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of plate from every parish, and the freedom of several corporations; his portrait was painted and engraved by the most eminent artists, and what was infinitely more grateful to his feelings, the collections at his sermons far exceeded any that ever were known in a country distinguished for unmeasured benevolence. Even in times of public calamity and distress, his irresistible powers of persuasion repeatedly produced contributions exceeding a thousand or twelve hundred pounds at a sermon ; and his hearers, not content with emptying their purses into the plate, sometimes threw in jewels or watches, as earnest of further benefactions. The native warmth of his character breathed through all his discourses, and animated his conversation. His action was various and emphatic, without seeming studied or outrageous; his voice full and melodious, and his utterance successively solemn, earnest, melting, and impassioned, without the least appearance of affected modulation. His glance was piercing, his countenance austere and commanding, and his whole delivery was in perfect unison with the evangelical style and spirit of his discourses, which bore a strong impression of vigorous original conception and glowing zeal, illuminated by sound judgment and a profound knowledge of human nature.

He seems cautiously to have abstained from polishing any part of his sermons too highly, to blend with such extemporaneous effusions as occasional circumstances suggested, many of which burst from him with a rapid and overwhelming impetuosity, that hurried away the passions of his auditory in resistless ecstasy. From this masculine strain of impassioned exhortation, conveyed in diction not florid, but elevated, and with a voice and manner not theatrical, but impressive, resulted effects proportionably solid; and contributions-amounting almost to prodigality-produced foundations which promise to be permanent monuments of national beneficence. The following beautiful panegyric was pronounced by Mr Grattan in the Irish parliament, on the 19th of June 1792:-" And what has the church to expect? what is the case of Dr Kirwan? This man preferred our country and our religion, and brought to both, genius superior to what he found in either. He called forth the latent virtues of the human heart, and taught men to discover in themselves a mine of charity, of which the proprietors had been unconscious. In feeding the lamp of charity, he has almost exhausted the lamp of life. He came to interrupt the repose of the pulpit, and shakes one world with the thunder of the other. The preacher's desk becomes the throne of light. Round him a train, not such as crouch and swagger at the levee of princes; not such as attend the procession of the viceroy, horse, foot, and dragoons; but that wherewith a great genius peoples his own state,-charity in ecstasy, and vice in humiliation,— vanity, arrogance, and saucy empty pride, appalled by the rebuke of the preacher, and cheated, for a moment, of their native improbity and insolence.What reward? St Nicholas-within, St Nicholas-without! The curse of Swift is upon him: to have been born an Irishman and a man of genius, and to have used it for the good of his country."

This excellent man died, with signal piety and resignation, at his house at Mount Pleasant, near Dublin, on the 27th of October, 1805. His funeral was attended to his own church of St Nicholas-without, by the children of all the parish schools in Dublin, and his pall was borne by six gentlemen of the first distinction.

Sir Jonah Barrington attributes to him a want of philanthropic qual. ities,- —a high opinion of himself, which overwhelmed every other consideration, and an intractable turn of mind entirely repugnant to the usual means of acquiring high preferment. He describes his figure and countenance as having been unprepossessing; his air discontented; and his features so sharp as to be almost repulsive. "His manner of preaching," continues Sir Jonah," was of the French school: he was vehement for a while, and then becoming, or affecting to become, exhausted, he held his handkerchief to his face; a dead silence ensued; he had skill to perceive the precise moment to recommence,—another blaze of declamation burst upon the congregation, and another fit of exhaustion was succeeded by another pause. The men began to wonder at his eloquence; the women grew nervous at his denunciations. His tact rivalled his talents, and, at the conclusion of one of his finest sentences, a 'celestial exhaustion,' as I heard a lady call it, not unfrequently terminated his discourse-in general, abruptly."

William Paley, D. D.

BORN A. D. 1743.-DIED A. D. 1805.

THIS very eminent man was born in the neighbourhood of Peterborough, in July, 1743. His father was then incumbent of Helpstone, but soon afterwards accepted the mastership of Giggleswick school, near Settle in Yorkshire.

Young Paley remained under his father's tuition until his sixteenth year, when he was sent to Cambridge, and admitted a sizar of Christ college. During the first period of his undergraduateship he was remarkable more for indolence and drollery than for genius and application; but he acquired great celebrity by the ability which he displayed in keeping his first act. "I spent," says he, "the first two years of my undergraduateship 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 awakened, 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 I to try, and can afford the life I lead: you could do every thing, and cannot afford it. I have had 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 !' I was so struck with the visit, and the visitor, that I lay in bed great part of the day, and formed my plan. I ordered my bed-maker 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, allotted to each portion of time its peculiar branch of study; and, just before the closing of the college gates, (nine o'clock,) I went to a neighbouring coffeehouse, where I constantly regaled on a mutton chop, and a dose of milk punch and thus, on taking my bachelor's degree, I became senior wrangler."

