connection with the new dissenting-college established at that place. His mind, by its native elasticity, recovered from the shock of his cruel losses, and he resumed his usual labours.

This was, however, far from being a season of tranquillity. Parties ran high, and events were daily taking place calculated to agitate the mind, and inspire varied emotions of tumultuous expectation. Dr Priestley, however he might be regarded by the friends of government, had no reason to entertain apprehensions for his personal safety on the part of authority; but he was conscious that he lay under a load of public odium and suspicion, and he was perpetually harassed by the petty malignity of bigotry. Having so lately been the victim of a paroxysm of popular rage, he could not be perfectly easy in the vicinity of a vast metropolis, where any sudden impulse given to the tumultuous mass might bring irresistible destruction upon the heads of those who should be pointed out as objects of vengeance. It is not, therefore, to be wondered at, that he looked towards an asylum in a country to which he had always shown a friendly attachment, and which was in possession of all the blessings of civil and religious liberty. Some family-reasons also enforced this choice of a new situation. He took leave of his native country in 1794, and embarked for North America. He carried with him the sincere regrets of a great number of venerating and affectionate friends and admirers; and his departure, while celebrated as a triumph by unfeeling bigots, was lamented by the moderate and impartial as a kind of stigma on the country, which, by its ill treatment, had expelled a citizen whom it might enrol among its proudest boasts.

Northumberland, a town in the inland parts of the state of Pennsylvania, was the place in which he fixed his residence. It was selected on account of the purchase of landed property in its neighbourhood; otherwise, its remoteness from the sea-ports,-its want of many of the comforts of civilized life, and of all the helps to studious and scientific pursuit, rendered it a peculiarly undesirable abode for one of Dr Priestley's habits and employments. In America he was received, if not with the ardour of sympathy and admiration, yet with general respect; nor were the angry contests of party able lastingly to deprive him of the esteem due to his character. If he had any sanguine hopes of diffusing his religious principles over the new continent; or if his friends expected that the brilliancy of his philosophical reputation should place him in a highly conspicuous light among a people yet in the infancy of mental culture, such expectations were certainly disappointed. He was, however, heard as a preacher by some of the most distinguished members of congress; and he was offered, but declined, the place of chemical professor at Philadelphia. It became his great object to enable himself in his retirement at Northumberland to renew that course of philosophical experiment, and especially that train of theological writing, which had occupied so many of the best years of his life. By indefatigable* pains he got together a valuable apparatus and well-furnished library, and cheerfully returned to his former employments. By many new experiments on the constitution of airs, he became more and more fixed in his belief of the phlogistic theory, and in his opposition to the new French chemical system of which he lived to be the sole opponent of The results of several of his inquiries on these topics were given, both in separate publications, and in the American Philosophical

note.

transactions.' The liberal contributions of his friends in England enabled him to commence the printing of two extensive works, on which he was zealously bent,-a Church History, and an Exposition of the Scriptures; and through the progress of his final decline he unremittingly urged their completion. He died on the 6th of February, 1804. "In Dr Priestley's mental constitution," says his friend Aikin, “were united ardour and vivacity of intellect, with placidity and mildness of temper. With a zeal for the propagation of truth, that would have carried him through fire and water, he joined a calm patience, an unruffled serenity, which rendered him proof against all obstructions and disappointments. It has been suggested, that a man so much in earnest, and so vigorous in controversial warfare, could not fail of being a persecutor, should his party gain the superiority; but this was an erroneous supposition. Not only were the rights of private judgment rendered sacred to him by every principle of his understanding, but his heart would not have suffered him to have injured his bitterest enemy. He was naturally disposed to cheerfulness, and when his mind was not occupied with serious thoughts, could unbend, with even playful ease and negligence, in the private circle of friends. In large and mixed companies he usually spoke little. In the domestic relations of life he was uniformly kind and affectionate. His parental feelings-alas! how keenly were they excited!-were those of the tenderest and best of fathers. Not malice itself could ever fix a stain on his private conduct, or impeach his integrity. Such was the man who adds one more imperishable name to the illustrious dead of his country."

