is incapable of filling their place. These public affections, combined with manners, are required sometimes as supplements, sometimes as correctives, always as aids to law. The precept given by a wise man, as well as a great critic, for the construction of poems, is equally true as to states: "Non satis est pulchra esse poemate, dulcia sunto." There ought to be a system of manners in every nation which a well-formed mind would be disposed to relish. To make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely.

WILLIAM PALEY.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.

WILLIAM PALEY was a native of Peterborough, and the son of a minor canon in the cathedral of that city. He was born in 1743, and some little time after his birth his father removed to Giggleswick in Yorkshire, of the grammar school of which place he was elected head-master. Here, under the care of his father and among home influences, Paley was educated till the age of sixteen, when he entered at Christ's College, Cambridge. It is said that, during the first two years of his university career, he was idle and desultory in his habits, and fond of gay, if not dissipated company. A remonstrance addressed to him by one of his associates had the effect of rousing him to a better mind. He became regular and methodical in the apportionment of his time, an earnest and laborious student. The result was, that he graduated in 1763, as the senior wrangler of his year. After holding for a short time an under-mastership in a school at Greenwich, he was elected fellow of his college, and soon afterwards became once more resident in the capacity of college lecturer. He continued to reside at Cambridge till 1775, when he was appointed to the rectory of Musgrave in Westmoreland. In due time he obtained additional Church preferment-became Archdeacon and Chancellor of Carlisle, and finally was presented by Barrington, Bishop of Durham, to the valuable living of Bishop-Wearmouth. Those were the days of pluralities, and Paley was undoubtedly a considerable offender in this respect; but he had the apology-which, indeed, he made for himself-of being a still greater pluralist in children."

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He never attained any of the higher dignities of the Church. His failure to do so was owing to several causes. His manners were not refined, and he never altogether freed himself from the roughnesses of speech and action which his homely Yorkshire breeding had fastened on him. Moreover, there was a savour of uncourtly freedom about his sentiments, which did not find favour in high places. Hence, though he did the Church good service, he was left, like Hooker, in the comparative obscurity of a provincial rectory. He died in 1805, at the age of sixty-two.

WORKS.

The works of Paley are exclusively ethical and theological. The first regular treatise which he published was his Principles of Moral and Political Science, which appeared in 1785. This work is neither metaphysical nor profound. The writer indulges in no ingenious speculations, and discusses no recondite theories of morals or politics. He deals with his subject in a direct, sober, and practical way. His aim is, to adapt his rules, as much as possible, to real life and to actual situations. Accepting, as a definition of moral philosophy, the statement that it is the science which teaches men their duty and the reasons of it, he proceeds to give effect to this view by examining the grounds of moral obligation, and passes on to discuss the various relative and personal duties which morality imposes, the sources whence they spring, and the ways in which they are commonly violated. The latter part of the work contains an examination of the origin of civil government; explanations of the duty of submission to established authorities; a review of the British Constitution; and considerations on the administration of justice, trade and finance, religious and military establishments, &c.

The ethics of Paley are not of a very high and generous tone. He is, indeed, a somewhat lax moralist, and his work has been condemned as teaching a philosophy of selfishness and expediency. There is some truth in this censure; but, at the same time, great merits countervail the great faults of the book. There is much sound sense; a great deal of homely truth; wonderful clearness of exposition; remarkable power of marshalling the essential points of his subject, and, as it were, bringing the question to a focus.

The next work which Paley gave to the world was the Hora Pauline-a most original and felicitous production. It sets forth, in a very striking way, the evidence in favour of the truth of the Christian records arising from the unde"signed coincidences which are discovered by a comparison of St. Paul's different epistles with the Acts of the Apostles.

This treatise was followed by the well-known Evidences of Christianity, drawn in a great degree, as to materials, from Butler's "Analogy," and Lardner's Credibility of the Gospel History;" but earning, by its style, method, and arrangement, the merit of an original work; and, though not anticipating or solving all the difficulties as to revelation suggested or felt in the present age, yet certainly furnishing a complete and triumphant refutation of the arguments and objections advanced by the infidelity of the eighteenth century.

His Natural Theology was the last contribution to literature which Paley was permitted to make, and he is said to have studied anatomy, when sixty years of age, in order to write it.

All his writings are distinguished by the same business-like and practical estimate of truth, the same robust and homely sense, the same directness of view

and clearness of statement. The style is in accordance with the sentiments. It is transparent, nervous, unadorned. There are few tropes or figures, there is little or no imagery or illustration. It is a colourless medium for the conveyance of the thoughts. But it is sometimes almost unequalled in its plain force and clear and easy flow.

EXTRACTS.

PRINCIPLES OF MORAL AND POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY.

HUMAN HAPPINESS.

The word happy is a relative term; that is, when we call a man happy, we mean that he is happier than some others with whom we compare him, than the generality of others, or than he himself was in some other situation:-thus, speaking of one who has just compassed the object of a long pursuit, "Now," we say, "he is happy." And in a like comparative sense, compared, that is, with the general lot of mankind, we call a man happy who possesses health and competency.

In strictness, any condition may be denominated happy in which the amount or aggregate of pleasure exceeds that of pain; and the degree of happiness depends upon the quantity of this excess.

And the greatest quantity of it ordinarily attainable in human life is what we mean by happiness, when we inquire or pronounce what human happiness consists in.

In which inquiry I will omit much usual declamation on the dignity and capacity of our nature; the superiority of the soul to the body, of the rational to the animal part of our constitution; upon the worthiness, refinement, and delicacy of some satisfactions, or the meanness, grossness, and sensuality of others;-because I hold that pleasures differ in nothing but in continuance and intensity; from a just computation of which, confirmed by what we observe of the apparent cheerfulness, tranquillity, and contentment of men of different tastes, tempers, stations, and pursuits, every question concerning human happiness must receive its decision.

It will be our business to show, if we can-I. What human happiness does not consist in; II. What it does consist in.

I. First, then, happiness does not consist in the pleasures of sense, in whatever profusion or variety they be enjoyed. By the pleasures of sense I mean as well the animal gratifications of eating, drinking, and that by which the species is continued, as the more refined pleasures of music, painting, architecture, gardening, splendid shows, theatric exhibitions, and the pleasures, lastly, of active sports,-as of hunting, shooting, fishing, &c. For,

1. These pleasures continue but a little while at a time. This is true of them all, especially of the grosser sort of them. Laying aside the preparation and the expectation, and computing strictly the actual sensation, we shall be surprised to find how inconsiderable a portion of our time they occupy-how few hours in the four-andtwenty they are able to fill up.

2. These pleasures, by repetition, lose their relish. It is a property of the machine, for which we know no remedy, that the organs by which we perceive pleasure are blunted and benumbed by being frequently exercised in the same way. There is hardly any one who has not found the difference between a gratification when new and when familiar; or any pleasure which does not become indifferent as it grows habitual.

3. The eagerness for high and intense delights takes away the relish from all others; and as such delights fall rarely in our way, the greater part of our time becomes from this cause empty and uneasy.

There is hardly any delusion by which men are greater sufferers in their happiness than by their expecting too much from what is called pleasure; that is, from those intense delights which vulgarly engross the name of pleasure. The very expectation spoils them. When they do come, we are often engaged in taking pains to persuade ourselves how much we are pleased, rather than enjoying any pleasure which springs naturally out of the object. And whenever we depend upon being vastly delighted, we always go home secretly grieved at missing our aim. Likewise, as has been observed just now, when this humour of being prodigiously delighted has once taken hold of the imagination, it hinders us from providing for, or