thousand of them have been sold in this neighbourhood in a few weeks, and we are printing a new edition of two thousand more. If they be all sold, nothing can be got by them; and persons buy them by dozens and hundreds to give away. I hope they will do good. I am not at liberty to say more than I have done about the Repository;' which I shall not shut up hastily. I shall at least finish this volume, and to give it more time, shall do it in shilling numbers, at considerable intervals. I cannot but be pleased with your favourable opinion of my writings, and am, dear Sir, yours sincerely, J. PRIESTLEY."

4. "DEAR SIR,

Leeds, April 20, 1772.

"I very much blame myself for not acknowledging the receipt of your paper for the Repository,' which I herewith return, not because I dislike it, for I greatly value every thing I have yet seen of yours; but because, being obliged to print but little, I am willing that every article be as original as possible; and though your paper be sufficiently original for any other publication, it appears to me to be hardly so for this. I hope it will not be lost; but that you will find a place for it in some future Work, which I am glad to hear that you are meditating. I cannot say, that, upon reflection, I am much satisfied with my interpretation of John 6. and therefore shall be glad to see yours. In a late publication, intituled, a' Familiar Illustration of certain passages of Scripture,' and which completes the scheme of the Appeal,' I have given a different sense, which I borrowed from Dawson's* book. I shall order Mr. Johnson to send that piece, and also a copy of my Institutes,' and 'Scripture Catechism,' to you. I have had from him your late piece, and the new edition of your former Work, but have not yet found time to look into them. Indeed I am but just returned from London, where I received it, and I have also but just met with your second Letter. Having stayed a week longer than I proposed, my wife did not send me the letter to London.

"I shall lose at least £30 by the third volume of the Repository,' but I should stand some chance of being indemnified, if I could reprint the first volume. Many persons will not buy because they cannot have complete sets. Mentioning this to Dr. Fleming †, he advised to print the first volume by subscription for sets, or for that volume only, and I am much inclined

Of whom see the "Literary Anecdotes," vol. VII. pp. 105-459.-See also, in the Fourth Volume of these "Illustrations," pp. 838, 839, two Letters from Dr. Priestley to Dr. Calder.

+ Dr. Caleb Fleming, a conscientious Protestant Dissenter, many years the Pastor of an Independent Congregation in Bartholomew Close, and at Pinners Hall, is thus characterized on his Tomb in Bunhill Fields:

Under this stone are interred the Remains

Of the Rev. Caleb Fleming,

many years Pastor of a congregation of
Protestant Dissenters

to take his advice. Still I must make a pause in the publication, but shall resume it whenever the sale of the three volumes shall give me sufficient encouragement to do it. Charistes had promised an answer to Bereanus, and I have received one from the Author of the Essay on Praying in the name of Christ, signed Philalethes.

"I think myself honoured by your approbation of the Appeal,' &c. As the scheme is now completed, I shall print a new and more elegant edition of the whole, in one book, and wish you would point out any improvements, especially in the last publication. I am with the greatest esteem and affection, dear Sir, your friend and brother, J. PRIESTLEY."

5. "DEAR SIR,

London, Feb. 19, 1774*.

"Dr. Kippis † has undertaken to review the Repository,' and give a particular account of each article in it; and he thinks it would gratify the publick, and facilitate the revival of the scheme, if the principal writers would authorize him to give their real names. As the Work was much indebted to you, I hope you will do it this further favour. All that I have written to on the subject have consented, and I hope you will not make any objection. I inclose a small piece I have just published, and about which my friends are much divided. Some entirely approve of it, others hesitate, but the majority laugh at me. I know you will peruse it with candour, and I shall be glad to have your sentiments of it. We have just printed a third edition of my 'Discourse on the Lord's Supper.' The third volume of 'Institutes' is in the press, and I am preparing a new and complete edition of the Appeal,' and other small pamphlets.

