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Revolution and Romanticism
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A facsimile reprint in the Revolution & Romanticism series chosen and introduced by Jonathan Wordsworth ISBN 1 85477 215 5 200 x 127 mm 178 pages |
JOSEPH PRIESTLEY Letters to Burke 1791 That Burke, as friend of the American Revolution, should denounce the French caused the utmost dismay among all shades of radical opinion. Priestley, who was a personal friend, had difficulty in believing that the man he knew could harbour the sentiments he voiced: ‘I do not judge of your usual temper and disposition,’ he wrote, ‘from the strain of this most intemperate publication’. Letters to Burke begins with treatment of Burke’s endorsement of the established church, Priestley the philosopher and dissenter expanding on the theme of religious toleration; and it ends with a Millennial vision of a more rational and more just society. £35 $65 I cannot conclude these Letters without congratulating, not you, Sir, or the many admirers of your performance, who have no feeling of joy on the occasion, but the French nation, and the world - I mean the liberal, the rational, and the virtuous part of the world - on the great revolution that has taken place in France, as well as on that which some time ago took place in America. |
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