He attained this latter honour in January, 1763. After taking his bachelor's degree he became second usher in an academy at Greenwich, in which situation he remained nearly three years. In June, 1766, he was elected to a fellowship of Christ church, and returning to the university, became one of the tutors of his college. In this situation he delivered lectures on metaphysics, morals, and the Greek Testament, and, subsequently, on divinity.

In 1771, he strenuously opposed the application of John Horne Tooke for the degree of M. A., on the ground that Tooke had apparently renounced all religion. During the same year, a Spanish musician, named Ximenes, of whom Lord Sandwich was a warm patron, obtained leave to give a concert in the hall of Christ college; but Paley peremptorily insisted that it should not take place unless a satisfactory assurance were given, that a certain lady, then under the protection of his lordship, and who had been openly distributing tickets, would not attend it. About this period, he occasionally preached at St Mary's. lt has been stated, that he officiated there when Pitt visited Cambridge, soon after his elevation to the premiership, and that he took occasion to rebuke the numerous members of the university who had been guilty of mean adulation towards the youthful minister, by selecting the following text for his discourse:-"There is a lad here, which hath five barley loaves and two small fishes; but what are they among so many ?"

In 1774, Paley corrected the press of an edition of Dr Waring's 'Miscellanea Analytica,' although he appears never to have entertained any great predilection for the mathematics. In the following year he was collated by his friend, Bishop Law, to the rectory of Musgrove in Westmoreland; and soon after was presented to the vicarage of Dalston in Cumberland, and the living of Appleby.

In 1782, Dr Law was created bishop of Clonfert; and the archdeaconry of Carlisle, which he vacated, was given to Dr Paley, who accompanied his friend to Dublin and Clonfert, and preached the sermon at his consecration. About this period he exchanged the living at Appleby for a stall in the cathedral of Carlisle, by which his clerical dignity was increased and his income enlarged.

It was while his residence was divided between Carlisle and Dalston, that Paley undertook to write his first and most celebrated work, The Elements of Moral and Political Philosophy.' It would perhaps never have been produced by a just confidence in his own talents, if that had not been aided by the encouragement of Dr John Law, who` having, while they were connected together at college, enjoyed frequent opportunities of looking into Paley's lectures, had early conceived an idea that they might be expanded into a most useful treatise. This he had often suggested to his friend, but Paley always objected the little attention that was paid by the public to these subjects, and was afraid he might print a book that would not be bought. But a living becoming vacant, Dr Law gave it to him on receiving a promise that be would consider it as a compensation for the hazard of printing, and immediately set about preparing his work for the press. Accordingly, in 1785 The Elements of Moral and Political Philosophy' appeared. It was read with universal admiration, and editions were multiplied with a rapidity entirely unexpected by the author. With all its defects, this is a most valuable and acute work. His fundamental princi

ple, that "the utility of any moral rule alone it is which constitutes the obligation to it," is most decidedly objectionable, and has been sufficiently refuted by various ethical writers.

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In 1790, he published his Hora Paulinæ,' in which, with profound sagacity, he illustrates and enforces the credibility of the Christian revelation, by showing the numerous coincidences between the Epistles of Paul and the Acts of the Apostles,-coincidences which no possible hypothesis but that of their veracity can account for.

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In 1793 appeared his 'View of the Evidences of Christianity,' which has since become a standard work with students in divinity, and its great merits and usefulness have been universally acknowledged. consequence of these important services to the cause of Christianity and of mankind, Dr Paley was deservedly rewarded with new honours. The bishop of London gave him a prebend of St Paul's: the sub-deanery of Lincoln was presented to him at the same time by Dr Tomline (then Dr Prettyman,) the bishop of Lincoln; and, within a few weeks, the valuable living of Bishop-Wearmouth, supposed to be worth £1500 per annum, was added by the bishop of Durham.

Dr Paley fixed his residence at Bishop-Wearmouth in 1795; but his office of sub-dean of Lincoln obliged him to reside in that city three months in the year. He now undertook and proceeded slowly with his last work, entitled 'Natural Theology; or Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of a Deity collected from the Appearances of Nature,' which was published in 1802. He died on the 25th of May, 1805.

