_From Best's Personal Memorials._
Some one came up to Paley and made an excuse for a friend, who was obliged
to defer an intended visit to the subdeanery, because a man who had
promised to pay him some money in April, could not pay it till May. "A
common case," said Paley. We all laughed. Paley, by way of rewarding us for
our complaisance in being pleased with what was recommended chiefly by the
quaintness of his manner, went on:--"A man should never _paay mooney_ till
he can't help it; _soomething maay_ happen."
At another time he said, "I always desire my wife and daughters to pay
ready money. It is of no use to desire them to buy only what they want;
they will always imagine they want what they wish to buy; but that paying
ready _mooney_ is such a check upon their imagin_aa_tion."
Paley's education had been sufficiently hardy. "My father rode to
Peterborough, and I rode after him, on a horse that I could not manage. I
tumbled off. My father, without looking back, cried out, 'Get up again,
Will.' When I set up a carriage, it was thought right that my armorial
bearings should appear on the panels. Now, we had none of us ever heard of
the Paley arms; none of us had ever dreamed that such things existed, or
had ever been. All the old folks of the family were consulted; they knew
nothing about it. Great search was made, however, and at last we found a
silver tankard, on which was engraved a coat of arms. It was carried by
common consent that these _must_ be the Paley arms; they were painted on
the carriage, and looked very handsome. The carriage went on very well with
them; and it was not till six months afterwards that we found out that the
tankard had been _bought at a sale_!"
He told me, "when I wanted to write any thing particularly well,--to do
better than ordinary,--I used to order a post-chaise and go to Longtown; it
is the first stage from Carlisle towards the north; there is a comfortable,
quiet inn there. I asked for a room to myself; there then I was, safe from
the bustle and trouble of a family; and there I remained as long as I
liked, or till I had finished what I was about." I said, "That is a very
curious anecdote;" and I said it in a tone which, from a certain change in
his countenance, I believe to have set him on musing how this anecdote
would appear in the history of his life. Paley took his rides on horseback
occasionally, but always alone, without the attendance even of a servant.
"I am so bad a horseman, that if any man on horseback was to come near me
when I am riding, I should certainly have a fall; company would take off my
attention, and I have need of all I can command to manage my horse and keep
my seat; I have got a horse, the quietest creature that ever lived, one
that at Carlisle used to be covered with children from the ears to the
tail." Understanding all this, and seeing him gambadoing on the
race-course, I turned my horse's head another way. "I saw what you meant
this morning; it was very considerate of you; I am much obliged to you."
Paley was too careful of petty expenses, as is frequently the case with
those who have had but narrow incomes in early life. He kept a sufficiently
handsome establishment as subdean, but he was stingy. A plentiful fall of
snow took place during an evening party at the precentors's; two of Mr.
Subdean's daughters were there; he showed great anxiety on account of the
necessity that seemed to have arisen of sending them home in a sedan-chair;
taking the advice of several of the company, whether such necessity really
and inevitably existed, he said to me, "It is only next door." "The houses
touch," said I, "but it is a long round to your door; the length of both
houses and then through the garden in front of your house." He consulted
the precentor, who, to put the matter in a right point of view, cried out,
"Let the girls have a chair; it is only three-pence a piece."
He preached a sermon at Lincoln for the benefit of a charity school. In the
course of this sermon he related, in familiar but sufficiently dignified
language, a story of a man who, giving evidence on a trial respecting some
prescriptive right claimed by the trustees of the charity, was browbeaten
by the questioning counsel:--"I suppose the fact to which you swear
happened when you were a charity boy, and used to go to school there?" The
witness calmly replied, "I _was_ a charity boy; and all the good that has
befallen me in life has arisen from the education I received at that
school." Paley drew hence an argument in favour of the institution for
which he pleaded. The whole discourse pleased his auditors, and a
deputation waited on him to request he would print it. "Gentlemen, I thank
you for the compliment; but I must give the same answer that I have given
on other like occasions; and that answer is--The tap is out." "The
Archbishop of York," said he, speaking of a late primate, "preached one day
at Carlisle; I was present, and felt muzzy and half asleep; when on a
sudden I was roused, and began to prick up my ears; and what should I hear
but a whole page of one of my own books quoted word for word; and this
without the least acknowledgment, though it was a _white bear_; a passage
that is often quoted and well known." "Now," said Dr. Milner, Dean of
Carlisle, who related the anecdote, "guess what inference Paley drew from
this plagiarism. No; if that court were full of people, not one of them
would be able to guess: it was this--I suppose the archbishop's wife makes
his grace's sermons for him."
* * * * *
The city has always been the province for satire; and the wits of King
Charles's time jested upon nothing else during his whole reign.--_Addison_.
* * * * *