PALEY (WILLIAM)
Series of some two hundred and seventy five autograph letters signed ("W Paley" and "W P"), some of the earlier letters signed pseudonymously or often unsigned, all but sixteen to his lifelong friend, John Law, the rest to John's brother Edward Law, covering Paley's entire working life; the earliest letters undated, one of these (by way of setting the tone of what was to follow over the years) opening: "I dont mean this as a regular letter or a part of that correspondence I am happy to have begun & shall be desirous to preserve with a freind, whom I consider as the most valuable in private & the most creditable in publick I now have. I mean only to present you with 4 penny worth of the best advice & direction an understrapper poverty struck greasy shoolmaster [sic] can give you"; the series, from the start, mixing humorous urbanity with a spirit of philosophical enquiry, as for example in a three-page folio letter dating from 1765 ("...To begin with observing that the study of Phylosophy being transferr'd from Greece and reviv'd amongst us it becomes our busyness to collect the scatter'd remains of Phylosophy and compare their different uses and tendencys And the more so as none of the ancients have ever made an impartial comparison betwixt em for amongst them each person being addicted to some particular act was rather studious of promoting their own doctrines than comparing them with the tenets of others and wanted moreover that indifference to any particular sect necessary for comparing them together..."), which is followed a little later by a vignette of Anthony Shepherd, Master of Christ's, ("...Last night I was content to stump to town upon a summons Shepherd sent me to meet him at his Inn, with that perplex'd vacuity of face with which a man seeks his shirt hand buttons when he changes or turns his shirt..."), which in turn is followed by a long disquisition on the best tactics for debate ("...2nd when you have got or imagine you have in pulling out your answer for you may be mistaken in the tendency of the argument dont be impatient... in the tendency of the argument you may appear abrupt or petulant and lastly you will by this means subject yourself to confusion and perplexity. 3d a respondents busyness is of two kinds the extempore Laconic and occasional reply or observation and the diffuse expiating premeditated speech as you bring with your uncommon talents..."); the series also provides a record of his publications and the travails that attended them, such Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy of 1785, the work having been prompted by John and dedicated to his father Edmund, Bishop of Carlisle ("...I have nearly finished in Cryptic [i.e. his normal handwriting] a short chapter on wars & military establishments which is the last as soon as the Bishop gets to town that I can avail myself of his cover I will begin publishing & I hope to keep the press going till we have finished.../ ...I have finished the last chapter on war & military establishments in copper and am now in Cryptic half thro the preface 'short and sensible' then there is only the dedication..."), the book dedicated to John Law, Horae Paulinae of 1790 ("...I have the satisfaction to acquaint you that I am again pregnant what may be the time of gestation the size of the child or the length of its life or its fortune I cannot tell at present I think of something in the shape of three dissertations upon the evidences making about three shilling duodecimo and to get it ready in about a year so that you are setting an author to write is like setting a lady to sing neither of 'em know when to leave off if however anything should drop into your mind upon the subject if you will note it and at your leisure send it to me ten to one it may suit some place in the work & perhaps be the best part of it..."), his Essay upon the British Constitution, written in answer to Paine's Right of Man, Evidences of Christianity of 1794 ("...I hope to get to a staining paper by Michaelmas and to go on with two sheets a week and to correct the press here by the aid of the Bishop's covers. I have concluded upon two small octavo's of about 340 pages each so that if the press receive no interruption which is hardly to be expected considering the quantity of politics that issuing from it we may get out soon after Christmas I could have made two thin volumes of the larger seized octavo but I dont like their volume..."), and his Natural Theology of 1802 ("...The Mss is all in copper plate and 224 pages printed thus by hours or the half hours rather snatched from pain, I have been enabled to bring (and am very thankful for it) the design to a conclusion the printer is irregular but I always send him back the proofs next day when I talk of having finished the work, I except an intended last chapter under the title of conclusion -- which is yet unwritten... but as it must now... be a laudanum chapter, it will be of still less value, and [per]haps I may not write it at all.../ ...I had written thus far when I rec.d yesterday your kind letter. I should be more or less than an author not to be pleased with the expression you use about my book I entirely agree in opinion with your lordship that it is written with great spirit, wonderful considering the bodily condition of the author during part of the time in which it was written, in which the pen was some times ready to drop out of his hand by pain & weakness..."); towards the end of the series, we are afforded several unexpected glimpses of figures who are in a sense harbingers of the new age that was, with Darwin's final breakthrough, to displace Paley's intellectual constructs, such as Joseph Priestley (for whom Paley expresses great sympathy, while mocking those who equate Unitariansm with damnation) and the friend of Coleridge and Davy, Dr Thomas Beddoes (to whom he sends one of his sons in the hopes of a cure for his consumption, a path also taken by James Watt); Admiral Lord Nelson also puts in an appearance, but largely so that Paley can crack a joke at his portly pompous elder brother's expense; the penultimate letter, displaying as it does sun-lit tolerance even as Paley was sinking into the grave, shows that in some respects Paley's age has more in common with ours than does Darwin's: it is written on behalf of his coachman who "has got the chamber maid with child" ("...What is that, your Lordship says, to me: read on -- -- ...") and for whom he is seeking a new post ("...The young fellow is a sober, careful, clever fellow..."), breaking off: "P.S. I am very bad at present 100 drops last night"; many with address panels, seals, postmarks, etc., c.400 pages, some of the earlier ones especially incomplete or fragmentary, many with old paper guards, paper strengthening at folds, etc., but mostly in sound and attractive condition, folio and 4to, Cambridge, Carlisle, Lincoln, Bishops Wearmouth and elsewhere, c.1763-1804
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