Volume 1

The complete works ... with extracts from his correspondence: and a life of the author / by the Rev. Robert Lynam.

  • Paley, William, 1743-1805
Date:
1825
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The complete works ... with extracts from his correspondence: and a life of the author / by the Rev. Robert Lynam. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    17/472 (page 3)
    quiet and indolent recreation of angling* was the prin¬ cipal amusement in which he took delight. His mind was ardent and his curiosity active, especially upon subjects of mechanical ingenuity. That attention also, which he paid through his whole life, to the laws of his country, and the practice of courts of justice, was early awakened in his bosom. Having been present one year at the assizes in Lancaster, his youthful fancy was so interested by the proceedings he had witness¬ ed, that the solemnities of the court were reacted at school, and young Paley, assuming the dignity of a venerable judge, had his playmates arraigned before his mimic tribunal. But the realities of life were soon to commence. Upon the completion of his fifteenth year, he accom¬ panied his father to Cambridge, and was admitted on the 16th of November, 1758, a sizer of Christ’s Col¬ lege ; a society which can enumerate among its mem¬ bers, Milton, the sublimest of poets, and Paley, the clearest of philosophers. The journey to Cambridge, or part of it, was to be accomplished on horseback : and our young hero not being so skilful in keeping close to a steed, as to an argument, suffered a series of disasters which he used himself to relate. I was never a good horseman, and when I followed my father on a pony of my own, on my first journey to Cam¬ bridge, T fell off seven times. I was lighter then than I am now, and my falls were not likely to be serious. My father, on hearing a thump, would turn his head half aside and say, ‘ Take care of thy money, lad.’” The year between Paley’s admission and residence at college was devoted to the cultivation of mathema¬ tical knowledge. As classics were the only study pursued at Giggles wick school, he was placed under the care of Mr. William Howarth, at Dishforth, near Topclilfe, in Yorkshire, for the sake of instruction in geometry and algebra. To this new field of investi¬ gation there is no doubt that he applied himself sedu-