PALEY, the Rev. DR WILLIAM, a celebrated moral, political, and theological writer, was born in Peterborough, Northamptonshire, in July, 1743. His father, then a canon-minor of that place, was afterwards elected head master of the school of Giggleswick, in Yorskshire, a situation in which he continued till his death. Previously to his leaving Peterborough, he had married Elizabeth Clapham, a lady of good family in the parish of Giggles wick, through whose friends, it is probable, he obtained this new appointment. Both parents had the happiness,— a blessing granted to few,—of seeing their son, the sub ject of this brief sketch, fulfil their fondest expectations, and by his elegant and ingenious writings acquire the highest reputation and honour.
Dr. Paley received his elementary instruction from his father, and he had thus combined the advantages of a pub lic school, with the more close and vigilant discipline of private tuition. His talents were soon discovered to be of a superior order ; his love of books was intense, and he early displayed that strong tendency to general and mis cellaneous reading by which he was ever afterwards cha racterized. He entered the university of Cambridge, as a sizer of Christ's College, at the early age of sixteen. His fa ther had even at this period been induced to cherish hopes of his future eminence. "My son," says he, " is now gone to College ; he will turn out a great man, very great indeed ; I am certain of it, for he has by far the clearest head 1 ever met with in my life " Mathematical studies having long held an eminent place in the system of education pursued at Cambridge, Dr.
Paley, on his return to the country, devoted the whole summer months to the acquisition of the different branches of this science : in which he obtained so great a profi ciency, that on his return to the university, Mr. Shepherd, one of his tutors, discovering that his mathematical at tainments were already very considerable, excused him from attending his college lectures with the students of his own year who were not so far advanced, but occasionally proposed questions for his solution in private. With this exception, however, he attained, while at college, to no distinction in any other department of study. In theology, in ethical and metaphysical philosophy, all of which he afterwards cultivated with such happy success, he had then many superiors ; classical literature he disliked and neglected, both at that early period and ever afterwards ; and he has been heard to say, that Virgil was the only Latin poet he could rend with satisfaction. While he did not entirely neglect the several tasks prescribed him by his tutors, he was remarked chiefly for an invincible pro pensity for general reading, which we formerly remarked, and which may, very satisfactorily, account for the great extent and variety of his acquirements.
He was not indeed so ardent and indefatigable a student as his future celebrity may lead us to imagine. The
colloquial powers for which he was distinguished, and a strong disposition he possessed for wit and sarcasm, regu lated rather than subdued in after-life, caused his society to be much solicited by his fellow students, and thus inter fered in no small degree with the regular distribution of his time. This mode of life is not unattended with some slight advantages ; and it may have given Dr. Paley a more intimate knowledge of the human character, and have contributed not a little, to that full development and analysis of the human heart which his writings display. Yet it is a course of life accompanied with manifold dan gers, and if long persisted in, must, in all cases, under mine every hope of either moral or literary respectability. Happily for the world and for himself, the nature of the life he was leading, accidentally but powerfully submitted to his attention, was at length seen by him in its true as pect, and was the cause, when thus contemplated, of his devoting himself with renewed ardour to study, and in forming a kind of sera in his literary history. " I spent," to use his own words, 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 awaked at five in the morning by one of my companions, who stood at my bed-side, and said, 'Paley ! I have been thinking what a — fool you are. I could do nothing, probably, were 1 to try, and can afford the life I lead ; you could do every thing, and can not. afford it. I have had,' continued he, 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.' 1 was so struck," says Dr. Paley, with the visit and the visitor, that I lay in bed great part of the day, and formed my plan. I ordered my bed•makor 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 this was not a resolution formed from momentary feeling, ad hered to for a few days or a few weeks, and then aban doned for ever. It was a resolution that continued to animate his future life, and was the means of elevating him to a very high degree of literary distinction. The first object of his attention were those subjects on which he was to be examined preparatory to obtaining his bache lor's degree ; and so great was his success, that he was appointed senior " wrangler," and was regarded by many as superior not only to every person of his year, but even to several of his examiners.