Part 5

At Needham I was barely able with the greatest economy to keep out of debt (though this I always made a point of doing at all events) but at Nantwich my school soon enabled me to purchase a few books, and some philosophical instruments, as a small air pump, an electrical machine, &c. These I taught my scholars in the highest class to keep in order, and make use of, and by entertaining their parents and friends with experiments, in which the scholars were generally the operators, and sometimes the lecturers too, I considerably extended the reputation of my school; though I had no other object originally than gratifying my own taste. I had no leisure, however, to make any original experiments until many years after this time.

As there were few children in the congregation (which did not consist of more than sixty persons, and a great proportion of them travelling scotchmen) there was no scope for exertion with respect to my duty as a minister. I therefore contented myself with giving the people what assistance I could at their own houses, where there were young persons; and I added very few sermons to these which I had composed at Needham, where I never failed to make at least one every week.

Being boarded with Mr. Eddowes, a very sociable and sensible man, and at the same time the person of the greatest property in the congregation, and who was fond of music, I was induced to learn to play a little on the English flute, as the easiest instrument; and though I was never a proficient in it, my playing contributed more or less to my amusement many years of my life. I would recommend the knowledge and practice of music to all studious persons; and it will be better for them, if, like myself, they should have no very fine ear, or exquisite taste; as by this means they will be more easily pleased, and be less apt to be offended when the performances they hear are but indifferent.

At Nantwich I had hardly any literary acquaintance besides Mr. Brereton, a clergyman in the neighbourhood, who had a taste for astronomy, philosophy, and literature in general. I often slept at his house, in a room to which he gave my name. But his conduct afterwards was unworthy of his profession.

Of dissenting ministers I saw most of Mr. Keay of Whitchurch, and Dr. Harwood, who lived and had a school at Congleton, preaching alternately at Leek and Wheelock, the latter place about ten miles from Nantwich. Being both of us schoolmasters, and having in some respect the same pursuits, we made exchanges for the sake of spending a Sunday evening together every six weeks in the summer time. He was a good classical scholar, and a very entertaining companion.

In my congregation there was (out of the house in which I was boarded) hardly more than one family in which I could spend a leisure hour with much satisfaction, and that was Mr. James Caldwall’s, a scotchman. Indeed, several of the travelling Scotchmen who frequented the place, but made no long stay at any time, were men of very good sense; and what I thought extraordinary, not one of them was at all Calvinistical.

My engagements in teaching allowed me but little time for composing any thing while I was at Nantwich. There, however, I recomposed my Observations on the character and reasoning of the apostle Paul, as mentioned before. For the use of my school I then wrote an English grammar on a new plan, leaving out all such technical terms as were borrowed from other languages, and had no corresponding modifications in ours, as the future tense, &c. and to this I afterwards subjoined Observations for the use of proficients in the language, from the notes which I collected at Warrington; where, being tutor in the languages and Belles Letters, I gave particular attention to the English language, and intended to have composed a large treatise on the structure and present state of it. But dropping the scheme in another situation, I lately gave such parts of my collection as I had made no use of to Mr. Herbert Croft of Oxford, on his communicating to me his design of compiling a Dictionary and Grammar of our language.

Printed in 1761.

Printed in 1772 at London. His lectures on the Theory of Language and Universal Grammar were printed the same year at Warrington. David Hume was made sensible of the Gallicisms and Peculiarities of his stile by reading this Grammar; He acknowledged it to Mr. Griffith the Bookseller, who mentioned it to my father.

The academy at Warrington was instituted when I was at Needham, and Mr. Clark knowing the attention that I had given to the learned languages when I was at Daventry, had then joined with Dr. Benson and Dr. Taylor in recommending me as tutor in the languages. But Mr. (afterward Dr.) Aikin, whose qualifications were superior to mine, was justly preferred to me. However, on the death of Dr. Taylor, and the advancement of Mr. Aikin to be tutor in divinity, I was invited to succeed him. This I accepted, though my school promised to be more gainful to me. But my employment at Warrington would be more liberal, and less painful. It was also a means of extending my connections. But, as I told the persons who brought me the invitation, viz. Mr. Seddon and Mr. Holland of Bolton, I should have preferred the office of teaching the mathematics and natural philosophy, for which I had at that time a great predilection.

