tees.

pearance, for the more becoming one which he wore in the hall. He was generally, therefore, the laft at table, and, having frequently to repel the attacks of his affociates on his tardinefs, amply atoned for the latenefs of his appearance, by his lively and pointed repar After dinner he feldom remained long in the combination room, employing the interval till tea time, in reading for inftruction or amusement, though he often limited himself to half an hour a day for books of the latter defcription. After evening chapel he was again engaged with his pupils till nine o'clock, and then, except when prevented by his lectures, went to fupper at Docke rell's coffee-houfe, or elsewhere." P. 69.

His conduct as a tutor was not lefs praiseworthy.

"Being equally attentive to the moral and intellectual im provement of his pupils, Mr. Paley omitted no favourable oppor、 tunity of impreffing their minds with ferious and important advice. On their first appearance in college, for admiffion, after examin. ing them in Latin and Greek, he proceeded, amongst other directions for their general conduct, to warn them against mixing too much in company. Learn to live alone,' was, on fuch occafions, his emphatic language. Before the freshmen were admitted to the communion, he used to give them a preparatory lecture; and, at all times, forcibly inculcated the attention due to the ordinances of religion, He ufed alfo to fummon them feverally to his rooms, where he not only pointed out to them the best me thod of profecuting their ftudies, but earnestly admonished them on every other effential point. With refpect to their domeftic economy, as he called it, he has been known to recommend fome of them not to refufe the loan of a few pounds to a fellow col. legian; becaufe,' faid he, if the young man be good for any thing, he will repay you; and if not, he will no longer frequent your fociety; and you will get cheaply rid of a worthlefs companion. In the courfe of their undergraduateship, he occafionally invited them to breakfaft, or took them out as companions in his walks. And, on their leaving college, he invariably dif miffed them with good counfel, fhowing the moft anxious concern for their future welfare.

6

"But whilft Mr. Paley was thus highly diftinguished for his anremitting attention to his pupils, no man could maintain the dignity of his office with greater firmnefs, if any of them prefumed to brave his authority. He threatened one man, who obftinately refused to anfwer fome questions put to him, with im mediate expulfion for contumacy, if he dared to persevere ; and reproved another, who prefumed to take fome unwarrantable liberties, in confequence of his expected refignation, by sternly de. claring, that he was determined to fupport the difcipline of the college as ftrenuously, whilft he remained, as if he had intended to spend in it the last moments of his life." P. 71.

The

The whole, indeed, of his fyftem, as a tutor, appears to have been eminently calculated to render inftruction easy, pleafant and of permanent effect. His various lectures ferved afterwards as the foundation of thofe very popular works on which his fame refts.

Of fome of his attachments, however, we by no means approve, but we know not whether it can be neceffary to fay much on the subject, after our readers shall have attentively perused the following paffage.

"The great controverfy on the propriety of requiring a subfcription to Articles of Faith, as practifed by the Church of England, excited, at this time, a very strong fenfation amongst the members of the two univerfities. At Oxford, the principles of the high church party were completely triumphant, fcarcely one oppofing whisper being heard. But at Cambridge, the difcuffion exercifed talents and ingenuity on both fides of the question, attended with no fmall afperity. Mr. Paley, though.perfonally attached to many of the reforming party, and avowedly favourable to their claims on this occafion, declined figning the petition for relief, which was prefented to the Houfe of Commons, by Sir William Meredith, in February 1772. Approving highly as he did of the defign, and withing every poffible fuccefs to the petitioners; yet, when urged by his friends upon the fubject, he ufed jocularly to allege, in excufe of his refufal, that he could not afford to keep a confcience.' For this apology, taken in the grofs and obvious meaning of the terms, no reprobation can be too fevere; and fuch words, falling in any fenfe from a man of Mr. Paley's weight and authority, are calculated to do great mischief among feeble and unreflecting perfons. Yet this, like many other expreffions which he uttered with his conftitutional vivacity,fhould by no means be too rigidly interpreted, as implying a decided refolution to make felf-intereft the fole criterion of his conduct.” P. 88.

