“This practice I began very early, and continued it until I was able from the heads of a discourse to supply the rest myself. For, not troubling myself to commit to memory much of the amplification, and writing at home almost as much as I had heard, I insensibly acquired a habit of composing with great readiness, and from this practice I believe I have derived great advantage through life, composition seldom employing so much time as would be necessary to write in long hand anything I have published.” As regards the verses, he says:— “I was myself far from having any pretension to the character of a poet, but in the early part of my life I was a great versifier, and this, I believe, as well as my custom of writing after preachers, mentioned before, contributed to the ease with which I always wrote prose.” If Priestley was not himself a poet, he was at least the cause of poetry in another. Miss Aikin once told him that it was the perusal of some verses of his that first induced her fledgling muse to soar—so that, he adds, “this country is in some measure indebted to me for one of the best poets it can boast of.” No example of Priestley’s abilities as a “versifier” has come down to us, but in that dainty little sketch of the Warrington society, by Miss Lucy Aikin, from which we have already quoted, allusion is made to his accomplishment. “Both _bouts rimés_ and _vers de société_ were in fashion with the set. Once it was their custom to slip anonymous pieces into Mrs Priestley’s work-bag. One ‘copy of verses,’ a very eloquent one, puzzled all guessers a long time; at length it was traced to Dr Priestley’s self.” To the man of science the special interest of Priestley’s connection with Leeds arises from the fact that he began there that fruitful series of inquiries, relating to what he called “the doctrine of air,” which eventually raised him to the position of one of the greatest chemical discoverers of his time. The house in which he first lived whilst at Leeds was in Meadow Lane and adjoined the public brew house of Jakes and Nell. He was thereby led, in the outset, to amuse himself by making experiments on the “fixed air,” or carbonic acid, which is largely produced in the process of fermentation. When he removed to his second house in Basinghall Street, on the site where the schools now stand, he was under the necessity of making the fixed air for himself; and, as he distinctly and faithfully notes in his various publications on the subject, he was led to make one experiment after another until he became, what he does not state, the greatest master of pneumatic chemistry of his age.