Priestley was a sincere lover of literature, and no man was more sensible of its value to the moral and intellectual life of communities. In his own case he had derived so much benefit from a ready access to books which were beyond his means to purchase that he was ever willing to lend himself to any well-considered attempt to open the storehouses of literature, in its widest sense, as freely as possible, and to do all in his power to foster the love of reading and the spirit of inquiry among all classes of persons. In each succeeding situation—Needham, Nantwich, Warrington, Leeds—he left evidences of his efforts to make books as accessible as possible to the community of which he was for the time a member. Leeds still enjoys a striking example of these efforts in its proprietary library, and much of its reputation and character is owing to the wise and enlightened spirit which he infused into its administration. As to the library at Birmingham, he eventually succeeded in giving to it, as Hutton says, “that stability and method without which no institution can prosper.” We are further told that “the Society are under many and great obligations to the learned Doctor; it was him who altered its original plan and put it on a more extensive scale; he amended and enlarged the laws and has paid a great attention to its welfare and growing interests.” Priestley’s action, and more especially the catholicity he displayed in the selection and admission of such books as in his judgment tended to the spread of rationalism, whether in religion or in politics, drew down upon him the wrath of the Court party, and more particularly of the beneficed clergy of the town and district, and the library was vigorously denounced as “a fountain of erroneous opinions, spreading infidelity, heresy and schism through the whole neighbourhood.” This catholicity is reflected in almost every circumstance of his daily life. “If liberality of sentiment,” he wrote on one occasion, “be the result of general and various acquaintance, few men now living have had a better opportunity of acquiring it than myself. This has arisen from the great variety of my pursuits, which has naturally brought me acquainted with persons of all principles and characters. One day, I remember, I dined in company with an eminent popish priest; the evening I spent with philosophers, determined unbelievers; the next morning I breakfasted, at his own request, with a most zealously orthodox clergyman, Mr Toplady, and the rest of that day I spent with Dr Jebb, Mr Lindsey and some others, men in all respects after my own heart. I have since enriched my acquaintance with that of some very intelligent Jews; and my opponents, who consider me already as half a Mahometan, will not suppose that I can have any objection to the society of persons of that religion.”