'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 to 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 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

reasonableness could result were the world to take them to its bosom.

There is some confusion as to Williams' next experiment in club-founding. He is said, however, to have assembled one consisting of six members, who met at the Prince of Wales Coffee House in Conduit Street. The date given is 1780, but the exact year is immaterial; the important thing is that, no longer discouraged by the pessimism of the creator of 'Poor Richard,' Williams was able to revive, and from time to time discuss, his Literary Fund project. And here his autobiographical fragment becomes peculiarly interesting. The restoration of peace and the appointment of Pitt as Prime Minister seemed to promise a golden age; and Williams returned with confidence to the attack, which now took the form of interviewing men of eminence. Among them was Adam Smith, author of The Wealth of Nations,' who had come to town' as one of the harbingers of the reign of knowledge,' and who was under the false impression, to be corrected by Williams, that men of letters were unproductive members of society. The meeting between the two philosophers is thus described:

Like Bayes in "The Rehearsal," I drew out my proposal. He attended with that modest diffidence which seemed to be his character, and the appearance of which was heightened by a constitutional infirmity. When I had finished he seemed also to have finished. After some silence I begged his permission to ask him how I could introduce my propositions if his opinion were true concerning men of letters.

666

He said, "My opinion is of no consequence."

Allowing that for the moment to your modesty, you state it as a maxim of political economy."

"I believe I may."

"To invent improved modes of operation in all employments acknowledged to be productive, is it not to increase or multiply the produce?"

666 'Ay, that is the farmer."

6.66

"No; is not the claim of the man who thinks in all such cases as unquestionable as that of the man who executes by labour? The claim of the person who uses a spade is as unquestionable as that of the spade itself."

'He smiled.

"You may smile, but a contrary opinion seems to me