too good to die of drinking punch in the torrid zone. In 1762, he took his degree of M. A. and was elected junior moderator; and, in the following year, he officiated in the same capacity for another person. In February, 1764, he proceeded to Paris, on a friendly visit to Mr. Luther, formerly his pupil, but then member of parliament for Essex; who subsequently bequeathed him a legacy of £20,000. At this time, Luther was separated from his wife; and Watson is said to have travelled twelve hundred miles, and crossed the channel four times, for the purpose of bringing about a reconciliation between them; which he, at length, succeeded in effecting. At the latter end of the same year, he was elected senior moderator; and, although he was wholly ignorant of the science, professor of chemistry; but he was tired, as he states, of mathematics and natural philosophy; the vehementissima gloriæ cupido, stimulated him to try his strength in a new pursuit, and the kindness of the university animated him to extraordinary exertions. "I immediately sent to Paris," he adds, "for an operator; buried myself in my laboratory; and having, in October, 1765, been, a fourth time, elected moderator, in fourteen months from my election I read a course of chemical lectures in the university, to a very full audience."

No salary being attached to his professorship, he presented a petition on the subject, in March, 1766, to the Marquess of Rockingham, then at the head of public affairs; which, however, for some time, met with no attention. In July, "waiting on the Duke of Newcastle," he says, "his grace asked if my business was done? I answered, "No!'-much vexed at the delay. He then asked, 'Why?' I answered, 'Because Lord Rockingham says, your grace ought to speak to the king, as chancellor of the university; and your grace says, that Lord Rockingham ought to speak to the king, as minister.'" The duke "stared with astonishment," but immediately wrote to Lord Rockingham, who, although his dismissal from office had then been determined on, procured from the king, an offer to settle on Watson £100 per annum, for life; which, however, the latter declined accepting,

longer than he should hold the professorship.

In 1767, he became one of the head tutors of his college. At this time, so extraordinary was his application, that he frequently read, as he states, three public lectures in Trinity college, beginning at eight o'clock in the morning; spent four or five hours with private pupils; five or six more in his laboratory, every day; besides the incidental business of presiding in the Sophs' schools. In 1768, he composed and printed his Institutiones Metallurgica; and, about the same time, was elected a fellow of the Royal Society, to which he had previously communicated some observations respecting the various phenomena attendant on the solution of salts. He appears to have been at Paris during the riots occasioned by the proceedings against Wilkes; whom, he says, he disliked, although he liked his cause.

In 1771, he obtained the regius professorship of divinity, which had long been the object of his secret ambition, with the valuable rectory attached to that office. On this occasion, he was created D. D., by royal mandate. Being, to use his own language, totally indifrent as to the opinions of councils, fathers, bishops, and other men, as little inspired as himself, he restricted his theological studies entirely to the Bible. In the course of the same year, (1771,) he printed, for private circulation only, a chemical essay, which he was unjustly charged by the editors of the Journal Encyclopedique, who, however, subsequently confessed their error, with having taken from Le Système de la Nature.

In 1772, he addressed two letters signed A Christian Whig, to the members of the house of commons. On the 21st of December, in the following year, he married the eldest daughter of Edward Wilson, Esq., of Dallum Tower, in Westmoreland; and, on the following day, took possession of a sinecure rectory, in North Wales, procured for him, of the Bishop of St. Asaph, by the Duke of Grafton; which, on his return to Cambridge, he exchanged for a prebend of Ely. Having previously declared that his opinions were hostile to the American war, he opposed, in 1775, an university address to the king,

urging its continuance; and, soon afterwards, in a letter addressed to his patron, the Duke of Grafton, he animadverted with some severity on the course pursued by Junius.

