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Excerpt from The Works of William Paley, D.D: Archdeacon of Carlible, Containing His Life, Moral and Political Philosophy, Evidences of Christianity, Natural Theology, Tracts, Horae Paulinae, Clergyman's Companion, and Sermons In one of his portraits he is represented with a fishing rod and line. His cheerfulness and drollery arc said to have made him a favourite with his school-fellows. Before he left school he one year attended the assizes at Lancaster, where he is said to have been so much interested by the judicial proceedings he had witnessed, that he introduced them into his juvenile games, and presided over the trials of the other boys. In November 1758, Paley was admitted a sizer of Christ's College, Cambridge. He proceeded to the University on horseback, in company with his father; and in after-life he thus described the disasters that befell him on the way. "I was never a good horseman," said he, "and when I followed my father on a pony of my own, on my first journey to Cambridge, I 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." Young Paley did not become a resident member in the University till the October in the year after his matriculation. His father is said to have anticipated his future eminence, and to have remarked, with parental delight, the force and clearness of his intellectual operations. Mr. Paley took with him to the University such a considerable share of mathematical science, that the mathematical tutor, Mr. Shepherd, excused his attendance at the college lectures with the students of his own year. But he was regularly present at Mr. Backhouse's lectures in logic and metaphysics. Whatever might be his assiduity in those studies which the discipline of the University required, he had little of the appearance, and none of the affectation, of a hard student. His room was the common resort of the juvenile loungers of his time; but it must be remembered that Mr. Paley possessed the highly desirable power of concentrating his attention in the subject before him; and that he could read or meditate in the midst of noise and tumult with as much facility as if he had been alone. During the first period of his undergraduateship, he was in the habit of remaining in bed till a late hour in the morning, and as he was much in company during the latter part of the day, many wondered how he found leisure for making the requisite accession to his literary stores. But the mind of Paley was so formed that, in reading, he could rapidly select the kernel and throw away the husk. By a certain quick and almost intuitive process, he discriminated between the essential, and the extraneous matter that were presented to his mind in the books that he perused; and, if he did not read so much as many, he retained more of what he read. The hilarity and drollery, which Mr. Paley had manifested at school, did not desert him when he entered the University. Thus his company was much sought; and the cumbrousness of his manner, and the general slovenliness of his apparel, perhaps contributed to increase the effect of his jocularity. When he made his first appearance in the schools, he surprised the spectators by a style of dress, very different from his ordinary habiliments. He exhibited his hair full dressed, with a deep ruffled shirt, and new silk stockings. When Paley kept his first act, one of the theses in support of which he proposed to dispute was, that the eternity of punishments is contrary to the Divine Attributes. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com