well stored with political gossip. Philip, born in Dublin in 1740, was brought by his father to London, and received his principal schooling at St Paul's, where he was the master's most admired pupil. In 1756 he obtained, through his father's patron, Lord Holland, a junior clerkship in the Secretary of State's Office, and remained there, with certain brief interruptions, until 1762, when he was appointed first clerk in the War Office. He held his clerkship in the War Office for ten years, during which he is supposed to have written the "Candor" letters, "Junius," and many letters under other signatures. He resigned the clerkship in 1772, for reasons that are somewhat obscure. The Franciscans hold that the motive was resentment at the appointment of Chamier as Deputy-Secretary, and connect this with the attacks of Junius upon that individual. In 1773 he obtained an extraordinary preferment, which the Franciscans suppose to be somehow connected with his authorship of Junius. He was made a member of the Supreme Council in Bengal, with a salary of £10,000 a-year. In India he persistently opposed Warren Hastings, and was wounded by him in a duel. Returning to England in 1780, he entered Parliament, and became an active supporter of the Whigs. He died in 1818.

The leading feature in the mechanical part of the style of "Junius" is the predominance of the balanced structure "the poised and graceful structure of the sentences;" and the leading "quality" of the style is sarcasm, sometimes elaborately polished, sometimes inclining to coarse, unvarnished abuse. The imagery is also much admired, and the expression is often felicitous, though far from being of the first order of originality.

John Horne Tooke (1736-1812) is best known in literature by a philological work, 'The Diversions of Purley' (pub. 1786); but his general fame rests more upon his political activity. Made a clergyman against his will by his father, a wealthy London poulterer, he nevertheless engaged actively in politics on the Radical side; and finding himself trammelled by the clerical character, he resigned his living in 1773, and studied law. He twice suffered for his "advanced" opinions. He was fined and imprisoned in 1777 for accusing the king's troops of having "murdered" the American insurgents at Lexington; and in 1794 he was tried for high treason, mainly on account of his connection with the Constitutional Society during the excitement of the French Revolution. Yet, upon the whole, he prospered. Having rendered some service to Mr Tooke of Purley, he was made that gentleman's heir, and assumed his name; and he spent his latter years in literary leisure and genial society at Wimbledon. During his active life he made several unsuccessful attempts to gain a seat in Parliament, and at last entered as representative of the rotten borough

of Old Sarum in 1801. In 1802 he was excluded from the House; his exclusion being a most startling exemplification of two principles one that no priest can lay aside his orders and become a layman,1 and the other (enacted in 1802 for the express purpose of ousting Tooke) that no one in priest's orders can sit in the House of Commons. His etymological Diversions' arose out of his political career. He began to theorise in prison upon the construction by the judges of certain propositions in a case quoted against him on his trial in 1777. This perhaps accounts for his proceeding upon what is justly described as the "monstrous principle that "the etymological history of words is our true guide, both as to the present import of the words themselves, and as to the nature of those things which they are intended to signify." Apart from this, he is very ingenious in his attempts to trace how the language of mind has been borrowed from the language of external things, and how conjunctions and other syntactic particles of speech have been derived from significant nouns and verbs. But the main interest of the 'Diversions' to the general reader lies in the witty intermixture of political thrusts and declamations.

terest.

No other prose writers within this period have any special inThe writings of the eccentric James Burnet, Lord Monboddo (1714-1799), contain interesting passages, such as his theory about the origin of man, and his humorously extravagant defence of the superiority of ancient over modern writers; but the interest is more in the matter than in any felicity or original force of expression.

1 Repealed in 1870.

THE middle thirty years of Paley's life coincided very nearly with the preceding period; but as most of his works 1 were published in the beginning of this period, we take him as belonging to it.

His life was easy and prosperous, without any striking turns either of hardship or of good fortune. He was born at Peterborough, his father being a minor canon in the Cathedral. His father was afterwards appointed head-master of the grammarschool of Giggleswick in Yorkshire, and the family removed there. Though not very precocious as a boy, he gave such proofs of shrewdness and intellectual force as to raise high expectations of his future eminence. At the age of 15 he was entered as a sizar at Christ's College, Cambridge. It is said on his own authority that he was at first an idle student, and loved company better than his books, and that he made a remorseful resolution to read hard when one of his idle companions reproved him for wasting his talents. He probably exaggerated the effect of this reprimand; but however that may be, he did become a hard student, and eventually came out senior wrangler. He taught Latin for three years in an academy at Greenwich. In 1766 he was elected to a fellowship in his college, and appointed a lecturer. One of his college friends was a son of Bishop Law, and through the bishop's influence he

