the Eden, in one of the most delightful vales of Westmoreland, Appleby is quite the place for a fisher, who enters into the spirit of the sport, and loves the amusement of whipping the stream more than catching the fish. It might be probably from his eagerness for this amusement whilst at Appleby*, that Mr. Law struck out his intention of having his picture taken in his fishing trim; but it was not carried into execution till some time after, when Dr. Law was advanced to an Irish bishopric. To say nothing of the preposterous figure of a fisherman in a buzz wig and an archdeacon's hat, which was scarcely worn on state occasions, it is probable that neither Romney who painted it, nor Dr. Law who insisted on having it painted in that guise, knew much of fishing, or recollected how little that very peculiar kind of pike fishing would be recognised on canvas even by fishermen; and if it was so designed in order to catch the beaming expression of his countenance, as may be very obviously conjectured from the sort of countenance which belonged almost exclusively to him, it would have been equally consistent with his mind, and more so with good taste, to have made him intent on any other subject of contemplation, since there were many at that time as congenial to him. It was thought so good a painting, that when Dr. Law, then Bishop of Clonfert, called on Romney to him the stipulated price, the painter took up his

pay

*Meadley has mentioned this incorrectly.

£50 with great dissatisfaction, at the same time observing, he had been offered twice as much for it.

The society of Appleby was made more agreeable to him by its offering to him an acquaintance with Mr. Yates, who was at that time master of the grammar-school in that place, and quite a Busby of the north. Though before that time it was a school of no mean repute, as having prepared along with St. Bees men of that and the adjoining county for the old foundation of Queen's College, Oxford, yet it was indebted to Mr. Yates for much of its celebrity, which at that time was very great, and since that time has not diminished. By his long and close attention to the spirit as well as technical part of his office, and by superior penetration and attainments he brought with him, he was concerned in the interest and improvement of most of the first families in the country. Mr. Paley was much junior to Mr. Yates, who at that time was advanced in years, but they soon discovered and valued in each other, as might be expected in a provincial town, where such discoveries are not often made, the same fondness for literary and intellectual pursuits, and quickly entered into habits of unconstrained conversation. Mr. Paley, brought up to think a schoolmaster's the first of all employments, was glad to find so much affability, good humour, and cheerfulness, united to great taste and intellect*. There was besides a great

* Whilst I am upon this subject, I cannot help mentioning that Mr. Yates translated almost the whole of the first volume of

similarity in their ways of thinking, and in the degree of importance they both attached to the manners and morals of those that depended upon them; they both paid more particular attention to those little steps by which immorality makes a gradual progress, and were unwilling to overlook trifles. Many a cheerful hour was passed in each other's society. Mr. Yates used to desire Mr. Paley's company in an evening to sit with him, when the messenger was sent back to say he was busy knitting. Another message was sent to desire he would bring his knitting with him, when Mr. Paley would good-humouredly put it in his pocket and exhibit it, to show that he was in truth knitting a stocking for his first child. All these circumstances were recollected, when he called this, as he has often been heard to call it, the happiest time of his life.

It may be necessary to observe, as he is now in a way to be considered in his proper character as a divine, and particularly and distinctively as a writer and preacher of Sermons, that of all other departments of his life, the least stress has been laid upon that ordinary class of duties, the performance of which he considered the most important-that he never before assumed or pretended to the full discharge of the duties of a country clergyman-that from this time the composing and delivery of sermons was made a principal business, and was a duty in

the Spectator into Latin, as elegant and classical as the English of Addison; and was famous at eighty for the spirit and tone with which he read the plays of Shakspeare.-ED.

which he both liked and was most able to display his great powers of mind-that the sermons which were now composed will appear to be of more importance in the sequel than is generally understood-and that from this period to the end of his life this work never seems to have lost its interest in the least, nor to have assumed a different cast or management. It is said indeed by those who perhaps knew him best, that his early productions in this way were verbose and florid, meaning by his early productions those at Greenwich and during the residence in the university; and by verbose and florid, of a cast different from his later productions *. The authority for so saying is derived from too good a source to be disputed by those who have not a better; and there are at this day very few remaining in manuscript of that period. Those that do remain indeed are not so free from an affectation of style and common-place sentiments as those of his later life, though by no means unlike the style of the notes to his Essay, which is at once manly and scholar-like. It is not, in short, unfair to presume, that he might in his younger days be carried away by the passion for display which attaches

* These observations upon the style and manner of his sermons are not indeed so much applied to the period now spoken of; but they are nevertheless applicable, both because the character of them is marked from this time, and most of those dated at this period continued, with small alterations, to be occasionally. preached at other places; so that what will suit one period of his life may easily suit another in that respect.-ED.

to most young writers, as well as by a notion of adapting them more readily to a congregation used, as his then opinion might be of the people at Greenwich, to a higher style of preaching than mere country congregations. They are many of them full of highflown apostrophes, and what he would have been inclined perhaps to call little elegancies of composition, which show the writer of them not to have been without taste and feeling, but scarcely bespeak great powers of reasoning. Thus in one of these earlier productions of his, one of those at least which show their age by their torn and tattered condition, and the firm kind of hand-writing; upon the text, "The days of our age are threescore years and ten," are to be found the following passages, which do not bear the stamp of his mind, though they may of his feelings in an earlier age, when the poetical fervour of such writers as Watts or Hervey, or the eccentric effusions of Sterne, are often substituted for more rational piety. "Do you but look upon yourself as dying daily, and hasting to the grave,-do you in your most serious meditations often represent to yourself your own frail, languishing, consumptive condition, and the swift approaches that death is still making towards you, every day bringing you nearer and nearer to your long home,—and you will find that nothing could have been more effectual to humble your pride than this will be. Stoop down and look into the grave and see how your head must shortly be laid there,

VOL. I.

H