Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/199

 P A L P A L 181 three Masses to Cardinal Carlo Borromeo for approval. These were privately rehearsed, in presence of the com missioners, at the palace of Cardinal Vitellozzi ; and, while warmly admiring them all, the judges were unanimous in deciding that the third mass fulfilled, in the highest possible degree, all the conditions demanded. The private trial took place in June 1565 ; and, on the 19th of that month, the Mass was publicly sung at the Sistine Chapel, in presence of Pope Pius IV., who compared its music to that heard by St John in his vision of the New Jerusalem. Thenceforth it was formally accepted as the type of all true ecclesiastical music. Parvi transcribed it, for the library of the choir, in characters of extraordinary size and beauty and, in acknowledgment of his services to art, Palestrina was appointed by the pope composer to the Sistine Chapel, an office created expressly in his honour, and confirmed to him by seven later pontiffs, though with the very insufficient honorarium of three scudi per month, in addition to the six which formed his pension. In 15G7 this Mass was printed in Palestrina s Liber secundus Missarum. The volume was dedicated to Philip II. of Spain, but the Mass was called the &quot; Missa Papoa Marcelli. &quot; This title, clearly given in honour of the short lived pope Marcellus II., has given rise to an absurd story, told by Pellegrini anrl others, to the effect that the Mass was composed by Pope Marcellus I., martyred early in the 4th century, and was only discovered by Palestrina. Of course, in the 4th century the composition of such music was impossible ; but this is only a specimen of the innumerable fables which have brought the true history into disrepute. The Missa Pap&amp;lt;e Marcelli is undoubtedly Palestrina s greatest work. Its ineffable beauty has often been described in glowing terms by those who have heard it in the Sistine Chapel, but it was never heard in Eng land until 1882, when the Bach choir, consisting of two hundred unaccompanied voices, sang it at St James s Hall, under the direction of Mr Otto Goldschmidt ; and the efiect produced on that occasion more than justified all that had ever been said of the music, which is certainly the most beautiful, the most solemn, and the most truly devotional that has ever been dedicated to the service of the church. &quot;We have dwelt at some length on these circumstances, because they left a more indelible impression upon the history of art than any other events in Palestrina s life, which was not what the world would call a prosperous one, though he himself was quite satisfied with his condition. Upon the death of Animuccia in 1571 Palestrina was re-elected to his appointment at the Cappella Giulia. He also succeeded Animuccia as Maestro di Cappella at the Oratory of Philip Neri ; but these appointments were far from lucrative, and he still remained a very poor man. In 1580 he was much distressed by the death of his wife ; and the loss of three promising sons, Angelo, Ridolfo, and Silla, left him with one child only Igino a very unworthy descendant. In 1586 a new trouble befel him: Pope Sixtus V. wished to appoint him maestro to the pontifical choir, as successor to Antonio Boccapadule, then about to resign, and commissioned Boccapadule to prepare the choir for the change. Boccapadule, however, managed so clumsily that Palestrina was accused of having meanly plotted for his own advancement. The pope was very angry, and punished the calumniators very severely ; but Palestrina lost the appointment. These troubles, however, did not hinder his work, which he continued, without intermission, until February 2, 1594, when he breathed his last in the arms of his friend, Filippo Neri. The printed works of Palestrina include twelve volumes of Masses ; seven .volumes of Motets for from four to twelve voices ; two volumes of Offertoria, and one of Hymns, for the whole year ; one volume of Lamentations, three of Litanies, and one of Magnificats ; two of Madrigals, the loveliest in existence ; and two of Madvigali spiritual! ; besides an immense number of compositions still remain ing in MS. The whole of these are now in course of publication by Breitkopf and Ha rtel, of Leipsic. (W. S. R. ) PALEY, WILLIAM (1743-1805), was born in 1743 at Peterborough, where his father was one of the minor canons of the cathedral. The Paley family belonged to the West Riding of Yorkshire, and in 1745 Paley s father was appointed head master of the grammar school of Giggleswick, his native parish. Here Paley received his early education under his father s care. In 1759 he proceeded to Cambridge, where his first undergraduate years were given up, according to his own account, more to society than to study. Bat, being roused by a reproof from one of his companions, he used the remainder of his time to such advantage that he came out senior wrangler at the end of his course. After taking his degree in 1763, Paley was for about three years assistant in a school at Greenwich ; but on his election to a fellowship he returned to Cambridge, and became, in 1768, one of the junior tutors of his college. His colleague in this office was John Law, son of Dr Edmund Law, then master of Peterhouse, and afterwards bishop of Carlisle. To the connexion thus formed Paley was afterwards indebted for his first preferments in the church. As tutor at Christ s, Paley lectured on Locke, Clarke, and Butler, and also delivered a systematic course on moral philosophy, which formed the basis, more than ten years later, of his well-known treatise. The subscription controversy was then agitating the university, and Paley published an anonymous Defence of a pamphlet in which Bishop Law had advocated the retrenchment and simplification of the thirty-nine articles. But, though Paley was all for &quot; worshipping God in that generality of expression in which He himself has left some points,&quot; he did not see his way to join the petitioners for a relaxation of the terms of subscription. His own view of the articles, as simply &quot; articles of peace,&quot; probably led him to consider their action as a piece of overstrained conscientiousness. In 1776 Paley vacated his fellowship by marriage, and retired to the rectory of Musgrave in Westmoreland, which had been conferred on him the year before by the bishop of Carlisle. This very modest living was soon supplemented by the vicarage of Dalston, and presently exchanged for that of Appleby. In 1782 he became archdeacon of Carlisle on the appointment of the younger Law to an Irish bishopric. His first important work, The Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy, was published (as Principles of Morality and Politics) in 1785, and Paley received the unusually large sum of 1000 for the copyright. The book at once became the ethical text-book of the university of Cambridge, and passed through fifteen editions in the author s lifetime. It was followed in 1790 by his first essay in the field of Christian apologetics, Horse, Paulinge, or the Truth of the Scripture History of St Paul evinced by a comparison of the Epistles which bear his name with the Acts of the Apostles and uith one another. Though the original idea of the book was derived from Doddridge, this is probably the most original of its author s works. It was followed in 1794 by a more general work in the same field, the celebrated View of the Evidences of Christianity. Paley s latitudinarian views, combined with a certain homely outspokenness in the Moral and Political Philo sophy regarding the foundations of civil authority (&quot;the divine right of kings is like the divine right of constables &quot;), are said to have debarred him from the highest positions in the church. But his able defence of the faith brought him substantial acknowledgments from the episcopal bench. The bishop of London gave him a stall in St Paul s ; the bishop of Lincoln made him snbdean of that