THE HESPERIAN.
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world, but all of Europe. In 1789 he settled in Birmingham,
where he was pastor of a dissenting congregation, yet he
proceeded with his philosophical and theological lcscarchcs.
While in Europe he was scoffed at as being a Christian,
while at home he was branded as an atheist. To escape
the latter imputation, he wrote his "Disquisition relating to
matter and spirit." In 1782 Dr. Priestly published a history
of the corruptions of Christianity, a work which led to the
most exciting controversy in the latter half of last century,
and in 1785, the work itself was burned by the hangmen in
the city of Dort. However, not daunted, he followed up
this work by a ''History of Early Opinions concerning Jesus
Christ." He was soon involved in a literary warfare. Be
sides all this Priestly was as deeply concerned in ecclesiasti
cal and civil questions. He believed firmly in religious lib
erty. He wrote twenty vojumes upon this subject. Also in
politics he was partial to the French revolution and as he was
a man of strong speech and stinging pen he exci ted the
hatred of those who opposed him. The lories so excited the
people against him that he was attacked in the street. Still
he did not yield, though riots occurred and his life was
threatened. Finally.in July, 1790, an angry mob entered his
home and set fire to his library and costly manuscripts. He.
fled for his life to Hackney. But his sentiments were un
changed and he was none the less outspoken because of this
abuse; at last thinking himself insecure from popular rage
he embarked for America.
In the United States he was received with enthusiasm, as
a martyr to republican principles. He was offered a profes
sor's chair in Philadelphia, but he declined this, for he mod
estly felt the want of an early systematic training in the
sciences. He retired to Northumberland and resumed his
studies. But here, again, his Unitarian belief as well as his
political opinions brought him into trouble, and his later
writings were mostly in defense of his doctrines and discov
eries. Until his death on February 6, 1804, he continued to
devote his whole attention to his literary and scientific pur
suits with as much ardor as he had shown at any period of
his active life. On his deathbed he expressed the satisfaction
he derived from the consciousness of having spent a useful life,
and the confidence he felt in a future state in a happy
immortality. The French were the first after his death to
honor his memory. At Paris, his Eloge was read by Cuvicr
before the national institute.
Priestly was a man of irreproachable moral character,
remarkable for zeal, truth and patience. In the world he
appears to have been fearless in proclaiming his convictions,
however negative. Few men have written so much or with
such facility. He leaves between seventy and eighty volumes
monuments of his life work. Yet, in spite of this enorm
ous result, he seldom spent more than six or eight hours a
day in any labor which required mental exertion. He had a
habit of regularity which is worthy of imitation. He never
read a book without determining in his own mind when he
would finish it. At the beginning of every year he arranged
the plan of his literary and scientific pursuits.
As a man of science Dr. Priestly has left his mark upon
the age. But besides being a scientist he aimed at being a
metaphysician, theologian, politician, classical scholar and
historian.
Prof. Loisettc's new system of memory training, taught by
correspondence at 237 Fifth Ave., New York, seems to supply
a general want. He has had two classes at Yale of 200 each,
350 at Oberlin college, 300 at Norwich, 100 Columbia Law
students, 400 at Wellesley College, and 400 at University of
Pennsylvania, etc. Such patronage and the endorsement of
such men as Mark Twain, Dr. Buckley, Prof. William R.
Harper, of Yale, etc., place the claim of Prof. Loisette
upon the highest ground.
LITERARY.
He made more use of his brains than of his bookshelves,
thought for himself, and said that if he read as much as
other men he should have been as ignorant as they. Life of
Thomas Hobbes.
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Through the favor of a friend we had the pleasure of read
ing a late number ol the Cape Times, a South African weekly.
In the hope of giving a small amount of information about
this distant colony of our distant relatives, we give a few
items culled from its twenty-four pages. We need not feel
shame at our ignorance of the affairs of the colonists, for
they arc evidently in deeper darkness as to ours.
The Cape is not a settlement of thick headcu Boers and
half civilized diamond and gold hunters, a place where life
insurance companies arc afraid to issue policies. It is.an
intelligent and orderly community, with a purely British
prodigality as to government officials. It has its university,
which offers larger scholarships than any in England. It has
its military college, well endowed and well attended, the
students of which have just taken a ten days' outing. It has
its magazine, the South Africa. From the Times we give
the following, as proof that the English bigotry and sublime
recklessness as to facts arc not coufined to the little island,
but are characteristics of the colonists as well. It is clipped
from a discussion of "Manners and History," which seems
to have been going on for some time. "But when the
southern states sought to exercise their rights the more pow
erful northerners resolved on ignoring them and maintaining
the union as the source of the strength of their country.
They jumped upon state rights and earned their view with
the sword; and the great bulk of the Irish settled in America,
especially in New York, raised whole regiments towards
trampling out the independence of the southern states and
and maintaining the union."
The Blackwood for December has just come to us. It is a
good number, much better than the average. One of the
articles that bring up its standing is the one, the first of a
scries, on Caisar Borgia. This seems to us a very interesting
subject, and so it has to many ethers, juJging from the num
ber of references to it that we find in literature. Caesar was
a genius in his way, his methods of killing men wcie so
unique. But we have not space at present to discuss him;
we can but mutely admire. Then there is a very fair paper
on "Literary Voluptuaries." The author of this evidently
tries to be modest, for his name is not given, but he cannot
leave that little habit of the British of making "we" play
a prominent part. He talks on his subject for a time in a
way that is really charming, but he finds himself obliged to
tell us of the books the illustrious "we" liked in our youth,
moreover, the exact way in which "we" liked them. Now all
this would have been interesting enough if we had louud it
among the Forum's "Books That Have Helped Me" papers,
but it became somewhat tiresome here, after we had been
reading the interesting matter at ihe beginning of the paper.
Distinguished persons with "an ill-regulated passion for
reading" hold our attention as the private preferences of an
incognito "we" cannot.
It continues to be a mystery to us why Harper's has selected
a writer like Laurence Mutton to supply it with literary notes
while there is such talent at large as that of the literary edi
tor of the Hksi'ERIAN; yet we confess to a faint, sickly sort