In 1776, he rendered himself particularly conspicuous by publishing two sermons, which he had preached before the university, one of which was entitled, The Principles of the Revolution Vindicated, and the other, On the Anniversary of the King's Accession. Shortly afterwards, appeared his famous Apology for Christianity, in answer to Gibbon. In January, 1780, he became Archdeacon of Ely; and in May, delivered a primary visitation sermon to the clergy of the diocese, in which, he strongly recommended the formation of a society at Cambridge, for the purpose of making and publishing translations of oriental manuscripts. In the following August, Bishop Keene presented him to the rectory of Northwold, in Norfolk. During the next year, appeared the first two volumes of his Chemical Essays, of which, he subsequently published three others.

In 1782, the Duke of Rutland, who had been his pupil, presented him to the rectory of Knapcroft, in Leicestershire, and procured his elevation to the bishopric of Llandaff, with which, he was permitted to hold his professorship, archdeaconry, and other preferments. Soon afterwards, he addressed a letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury, recommending an equalization of the value of church benefices; and, in 1785, he published a selection of theological tracts from various authors. In the following year, he received the legacy of £20,000, which had been bequeathed to him by Mr. Luther. During the king's illness, in 1788, he was a zealous advocate for conferring an unrestricted regency on the heir-apparent; and, it has been hinted, that his opposition to the measure proposed by Pitt on this occasion, might, perhaps, be attributed to a hope of obtaining from the prince, on his elevation to sovereign authority, the see of St. Asaph, which had recently become vacant by the death of Dr. Shipley. His motives were, however, apparently disinterested; but the opinions which he supported were fatal to his hopes of further promotion; and he seems, during the latter part of his

career, to have felt that he was unjustly neglected.

In 1790, appeared his Considerations on the Expediency of Revising the Liturgy and Articles of the Church of England; and, in 1796, he stood forward again as the champion of revealed religion, and published 66 his most seasonable, strong, judicious, and beautiful Apology for the Bible;" the effect of which, as it has been aptly observed, was considerably enhanced by his adopting the popular manner and style of his antagonist, Paine. In 1798, appeared his able Address to the People of Great Britain, in which he animadverted severely on the principles which had led to the French revolution. Wakefield printed a reply to this performance, for which, he was prosecuted and imprisoned for sedition; but Watson, much to his honour, took no part in the proceedings against his learned opponent. In 1804, he again denounced French principles; and, at the same time, warmly recommended a liberal attention to the catholic claims, in the printed sketch of a speech, which he had intended to have delivered to the house of lords, on the 22nd of November, in the preceding year.

In 1807, he printed two sermons, which he had preached at the chapel royal, St. James's, in defence of revealed religion; and, in 1813, appeared his Brief State of the Principles of Church Authority, in which, he strenuously vindicated non-subscription to articles of faith. His last work, Miscellaneous Tracts on Religious, Political, and other Subjects, appeared in 1815. He amused himself during the decline of life, by making large plantations of timber trees, in the neighbourhood of his country residence; for which, he had received a medal from the Society of Arts, so early as the year 1789. Besides the works already mentioned, he published a sermon preached in 1804, before the Society for the Suppression of Vice; a communication to the board of agriculture on the planting of waste lands; several papers in the Transactions of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, of which he was one of the earliest members; and many charges and sermons on local or occasional subjects. He died, leaving a large family, on the 4th of July, 1816.

His autobiography, to which the writer of this sketch is considerably indebted, were, after his decease, edited by his son. In addition to his other honours, he was a fellow of the American Society of Arts and Sciences, a member of the Massachusetts Historical Society, and a trustee of the Hunterian Museum.

In private life, Bishop Watson, although rather reserved, was particularly amiable, on account of the simplicity of his manners, and the perfect equanimity of his temper. As a speaker, he excelled most of his clerical cotemporaries; his action was graceful, his voice full and harmonious, and his language chaste and correct. As a writer, he was erudite, manly, loyal, pious and tolerant. His political works are remarkably liberal; his polemical productions firm, but conciliating; and his contributions to science indicative of great research, labour, and extraordinary abilities. He was friendly to the repeal of the test and corporation acts; and, with some restrictions, to catholic emancipation. Although he pined in comparative obscurity in the see of Llandaff, he was decidedly one of the greatest men of his day; and will certainly be remembered, long after many of his more fortunate but less able cotemporaries shall have