My removal to Warrington was in September, 1761, after a residence of just three years at Nantwich. In this new situation I continued six years, and in the second year I married a daughter of Mr. Isaac Wilkinson, an Ironmaster near Wrexham in Wales, with whose family I had became acquainted in consequence of having the youngest son, William, at my school at Nantwich. This proved a very suitable and happy connection, my wife being a woman of an excellent understanding, much improved by reading, of great fortitude and strength of mind, and of a temper in the highest degree affectionate and generous; feeling strongly for others, and little for herself. Also, greatly excelling in every thing relating to household affairs, she entirely relieved me of all concern of that kind, which allowed me to give all my time to the prosecution of my studies, and the other duties of my station. And though, in consequence of her father becoming impoverished, and wholly dependent on his children, in the latter part of his life, I had little fortune with her, I unexpectedly found a great resource in her two brothers, who had become wealthy, especially the elder of them. At Warrington I had a daughter, Sarah, who was afterwards married to Mr. William Finch of Heath-forge near Dudley.

Though at the time of my removal to Warrington I had no particular fondness for the studies relating to my profession then, I applied to them with great assiduity; and besides composing courses of Lectures on the theory of Language, and on Oratory and Criticism, on which my predecessor had lectured, I introduced lectures on history and general policy, on the laws and constitutions of England, and on the history of England. This I did in consequence of observing that, though most of our pupils were young men designed for situations in civil and active life, every article in the plan of their education was adapted to the learned professions.

In order to recommend such studies as I introduced, I composed an essay on a course of liberal education for civil and active life, with syllabuses of my three new courses of lectures; and Dr. Brown having just then published a plan of education, in which he recommended it to be undertaken by the state, I added some remarks on his treatise, shewing how inimical it was to liberty, and the natural rights of parents. This leading me to consider the subject of civil and political liberty, I published my thoughts on it, in an essay on government, which in a second edition I much enlarged, including in it what I wrote in answer to Dr. Balguy, on church authority, as well as my animadversions on Dr. Brown.

My Lectures on the theory of language and universal grammar were printed for the use of the students, but they were not published. Those on Oratory and Criticism I published when I was with Lord Shelburne, and those on History and general policy are now printed, and about to be published.

This work has been reprinted in Philadelphia with additions, particularly of a chapter on the government of the United States.

Finding no public exercises at Warrington, I introduced them there, so that afterwards every Saturday the tutors, all the students, and often strangers, were assembled to hear English and Latin compositions, and sometimes to hear the delivery of speeches, and the exhibition of scenes in plays. It was my province to teach elocution, and also Logic, and Hebrew. The first of these I retained; but after a year or two I exchanged the two last articles with Dr. Aikin for the civil law, and one year I gave a course of lectures in anatomy.

With a view to lead the students to a facility in writing English, I encouraged them to write in verse. This I did not with any design to make them poets, but to give them a greater facility in writing prose, and this method I would recommend to all tutors. 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. Mrs. Barbauld has told me that it was the perusal of some verses of mine that first induced her to write any thing in verse, so that this country is in some measure indebted to me for one of the best poets it can boast of. Several of her first poems were written when she was in my house, on occasions that occurred while she was there.

It was while I was at Warrington that I published my Chart of Biography, though I had begun to construct it at Nantwich. Lord Willoughby of Parham, who lived in Lancashire, being pleased with the idea of it, I, with his consent, inscribed it to him; but he died before the publication of it: The Chart of History, corresponding to it, I drew up some time after at Leeds.

