But it was to bring these things about, and to enforce the recognition of these truths, that Joseph Priestley laboured. If the nineteenth century is other and better than the eighteenth, it is, in great measure, to him, and to such men as he, that we owe the change. If the twentieth century is to be better than the nineteenth, it will be because there are among us men who walk in Priestley's footsteps. Such men are not those whom their own generation delights to honour; such men, in fact, rarely trouble themselves about honour, but ask, in another spirit than Falstaff's, "What is honour? Who hath it? He that died o' Wednesday." But whether Priestley's lot be theirs, and a future generation, in justice and in gratitude, set up their statues; or whether their names and fame are blotted out from remembrance, their work will live as long as time endures. To all eternity, the sum of truth and right will have been increased by their means; to all eternity, falsehood and injustice will be the weaker because they have lived. * * * * * Footnotes: [1] "Quasi cursores, vitai lampada tradunt."--LUCR. _De Rerum Nat_. ii. 78. [2] _Life and Correspondence of Dr. Priestley_, by J. T. Rutt. Vol. I. p. 50. [3] _Autobiography_, §§ 100, 101. [4] See _The Life of Mary Anne Schimmelpenninck_. Mrs. Schimmelpenninck (_née_ Galton) remembered Priestley very well, and her description of him is worth quotation:--"A man of admirable simplicity, gentleness and kindness of heart, united with great acuteness of intellect. I can never forget the impression produced on me by the serene expression of his countenance. He, indeed, seemed present with God by recollection, and with man by cheerfulness. I remember that, in the assembly of these distinguished men, amongst whom Mr. Boulton, by his noble manner, his fine countenance (which much resembled that of Louis XIV.), and princely munificence, stood pre-eminently as the great Mecaenas; even as a child, I used to feel, when Dr. Priestley entered after him, that the glory of the one was terrestrial, that of the other celestial; and utterly far as I am removed from a belief in the sufficiency of Dr. Priestley's theological creed, I cannot but here record this evidence of the eternal power of any portion of the truth held in its vitality." [5] Even Mrs. Priestley, who might be forgiven for regarding the destroyers of her household gods with some asperity, contents herself, in writing to Mrs. Barbauld, with the sarcasm that the Birmingham people "will scarcely find so many respectable characters, a second time, to make a bonfire of." [6] _Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air_, vol. ii. p. 31. [7] _Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air_, vol. ii. pp. 34, 35. [8] _Ibid_. vol. i. p. 40. [9] _Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air_, vol. ii. p. 48. [10] _Ibid_. p. 55. [11] _Ibid_. p. 60. The italics are Priestley's own.