780 ANNUAL REGISTER, 1809. 



hundred pounds a-year, as a fair 

 equivalent, with which the other 

 party complying, he granted them 

 a lease for his life ; and thus, by 

 sacrificing any eventual interest of 

 his own in the agricultural im- 

 provement of the parish, avoided 

 one great source of disquietude 

 and vexation. As a writer, he had 

 already reprobated tithes, as 

 "noxious to cultivation and im- 

 provement," and recommended 

 " their conversion into corn-rents, 

 as a practical and beneficial alte- 

 ration, in which the interest of all 

 parties might be equitably ad- 

 justed; and he now acted in 

 strict conformity to these princi- 

 ples, "leaving to the industry of 

 his parishioners its full operation 

 and entire reward." By this 

 agreement, the lessees were gene- 

 rally enabled to return from six- 

 pence to eighteen-pence in the 

 pound, on the annual amount of 

 the great tithes, to those who were 

 punctual in their payments, whilst 

 they seldom attended much to the 

 small. Dr. Paley, on the other 

 hand, found himself perfectly at 

 ease by this arrangement, and, 

 when he heard of a bad crop, used 

 to say — " Aye, aye, now I am well 

 oft'; my tithes are safe, and I have 

 nothing to do with them, or to think 

 about them." 



He also granted long leases 

 of his glebe lands, and particu- 

 larly of a limestone quarry to 

 the old tenant upon very mode- 

 rate terms. From the great rise 

 in landed property, which took 

 place immediately after, his te- 

 nants had very advantageous bar- 

 gains; a circumstance to which he 

 sometimes, indeed, alluded in con- 

 versation, but without the least 



marks of dissatisfaction or regret. 



On the sudden elevation of Buo- 

 naparte to the supreme direction of 

 affairs in the French republic, Dr. 

 Paley observed to a party of gen- 

 tlemen, who dined with him at Bi- 

 shop-Wearmouth, after the first 

 intelligence of that extraordinary 

 event " The French are rapidly 

 approaching to absolute monarchy 

 again : the conventional govern- 

 ment was established on a very 

 broad basis, which has been nar- 

 rowed on every subsequent altera- 

 tion, and is progressively tending 

 to a point." In allusion to the 

 various actors, who had successively 

 filled the busy scene in that dis- 

 tracted country, from the com- 

 mencement of the revolution, he 

 still more forcibly remarked — 

 " In similar convulsions, none can 

 ultimately succeed in bearing sway, 

 but men of great intrepidity, great 

 ability, and great roguery. With- 

 out great intrepidity, no man will 

 intentionally venture upon so ha- 

 zardous a career ; without great 

 ability, no man can get forward; 

 and without great roguery, no 

 man can bring his designs to a suc- 

 cessful close." 



Literature was an invariable 

 source of recreation to him ; and 

 he was in the habit of giving his 

 opinion freely on the most eminent 

 productions of the day. He had 

 long indulged himself in desultory 

 reading, which, however dan- 

 gerous in the early stages of edu- 

 cation, is well adapted to improve 

 a mature and vigorous understand- 

 ing, where each new acquisition 

 finds a ready arrangement. " A 

 reader," he observes, in his ad- 

 mired 