been utterly forgotten. Of his Apology for the Bible, which has gone through more than fifty editions, and is still deservedly popular, and of his Apology for Christianity, Simpson remarks that they are books small in size but rich in value. "They discover," he adds, "great liberality of mind, much strength of argument, a clear elucidation of difficulties, and vast superiority of ability on this question, to the persons whom he undertook to answer." Duncombe observes of his collection of tracts, that "the benevolent design of the right reverend editor is fully explained in a preface, which breathes such a liberality of sentiment, and such a spirit of toleration, as becometh a teacher of the truth, as it is in Jesus. A plan of theological studies is here proposed; in which the works of dissenters, as well as churchmen, are recommended." Gibbon never replied to his masterly Apology for Christianity; feeling, as he is stated to have acknowledged, such a diffidence of his own powers, to cope with those of his antagonist, as he had never before experienced. These eminent men afterwards entered into a correspondence, which induced George the Third, it is said, to suspect Bishop Watson of heterodoxy.

THIS eminent divine and philosopher, son of the head master of Giggleswick grammar-school, and minor canon of Peterborough, was born in the neighbourhood of the latter place, in July, 1743. After having acquired the rudiments of learning under the tuition of his father, he was admitted, in November, 1758, a sizar of Christ college, Cambridge. At this period, to a common observer, his talents were far from promising; but the elder Paley, who had penetrated deeply into his character, confidently predicted his future eminence; adding, "he has by far the clearest head I ever met with in my life." For some time, he attracted notice, only as an uncouth, but agreeable idler. "I spent," he says, "the first two years of my under-graduateship

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, allotting 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 coffee-house, 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."

"Paley," says Bishop Watson, "had brought me, for one of the questions he meant for his act, Eternitas pœnarum contradicit Divinis attributis :-The Eternity of Hell torments contradictory to the Divine Attributes. I had accepted it," continues the bishop; "a few days afterwards, he came to me in a great fright, saying, that the master of his college, Dr. Thomas, Dean of Ely, insisted on his not keeping on such a question. I readily permitted him to change it; and told him that, if it would lessen his master's apprehensions, he might put in 'non' before 'contradicit;' -making the question, The Eternity of Hell torments not contradictory to the Divine Attributes: and he did so.'

In 1765, he gained the members' prize, by an essay, written in Latin, which, being illustrated by English notes, he was suspected of having been the author of the Latin only the reverse, however, as Chalmers suggests, was, probably, nearer the truth, considering his known indisposition to the classics, which was so great, that, according to his own admission, he could read no Latin author with pleasure but Virgil.

Soon after he had taken the degree of B. A., he became second assistant in an academy at Greenwich, where 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. "My difficulties," he observes, "might afford a useful lesson to a youth of good principles; for my privations produced a habit of economy which was of infinite service to me ever after." At this period of his life, the rank of

first assistant in the school was, it is said, the height of his ambition.

In June, 1766, he obtained a fellowship, worth about £100 a year; and, shortly afterwards, proceeded to the degree of M. A. In 1767, he was ordained deacon and priest; some time afterwards, he became a tutor of his college, and delivered lectures on metaphysics, morals, and the Greek Testament. In 1771, he strenuously opposed the application of John Horne Tooke, for the degree of M. A., on the ground that Tooke, judging from his general conduct, had, apparently, renounced all religion. During the same year, a Spanish musician, named Ximenes, of whom Lord Sandwich was a warm patron, having obtained leave to give a concert in the hall of Christ college, Paley peremptorily insisted that it should not take place, unless a satisfactory assurance were given, that a lady, then under the protection of his lordship, and who had been openly distributing tickets, would not attend it. The senior tutor, a friend of Lord Sandwich, at first objected to the exclusion; to which, however, Paley brought him to consent, by reminding him of his duty as an instructor of youth.

