old,
was taken home and sent to school in the neighbourhood. Luckily for him,
his Aunt Sarah, Mrs Keighley, "a truly pious and excellent woman, who
knew no other use of wealth, or of talents of any kind, than to do good,
and who never spared herself for this purpose," being childless,
offered, in 1742, to relieve her brother Jonas of all care for his
eldest son by taking entire charge of him. "From this time," says her
nephew, "she was truly a parent to me, till her death in 1764."
John Keighley was a man of considerable property, and at his death,
which occurred when Priestley was about twelve years of age, the widow
was left with the greater part of his fortune for life, and much of it
at her disposal after her death.
By Mrs Keighley's direction he was sent, he tells us, to several schools
in the neighbourhood, especially to a large free school under the care
of a clergyman, Mr Hague, under whom, at the age of twelve or thirteen,
he first began to make progress in Latin and acquired the elements of
Greek. His brother Timothy records that "from eleven to about thirteen
he had read most of Mr Bunyan's works and other authors on religion,
besides the common Latin authors."
How a well-ordered school was conducted in the middle of the eighteenth
century may be gleaned from the following regulations in force in Mr
Canton's well-known academy in 1745:--
1. That the School hours are from 7 o'clock in the morning till 12,
and from 2 to 5 in the afternoon: except the winter half-year, when
they begin at 8 in the morning.
2. That all the Scholars come decently, that is, with their Hands and
Faces wash'd, their Hair or Perriwigs Comb'd, and their Shoes black'd.
3. That they bow at Coming in and going out, and when any Thing is
given or rec'd; and never wear their Hats in the House or School.
4. That they loiter not, but go immediately to their own seats and
move not thence, without Leave, till School is done.
5. That if any Person come into the School whom they know, they are to
get up, make a bow, and sit down in their places again.
6. That if the Master be discoursing with, or reading to any Person,
they shall not stare Confidently on them or hearken to their Talk,
unless required to be present.
7. That they shall not interrupt the Master while a Stranger is
talking with him, with any Question, request, or complaint whatsoever,
but stay till he is at Leisure.
8. That they shall not presume to talk loud nor make any noise in
getting their lessons. A Boy's Tongue should never be heard, but in
saying his Lesson, asking or Answering a Question.
9. That there be no buying, selling, changing, laying Wagers or Gaming
in School-time, on the forfeiture of the whole so bought or sold, etc.
10. That those who learn French shall not speak English to any that
learn French, on the Forfeiture of ye Bill, or one Hour's Exercize
after School Time.
11. That such as learn Latin are also oblig'd not to speak other
Language to those that learn it, during School time, on the Penalty
last mentioned.
12. That all perform their Lessons and Exercises in fair Writing and
true Spelling, and likewise prepare themselves for their Examinations
in French, Latin, Accounts and Catechisms every week, both in School
times and all Vacations.
13. That such as perform well, shall be prefer'd according to their
Merit, and shall have liberty to leave School before the usual Time;
but such as are Negligent herein, shall have their Exercizes to write
over again after School.
14. That none presume to call any Party or Nick-names nor give any ill
or reproachful Language, much less Curse, Sware, or Lye, but in all
things behave in a quiet, peaceable, and civil manner.
15. That the Boarders shall not go beyond y^e bounds belonging to y^e
House on any pretence whatsoever without leave, on the forfeiture of
6d. or two Hours' Exercize after School for Every such Offence.
16. That one Scholar is not to strike another, or challenge him to
fight; but in case of any Difference shall acquaint the Master
therewith and be satisfied with his Determination.
Whilst acquiring Greek at the public school, Priestley learned Hebrew on
holidays of the Dissenting minister of the place, Mr Kirkby, under whose
care he eventually came.
The weakly, consumptive habit into which he now fell necessitated his
withdrawal from school. His fondness for books had led his aunt to
encourage the hope that he might be trained for the ministry, and he
readily entered into her views.
"But," he says, "my ill health obliged me to turn my thoughts another
way, and, with a view to trade, I learned the modern languages,
French, Italian and High Dutch [German], without a master; and in the
first and last of them I translated and wrote letters for an uncle of
mine who was a merchant, and who intended to put me into a
counting-house in Lisbon."
Indeed, he says a house was actually engaged to receive him there, and
everything was nearly ready for his undertaking the voyage when his
health so far improved that the idea of the ministry was resumed. During
the two years in which he had been kept away from school the boy was
thrown almost entirely upon his own resources. It says much for the
activity and eagerness of his mind, his diligence and his power of
mental acquisitiveness, that he should have neglected no opportunity of
gaining knowledge from the various heretical divines who came to drink a
dish of tea with his aunt. He tells us that from Mr Haggerstone, a
Dissenting minister in the neighbourhood, who had been educated under
Maclaurin, and whom he visited twice a week, he learned geometry,
algebra and various branches of mathematics, theoretical and practical.
He also read, with but little assistance from him, Gravesend's _Elements
of Natural Philosophy_, Watts's _Logic_, and Locke's _Essay on the Human
Understanding_. "He also gave lessons in Hebrew to a Baptist minister at
Gildersome, a village about four miles from Leeds, and by that means
made himself 'a considerable proficient in that language.'" "At the same
time I learned Chaldee and Syriac, and just began to read Arabic."
