tion to his public duties, and, according to Meadley, had shown his dislike for the practice of ‘rooting’ (the cant term for preferment-hunting, invented by Paley according to the ‘Universal Magazine’) by declining to become private tutor to the son of Lord Camden. E. Paley, however, says that the offer was not actually made. He declined another offer from Prince Poniatowski to become tutor to a Polish noble. Long afterwards, when Pitt attended the university church in 1784, Paley jocosely suggested as a suitable text: ‘There is a lad here who hath five barley loaves and two small fishes; but what are they among so many?’ The story is often told as though he had actually preached the sermon. Paley had also the credit of protesting (in 1771), with his friend Law, against their senior tutor's offer of Christ's College Hall for a concert patronised by Lord Sandwich, until a promise had been given that Sandwich's mistress should not be present (Meadley, 1810, p. 65). On 8 May 1775 he was presented to the rectory of Musgrave, Cumberland, worth about 80l. a year, by the Bishop of Carlisle. In the same autumn he became engaged to Miss Jane Hewitt, daughter of a spirit merchant in Carlisle. He returned to Cambridge, and on 21 April 1776 appeared for the last time as preacher at Whitehall, having been appointed in 1771. On 6 June he was married to Miss Hewitt at Carlisle, and finally left Cambridge for Musgrave. He had been prælector in his college 1767–9, Hebrew lecturer (probably a sinecure) from 1768 to 1770, and taxer in the university 1770–1. His wife was a very amiable woman, but compelled by delicacy to a quiet life. Paley tried farming on a small scale by way of recreation. He failed, however, to pay his expenses, and gave it up. By the end of 1776 he received the vicarage of Dalston, Cumberland, worth 90l. a year, and in 1777 the vicarage of Appleby, worth 200l. a year, resigning Musgrave. He divided the year between his two parishes, and at Appleby was intimate with the master of the grammar school, Richard Yates, whose epitaph he wrote in 1781. He welcomed the barristers on the northern circuit, especially his old tutor Wilson. In 1780 he was installed a prebendary at Carlisle, with an income of 400l. a year; and in August 1782 resigned Appleby on becoming archdeacon in succession to his friend John Law, who had been promoted to the bishopric of Clonfert. The archdeaconry was a sinecure, the usual duties being performed by the chancellor. The rectory of Great Salkeld, worth 120l. a year, was annexed to it.
Paley was now urged by his friend Law to expand his lectures into a book. The result was the ‘Principles of Morals and Political Philosophy.’ Paley had offered the manuscript to Faulder, a publisher in Bond Street, for 300l. Faulder was only willing to give 250l. The negotiation was entrusted to the Bishop of Clonfert, who was in London. Paley meanwhile received an offer of 1,000l. from Milliken, a Carlisle bookseller, who must have had a higher opinion than most of his successors of the commercial value of ethical treatises. Paley communicated the offer to the bishop, who luckily received the letter before completing the bargain with Faulder. Faulder agreed to give 1,000l. before the bishop left the house. The book was published in 1785, was adopted at once as a text-book at Cambridge, and went through fifteen editions during the author's life. Faulder must have made a good bargain. The famous illustration of the ‘pigeons’ in the chapter on ‘Property’ got for him the nickname of ‘Pigeon Paley.’ Law warned him that it might exclude him from a bishopric. ‘Bishop or no bishop,’ said Paley, ‘it shall go in’ (E. Paley, p. cclvi).
At the end of 1785 Paley became chancellor of the diocese upon the death of Richard Burn [q. v.], author of ‘The Justice of the Peace.’ He took an active part in 1789 in the agitation against the slave trade, and drew up a paper which has disappeared, though a summary was published in the newspapers. Paley presided at a public meeting held at Carlisle on 9 Feb. 1792 for the same purpose, and drew up some printed resolutions (given in Meadley, Appendix, pp. 139–52). The mastership of Jesus College, Cambridge, was offered to him in the same year by Bishop Yorke of Ely; but, after some hesitation, he decided that his position at Carlisle was too satisfactory to be abandoned (E. Paley, p. cxlviii). The offer is acknowledged in his dedication of the ‘Evidences.’ In 1790 appeared his most original book, the ‘Horæ Paulinæ.’ It had less success than the others. He soon afterwards, however, received an application from some divines at Zürich for leave to translate it into German (E. Paley, p. clvii). His wife died in May 1791, leaving four sons and four daughters. In May 1792 he was presented by the dean and chapter of Carlisle to the vicarage of Aldingham, near Great Salkeld, worth 140l. a year. In 1793 he vacated Dalston for the vicarage of Stanwix, near Carlisle, to which he was presented by the new bishop, Vernon (afterwards Harcourt). He had, he said, three reasons for changing: Stanwix was nearer his house in Carlisle, was worth 50l. a year