About this period, he occasionally preached at St. Mary's, the university church; and it 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, with a view to obtain preferment, 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?" (St. John, c. vi., v. 9.) It is, however, asserted, that, many years after, he denied having preached on that occasion; "but that he should, very probably, have taken the text mentioned, if he had."

By forming a close intimacy with Law, Jebb, and others, whose opinions were deemed, in some degree, heterodox, Paley found that his admirers diminished; and when the reforming party, as it was termed, to whose claims he is said to have been avowedly

favourable, prepared a petition to parliament, praying for relief from subscription to the thirty-nine articles, he contrived to evade signing it, jocularly observing, in his own extenuation, that he could not afford to keep a conscience.

In 1775, he was presented to the rectory of Musgrove, in Westmoreland; and, in the following year, he vacated his fellowship, by forming a matrimonial connexion with a lady named Hewitt, by whom he had so large a family, that, many years afterwards, he observed, to his diocesan, that although it might be said he was a great pluralist in preferments, he was a greater pluralist in children. In 1776, he obtained the vicarage of Dalston, in Cumberland; in 1777, he resigned his rectory of Musgrove for the living of Appleby; in 1780, he became a prebendary, and, in 1782, archdeacon and chancellor, of Carlisle. For these preferments, he was indebted to his college friend and episcopal patron, Dr. Law, to whom, on its publication, in 1785, he dedicated his celebrated work, entitled, Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy; which met with so favourable a reception, that its publisher, who had refused even to print it at his own expense, purchased the copyright, shortly after its appearance, for £1,000.

In 1787, he wrote a short memoir of his patron and diocesan, Law, then recently deceased; and, soon afterwards, produced his Hora Paulinæ. In 1792, the dean and chapter of Carlisle presented him to the vicarage of Addingham; in the following year, during which he published A View of the Evidences of Christianity, Dr. Vernon, the new Bishop of Carlisle, instituted him to the vicarage of Stanwix, on his resigning that of Dalston. Shorly afterwards, Bishop Porteus gave him the prebend of Pancras, in St. Paul's cathedral; and, in 1795, Dr. Tomline conferred on him the sub-deanery of Carlisle. Being now a master of arts of sufficient standing, he took the degree of D. D.; and, while at Cambridge for that purpose, he had the good fortune to be presented, without solicitation, by Dr. Barrington, to the rectory of Bishop's Wearmouth, worth about £1,200 a year. He soon afterwards became so infirm, as to be incapable of preaching,

and he devoted his attention almost exclusively to the preparation of his important treatise, 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, leaving a widow, his second wife, and eight children by his first.

Paley is described, by a writer in the New Monthly Magazine, for January, 1825, as having been a thick, short, square-built man; with a face which, though animated and cheerful, could not but, at first sight, appear ugly; with bushy brows, snub nose, and projecting teeth; with an awkward gait and movement of the arms; a decent and dignified, but by no means excessive, protuberance of the belly; wearing a white wig, and a court coat, but without a cassock; for to this part of the dress of a dignified ecclesiastic, he had a particular dislike, calling it "a black apron, such as the master tailors wear in Durham."

His action was ungraceful; his utterance indistinct; and his dialect remarkably provincial. "When the persons with whom he conversed were near him," says the periodical writer before quoted," he talked between his teeth: but there was a variety and propriety in his tones,-an emphasis, so pronounced, and so clearly conveying his meaning,-assisted, too, by an intelligent smile, or arch leer, that not only what was really witty appeared doubly clever, but his ordinary remarks seemed ingenious."

The same writer has recorded a number of Paley's familiar statements and remarks, of which the following is an abridged selection:-"When residing at Carlisle, if I wanted to write any thing particularly well, I used to order a post-chaise, and go to a quiet, comfortable inn, at Longtown, where I was safe from the trouble and bustle of a family, and there I remained until I had finished what I was about.""I make it a rule never to buy any book that I want to read only once over."-"When I went to town, to become assistant in a school, I pleased my imagination with the delightful task I was about to undertake, in teaching the young idea how to shoot.' The

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