Again (one seems to get a shadowy glimpse of the headmaster of Dotheboys Hall as one reads):

'It was his wish to connect and combine familiar objects with every branch of science. Thus, he is represented as teaching geography by gradual surveys of a house, a neighbourhood or a district, while the previous view of a blacksmith's shop or a kitchen garden led to a study of mineralogy and botany. The principles of drawing and mensuration were taught at the desk; but the practice of both was afterwards elucidated and endeared by little excursions, for the purpose of effecting the execution in a practical point of view.'

Williams held that globes and maps should be made by the pupils themselves.

'He deemed the age of thirteen or fourteen fitted to comprehend the doctrine of air, the construction of pumps, the science of hydrostatics, and the pursuits of chemistry. Mr Williams considered the essays of the late Dr Watson, Bishop of Llandaff, as among the most useful and entertaining books for children.' In short, 'he pursued, in practice, the plan which Rousseau had sketched from imagination'; and he thought that the fruitless efforts of the mind, in infancy, to understand the subtleties of grammar, the ambiguities of poetry, or the mysteries of metaphysics, were generally succeeded by an indolent acquiescence fatal to all great or manly exertions.'

There is some uncertainty as to how long the school continued to prosper. Its sudden collapse, probably in 1776, is stated in the memoirs to have been due to the death of Mrs Williams, which plunged her husband into such disorder that he completely vanished for a while, returning only to find his scholars dispersed; but, according to Williams' own autograph MS., it was the result of his sudden decision to leave her. The cessation, whatever the cause, was probably a public misfortune, for Williams, even if a little fantastic, cannot have had any but a stimulating influence on his pupils. A schoolmaster, however odd some of his devices for the imparting of information and obtaining the confidence of his boys might be, cannot be much amiss when he is written of in such words as these:

'He was a great and zealous friend to truth; and he constantly inculcated its maxims into the two sexes as indispensably necessary for both. He approved of civility and politeness, and considered merit and excellence entitled to an affectionate reception. But, on the other hand, the affectation of these qualities was most cordially detested by him, more especially when subservient to mean or selfish views. ... Politeness he considered as a gradation of beauty and elegance in manners, seldom to be expected in young people. He also deemed this quality not unfrequently in opposition to the virtues; and often productive of great baseness, when employed to deceive women; to soothe the vices and infirmities of princes; to cajole private men out of their probity or property; and to give the appearance of benevolent condescension to selfish views. He detested deceit above all things and was accustomed to observe that, as the chameleon assumes every colour but white, so flatterers exhibit all principles but that of honesty.'

It would be interesting to have a list of the scholars at the Lawrence Street school in its too brief existence, and to see what became of them.

We have, however, anticipated a little. Before the unhappy event occurred which terminated his career as a schoolmaster, Williams had begun his activities as a maker of debating clubs. His 'Essays on Public Worship' having attracted the notice of Benjamin Franklin, then in England and full of honour as the agent for certain American colonies, a meeting between the American and the Welshman was arranged by Colonel Dawson, Lieut.Governor of the Isle of Man. The place was the Old Slaughter Coffee House, where, 'over a neck of veal and potatoes,' Williams, Franklin, Dawson and Thomas Bentley (1731-1780), a member of the firm of Wedgwoods, founded a club of thirteen persons (no more and no fewer) mainly for the discussion of a philosophical ritual.

Among other members were Josiah Wedgwood (17301795), the potter; James (or 'Athenian') Stuart (17131788), the painter and architect; John Whitehurst (17131788), the clock-maker and horologist; Dr Solander (1736-1782), the botanist and Keeper of the Printed Books in the British Museum; and one Thomas Day, probably the author of 'Sandford and Merton.' The principal bond uniting them was an indisposition to go to

church. All shared this feeling, but probably all-and Franklin for certain-confessed to being unable to pass 'a place of public worship on Sunday without some regret that they had not an opportunity of joining in a rational form of devotion.' This regret, coupled with Williams' earlier exercises in the same medium, led to the composition by himself and Franklin, after countless discussions by the council of thirteen, of a new 'Liturgy on the Universal Principles of Religion and Morality,' which saw the light in 1776.

It is, once the objection to its Deism is set aside, a very harmless production, a series of the most blameless aspirations, or what might be called wishes of perfection, that a Friend of Humanity or 'Priest of Nature,' as Franklin called his collaborator, could bring together. Here is a passage from the Litany: a General Supplication, in the utterance of which a kneeling attitude was conceded:

Minister.

