the teeth, he made them to ache as well as to masticate. The good of mastication is the principal object of the contrivance, but is not the evil of aching the occasional effect? In considering the sensitive works of the Great Creator in the present world, all that we can truly say is, that good, or pleasure, is the PREDOMINANT design, the primary object, but that evil, or pain, is one of the concomitant effects, or subordinate accessories. There is too much good in the world to admit the supposition of malevolence in the Great Author of the scheme; and there is too much evil not to lead us to expect a state of future retribution. Those phenomena in the present state of things, which militate against the theory of Infinite Benevolence, appear to be only presages of the good that is to come. If the good even here greatly predominates over the evil, it is reasonable to infer, that in some future period the evil will disappear, and the Divine Benevolence be resplendent, without any apparent spot or limitation, in the condition of every individual. In the commencement of the year 1805, while Dr. Paley was resident at Lincoln, he experienced a violent paroxysm of his agonising malady, which could not be appeased by the usual remedies; and symptoms appeared that his end was approaching. He languished, however, in a state of debility and disease, till the period of his return to Bishop Wearmouth, where he expired on the 25th of May. His mental faculties suffered little, if any, diminution to the last moment of his existence; but if his intellectual vision underwent no eclipse, his corporeal sight is said to have failed for a few days before his death. It cannot be said of Dr. Paley that he lived in vain!-His was a mind of great powers; and in general he employed it for the noblest ends. He was particularly active in diffusing that knowledge which tends most to exalt the dignity of man; and raise him highest in the scale of virtue and intelligence. His moral and theological works reflect the highest honour on his memory; and if he betrayed a little seeming political versatility in smaller and more ephemeral productions, we may find some apology for his inconsistency in the times in which he lived; in his solicitude for the welfare of a large family; and in circumstances of which few have sufficient energy to control the agency or to resist the influence. In person, Dr. Paley was above the middle size, and latterly inclined to corpulence. The best likeness of him is by Romney, in which he is drawn with a fishing-rod in his hand. As in his domestic arrangments, and in his general habits of expense, he practised what may be called an enlightened economy, and observed a due medium between parsimony and profusion, his income was more than adequate to all his wants; and he left his family in easy if not in affluent circumstances. A volume of sermons was published after the death of Dr. Paley, which he left by his will to be distributed among his parishioners. In clearness of expression, in harmony of style, and in force of moral sentiment, some parts of these sermons are equal if not superior to any of his other works. In the pulpit he was one of those preachers who excelled in bringing the most important truths home to men's interests and bosoms.-Though a few will rejoice, yet the majority of readers will THE LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. xxiil lament, that in these sermons the author has abandoned his usual reserve with respect to certain doctrinal matters, which it is more easy to find in the liturgy and the articles of the church, than in the precepts of Christ, or the writings of the Evangelists.-Those doctrines which tend only to engender strife and to produce vain logomachies, would always be better omitted in the pulpit; and it is greatly to be deplored that in these sermons Dr. Paley has sanctioned their introduction. The great end of the commandment is charity, but can these doctrines conduce to that end? If this question had been proposed to Dr. Paley, it is not dif ficult to conjecture what would have been his reply, if that reply had been in unison with his unsophisticated sentiments. The reader will perhaps not be displeased, if we add to this biographical sketch of Dr. Paley the following interesting anecdote which he related to a friend at Cambridge in the year 1795, while they were conversing on the early part of his academical life. "I spent the first two years of my undergraduateship," said he, "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 d****d 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," Dr. Paley continued, "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 during such hours as chapel and hall required, alloting to each portion of time its peculiar branch of study; and just before the closing of gates (nine o'clock) I went to a neighbouring coffee-house, where I constantly regaled upon a mutton chop and a dose of milk punch. thus on taking my bachelor's degree I became senior wrangler." And Anecdotes of this kind, which have something of the marvellous, are seldom related with a punctilious adherence to truth: but if here be no erroneous statement, or inaccurate representation, Mr. Meadley appears to ascribe too much to the occurrence when he attributes to it "not only his (Paley's) successful labours as a college tutor, but the invaluable productions of his pen." A mind like that of Paley could not have been long so indolent as is represented without some compunctious visitings of remorse. It is more than probable that when he first received this friendly admonition, his bosom was a prey to some lurking pangs of selfcondemnation; and he was consequently predisposed instantly to put in force a plan of more systematic and more vigorous application. Where the matter of combustion already exists, a little spark will set it in a blaze. |