r the title of an heiress
(_Some Craven Worthies_).

[Illustration: ARCHDEACON PALEY.]

Their son was William Paley, Archdeacon of Carlisle and author of
"Evidences of Christianity." Born in 1744 he went to Christ's College at
the age of fifteen, with a Burton Exhibition and received a Carr
Scholarship, when he entered. As a boy he had been a fair scholar with
eccentric habits. His great delight was in cock-fighting and he must
have looked forward to each Potation Day, March 12, with considerable
joy. There are many anecdotes about him. He is supposed, whilst in
company with his father riding on his way to Cambridge to have fallen
off his horse seven times, whereupon his father would merely call out
"take care of thy money, lad." His mind was always original, indeed he
was never regarded as a "safe" man and in consequence he did not attain
that high position in the Church that his intellectual achievements
entitled him to expect. When about to take his B.A. degree he proposed
to write a thesis on "Aeternitas poenarum contradicit divinis
attributis," but the Master of Christ's was so distressed that Paley was
induced to appease him by the insertion of a "non." In 1765 he gained
the Member's Prize as Senior Bachelor with a Latin essay which had long
English notes. One of the examiners condemned it, because "he supposed
the author had been assisted by his father, some country clergyman, who
having forgotten his Latin had written the notes in English." Powell,
the Master of S. John's, a learned doctor and the oracle of Cambridge on
every question concerning subscription to the faith, spoke warmly in its
favour "it contained more matter than was to be found in all the others
... it would be unfair to reject such a dissertation on mere suspicion,
since the notes were applicable to the subject and shewed the author to
be a young man of the most promising abilities and extensive reading."
This opinion turned the balance in Paley's favour (_Baker's History of
S. John's_). It also justified the father's opinion of his son. For when
the younger Paley went to Cambridge, his father exclaimed that he would
be "a great man, a very great man: for he has by far the cleverest head
I ever met with in my life." He became Senior Wrangler.

The highest position he attained in the Church was the Archdeaconry of
Carlisle, though he could have become Master of S. John's College,
Cambridge, if an University life had attracted him, but it never