The list is: Moral and Political Philosophy, 1785; Hore Paulinæ, or The Truth of the Scripture History of St Paul evinced, 1790; A View of the Evidences of Christianity,' 1794; 'Natural Theology,' 1802. There are published also several of his Sermons.

was preferred from one benefice to another in the see of Carlisle. His Moral Philosophy' was based upon the lectures he delivered in his college. Upon the publication of his 'Evidences of Christianity' in 1794, he was rewarded by three several bishops with preferments amounting in all to considerably more than 2000. From some unknown cause or causes, he never obtained a bishopric. In the course of his leisure he found time to write the works we have mentioned. He died at Bishop Wearmouth on the 25th of May 1805.

In person Paley was above the middle height, of a stout make, inclining in his later years to corpulence. A good, easy man, he was rather careless about his attire, and his homely manners and provincial accent are said to have stood in the way of his elevation to the bench.

His intellect was clear and steady. He is a shining example of the form of practical good sense characteristic of Englishmen. He did not hunt after paradoxes and subtleties, nor did he throw himself with eagerness into original investigations. He liked to walk on sure ground, and made abundant use of the labours of others. Good sense is the distinguishing quality of his 'Moral and Political Philosophy.' In the case of such a question as the existence of a moral sense, he enters into no subtle disquisition, but puts the thing at once to a rough and simple test; and such theories as that of "natural right" he at once sets aside as groundless. In his Evidences of Christianity,' which has long been the textbook on the subject, he does little more than popularise the condensed Butler and the voluminous Lardner. The 'Hora Paulina' and the 'Natural Theology' are the product of no more subtle qualities of mind than patient industry and shrewdness.

He was sober and temperate in his feelings, a most unromantic and unpoetic man. At school and at the university he was much sought after as a boon companion; his good-humour and drollery, set off by his rather cumbrous and slovenly exterior, making him a great favourite. Throughout life he retained his social, neighbourly ways, keeping up acquaintance with his parishioners in homely, unostentatious intercourse. His writings contain little or nothing to satisfy the emotions; occasionally we cross a pleasant vein of irony or sarcasm, and we are constantly entertained with homely facts, but high-flown sentiment is totally wanting.1

1 Discoursing on Human Happiness in his Philosophy he openly disclaims refined sentiment: "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."

His easy compliant temper, and shrewd steady intellect, were the ruling principles of his conduct. True, he was ambitious of literary distinction, but he pursued his ambition by safe and easy paths. He was eminently "loyal to facts;" he recognised their supremacy without a struggle. At college he proposed to defend the thesis that eternity of punishment is contrary to the divine attributes; but when his tutor expressed disapproval, he simply placed a not" before "contrary," and reversed his arguments. Later in life, when charged with some inconsistency, he made the humorous remark that "he could not afford to keep a conscience." As clergyman and author, he got through his work by steady regularity. Everything had its allotted time, and in his untroubled existence there were few interruptions to his settled plans.

Opinions. It is probably owing to the prestige of Paley's doctrines that Utilitarianism is so often and so obstinately identified with selfishness. To class Paley with the Utilitarians of the present day is misleading. He agrees with them fully in one point, and in one point only-namely, in repudiating Innate moral distinctions. On a very fundamental point he is utterly at variance with them; he allows no merit to disinterested action, as such. In Paley's view, they only are praiseworthy that act from a regard to their own everlasting happiness. In matters of religion, whatever may have been Paley's private opinions, he published nothing inconsistent with the Thirty-Nine Articles. In one solitary point he showed a tendency to be latitudinarian; he wrote, in defence of his patron Bishop Law, a pamphlet against the propriety of requir ing Subscription to Articles of Faith.

He was eminently free from bigotry, and wrote in favour of the most enlightened tolerance, with an exception against works of ridicule, invective, and mockery.' "Every species of intolerance which enjoins suppression and silence, and every species of persecution which enforces such injunctions, is adverse to the progress of truth." In the matter of Church government he held that "if the dissenters from the establishment become a majority of the people, the establishment itself ought to be altered or qualified."

He had the humanity to write strongly against the slave trade, and to refute every shred of argument that could be urged in its favour.

ELEMENTS OF STYLE.

Vocabulary. Although Paley's language is not studiously varied, he never seems to be in want of words, and the combinations are often agreeably fresh. His preference is for homely words; but he does not scruple to use the most technical terms, and now and then