PALEY’S DIFFICULTIES A USEFUL LESSON TO YOUTH.
Soon after he became senior wrangler, having no immediate prospect of a fellowship, he became an assistant in a school at Greenwich, where, he says, I pleased myself with the imagination of the delightful task I was about to undertake, “teaching the young idea how to shoot.” As soon as I was seated, a little urchin came up to me and began,—“b-a-b, bab, b-l-e, ble, babble!” Nevertheless, at this time, the height of his ambition was to become the first assistant. During this period, he says, he restricted himself for some time to the mere necessaries of life, in order that he might be enabled to discharge a few debts, which he had incautiously contracted at Cambridge. “My difficulties,” he observes, “might afford a useful lesson to youth of good principles; for my privations produced a habit of economy which was of infinite service to me ever after.” At this time I wanted a waistcoat, and went into a second-hand clothes-shop. It so chanced that I bought the very same garment that Lord Clive wore when he made his triumphal entry into Calcutta.
IN HIS POVERTY HE WAS LIKE PARR.
The finances of the latter obliged him to leave Cambridge without a degree; after he had been assistant at Harrow, had a school at Stanmore, and been head master of the grammar school at Colchester, and had become head master of that of Norwich, they remained so low that once looking upon a small library, says Mr. Field, in his Life of the Doctor, “his eye was caught by the title, ‘Stephani Thesaurus Linguæ Græcæ,’ turning suddenly about, and striking violently the arm of the person whom he addressed, in a manner very unusual with him, ‘Ah! my friend, my friend,’ he exclaimed, ‘may you never be forced, as I was at Norwich, to sell that work—to me so precious—from absolute and urgent necessity!’” “At one time of my life,” he said, “I had but 14l. in the world. But then, I had good spirits, and owed no man sixpence!”
PORSON, TOO, WAS A CONTRAST TO PALEY.
The first, it is well known, vacated his fellowship, and left himself pennyless, rather than subscribe to the Thirty-nine Articles, from which there is no doubt he conscientiously dissented; and when asked to subscribe his belief in the notorious Shakspeare forgery of the Irelands, his reply was, “I subscribe to no articles of faith.” When Paley was solicited to sign his name to the supplication of the petitioning clergy, for relief from subscription, he has the credit of replying, he “could not afford to keep a conscience,” a saying that many have cherished to the prejudice of that great man’s memory, but which it is more than probable he said in his dry, humorous manner, without suspicion it would be remembered at all, and merely to rid himself of some importunate applicant. Paley, it is well known, notwithstanding the conclusions to which some interested writers have come, was strongly and conscientiously attached to the doctrines and constitution of the Established Church; and it was impossible but that, with his fine common-sense perception, he must have been well aware, that no Established Church, such as is that of England, could long exist as such, if not fenced round by articles of faith. And here I am reminded of an
ANECDOTE OF THE GREAT LORD BURLEIGH AND THE DISSENTERS OF HIS DAY.
He was once very much pressed by a body of Divines, says Collins, in his Life, to make some alteration in the Liturgy, upon which he desired them to go into the next room by themselves, and bring in their unanimous opinion on the disputed points. But they very soon returned without being able to agree. “Why, gentlemen,” said he, “how can you expect that I should alter my point in dispute, when you, who must be more competent to judge, from your situation, than I can possibly be, cannot agree among yourselves in what manner you would have me alter it.”
OTHER SAYINGS OF THIS GREAT MAN
Were, that he would “never truste anie man not of sounde religion; for he that is false to God, can never be true to man.”