How far this is a fatisfactory apology, or whether Mr. Meadley would not have acted a more friendly part to the memory of Paley by fuppreffing this anecdote, we may leave to the determination of our readers. As this expreffion was ufed by Mr. Paley long before his biographer became acquainted with him, we prefume he must have taken pains to afcertain, on better authority than he quotes in his note, that it was actually used. Be this, however, as it may, it appears that Paley declared his fentiments very fully in an anonymous pamphlet, entitled a Defence of the Confiderations on the propriety of requiring a subscription to Articles of Faith,' in anfwer to Dr. Randolph's mafterly pamphlet against the Confiderations. Mr. Meadley's laboured vindication of Paley's

Y 3

pamphlet

pamphlet might have been fpared, as well as his high encomium on Dr. Jebb's reforms, and his lady's controverfial talents. That we may not appear diffatisfied with this Biographer's digreffions without reafon, we shall exhibit a short fpecimen :

"Mr. Lee was fucceffively folicitor and attorney-general during the two fhort adminiftrations of Mr. Fox in 1782 and 1783, and continued, through life, attached to the conftitutional principles and enlightened policy of that truly great man. Be ing once asked his opinion of Mr. Burke's Reflections on the Revo lution in France, he replied, I find much in it to praife, much to blame, and much to doubt; but, after all, it is a very wonderful book.' This just and striking remark on the merits of a work fo fatal in its confequences, as influencing public opinion, deferves to be recorded as a ftrong proof of his difcrimination and candour. Mr. Lee gave his laft vote in the Houfe of Commons, December 13th, 1792, with Mr. Fox, against those rash and intemperate proceedings, which eventually involved their country in the calamities of a protracted war. He died in August 1793.” P. 113.

To this we may add, the high compliment he pays to the majority of the Univerfity of Cambridge, although we have to regret that this extract begins with a very unpleafing trait in Mr. Paley's character.

"Public attention was now more especially directed to the rifing celebrity of Mr. Pitt, who had been for fome time diftinguishing himself in Parliament, as the determined enemy of cor ruption, and the intrepid advocate of economy and conftitutional reform. By his early career, however, aufpicious as it was, Mr. Paley was fo far from being dazzled, that in a large party, in the north of Yorkshire, in 1783, he expofed the young patriot's pretentions to public confidence, with fuch force and ridicule, as to displease fome of his moft zealous admirers, and particularly one gentleman, who afterwards difcovered with regret, that on his promifes and pledges as a man and a minifter, he had placed far too firm a reliance.

"A report has been long in circulation, that Mr. Paley, be ing appointed to preach before the univerfity at Cambridge, on the day when Mr. Pitt, after his elevation to the premiership, in 1784, made his firft appearance at St. Mary's, chofe this fingular but appropriate text-There is a lad here, who hath five barley loaves and two fmall fihes, but what are they among fo many!' John vi. 9. A lady who had feen this ftory in a newspaper, once afked the facetious divine if it was true. Why no, madam,' replied he, I certainly never preached such a fermon, I was not at Cambridge at the time; but I remember that, one day, when

I was riding out with a friend in the neighbourhood of Carlisle, and we were talking about the buftle and confufion which Mr. Pitt's appearance would then caufe in the univerfity, I faid, that if I had been there, and asked to preach on the occafion, I would have taken that paffage for my text.'

"On the hint of fuch a text, Mr. Paley was the very man to have preached a fermon, which without perfonal virulence, would have fufficiently fhown his opinion of the unmanly adula tion paid at that time, by feveral members of the university, to the afpiring premier, whom, but a few months before, they had rejected, as unworthy of their votes. The fon of Chatham, it is true, when he firft folicited their fuffrages, had no other recom. mendations than the high character of his father, his own promifing talents, and the conftitutional principles of his early years: when he returned to them, after a fhort interval, he was the firft oftenfible minifter of the crown. On his former appearance, he was not indeed without fupporters, but they were men of a very different ftamp from those who became his most devoted adherents afterwards they were men of the first talents and integrity, of ftrict and steady patriotifm, but who withdrew their confidence, from the minifter, when he openly abandoned what they deemed the great caufe of their country. The conduct of the majority,

however, on these occafions, is not without a parallel of a much more recent date, in the treatment experienced from feveral member of the fame univerfity by an ingenious youth, when newly invefted with office, and when he had no longer any fhare of the loaves and fishes to difpenfe *." P. 120.

