Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 43.djvu/108

 first two years. One morning, after a jovial evening, he was waked by a companion who had come to tell him that he was a ‘damned fool’ for wasting his abilities with men who had no ability to waste. Paley was duly impressed, took to early rising and systematic work, and became senior wrangler. His son doubts the story, principally because the two years' idleness seems to be incompatible with other facts. The event may be misdated. Paley was intimate with Unwin, son of Cowper's Mrs. Unwin, in the year below him; and was a private pupil of John Wilson, senior wrangler in 1761, and afterwards a judge. In the autumn of 1762 Paley had to keep his act for the degree of B.A. He told the moderator, Richard Watson (afterwards bishop of Llandaff), that he proposed to defend the thesis (taken from one of the text-books) ‘Æternitas pœnarum contradicit divinis attributis.’ He returned in a fright to say that the master of his college had objected to his defending such a doctrine. By Watson's advice he therefore inserted a ‘non’ before ‘contradicit’ (, Anecdotes; Meadley and E. Paley vary in the details). [q. v.] of Caius, father of John Hookham Frere, was his opponent, and was second to him in the mathematical tripos of 1763. Paley was recommended by Shepherd to be second usher in the academy of a Mr. Bracken at Greenwich. He often went to the London theatres, and saw Garrick. He attended trials at the Old Bailey, and gained some knowledge of criminal law. In 1765 he won one of the member's prizes at Cambridge by an essay comparing the stoic and the epicurean morality. Paley took the epicurean side, but nearly lost the prize because he had added notes in English to his Latin dissertation. He used afterwards to confess that he had entered Cambridge in a post-chaise with the windows down, and ordered the postilion to drive slowly, so that the successful candidate might be visible on his way to read the essay in the senate-house. His awkward manner set his audience laughing during the recitation. Paley was ordained deacon, and became curate to [q. v.], then vicar of Greenwich. He continued to officiate there, although he left his school to become tutor to the son of a Mrs. Orr, and quarrelled with the master for trying to conceal Mrs. Orr's offer of the appointment (, p. liv). Mrs. Orr was afterwards his warm friend till her death. On 24 June 1766 Paley was elected fellow of his college, and came again into residence. He was ordained priest in London on 21 Dec. 1767. Shepherd was made the sole tutor of the college in 1768, but entrusted his duties as a lecturer to Paley and his friend (1745–1810) [q. v.], second wrangler in 1766, and son of Bishop [q. v.], then master of Peterhouse and Knightbridge professor at Cambridge. Paley and Law became intimate friends, and made excursions together in the vacations, Law providing a gig and Paley a horse. They once met Wilkes at Bath, and enjoyed an evening with him. They raised the reputation of the college by their lectures. Law took the mathematics, while Paley lectured upon ‘metaphysics, morals, and the Greek Testament.’ He lectured upon Locke to the freshmen, according to Meadley, and from Locke proceeded to Clarke's ‘Attributes’ and Butler's ‘Analogy.’ E. Paley doubts the lectures on Locke, but gives specimens of his lectures upon other subjects. Manuscript notes of his lectures were in request throughout the university, and his good humour, power of illustration, and happy art of rousing attention made him popular. In his lectures upon divinity he took the view, maintained also in his ‘Moral Philosophy,’ that the Thirty-nine Articles were merely ‘articles of peace,’ inasmuch as they contained ‘about 240 distinct propositions, many of them inconsistent with each other.’ It was impossible to suppose that the imposers could expect any man to believe all. Paley belonged to the ‘Hyson Club’ established by the wranglers of 1757, in which year (1736–1786) [q. v.] was second. Paley was intimate with Jebb, but declined to join in the ‘Feather's’ petition of 1772 for a relaxation of the terms of subscription, on the ground that ‘he could not afford to keep a conscience.’ He afterwards, however, wrote anonymously in defence of a pamphlet written in 1774 by Bishop Law in favour of relaxation (E. Paley confirms the authorship, which had been doubted). Paley heartily supported Jebb's abortive movement in 1774 for introducing annual examinations. Paley and Law were not officially appointed tutors till 13 March 1771. They had hitherto only received half the tuition fees, but in the next year succeeded in obtaining a ‘trisection’ from the senior tutor, Shepherd. Paley was popular at Cambridge, and the delight of combination rooms. Among his closest friends was Waring, the Lucasian professor, whose ‘Miscellanea Analytica’ he corrected for the press in 1774.

In 1774 Edmund Law, who had in 1768 become bishop of Carlisle, appointed his son to a prebend in his cathedral. He was succeeded at Christ's College by T. Parkinson, who for two years was Paley's colleague. Paley had acted as private tutor in