As his knowledge increased, and the powers of his intellect
strengthened, he began to exercise his reason upon the many problems of
doctrine and religious belief which could not fail to be uppermost in
his mind when his upbringing and the environment in which circumstances
had placed him are considered. His aunt, although a strict Calvinist,
was a large-minded woman, and, as her nephew says, "far from confining
salvation to those who thought as she did on religious subjects."
"Her home," he says, "was the resort of all the dissenting ministers
in the neighbourhood, without distinction, and those who were the most
obnoxious, on account of their heresy, were almost as welcome to her,
if she thought them honest and good men (which she was not unwilling
to do), as any others."
Although all the religious books that came in his way tended to confirm
him in the principles of Calvinism, he was led by the natural vigour of
his mind, and by an innate spirit of philosophical optimism, which
strengthened with advancing years, to feel a repugnance to its gloomy
tenets, and to question the sufficiency and reasonableness of much of
its doctrine. The conversation of the heretical divines in whose company
he was thrown served, moreover, to awaken inquiry and to increase his
doubts. These divines were for the most part men who, in liberality of
thought, were far in advance of the congregations they served, and this
was especially the case of those for whose attainments and character the
discerning boy had most respect.
The youth, who as a child had lisped at his mother's knee, "without
missing a word," the formularies of the Assembly's Catechism, was now
tortured with doubt and misgiving as he strove to penetrate into and to
realise the meaning of the phrases his memory so tenaciously retained.
And the more he read and the more he pondered the more disquieted he
became.
"Having," he says, "read many books of _experiences_, and, in
consequence, believing that a _new birth_, produced by the immediate
agency of the Spirit of God, was necessary to salvation, and not being
able to satisfy myself that I _had_ experienced anything of the kind,
I felt occasionally such distress of mind as it is not in my power to
describe, and which I still look back upon with horror.
Notwithstanding I had nothing very material to reproach myself with, I
often concluded that God had forsaken me, and that mine was like the
case of Francis Spira, to whom, as he imagined, repentance and
salvation were denied. In that state of mind I remember reading the
account of the man in the iron cage in the _Pilgrim's Progress_ with
the greatest perturbation."
"I imagine," he continues, "that even these conflicts of mind were not
without their use, as they led me to think habitually of God and a
future state. And though my feelings were then, no doubt, too full of
terror, what remained of them was a deep reverence for divine things,
and in time a pleasing satisfaction which can never be effaced, and I
hope was strengthened as I have advanced in life and acquired more
rational notions of religion. The remembrance, however, of what I
sometimes felt in that state of ignorance and darkness gives me a
peculiar sense of the value of rational principles of religion, and of
which I can give but an imperfect description to others."
At the time he was greatly distressed that he could not feel a proper
repentance for the sin of Adam, taking it for granted, he says, that
without _this_ it could not be forgiven him. The fact was that, under
the influence of his friends, Haggerstone and Walker, he was insensibly
following Baxter in attempting to reconcile the doctrines of Arminius
and Calvin, and he ended by embracing those of Arminius. It was
repugnant to his sense of equity and justice that, in the words of his
Catechism, "All mankind, by the fall of our first parents, lost
communion with God, are under his wrath and curse, and so made liable to
all miseries in this life, to death itself, and to the pains of hell for
ever."
His first trial of faith came when he applied for admission as a
communicant in the congregation which he had always attended. The old
minister was willing enough to receive him, but the elders, who had the
government of the church, discovering this unsoundness on the subject of
the sin of Adam, stoutly refused to sanction his admission.
Whilst the taint of heresy appears not to have greatly distressed the
worthy Mrs Keighley, it doubtless added to her difficulties in shaping
his course towards the ministry. In the natural order of things he was
to have been sent to the academy at Mile End, a hot-bed of Calvinism,
then under the care of Dr Cawder.
"But," he says, "being at that time an Arminian, I resolutely opposed
it, especially upon finding that if I went thither, besides giving an
_experience_, I must subscribe my assent to ten printed articles of
the strictest Calvinistic faith, and repeat it every six months."
It now looked as if the idea of the ministry was to be given up for good
and all, and given up it probably would have been but for the
intercession of Mr Kirkby, who strongly recommended that he should be
placed under the care of the good and learned Dr Doddridge.
"Mr Kirby," says Priestley, "had received a good education himself,
was a good classical scholar, and had no opinion of the mode of
education among the very orthodox Dissenters, and being fond of me, he
was desirous of my having every advantage that could be procured for
me. My good aunt, not being a bigoted Calvinist, entered into his
views."
Priestley had another ally in his step-mother, for his father had
married again. She was a woman of good sense as well as of religion, and
had been sometime housekeeper to Dr Doddridge, of whom she had a high
opinion, and had always recommended his academy.
To Dr Doddridge, however, he was not destined to go. That eminent divine
was in the last stages of the malady to which he eventually succumbed,
and he died at Lisbon in the October of 1751.