AN ESSAY ON A COURSE OF LIBERAL EDUCATION BY JOSEPH PRIESTLEY, LL. D. F. R. S. AC. IMP. PETROP. R. PARIS. HOLM. TAURIN. AUREL. MED. PARIS. JUVAT EXHAUSTOS ITERARE LABORES, ET SULCATA MEIS PERCURRERE LITORA REMIS. BUCHANANI FRANCISCANUS. Franeta A. DUBL I N: PRINTED BY P. BYRNE, No. 108, GRAFTON-STREET. M,DCC,LXXXVIII. THE DEDICATION. то BENJAMIN VAUGHAN, Esq. T DEAR SIR, HESE Lectures were formerly addreffed to you as a pupil; and I fhall think myself happy if what you fay you heard with pleasure formerly, do not disappoint you now; which is often the cafe with the objects of our fond admiration in younger years. Confider, however, that thefe Lectures were not intended. for proficients but for students, unfurnished with the very rudiments of hiftorical and political knowledge, and that you attended them at the age of fixteen. With this allowance, it may give you pleafure (as the motto from my favourite Latin poet expreffes it) to go over the ground you have formerly trodden. Remember, then, that you are now to read for amusement, and not for infruction; and I fhall be happy if the scenes which I may bring to your recollection give you as much fatisfaction as they do me. For I never experience greater, than when I find young men of ability formed to virtue, and usefulness in life, under my inftructions. My obligations to your father, to yourself, and to the whole of your large and refpectable family, will always be a subject of pleasing recollection to me; and this is a circumftance that greatly heightens the fatisfaction I have in subfcribing myself on this occafion, Dear Sir, Your affectionate Friend, J. PRIESTLEY. BIRMINGHAM, JAN. 1, 1788. 1 |