I was in this situation when, going to London, and being introduced to Dr. Price, Mr. Canton, Dr. Watson, (the Physician,) and Dr. Franklin, I was led to attend to the subject of experimental philosophy more than I had done before; and having composed all the Lectures I had occasion to deliver and finding myself at liberty for any undertaking, I mentioned to Dr. Franklin an idea that had occurred to me of writing the history of discoveries in Electricity, which had been his favourite study. This I told him might be an useful work, and that I would willingly undertake it, provided I could be furnished with the books necessary for the purpose. This he readily undertook, and my other friends assisting him in it, I set about the work, without having the least idea of doing any thing more than writing a distinct and methodical account of all that had been done by others. Having, however, a pretty good machine, I was led, in the course of my writing the history, to endeavour to ascertain several facts which were disputed; and this led me by degrees into a large field of original experiments, in which I spared no expence that I could possibly furnish.

He always spent one month in every year in London which was of great use to him. He saw and heard a great deal. He generally made additions to his library and his chemical apparatus. A new turn was frequently given to his ideas. New and useful acquaintances were formed, and old ones confirmed.

These experiments employed a great proportion of my leisure time; and yet before the complete expiration of the year in which I gave the plan of my work to Dr. Franklin, I sent him a copy of it in print. In the same year five hours of every day were employed in lectures, public or private, and one two months vacation I spent chiefly at Bristol, on a visit to my father-in-law.

This I do not mention as a subject of boasting. For many persons have done more in the same time; but as an answer to those who have objected to some of my later writings, as hasty performances. For none of my publications were better received than this History of Electricity, which was the most hasty of them all. However, whether my publications have taken up more or less time, I am confident that more would not have contributed to their perfection, in any essential particular; and about anything farther I have never been very solicitous. My object was not to acquire the character of a fine writer, but of an useful one. I can also truly say that gain was never the chief object of any of my publications. Several of them were written with the prospect of certain loss.

During the course of my electrical experiments in this year I kept up a constant correspondence with Dr. Franklin, and the rest of my philosophical friends in London; and my letters circulated among them all, as also every part of my History as it was transcribed. This correspondence would have made a considerable volume, and it took up much time; but it was of great use with respect to the accuracy of my experiments, and the perfection of my work.

After the publication of my Chart of Biography, Dr. Percival of Manchester, then a student at Edinburgh, procured me the title of Doctor of laws from that university; and not long after my new experiments in electricity were the means of introducing me into the Royal Society, with the recommendation of Dr. Franklin, Dr. Watson, Mr. Canton, and Dr. Price.

In the whole time of my being at Warrington I was singularly happy in the society of my fellow tutors, and of Mr. Seddon, the minister of the place. We drank tea together every Saturday, and our conversation was equally instructive and pleasing. I often thought it not a little extraordinary, that four persons, who had no previous knowledge of each other, should have been brought to unite in conducting such a scheme as this, and all be zealous necessarians, as we were. We were likewise all Arians, and the only subject of much consequence on which we differed respected the doctrine of atonement, concerning which Dr. Aikin held some obscure notions. Accordingly, this was frequently the topic of our friendly conversations. The only Socinian in the neighbourhood was Mr. Seddon of Manchester; and we all wondered at him. But then we never entered into any particular examination of the subject.

At Warrington he had for colleagues and successors, Dr. John Taylor, author of the Hebrew Concordance and of several other works, on Original Sin, Atonement, &c. Dr. Aikin the Elder, Dr. Reinhold Forster the Naturalist and traveller, Dr. Enfield and Mr. Walker.

Receiving some of the pupils into my own house, I was by this means led to form some valuable friendships, but especially with Mr. Samuel Vaughan, a friendship which has continued hitherto, has in a manner connected our families, and will, I doubt not, continue through life. The two eldest of his sons were boarded with me.

The tutors having sufficient society among themselves, we had not much acquaintance out of the academy. Sometimes, however, I made an excursion to the towns in the neighbourhood. At Liverpool I was always received by Mr. Bentley, afterwards partner with Mr. Wedgwood, a man of excellent taste, improved understanding, and a good disposition, but an unbeliever in christianity, which was therefore often the subject of our conversation. He was then a widower, and we generally, and contrary to my usual custom, sat up late. At Manchester I was always the guest of Mr. Potter, whose son Thomas was boarded with me. He was one of the worthiest men that ever lived. At Chowbent I was much acquainted with Mr. Mort, a man equally distinguished by his chearfulness and liberality of sentiment.