two best dissertations in Latin prose. The subject was A comparison between the Stoic and Epicurean philosophy, with respect to the influence of each on the morals of a people. Paley took, as might be expected from his social and benevolent disposition, the Epicurean side of the question, disconnected of course from the misrepresentations of the enemies of the doctrine, and held forth in all the purity which was conspicuous in the character of Epicurus himself. The English notes appended to the Essay' had nearly been fatal to its success. Suspicions were excited that the writer had been assisted, either by his father, or by some other literary friend, who from long disuse had lost the facility of writing Latin, and had therefore completed the work in his native tongue. But the objection was overruled. Dr. Powell, the master of St. John's, declared that "it contained more matter than was to be found in all the others; that it would be unfair to reject such a dissertation merely on suspicion; since the notes were applicable to the subject, and showed the author to be a young man of the most promising abilities and extensive reading :" and, the majority of the heads of houses coinciding with him in opinion, the prize was finally adjudged to Paley. He does not seem himself to have indulged very sanguine hopes of success. He was probably aware that his Latinity would not bear a competition with that of the practised sons of our great public schools; and he might have feared that accuracy of thought, and diligence of investigation, would not be considered a sufficient equivalent. His motto, which was equally diffident and tasteful, may only prove the natural anxiety of a competitor for fame: Non jam prima peto Mnestheus, neque vincere certo, But when he wrote to his friend, Mr. Stoddart, the laconic billet: "Io triumphe! Chamberlayne is second:" we see that he estimated his own powers humbly, when entering into a contest with a classical scholar of no common attainments, and one who had obtained the first member's prize the year before. The conclusion of Paley's Essay' is not less honourable to his feelings as a Christian, than to his talents as a scholar. After saying what could be said in favour of the system of heathen philosophy, for which he contended, he shows its comparative nothingness, when opposed to that faith, of which he was destined to become the public champion. "Illuxit aliquando religio, cujus auctor est Deus, cujus materia veritas, cujus finis est felicitas. Religio aliquando illuxit, quæ Stoæ paradoxon in principiis verè Epicureis fundari voluit. Sufficit ad felicitatem virtus, virtutis tamen finis est felicitas. Stabile denique quiddam est in quo pedem figamus, patetque nil veterem potuisse disciplinam, nil non perfecisse Christianam."-"At length a religion has shone forth, whose author is God, whose material is truth, whose end is felicity. At length a religion has shone forth, which has decreed that the Stoical paradox should be founded on principles truly Epicurean. Virtue is now sufficient for happiness, yet happiness is the end and recompence of virtue. At last then there is something stable on which we may plant our footsteps, and it is evident that, while ancient philosophy can effect nothing, Christian discipline can do everything." Such sentiments as these, springing doubtless from internal conviction, were a proper prelude to undertaking the ministerial office, which he shortly afterwards did, and served the curacy of Greenwich under Dr. Hinchcliffe, the future Bishop of Peterborough. Some dispute connected with the distribution of money among the assistants, in which Paley considered himself treated with injustice, dissolved his connexion with the school: and he who knows the irksomeness of elementary tuition, the exercise of patience which it requires, the sacrifice of individual improvement which it demands, and the little scope given by it to the higher powers of the mind, will rejoice that his penetration and his genius were no longer confined to its tiresome routine. When, in 1766, his collegiate honours obtained for him a somewhat more adequate recompence, by his appointment to a fellowship at Christ's College, Paley returned to the University. Here he was soon induced by Dr. Shepherd to undertake, in conjunction with Mr. John Law, the office of tutor, and for tutor of a college his talents eminently qualified him. He was not only clear in his own perceptions, but able to unfold his ideas to others with perspicuity, and qualified to render them interesting by the force and novelty of his illustrations. His colleague, too, was a man of superior attainments, and the celebrity which the college acquired, by the union of such genius and talent, proved the estimation in which the tutors were held. A foundation was laid at this time for that friendship which subsisted between these distinguished men in after life, a friendship which was soon of solid advantage to Paley, by introducing him to the notice of Mr. Law's father, then master of Peterhouse, who, on his promotion, in 1769, to the see of Carlisle, appointed him his chaplain. But the advantage was not all on the side of Paley. The third son of Dr. Edward Law, the late Lord Ellenborough, owed him not a little for the careful cultivation of those splendid talents, which afterwards elevated their possessor to the highest legal honours. The compliment paid by his former tutor to this distinguished nobleman, upon his rapid advancement, is well known: "Your Lordship has risen higher and sooner than any man of whom I have lately heard, except M. Garnerin." The advocates of existing institutions, even when they have been the constituted guardians of the public morals, have sometimes been accused of lowering the standard of virtue, when it could not be raised without offending the great and noble. Whether the charge be generally true or false, it is gratifying to perceive that it certainly cannot be brought either against Paley or his friend. In 1771, they both displayed a virtuous intrepidity, which, considering their youth, and the temptation to yield which the opinion of their superior presented, cannot be too warmly eulogised. "When the hall of Christ's College, which had been promised through the interest of Dr. Shepherd, was fitting up for a benefit concert for Ximenes, a Spanish musician, warmly patronised by Lord Sandwich; Mr. Paley and Mr. Law peremptorily insisted that the promise should be recalled, unless satisfactory assurance was given that a lady, then living with his Lordship, and who had been openly distributing tickets, should not be permitted to attend. At first the senior tutor, who was in habits of intimacy with Lord Sandwich, objected to the idea of excluding any lady from a public concert; but afterwards, when they urged that, standing in a public situation, as the instructers of youth, it was their duty to discountenance every sort of immorality, and threatened to appeal to the society in case of his refusal, the assurance was given, and the arrangements allowed to proceed."