774 ANNUAL REGISTER, 1S09. 



lows, as possessing many good 

 qualities, and being at all times a 

 pleasant and lively companion. 

 To the great amusement of the 

 young circle, he would often suc- 

 cessfully mimic the tricks of a 

 quack-doctor or mountebank, re- 

 commending his nostrums to the 

 crowd. Having one year attended 

 the assizes at Lancaster, he was so 

 much taken with the proceedings 

 in the criminal court, that, on his 

 return to school, he used to pre- 

 side there as a judge, and to have 

 the other boys brought up before 

 him as prisoners for trial. 



Soon after he had completed his 

 fifteenth year, young Paley accom- 

 panied his father to Cambridge, 

 for the purpose of admission, and 

 was admitted, Nov. 16th, 1758, a 

 sizar of Christ's college; a college 

 otherwise highly respectable from 

 the members who had done it 

 honour, but sufficiently immor- 

 talized by the illustrious name of 

 Milton alone. He performed this 

 journey on horseback, and used 

 often thus humourously to describe 

 the disasters which befel him on 

 the road : — " I was never a good 

 horseman, and when I followed 

 my father on a poney of ray own, 

 on my first journey to Cambridge, 

 I fell off seven times; I was lighter 

 than I am now, and my falls were 

 not likely to be serious, so that I 

 ;50on began to care very little about 

 them. My father, though at first a 

 good deal alarmed at my awkward- 

 ness, afterwards became so accus- 

 tomed to it, tiiat, on hearing a 

 thump, he would only turn his 

 head half aside, and say " Get up, 

 and take care of thy money, lad." 



Soon after his return to Craven, 

 as the classics alone were taught at 

 Gigglcsuick school, he went for 



mathematical instruction to Mr. 

 William Howarth, a teacher of 

 some eminence at Ditchford, near 

 Topclirte, about three miles from 

 Ripon, under whose care he laid 

 an excellent foundation of know- 

 ledge in algebra and geometry. 

 During his residence at this place, 

 the attention of the whole neigh- 

 bourhood was taken up by the 

 discovery of a human skeleton at 

 Knaresborough, which accidentally 

 led to unfold the circumstances of 

 a murder, committed there four- 

 teen years before. This stimulated 

 his curiosity to attend the county 

 assizes at York, where he was pre- 

 sent in the court, August Srd, 1759, 

 when Eugene Aram, . -*>n of ex- 

 traordinary learning and s, 

 was tried for the murder ., ja- 

 niel Clark, and convicted on the 

 circumstantial evidence of Richard 

 Houseman, an accomplice, and of 

 his own wife. The evidence 

 brought forward on this occasion, 

 and the ingenious defence of the 

 prisoner, seem to have made a for- 

 cible impression on young Paley's 

 mind. When he returned to Gig- 

 gleswick, a few weeks after this, 

 before his departure for college, 

 he entertained and astonished all 

 around him, by his spirited ha- 

 rangues and judicious remarks on 

 this important trial. Even then, 

 young as he was, he paid particu- 

 lar attention to cases of law, and, 

 in speaking of them, was singu- 

 larly fluent and nervous in his Ian- 

 gunge. He seems, indeed to have 

 attributed the conviction of the 

 prisoner, in a great measure, to the 

 ingenuity of his defence; for, many 

 years after, when he was conversing 

 with a few friends about the lives 

 of some obscure and undeserving 

 persons having been averted in the 



Biographin 



