What is known, whether by inference or by testimony, squares remarkably well with the familiar portraits of the man. We have seen two-the only difference between them being that one shows a greater reserve of irascibility— -a wider back ground of wrath '* than the other. There is the usual fulness of 'jowl' which is said to be characteristic of the eighteenth century face; a pervading expression of cheerful firmness, and savoir vivre capable of dropping into sensuality. Good nature, thoughtfulness, shrewdness, strong grasp of fact, and considerable conscientiousness, are all apparent in the physiognomy and the carriage of the head (the set upon the shoulders of an honest head is always distinguishable, as is the out-look of the eye). Besides these, there is obviously considerable sensitiveness to praise or blame-as much as would be capable of sliding into downright vanity and there is very little pride, properly so called-the man carries his head steadily (i. e. he has firmness) but he does not carry it 'high.' Nor yet does he 'cock' it, as the combative man habitually does, especially if he have a spice of vanity in his composition. Here is a comfortable, solid, unassuming sort of person, who belongs to the shrewd, efficient order of minds, the order under which we class Franklin, William Hutton of Birmingham, and Sydney Smith. If you are learned in the doctrine of temperament, you will call the man whose portrait is before you, biliary-lymphatic-nervous, capable of considerable exertion upon adequate cause being shown, but not apt to squander his energies; very much given, probably, to 'put this and that together,' and 'turn things over in his mind,' but not vivaciously demonstrative. Just note for an instant the wellclosed mouth, the pronounced nose, broad at the root and strongly set into the forehead, and the inquisitive eyebrow, and we will take leave of the portrait, and come to the history; after just a brief reminder of the sort of times in which the man lived and flourished. Times when interest,' pecuniary or personal, was in the ascendant in Church and State; when popular ignorance was so dense that upon a foolish prophecy of an earthquake, all London would turn out into the fields, and Horace Walpole could report that ladies had had 'earthquake gowns' made for sitting up all night out of doors to be ready for the concussion; times when a boy was premier of England; times when gentlemen going from the city to Islington had to wait for convoy by mounted patrol if they wanted to keep their lives and purses; times when women were burnt for coining; obnoxious pamphleteers had their ears cut off and their noses slit in the pillory; torture was barely abolished; the slave-trade was scarcely threatened; Dissenters suffered from civil disabilities; and the word 'Christian' meant any one who had been christened, did not get tipsy too often, and paid his way. But we must not omit to take into account the blind uneasy motions that foretold the higher life' in the body politic, innovations in literature in behalf of natural force and simplicity, led

Carlyle, in some casual papers, contributed to Leigh Hunt's (last) 'London Journal.

by Burns and Cowper, and the religious revival then comprehensively designated Methodism.'

We shall not, as German biographers do, trouble you with any allusions to our hero's grandfather by way of introduction; but shall say, off-hand, that WILLIAM PALEY was born at Peterborough in the month of July, 1743, of William and Elizabeth Paley, then resident there, because the husband was a minor canon of the cathedral; but afterwards at Giggleswick, when he became head master of the grammar school there. Mr. Paley, sire, is said to have been a worthy, sensible person, and Mrs. Paley-the old story about the mothers of remarkable men-a woman of a very vigorous and active mind. Giggleswick Free Grammar School was founded by King Edward the Sixth, and there, under the care of his own father, was little Paley brought up.

Though a clever and studious child, it is stated that he a little disappointed his father, who was a good classic, by paying more attention to things than to words, and taking only fair rank as a linguist. In after life it was said of him, by a competent authority, that his classical knowledge, as far as it went, was sound and accurate, and that no man was ever less the dupe of his own attainments, or more thoroughly master of them for all purposes of real use and real ornament. Like nearly all men of his mould, young Paley was fond of mechanism from an early age, and retained the fondness during his life. He was not free in the use of his limbs, however, so that he was a poor manipulator and a bad horseman-a distinction, this last, which always clung to him. He was a good mimic, and given to amusing his school-fellows by taking off' other people's peculiarities. A holiday visit to the assizes at Lancaster made a strong impression upon the little boy's mind, and when he got back to school, he showed both his mimetic turn and his taste for casuistry by getting up imitations of judicial sessions of inquiry among his playmates, with whom his sociable habits and free mother-wit made him a great favourite. It was, no doubt, favourable to his capacity for usefulness in a quiet way, that he was educated in an out-of-the-world country district, among a humble population, with whom a spade meant a spade, and the virtue and the sense highest in repute were the old English homespun, of which he has shown so thorough an appreciation in all his writings; for instance, in his Sermons to the Young Clergy at Carlisle, and at the Assizes at Durham. If, in these, it is his homely treatment of morals that is chiefly illustrated, one cannot turn a page of his other writings without seeing how strong a thread of plain sense runs through them all. The minutest subtlety of the 'Hora Paulinæ,' is such as a homely intellect would discern; and the man who begins a treatise on Natural Theology' with the words, If, in crossing a heath, I pitched my foot against a stone,' gives us an implied promise that he is going, throughout his argument, 'to work upon stuff.'