"If you will be so good as to favour me with a speedy answer, please to inclose your Letter in another cover, directed to Lord Shelburne, London. I am, with the greatest respect, dear Sir, "Yours sincerely, J. PRIESTLEY."

He was distinguished for his piety and integrity,
and his indefatigable attention to the study of the

sacred writings.

He was a steadfast assertor of the rights of private judgment;
and considered the interposition of human power and authority
in matters of religion

as the great source of the corruptions of Christianity. Always animated by a warm zeal for the interests of religious liberty, he was equally influenced by a firm attachment to the rights of his country and of human nature. He died July 21st 1779,

in the 81st year of his age.

For further particulars of Dr. Fleming, see Wilson's Dissenting Churches, vol. II. p. 283.

* See the Monthly Review, 1770, vol. XLIII. p. 240, and 1776, vol. LIV. p. 134.

† Of whom, see the "Literary Anecdotes," vol. VII. pp. 217. 309. At whose mansion, in Berkeley-square, Dr. Priestley undertook the office of Librarian.

6. "DEAR SIR, London, March 23, 1774. "I shall be sorry if the dropping of the Repository* ' should entirely put an end to our correspondence. Your acceptance of the enclosed, and your remarks on the subject, will oblige me much. I was in hopes that I could have made Evesham in my way from Leeds to Calne, but found that I could not, without putting myself to a good deal more expence, in the manner in which I was obliged to travel. It would have been a very great satisfaction to me to have had an interview with you, and am, dear Sir, your obliged friend, and humble servant, J. PRIESTLEY."

Letter from the Rev. Dr. JOHN CALDER to a Dissenting Minister in Northumberland.

"DEAR SIR,

Scotch-yard, Bush-lane, May 27, 1772. "Prompted by some things dropped in the Debate upon the Petitioning Clergy's application, and sundry other circumstances of a nature and length improper for such letters as in the present multiplicity of my engagements, I am obliged to deal in, your Brethren here have thought this a proper time to apply to Parliament for relieving Dissenting Ministers and Schoolmasters from an obligation to subscribe any of the articles of a Religious Establishment, of which they cannot approve, from which they derive no emolument, and with which they desire no connection. For reasons too tedious to mention, but of which we could not resist the validity, we have been diverted from the first intended mode of application; which was to have been by a Petition subscribed by us and our Brethren over the Kingdom, and by the advice, and in hopes of the support, or at least of the acquiescence of Administration, we have adopted the measures that we are now pursuing. The general body of Dissenting Ministers of all denominations here, have agreed with a surprising and uncommon unanimity in the propriety and importance of the present application. A motion will be made before you can receive this, for leave to bring in our Bill. The issue of it, as in all such cases, is uncertain; the Bishops, avowed and eternal enemies to reformation and liberty, are, as we expected, almost unanimous in their opposition to it, but we have many relative grounds to hope for success. If our Bill should ever pass without alteration, it will not by any means procure us an equal

*See a censure on this Work in Gent. Mag. vol. LV. p. 112; a Defence of it, pp. 196. 256. See also pp. 256. 328.

† See before, p. 411.

This Letter is a curious specimen of the unremitted ardour of sectarian zeal, and bigotted animosity against the heads of the Established . Church.