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It is in the character of a defender of the faith, says an able essayest, "that we would hold up Paley to almost unmingled admiration; in any other character his praise may be more qualified. We think it next to impossible for a candid unbeliever to read the Evidences' of Paley, in their proper order, unshaken. His Natural Theology' will open the heart, that it may understand, or at least receive, the scriptures, if any thing can. It is philosophy in its highest and noblest sense; scientific, without the jargon of science; profound, but so clear that its depth is disguised. There is nothing of the budge doctor' here; speculations which will convince, if aught will, that in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth,' are made familiar as household words. They are brought home to the experience of every man, the most ordinary observer on the facts of nature with which he is daily conversant. A thicker clothing, for instance, is provided in winter for that tribe of animals which are covered with fur. Now, in these days, such an assertion would be backed by an appeal to some learned Rabbi of a Zoological society, who had written a deep pamphlet, upon what he would probably call the Theory of Hair. But to whom does Paley refer us? To any dealer in rabbit skins. The curious contrivance in the bones of birds, to unite strength with lightness, is noticed. The bore is larger, in proportion to the weight of the bone, than in other animals; it is empty; the substance of the bone itself is of a closer texture. For these facts, any operative' would quote Sir Everard Home, or Professor Cuvier, by way of giving a sort of philosophical éclat to the affair, and throwing a little learned dust in the eyes of the public. Paley, however, advises you to make your own observations when you happen to be engaged in the scientific operation of picking the leg or wing of a chicken. The very singular

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correspondence between the two sides of any animal, the right hand answering to the left, and so on, is touched upon, as a proof of a contriving Creator, and a very striking one it is. Well! we have a long and abstruse problem in chances worked out to show that it was so many millions, and so many odd thousands to one, that accident could not have produced the phenomenon; not a bit of it. Paley (who was probably scratching his head at the moment) offers no other confirmation of his assertion, than that it is the most difficult thing in the world to get a wig made even, seldom as it is that the face is made awry. The circulation of the blood, and the provision for its getting from the heart to the extremities, and back again, affords a singular demonstration of the Maker of the body being an admirable Master both of mechanics and hydrostatics. But what is the language in which Paley talks of this process ?-technical ?-that mystical nomenclature of Diaforius, which frightens country patients out of their wits, thinking as they very naturally do, that a disease must be very horrid which involves such very horrid names? Hear our anatomist from Giggleswick. 'The aorta of a whale is larger in the bore than the main-pipe of the water-works at London Bridge; and the roaring in the passage through that pipe is inferior, in impetus and velocity, to the blood gushing from the whale's heart.' He cares not whence he fetches his illustrations, provided they are to the purpose. The laminæ of the feathers of birds are kept together by teeth that hook into one another, as a latch enters into the catch, and fastens a door.' The eyes of the mole are protected by being very small, and buried deep in a cushion of skin, so that the apertures leading to them are like pin-holes in a piece of velvet, scarcely pervious to loose particles of earth. The snail without wings, feet, or thread, adheres to a stalk by a provision of stickingplaster. The lobster, as he grows, is furnished with a way of uncasing himself of his buckler, and drawing his legs out of his boots when they become too small for him. In this unambitious manner does Paley prosecute his high theme, drawing, as it were, philosophy from the clouds. But it is not merely the fund of entertaining knowledge which the Natural Theology' contains, or the admirable address displayed in the adaptation of it, which fits it for working conviction; the sunshine of the breast,' the cheerful spirit with which its benevolent author goes on his way (xudu yav), this it is that carries the coldest reader captive, and constrains him to confess within himself, and even in spite of himself, it is good for me to be here.' Voltaire may send his hero about the world to spy out its morbid anatomy with a fiendish satisfaction, and those may follow him in his nauseous errand who will, but give us the feelings of the man who could pour forth his spirit in such language as this: It is a happy world after all; the air, the earth, the water, teem with delighted existence. In a spring noon, or a summer's evening, on whichever side I turn mine eyes, myriads of happy beings crowd upon my view. "The insect youth are on the wing.' Swarms of new-born flies are trying their pinions in the air. Their sportive motions, their wanton mazes, their gratuitous activity, their continual change of place without use or purpose, testify their joy, and the exul tation they feel in their lately discovered faculties.'

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"Mr Blanco White read the Natural Theology,' and was thereby induced to read the Evidences.' This is precisely what we have been

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