When young Paley was fifteen years old, he was taken by his father to Cambridge, and admitted a sizar of Christ's College-at

which, by the way, it is well known Milton was a student. 'I never was a good horseman,' said he; and when I followed my father on a pony of my own, on my first journey to Cambridge, I fell off seven times. I was lighter than I am now, and my falls were not likely to be serious. My father, on hearing a thump, would turn his head half aside, and say, "Take care of thy money, lad." A passage which illustrates the cool, phlegmatic character of both father and son; for, 'Take care of thy neck, lad,' would seem a much more natural bit of paternal counsel under the circumstances than the remarkably easy, 'Take care of thy money, lad.' We may infer that young Paley was so accustomed to tumble off his 'own pony' and on again, without serious consequences, that his father took every facilis descensus of the seven as a matter of course. Especially when we remember the state of the roads in England at the time in question. A traveller in Paley's half of the century says of a Lancashire road (we are not accountable for his phraseology), 'I know not, in the whole range of language, terms sufficient to describe this infernal highway. Let me most seriously caution all travellers who may accidentally propose to travel this terrible country, to avoid it as they would the devil; for a thousand to one but they break their necks or their limbs, by overthrows or breakings down. They will here meet with ruts which I actually measured four feet deep, only after a wet summer.'

After his admission into College the lad, who neither lost himself nor his money in a four-feet rut, returned to Giggleswick, and from there went to Topcliffe to read up in mathematics, under a Mr. Howorth, and, as he was always fonder of the exact sciences than of languages, there is no doubt he got on very well with his studies. While he was staying there, a skeleton was accidentally dug up at Knaresborough, which led to the disclosure of a murder committed fourteen years before the murder of Daniel Clark, by Eugene Aram, who was convicted upon the evidence of his accomplice, Houseman; but hanged, according to Paley-who went to York out of curiosity and attended the trial-through his own ingenuity. When, later in life, complaints were made in his presence that the Biographia Britannica' had admitted so many ignoble names, and Aram's was mentioned as an instance, Paley observed that a man who had 'got himself hanged by his own cleverness had really some pretension to notoriety.' Cowper was one of those who were annoyed at seeing names of little note recorded in the 'Biographia Britannica,' and we all remember how he has recorded his opinion of the futility of trying to give a deathless lot to names ignoble, born to be forgot: '—

'So, when a child, as playful children use,
Has burnt to tinder a stale last year's news,
The flame extinct, he views the roving fire-
There goes my lady, and there goes the squire !
There goes the parson, () illustrious spark!

And there, scarce less illustrious, goes the clerk.'

Mr Paley, senior, showed himself more critically accurate in

parental appreciation than fathers usually are, when, on the evening after young William had gone to college to take up his abode there, he remarked, 'My son will turn out a great man, very great, indeed; I'm certain of it, for he has by far the clearest head I ever met with in my life.' It was a shrewd observation. In our judgment, Paley stands absolutely alone, for clearness both of thought and style, among argumentative writers. If we should discover, subsequently, that he has, nevertheless, been misunderstood, let it serve to point this record of an observation we have frequently made in life, that there are ten good talkers and speakers for one good listener and reader. So rare is intellectual conscientiousness, that a controversialist, who bestows equitable attention upon what his opponent says, is as uncommon a character as a truly honest man; perhaps more uncommon; for we all know persons who would not cheat another of the ring of a penny, who will yet break spiritual loyalties by the score in an hour's conversation. Do you know, perchance, a man who is fair in argumentation? Cherish that man, whatever his creed, for he has in him a soul of goodness not to be trifled with.