Professor Playfair has, we think, furnished a very judicious estimate of Dr Priestley's intellectual character in the following words: "On the whole," says Mr Playfair, "from Dr Friestley's conversation, and from his writings, one is not much disposed to consider him as a person of first-rate abilities. The activity, rather than the force, of his genius, is the object of admiration. He is indefatigable in making experiments, and he compensates, by the number of them, for the unskilfulness with which they are often contrived. Though little skilled in mathematics, he has written on optics with tolerable success; and though but moderately versed in chemistry, he has done very considerable service to that science. If we view him as a critic, a metaphysician and a divine, we must confine ourselves to a more scanty praise. In his controversy with Dr Reid, though he has said many things that are true, he has shown himself wholly incapable of understanding the principal point in debate: and when he has affirmed that the vague and unsatisfactory speculations of Hartley have thrown as much light on the nature of man, as the reasonings of Sir Isaac Newton did on the nature of body, he can hardly be allowed to understand in what true philosophy consists. to his theology, it is enough to say that he denies the immateriality of the soul, though he contends for its immortality, and ranges himself on the side of Christianity. These inconsistencies and absurdities will, perhaps, deprive him of the name of a philosopher, but he will still merit the name of a useful and diligent experimenter."

As

connection with the new dissenting-college established at that place. His mind, by its native elasticity, recovered from the shock of his cruel losses, and he resumed his usual labours.

This was, however, far from being a season of tranquillity. Parties ran high, and events were daily taking place calculated to agitate the mind, and inspire varied emotions of tumultuous expectation. Dr Priestley, however he might be regarded by the friends of government, had no reason to entertain apprehensions for his personal safety on the part of authority; but he was conscious that he lay under a load of public odium and suspicion, and he was perpetually harassed by the petty malignity of bigotry. Having so lately been the victim of a paroxysm of popular rage, he could not be perfectly easy in the vicinity of a vast metropolis, where any sudden impulse given to the tumultuous mass might bring irresistible destruction upon the heads of those who should be pointed out as objects of vengeance. It is not, therefore, to be wondered at, that he looked towards an asylum in a country to which he had always shown a friendly attachment, and which was in possession of all the blessings of civil and religious liberty. Some family-reasons also enforced this choice of a new situation. He took leave of his native country in 1794, and embarked for North America. He carried with him the sincere regrets of a great number of venerating and affectionate friends and admirers; and his departure, while celebrated as a triumph by unfeeling bigots, was lamented by the moderate and impartial as a kind of stigma on the country, which, by its ill treatment, had expelled a citizen whom it might enrol among its proudest boasts.

Northumberland, a town in the inland parts of the state of Pennsylvania, was the place in which he fixed his residence. It was selected on account of the purchase of landed property in its neighbourhood; otherwise, its remoteness from the sea-ports,-its want of many of the comforts of civilized life, and of all the helps to studious and scientific pursuit, rendered it a peculiarly undesirable abode for one of Dr Priestley's habits and employments. In America he was received, if not with the ardour of sympathy and admiration, yet with general respect; nor were the angry contests of party able lastingly to deprive him of the esteem due to his character. If he had any sanguine hopes of diffusing his religious principles over the new continent; or if his friends expected that the brilliancy of his philosophical reputation should place him in a highly conspicuous light among a people yet in the infancy of mental culture, such expectations were certainly disappointed. He was, however, heard as a preacher by some of the most distinguished members of congress; and he was offered, but declined, the place of chemical professor at Philadelphia. It became his great object to enable himself in bis retirement at Northumberland to renew that course of philosophical experiment, and especially that train of theological writing, which had occupied so many of the best years of his life. By indefatigable" pains he got together a valuable apparatus and well-furnished library, and cheerfully returned to his former employments. By many new experiments on the constitution of airs, he became more and more fixed in his belief of the phlogistic theory, and in his opposition to the new French chemical system of which he lived to be the sole opponent of The results of several of his inquiries on these topics were given, both in separate publications, and in the American Philosophical

note.

cessive visitations of the plague in 1760, 61, and 62, qualified him in a peculiar manner for writing a history of that direful distemper,—an advantage of which he happily survived long after to avail himself.

After a residence of about twenty years at Aleppo, he resolved to revisit his native country. He travelled chiefly over land; and he rendered his journey through Italy and France interesting and useful, not only to himself, but eventually to his countrymen, by minutely examining all the principal lazarettos in those countries, and inquiring into their regulations and general management. Soon after his return to England

in 1772 he went to Edinburgh, where he remained some time, having views of settling as a physician in that city. Afterward, however, by the advice of the late Dr Fothergill, he removed to London, on account of the wider sphere it offered for professional exertions.

