erred 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