* It was in the April of this same year that Paley first came forward in London as a public preacher, in the Royal Chapel at Whitehall. His strong provincial accent, and the broadness of his pronunciation, might seem at first somewhat uncouth to the polished audience of a court; but those who remember, and there are still many who do remember, the earnestness of his manner, and the powerful tones of his impressive voice, will feel that he must even then have thrilled upon the nerves of not a few of his auditors, if his strong sense and native eloquence did not flash conviction upon their souls. The following year brought to Paley and his friend an equal participation of the emoluments of tuition, of which the exemplary discharge of its duties had made them abundantly deserving. The instance which has been given of their strenuous determination to uphold the cause of morality is a sufficient pledge of the care which they would take to obviate the mischiefs arising from the laxity of college discipline, especially where the junior members of their own * See Meadley's 'Life of Paley.' 6 pu society were concerned. The business of tuition was regularly divided between them. The mathematical department was assigned to Mr. Law. Paley lectured on ethics, metaphysics, and divinity. His mode of instruction was eminently happy. He was not satisfied with reading a lecture, over which his idle auditors were permitted to sleep. He had the talent to excite attention, and he took the trouble to exercise it. He proposed questions which might be easily solved, by those who had attended to his previous instructions, and whose minds were sufficiently awake to enable them to exercise their reason; but which puzzled those who had been dreaming over the subject, and exposed them to the ridicule of the lecture-room. Thus the time which, with few exceptions, is often spent in lounging and idleness, without satisfaction to the tutor, or advancement to the pils, was employed in exciting a spirit of inquiry, and a habit of thought, whose beneficial results might be extended into future years. In metaphysics, Paley commenced with the Essay on the Human Understanding,' which he followed up with 'Clarke on the Attributes,' and 'Butler's Analogy.' His ethics laid the foundation of his own 'Moral Philosophy,' and the principles which were afterwards developed so luminously to the world were previously advanced in his private lectures. Twice a week he devoted the evening to divinity. He read and explained the 'Greek Testament' to his pupils, and recommended such a course of theological reading as he thought best adapted to impress religious truth upon their minds. Locke's 'Reasonableness of Christianity,' and his work on the 'Epistles,' were always warmly eulogised by him, and it would be difficult to substitute treatises of greater excellence. Yet it may be doubted whether, in his divinity lectures, Paley dwelt as much as he might have done on the peculiar doctrines of the Gospel. No one would wish to see the lecture-room of a college an arena for polemical disputation, or a school for the discussion of those nice and subtle points which only "engender strife:" but surely those grand and fundamental principles, upon which must depend all the hopes of salvation which can be cherished by a fallen and polluted being, ought never to be kept out of sight, or treated in a mere cursory manner. Of Paley's own firm belief of these no one can doubt for a moment, who has seen his volume of 'Posthumous Sermons,' that most interesting transcript of his mind, which he gave to his own people, at a time when every man speaks the truth, and acts exclusively for eternity. But his system through life was that of comprehension. He wished to enlarge the boundaries of the Christian Church, and to admit into it many, whom a determination to insist constantly upon what are termed orthodox principles must exclude from its pale. Of the propriety of this mode of acting there will of course be a dif ference of opinion, which this is not the time to discuss. But, such being the habitual feeling of Paley, we must lament that, on the first public occasion which was offered him of acting upon the principles which he approved, he should have taken the contrary side, and seemed seriously to verify his sportive declaration, that he "could not afford to keep a conscience." Nothing indeed can be more unjust, or more cruel, than to judge of a man's real sentiments by an occasional effusion of jocularity; but when, in 1772, Paley refused, in the face of his known and acknowledged opinion, to sign the clerical petition for a relief from subscription to the 39 articles, his warmest friends cannot deny that he acted with a reserve at variance with his habitual openness, and a caution inconsistent with his habitual spirit. We are led more naturally to these reflections, when we find him afterwards coming forward, though anonymously, in defence of a work by the Bishop of Carlisle, entitled 'Considerations on the propriety of requiring a Subscription to Articles of Faith.' Paley's Defence of the Considerations,' for to him it has been uniformly given, is not unworthy of his name, though it is written in a tone of bold and peremptory haughtiness, which the force of his arguments did not need. His calm and dispassionate judgment of the question, which was then so warmly agitated, is given to the public in the chapter on Subscription contained in the third book of the Moral Philosophy,' as well as in the chapter on Religious Establishments,' which will be found in the last. In 1774, Mr. Law resigned his office of tutor at Christ's College, on his advancement to a prebendal stall in his father's diocess; and, in 1775, Paley was instituted by the same Bishop to the small rectory of Musgrove, in Westmoreland, worth not more than 80%. ayear. His patron, Dr. Law, had written a work on the Life and Character of our Saviour,' to which Paley, in 1776, published what may be considered an Appendix. The Observations upon the Character and Example of Christ, and the Morality of the Gospel,' which made their first appearance this year at Cambridge, were sufficiently interesting to add to Paley's reputation in a place where he was already known and appreciated. The time was now come when our author was to quit the life of a collegian, for that of a parish priest. Small as his preferment was, he married, in the month of June, Miss Jane Hewitt, a lady of Carlisle, pleasing in her person and agreeable in her manners, and retired with her to his rectory in Westmoreland. A college life is not always a desirable prelude to the work of the ministry. Habits of indolence or of abstraction are often generated by the want of external impulse, and the luxury of literary associates is hardly dispensed with in the seclusion of a country village. But Paley had lived for |