the same seed. He appears to have retained much more fondness for his classical than his mathematical acquirements; the very contrary of which is asserted*, without any warrant. He was far from ambitious of reputation in either study, and pursued them rather as necessary means to a future profession than fondled them for their own sake.

At the age of fifteen (1758) his father entered him as sizar at his own college (Christ's) at Cambridge; and wishing to visit his friends and his little vicarage, he accompanied his son on horseback, the only mode of travelling then in use in his neighourhood. Dr. Paley's account of the matter was as follows: "I was sent earlier to college than any young man before or since; and the reason was this-my mother wished to make a baker of me, and my father had made up his mind that I should be a parson. Having just recovered from a fit of illness when I was at the age of fifteen, he took me to college, and had me entered upon the books." On this occasion, it being observed by the Mayor of Lincoln, that it was a fortunate circumstance, as they should not have had the pleasure of having him there; "That does not follow, Mr. Mayor," he replied; "for though not subdean, I might have been Mayor of Lincoln."

It was to be expected that a lad of fifteen, just emerging from his hills on a pony of his own, and with his pockets full of money, should be more struck

VOL. I.

* Chalmers.

D

with the novelty of his situation than with any other event at that time; and so he would, had not his whole mind been engrossed with jockeyship. He used to recollect it with great pleasure; and being constantly disposed to make his wit and ridicule fall upon himself rather than others, would relate his disastrous journey and his numerous falls, and his father's caution with regard to his money, in the very language and manner already made public. On his return with his father, he was sent, as a preparation for the university, for one year to Dishforth, near Topcliffe, in the North Riding of Yorkshire, to be under a young man who was just leaving his father's school to take upon him the office of village schoolmaster at that place, and who being a remarkably simple, honest, and worthy character, was much esteemed both by Dr. Paley and his father. Here, when he became subdean of Lincoln, on his annual journey from Bishop Wearmouth to that place, he pointed out to his family, with great seeming satisfaction, the very house he lived in for £8 a year; spoke much of the familiar manner in which he passed his time with the villagers, but never said a word about his acquirements in mathematics, which must have been great, considering that with one year's preparation for the university, and with the assistance of a person but little older than himself, he was able, and conscious enough of his power, notwithstanding his abuse of the intermediate time, to become senior wrangler. This place he seemed

anxious to mark in his recollection for two thingsfor his being attracted by the simplicity of his host's family, and for his now first having an orange of his own; in other words, from first feeling his own master. But if this was all that he thought worthy of notice, others in the village and in the school were ready enough to observe so many peculiarities in him, that he readily gained the reputation of being crazed. From his habit of constantly pondering, and musing, and employing his thoughts, he was much alone. The place of his most frequent resort was a pump in the middle of the village, which he used to aim at from the side of the road a dozen times before he could hit it. His master observed, that when they walked together to the neighbouring town of Borough-Bridge, what was eight miles to him, his friend Paley, by his strange turnings, and twistings, and stoppings, managed ingeniously to make sixteen. Here too his vicinity to Knaresborough, where his uncle lived, gave him an opportunity of interesting himself much about Eugene Aram, who, he used to say, was hanged, if ever man was, by his own ingenuity. To this event, and to his associations with it, he used to think was owing his great fondness for matters of judicature; and particularly for criminal courts. It might probably have been the first application of a mind already prepared for close observation; at any rate it seems to have been the first exercise of a faculty in which he afterwards so much excelled.

When he was sixteen years old, he went to reside in college, probably not only from the fashion of sending young men so much earlier, but in order that he might be sooner able to stickle for himself, as his phrase was; but whether he was partly led away by the charm of dissipation, and by the novelty of a college life*, or felt some dissatisfaction at the manner in which he spent the early part of his time there, cannot now be ascertained. It is stated as a probability in the work alluded to, without any mark of his dissent. He certainly disapproved much of the plan of sending mere boys to college, and practised nearly the opposite extreme in his own family. It is not to be understood that he was inattentive to the general pursuits of a university education; but perhaps not in a way to satisfy a prediction which his father had made to one of his boarders, My son will be a great man; I am certain of

* Public Characters for 1802. This work, desultory as it is in most of its articles, and much as he used to smile at the article belonging to his name, was presented to him in his lifetime, and corrected by him in many of the facts by marginal notes, very much in his manner. "No, no, unjust, forgery, foolish paragraph, questionable date." And this, to which I have alluded already, is the only piece of information which can be considered authentic from his own hand. I have availed myself of it whereever I can. I have reason to think that the "character of Archdeacon Paley" was inserted by one whose information on the subject need not have been scanty, and whose general character for eminent abilities was very high. I believe this to have been made known to, or at least strongly suspected by Dr. Paley himself. ED.

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 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

* Biographical Dictionary. Aikin. + Quarterly Review.