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My son will be a great man; I am certain of it, for he has by far the clearest head and the most observation of any body I know." As he was however always indisposed to bodily activity, it may naturally be supposed that great liveliness of spirits, elasticity of mind, desultoriness of study, fondness for company, would be against severe application. Still he was known to have been at that time, as well as whilst he was at school, remarkably attentive to the main object of a student; nor did his father ever find occasion for dissatisfaction during his vacations. He was certainly not distinguished a for his diligence; nor did any but himself seem to think him distinguished for idleness. His rooms presented perhaps the best picture of his mind, or rather of his desultory mode of pursuing his studies; for he could never consent to place his books in any order, but had authors of all kinds thrown on the floor around him. His third year of residence in college was remarkable for not only a fresh and continued application to the sort of reading required for a high degree at Cambridge, but, what seems to have given the first spring to his extraordinary powers, that degree of satisfaction and gratification in the pursuit of an object which never afterwards seems to have left him. To this period of his life may be very well assigned an opinion which is given to some later passage of it: "his powers, once roused, became spontaneously and abundantly prolific; and the native fertility of his mind, instead of being exhausted or impaired by a single push, appeared to be invigorated by severe exertion." His mind seems from this time never to have been satisfied without an object. What it had been before may be partly conjectured from a letter to one of his sons, who being at that age when boys usually, if ever, feel disposed to indulge hypochondriacal feelings, had described the state of his mind to him, and was answered with "Experto crede,

at your age I was like you, and have found since that there is nothing

like having something to do; stick to your business, and depend

upon it that your mind will return." He now, however, had the

good sense to attend to the advice and judicious interference of his tutor, Wilson, (afterwards judge Wilson,) of whom he ever after retained a grateful remembrance c.

Biographical Dictionary. Aikin.

b Quarterly Review.

• There is a story related by Meadley of a bedside scene, which that gentleman gained from some of Paley's friends, but has very properly withdrawn into a note in the second edition of his Memoirs. I do not believe there is any good authority for it, because it does not seem to consist either with his general character

By Mr. Wilson he was recommended to Mr. Thorpe, who was at that time of eminent use to young men in preparing them for the senate-house examination, and peculiarly successful. One young man, of no shining reputation, with the assistance of Mr. Thorpe's tuition, had stood at the head of the wranglers; and soon after Dr. Paley introduced himself to Mr. Thorpe, stating that it was a great object with him to obtain academical distinction, and added in his own peculiar manner, "If you could make **** senior wrangler, you may have some chance with me." a He rose early, as he had not done before; he saw no company during the day, as he had done before, his room being seldom free from loungers; and allowed himself an hour at night to eat his bread and cheese at Dockrel's coffeehouse, in Trompington-street. Thus he used to say he became senior wrangler in the year 1763. The contest was between Mr. Frere and himself; but as the little disappointments of one and successes of another candidate have often, both before and since, been repeated, it is scarcely uncommon enough to dwell upon, except it be to state that he has added in his own hand a doubt to the story of an estate being promised to Mr. Frere in the event of success b. It is pleasant at this day to find his friends so jealous of his fame as to mention all the minute circumstances of his success. For himself, who would have been ready either to allow the fairness, or laugh at the conjectures of his friends or opponents in any decision with respect to a tripos, he was content to say neither more nor less than that he had very nearly lost it by the badness of his hand-writing.

In the keeping of his act previous to his senate-house examination, he was the very innocent cause of some little disagreement and squabble between Mr. Watson, (afterwards bishop of Llandaff,) the moderator, and Dr. Thomas, the master of Christ's; the latter of whom feared for the orthodoxy of his college, if he had allowed an undergraduate of his own to muster his talents against the eternity of hell torments. This interference the moderator blamed; and, perhaps with more want of temper than either prudence or love of free discussion, showed that before this period, or with the fact that his private tutor, Wilson, did actually stir him up by his advice to try for the highest honours. Another strong presumption against the tale is, that his family, whom he was constantly in the habit of urging to exertion by every little story and incident that he could find, were ignorant of it.-ED.

a With Dr. Thorpe, afterwards archdeacon of Northumberland, Dr. Paley had an opportunity, when at Bishop Wearmouth, of renewing his acquaintance.

By putting a Q. to the margin of the Public Characters.