toleration, or, indeed, to many of us, any legal toleration at all. The time is yet to come when we may flatter ourselves with the hopes of an equal toleration. There are so many statutes that affect Dissenters only, in common with their fellow-citizens; and we have the callous details of so many Bishops to eat through before we can come at it, that, for my own share, I despair of its ever being obtained; at present, however, we are convinced that it is impossible to obtain it, and that it would be impolitic to attempt it. A time may come, and when we least expect it, that this State will be so wise, and so just, as to dissolve its present alliance, and distribute the appointments for religious teachers, and the places for public worship with impartiality to all its Christian subjects and ministers. Meanwhile, if we can but carry what we now desire, it will be a real benefit to us all; to many of us it will be an entire relief; and to such of us as it will be no relief, it will be a resource, not to be obtained when needed, if ever times should come when unjust and tyrannical statutes yet unrepealed, and yet unrepealable, may be carried into rigorous execution. The justice of our cause, the good sense, the increased and increasing knowledge of our countrymen, sound policy, if yet there be any thing of it remaining in this kingdom, and the promises of many who are, or profess themselves, disposed to befriend it, flatter us with the hopes of being successful in our present application. In this event you and most of us will be made easy and secure; and though I, and many, many more, may have no legal toleration any more than we have now, yet we shall have a legal security to defy their reducing us to such indigence and distress, as our ejected predecessors were reduced to, who by being tyrannically excluded from every employment by which they could have earned an honest livelihood, were cruelly forced into a state of exile and complicated misery. The times, I hope, are far remote, and much beyond our possibility to reach them, when this may happen, but at least the thing that has been, it is that which may be; the thing which has been done, is that which may be done, &c.' Our Bill is too long to transcribe, and our case is not yet to be published, and all information about them is given at present only viva voce by such as are deputed for the purpose to wait on such people as it is thought proper to apply to on the occasion. I am not, nor is any of us yet, permitted to be so explicit in our correspondence as the inwardness of friendship, or an inclination to be so good an one, would naturally lead me, if I had leisure to be. But so soon as it is allowable, I will transmit you as much further information about the affair as my present engagements will permit. We are now making what interest we can with every body who has it in his power to serve our cause, and have reason to be satisfied with the great trouble we have had in this way. What I have written will enable you to think and to speak to our friends properly on this subject. I am not, I must own, at pre

sent so disengaged or so much at leisure as that I could have spared an hour to write to you merely with this view. But recollecting your intimacy with Mr. Ayre, the services you had done him, and knowing as I do that your heart will be warmly interested in this matter, it occurred to my thoughts that I owed much to our common cause and our old friendship as to enable you to write to him properly your thoughts on this subject, and to solicit his attention to our Bill. If you think well of it, and can easily do it, I should be glad, hurried as I am, to wait upon him with any other of our brethren here, to give him fuller information on this subject than I can at present enable you to do by letter. In this case you will be so good as to send us one of your most graceful introductions. On the plea, too, of my engagements, for I assure you it is no pretext, I must take the liberty to request to show this to our common friend, Mr. Lowtheon, to whom I beg to be kindly remembered, and to ask of him in my name, and in that of his brethren here, that he will concur with us in forwarding our common cause, particularly by his own application to Sir W. Blackett and Mr. Ridley, or otherwise, as he shall judge best; and by sending to me, or any correspondent he has among us here, such an introduction to them, or to either of them, as may enable us to apply to them more advantageously, I am persuaded your own interest in this business will reconcile you to the trouble of a pro renuta journey to Newcastle, which you may charge to the general account of our interests. Mr. Lindsey and I being both Unitarians, can get no benefit from the present toleration, nor from any better one that we can ever hope in our time to see; we must live by connivance, and at the mercy of Government. But heretic, arch-heretic as he is, I know both his head and his heart must constrain him to join with the omnigatherum here, in endeavouring to obtain a signal benefit for you and his other more orthodox brethren, and to secure some small resource to preserve himself, and me and many others, who, for want of the legal length and breadth of their faith, must, the church says, perish everlastingly hereafter, from starving miserably here. I am sure he will rather run the risk of being damned for the want of Calvinistical faith, than of being damned for the want of Christian charity. Even you, my friend, do not, I am afraid, hold undefiled all the tremendous faith of the genuine supralapsarian system of the eternally destined fall of man, and all its glorious et cæteras; yet, as you have as much charity as any, and more faith than some of your neighbours, you may surely be at least as unconcerned as we are about what their reverences may say about our state hereafter, and join issues with us in endeavouring to make it as good as we can here. I hope, if our Bill miscarries by the opposition of the Prelates, the Parliament will either pass an Act to make them infallible, or permit us to expose, as we please, their fallibility; and that, if we must have a bad toleration, they will grant us the