In the college emoluments which befel him, Paley seems to have been rather fortunate, but the detail of such things is not interesting. It is more pleasant to notice that he was excused, upon the ground of more advanced attainments than usual, from attending the mathematical lectures to students of his own standing, and was, therefore, left to fill up much of his time as his taste directed. Mr. Meadley says that Paley always spoke of fifteen or sixteen as too early an age for encountering the perils of a college life a record of sound opinion which one is glad to get; but he adds that Paley 'always had an old look, which, together with the superior strength and vigour of his understanding, impressed his companions with the idea of a much maturer age.' This is intelligible enough. The truth, no doubt, is, that Paley had a face of the Liston stamp; a face of that quaint, oldyoung gravity which, while it almost disposes you to laugh, yet commands a sort of respect; a degree of reserve belongs to the expression of a humorous countenance, and reserve in common life answers to mystery in religion in its office of commanding homage greater or less.

However much Paley was respected when a lad at college-and we have positive testimony that his life was pure-his company was very much liked; and as his room—an instance of the easy incautiousness of a lymphatic person who habitually thought no evil-was left unlocked at all times, night and day, it was a sort of lounging-place for all the idle young fellows of Christ's, who were glad enough, no doubt, to draw Paley out into such humorous sophistry as we can conceive him to have indulged in upon passing topics, or, still better, into mimicry, for which he always retained a talent. It is said, however, that during the time when he chose to study it was impossible to draw him out, and that he would remain quite absorbed in his book, in a corner of the room, while a Babylonish clatter of nonsense was going on around. Not only from the general method of his writing, but from the account which he himself gives of his

manner of composition (preface to Moral and Political Philosophy '), and from the fact that his 'Natural Theology,' as continuous and coherent a book as ever was written, was thrown off in the intervals of an acutely painful disorder, it is easy to infer that his power of mental concentration was great. So it ought to have been; for he was not only in the habit of spending his evenings in company at coffee-houses and otherwise, but was a late riser, at least until the occurrence of an incident which we will allow him to relate in his own words-his own words, that is, as reported, for scarcely any inducement would have dragged from Paley's pen so much writing about himself, unless it bore upon his task:-I spent,' he says, 'the first two years of my under-graduateship happily, but unprofitably. I was constantly in society, where we were not immoral, but idle, and rather expensive. At the commencement of my third year, however, after having left the usual party at rather a late hour in the evening, I was awakened at five in the morning by one of my companions, who stood at my bedside, and said, "Paley, I have been thinking what a fool you are. I could do nothing, probably, were I to try, and can afford the life I lead; you can do everything, and cannot afford it. I have had no sleep during the whole night on account of these reflections, and am now come solemnly to inform you that, if you persist in your indolence, I must renounce your society." I was so struck with the visit and the visitor, that I lay in bed a great part of the day, and formed my plan. I ordered my bed-maker to prepare my fire every evening, in order that it might be lighted by myself. I arose at five; read during the whole of the day, except such hours as chapel and hall required, allotting to each portion of time its peculiar branch of study; and just before the closing of the gates (nine o'clock) I went to a neighbouring coffee-house, where I constantly regaled upon a mutton-chop and a dose of milk-punch. And thus, on taking my bachelor's degree, I became Senior Wrangler.' We have been familiar with this little anecdote for many years, but even now we smile to ourselves as we quote it. Could anything be more characteristic? When Gil Blas met Nunez in the hospital, he counselled him to abjure the Muses who had led him thither. Nunez assured him that such was his intention; that even as his friend had entered the room, he was composing an ode in which to bid them an eternal adieu. Paley parted with his lazy habit in much the same fashion; only he kept his resolution, for a time at least, better than Nunez. Perhaps his exact words are not preserved. There is a little inconsequence in the statement that he was so thrilled by an exhortation to get up earlier that he lay in bed nearly ail day to make up his mind to do it; and still more in saying that he regaled every night upon mutton and milk-punch, and thus became Senior Wrangler; which surely indicates a better than royal road to mathematics. How charming is divine philosophy!' upon such terms.

Johnson has been careful to record that Dr. Watts was only five feet high. Mr. Meadley does not tell us how tall Paley was; but we infer that he was rather a short, pudgy man, and a very ungainly one.