he would have been glad if the young man could have supported that side of the question. Dr. Thomas, however, whether at the suggestion of any other, or from his own opinion of the freedom with which such questions were likely to be treated by the bold genius of a young man, or alarmed by being told that the general attention of the university was roused by such a question, expostulated with him on the impropriety of his encountering such a subject. Paley readily assured him that there was not the least intention to offend, nor any suspicion that he could draw down the notice, much less the displeasure, of the university; adding, that it was a question which seemed to invite originality; and this he thought of more consequence to himself than to the university. Whether he was conscious of having carried the taste for paradox into graver subjects, and therefore would have been ready to acknowledge the kindness of Dr. Thomas, and the perfect propriety of his interference, or he was inclined to regret that Mr. Watson did not willingly give him the liberty he begged, of withdrawing his question altogether, it is certain that he afterwards held in a peculiar and for him rather impatient degree of dislike the remembrance of that learned man, who as a moderator dealt favourably with him. It rests indeed upon mere conjecture, whether that opinion of the bishop of Llandaff might be taken up on account of the opposition he at that time showed to the master's objection, or to any of this prelate's transactions or sentiments in later life. It does not appear that there was any acquaintance between them beyond this period, nor could it be owing to any known or suspected want of congeniality, for they never came at all into collision. After all, perhaps the best reply to any insinuation which the very mention of this circumstance by his biographers may seem to imply is, that whatever his sentiments were at the time, or the bias of his opinions, he seems to have kept them to himself; and that such bold attempts at freedom of discussion seem rather to rest upon the discovery of others than his own intentions. It is but fair that allowance should be made for the circumstances under which any young man would choose a question from Johnson's Quæstiones Philosophicæ; and this will at once show that it is unnecessary to suppose any peculiarity of sentiment or course of cogitation involved in the choice of such a subject. Something has been said of the uncouthness of Paley's manners, the eccentricity of his finery, and the general slovenliness of his dress. He is said to have attracted general attention in the schools, by appearing with his hair full-dressed,

a deep ruffled shirt, and new silk stockings, which, aided by his gestures, his actions, and his whole manner, when earnestly engaged in a debate, excited no small mirth among his spectators. These are, it is true, unimportant points, which are, perhaps, unworthy of farther notice, but that they enable the present writer of this sketch to account for them once for all by giving a well-stamped mark of this extraordinary person which accompanied him through life, viz. such a decided respect for institutions of all kinds, even the most minute and insignificant ceremonies and observances of life, as might lead him, with his then notions of civilized and polite ranks, to overdo in the external appearance of his person. Yet there was such an eagerness for any research which might engage his mental powers, and such a natural, artless love of argumentation, that forgetting all this sacrifice to finery, he would not care to appear quite at home on his subject. Neat and plain in his dress on his appearance in public, but extremely afraid of any sacrifice of his time to his own personal comfort, the same habits seem to have accompanied him throughout his life, which to a mere stranger might easily appear those of a sloven; but to his friends, who knew his wish to avoid any singularity, or affect any eccentricity either outwardly or inwardly, they seemed only the usual attendants of active and energetic faculties. Add to this, that his manner and action were formed upon no model of elegance or grace. "Nature herself might have called him eloquent," but nobody else would, who had seen his unseemly and strange mouthing even in latest life, in endeavouring to convey his impressions, which were eminently strong, or his feelings, which were much stronger, say on any passage of Virgil, Cicero's Orations, Shakespeare, Campbell's Pleasures of Hope, &c., &c.; he was wrought up and carried away into more droll gesticulation than his general attention to reason would have allowed his hearers to expect. These circumstances might have been uncommon enough to make him famous in the schools of the university; and with his ardour and acuteness in disputation, caused them to be well attended on his act. One of his most intimate friends used to

I have seen in some magazine, or periodical publication, an accurate description of his appearance in his lecture-room, with his night-cap, his breeches' knees unbuttoned, his stockings awry, one leg upon his knee, lounging on his chair, and picking his beard. This is forcibly and painfully striking, as agreeing exactly with the figure that I should have been tempted to present of our constant, and first and most diligent instructor, when, coming from school to breakfast, we took our stand with our grammar lesson in his study.-ED.

amuse Dr. Paley and his family with relating his appearance in the schools under the warmth of argument. On being posed by his adversary, he would stand with his head dropping upon one of his shoulders, and both his thumbs in his mouth; on striking out his answer with the animation of a na he would stretch his arms, rub his hands, and speak out his exultation in every feature of his face and muscle of his body. He seems to have been quite wrapped up in his subject; so much so, that his ardour, both at that time and in more grave and weighty discussions afterwards, must have met with hearers unobserving indeed, if they were not struck with it, and indifferent, if they were not interested. It has been said that his promptitude of delivery, and strength of conception, did more for him in the senate-house examination than his mathematical acquirements; and his fluent deliverya has been spoken of as rather signal in his lecture-room; it may be well therefore to observe, that if any judgement can be formed from a later period, (when it might be supposed that habit and practice would have added to his manner of expression,) his delivery, though not hesitating, was considerably embarrassed. He seemed to labour with the very liveliness of his conceptions, agreeably to Dean Swift's simile, "persons rushing out of church block up the doorway." So very rapid was the flow of his ideas, and so wide the range of his conceptions, that between hunting out proper expressions of them, and preserving his short and pithy mode of delivering his sentiments, his language was full of unevennesses, and his enunciation rather entangled. A periodical publication, in its review of Meadley's Memoirs, has observed, with somewhat more taste than accuracy, on the singularity of a circumstance which seems very doubtful, that the first production of his pen should have been an ode in the manner of Ossian. But the accompanying remark, "that he never afterwards showed any one particle of taste for poetry," is an assumption. He was by no means deficient in either his taste or his fondness for poetry. He might indeed inherit from his father an imagination sufficiently discursive, and in his school-boy days he was partial to scribbling little pieces of rhyme; and afterwards he

с

B Meadley.

Quarterly Review.

What leads me to doubt of this circumstance is, that he gave me a copy of the Luctus Cantabrigiensis on that occasion, and pointed out some pieces that were thought eminently dull in his day, but said nothing of himself or his own attempts. -ED.