Mr. Paley's firft promotion in the church was the rectory of Mulgrave in Weftmoreland, to which Dr. Law, Bilhopof Carlisle prefented him in 1775.

"In 1776, a new edition of Bishop Law's Reflections on the Life and Character of Chrift, originally published in the Confideration on the Theory of Religion, was given in a feparate form at Cambridge, for the benefit of academical youth. To this treatife, fome brief Obfervations on the Character and Example of Christ, were added as a summary of its contents, with an Appendix on the Morality of the Gospel; both from Mr. Paley's pen, and' which had actually formed a part of the lectures in divinity, delivered in the preceding year. From a paffage in this little effay, it fhould appear, that his theory of morals was not then altogether firmly fettled on the bafis which fupports it now. • The gospel maxims of loving our neighbour as ourselves, and doing as we would be done by,' he remarks, are much fuperior rules of

"Compare, as far as Lord Henry Petty is concerned, the ftate of the poll, at the two elections for the university of Cambridge, Feb. 7, 1806, and May 8, 1807."

Y 4

life

life to the To pov of the Greek, and the honeftum of the Latin moralifts, in forming ideas of which people put in or, left out just what they pleafed; and better than the utile, or general expediency of the modern, which few can eftimate. As motives likewife, or principles of action, they are much fafer than either the love of our country, which has ofttimes been deftructive to the rest of the world; or friendship, the almost conftant fource of partiality and injustice.'

This paragraph is curious, as, taken alone, it certainly feems. to determine, that the theory maintained in the Principles of Moral and Political Philofophy, was adopted, or at leaft developed by Mr. Paley, between the years 1776 and 1785. And, as every thing that regards the formation of fo popular a work,-a work fo much used in inftructing the youth of this country, deferves attention, it may be worth while to ftate, that in his moral lectures, he had noticed, the want of a proper diftinction between particu Jar confequences and general ones, and the not fufficiently confider. ing the latter, as the occafion of all that confufion which runs through the writings of the ancient moralifts, as Plato, Ariftotle, Cicero, Seneca, and others. To estimate actions without looking forward to their confequences, appeared to them abfurd; and, on the other hand, to regard thefe confequences imperfectly, led them to approve of actions the most deteftable. In order therefore to fteer clear of this difficulty, they found out the honeftum, or To Teo to refer to, when the confequences would not ferve them.’ The difficulty of perfectly eftimating confequences, is the very objection, of all others, which preffes the hardeft on Mr. Paley's prefent fyftem but he has wonderfully lightened, if not altogether removed the preffure." P. 103.

:

In the fame year he refigned his preachership at Whitehall, left the univerfity, and in June married Mifs Jane Hewit, a lady of Carlifle. In December he was inducted to the vicarage of Dalfton in Cumberland, In September 1777, he refigned the rectory of Mufgrave, and on the 10th of that month was inftituted to the vicarage of Appleby, between which place and Dalfton he divided his time, refiding fix

months at each.

While at Appleby, Mr. Paley published a fmall volume, felected from the Book of Common Prayer, and the writings of feveral eminent divines, entitled, "The Clergyman's Companion in vifiting the Sick," which has paffed through nine editions. In June 1780, he was collated to the fourth prebendalftall in the cathedral church of Carlisle, and thus became coadjutor in the chapter to his friend Mr, Law, who was now Archdeacon; but in 1782, when Mr. Law was promoted to an Irifh bishoprick, Mr. Paley fuc

ceeded