He remained in London till the latter end of the year 1781, when affection for his brother, Mr Claud Russell, whose precarious state of health at that time required constant and particular attention, induced him to sacrifice his flattering prospects in the capital, and accompany his brother to the East Indies. There he resided principally at Vizagapatam, his brother having been appointed to the highest office in that settlement. His time and attention were, in a great measure, devoted to the natural history of that country, which had been hitherto but little explored. Dr Koenig, indeed, had been for some years employed by the East India company in the botanical department: and Dr Russell has, in a proface which he wrote to the first fasciculus of Coromandel Plants,' borne ample testimony to the zeal and success of that botanist. On Dr Koenig's death at Jagrenatporum, in June, 1785, the governor of Madras communicated to Dr Russell, in very flattering terms, his wish that he should accept of the appointment of botanist or naturalist to the Company. Fortunately for science, the doctor accepted the offer, through the persuasion of his brother Mr Claud Russell. This was in November, 1785. During the three following years Dr Russell was indefatigable in his researches, turning to the best account the facilities afforded by his appointment, not confining his attention to the vegetable kingdom, but eagerly collecting, figuring, and describing the fishes and the serpents of the country.

While in India, Dr Russell occasionally employed himself in arranging the ample and valuable materials concerning the plague, which he had long before collected in Syria. In 1787 he sent home a fair copy of his labours, and solicited the friendly revisal of his eminent literary cotemporaries, Dr William Robertson, Dr Adam Ferguson, and Dr Adam Smith.

In January, 1789, Dr Russell embarked for England with his brother and family. He at this time deposited his collection of specimens of fishes, and his Indian herbarium, in the Company's museum at Madras.

In 1791 his Treatise on the Plague' appeared in two volumes quarto. In this valuable and beautiful work, he first gives an account of the plague at Aleppo in the years 1760, 1761, and 1762; then a medical account of the disease; this is followed by essays on pestilential contagion, on quarantines, and on lazarettos; with remarks on the police to be observed in the time of the plague: several interesting cases of patients labouring under the disease are given in detail; and a register of the weather during the pestilential season is subjoined.

Patrick Russell.

BORN A. D. 1726.-DIED A. D. 1805.

PATRICK RUSSELL, M. D. was a younger son of John Russell, Esq. of Braidshaw, in Mid Lothian, by his third wife, Mary, daughter of the Reverend Mr Anderson, minister at West Calder. He was born at Edinburgh on the 6th of February, 1726. He received the rudiments of his classical education at the High-school of that city, and studied at the university there several years.

Dr Alexander Russell, an elder brother, had been for a considerable time in Turkey, as physician to the English factory at Aleppo. Patrick joined him there in 1750, and lived with him for several years. During this time, he applied himself with great diligence, and with remarkable success, to the acquisition of the different languages of Syria. In 1775 Dr Alexander Russell left Aleppo on his return to Britain, and his brother Patrick succeeded him as physician to the British factory. In this situation his affable and engaging disposition soon rendered him as much beloved as his predecessor had been. It endeared him no less to the Turks than to the resident Europeans. Such was the esteem he was held in by the Bashaw of Aleppo, that he was honoured with the privilege of wearing a turban,-there considered as a signal mark of distinction to a European.

Dr Alexander Russell having in 1756 published his 'Natural History of Aleppo,' sent a copy to his successor, with an earnest request that he would collect and send home additional information. To Patrick's own predilection for such studies was thus superadded the powerful motive of gratifying a brother, to whom he was bound by ties of esteem and gratitude as well as of affection. For many years, therefore, did he continue regularly to correspond with his brother on scientific subjects connected with the history of Syria, and to collect and transmit authentic information on a great variety of topics, in the view of correcting and enlarging a second edition.

Aleppo, it is well known, is liable to that calamitous epidemic, the plague. When the first symptoms of that scourge of human nature at any time appeared, far from shutting himself up, as was customary with Europeans, Dr Russell remained calm and collected, and displayed a steady perseverance in the discharge of his duty, which could result only from the guidance of a beneficent, courageous, and well-regulated mind. After communicating to the English consul instructions in writing for the observance of those attached to the English factory, he used to take leave of all his friends, who, at his express desire, shut themselves up within the limits of the factory, and did not suffer the least intercourse to be had with them. At the most imminent risk did Dr Russell then apply himself to the treatment of the diseased. If he was not able to arrest the progress of the malady, he had thus at least the best opportunities of investigating its nature, watching its symptoms, and trying the effects of various powerful medicines, and different modes of treatment. The correct and extensive information which he acquired by experience in this most hazardous manner, during several suc