O God of Wisdom, we desire ever to remember that we are thy creatures, and that thou hast formed us with capacities for virtue and happiness. May we never impair our understanding, ruin our health or disqualify ourselves for any important duties and employments, by the intemperate pursuit of pleasures. May we aspire to that state of manly liberty and that habit of self-government which will effectually promote the attainment of wisdom and virtue, and the tranquillity and true enjoyment of life. May the consideration of the shortness of life, the certainty of death, and the pleasing hope of immortality, raise us above all mean desires, and animate us in the pursuit of virtue.

O God, the father of all mankind, may thy pure worship prevail throughout the world: may wisdom and goodness, liberty and peace, charity and happiness, everywhere abound, and thy kingdom of truth and righteousness be extended through the whole earth.

People.

We have all one Father, and one God hath created us.

Copies of the Liturgy were distributed broadcast and certain of the recipients expressed satisfaction. No less

a personage than Frederick the Great, for example, felicitated its author, although there is some reason to believe that he was confusing him with that entertaining, if somewhat scandalous, writer of light and satirical verse, Sir Charles Hanbury Williams, who had recently been Minister at Berlin. Voltaire, however, who also received and read the Liturgy, was under no misapprehension; and his praise was hearty. It was a great comfort to him, he said, at the age of eighty-two, to see England encouraging toleration, and the God of all mankind no longer pent up in a narrow tract of land.'

It is necessary now to retrace our steps to an evening in Easter week, 1773, when, to vary the discussion on philosophical worship, Williams read to the club a paper on a project for establishing a benevolent society for authors, which might hold out to genius-to every man having the faculty of rendering public service-the kind and generous promise that his studies, his time, his efforts, his privations, should not leave him in misery.' 'The paper,' says Williams in his autobiographical fragment, was received with great marks of approbation, and the Father of the club [Franklin] requested the private perusal of it.' But at the next meeting it was decided that the consideration of a Literary Fund should be shelved in favour of a continuance of the debates on philosophical worship, from which, as we have seen, the new Liturgy was to grow. Franklin, who, says Williams, was the only man he ever saw that 'united the accuracy of a painful experimentalist with comprehensive views of social and political institutions,' was against it. The success of such a scheme, he said, was improbable, because the public were unlikely to respond with any generosity. Common charities,' he sententiously added, spring from common feelings; or, if some of them should require a few ideas and reflections, they may be easily connected by ordinary and imperfect intellects; but an Institution for the relief of misery which is so far from being intrusive or obvious-so far from pressing on the senses that it withdraws from observation-is an Institution whose object will ever be lost to the common classes of subscribers to public charities.' On the following morning, however, in private conversation with

Williams, he made use of words which a thousand times' afterwards rang in the enthusiast's ears. I see you will not give up a noble idea. I do not say you will not succeed, but it must be by much anxiety and trouble, and I hope the Anvil will not wear out the Hammer.' That was in 1773. In 1774, the trouble with America was becoming acute, and Franklin, until then much of a hero in this country, was suddenly a suspect. Apprehensive that his papers would be seized,' says Williams, he 'packed a trunk under his arm, and, unknown to the family where he lodged, conveyed it by boat from Hungerford Stairs to my house at Chelsea, where he remained several weeks in perfect privacy. . . until in a condition to prepare for his departure.' With this departure came the dissolution of the Thirteen Club, and shortly afterwards the domestic débâcle above recorded.

Left without school, club or wife, Williams threw himself into the task of revealing his new religion to his fellow-creatures. His opening service was on Sunday, April 7, 1776, in a new chapel in Margaret Street, Cavendish Square, where for some time he was continue. The Priest of Nature, who, when he began this ministration was thirty-eight, came in for some trenchant criticism; but this he probably enjoyed. Reformers can dislike neglect more almost than abuse. What, however, he was unable to withstand was the financial debt into which he was plunged by the expenses not only of the chapel, but of the British Coffee House at Charing Cross, whither, after a while, he had migrated with his congregation, and where the 'services' became 'lectures.' These lectures were followed by a dinner, for a few of the elect, in Brewer Street, with excellent Madeira.' By 1780 it By 1780 it was found that the Deistical experiment (and the dinner) could be carried on no longer; and Williams gave up, being saved from bankruptcy only by the satisfactory subscription to his 'Lectures on the Universal Principles of Religion and Morality,' in two quarto volumes, with an engraving of Williams, after a painting by Rigaud, as frontispiece to vol. I. This portrait, which exhibits the philosopher in a graceful attitude of thought, now hangs in the council chamber of the Fund. The Lectures form a fairly complete ethical system; nothing but an increase of sweet