When Paley, in 1762, kept his act in the schools, previously to his entering the senate-house, to contend for mathematical honours, it was under the moderators, Dr. John Jebb, the famous physician and advocate of reform in church and state, and the learned Dr. Richard Watson, late Bishop of Llandaff. _Johnson's Questiones Philosophicæ_ was the book then commonly resorted to in the university for subjects usually disputed of in the _schools_; and he fixed upon two questions, in addition to his mathematical one, which to his knowledge had never before been subjects of _disputation_. The one was _against Capital Punishments_; the other _against the Eternity of Hell Torments_. As soon, however, as it came to the knowledge of the heads of the university that Paley had proposed such questions to the moderators, knowing his abilities, though young, lest it should give rise to a controversial spirit, the master of his college, Dr. Thomas, was requested to interfere and put a stop to the proceeding, which he did, and Bishop Watson thus records the fact in his Autobiography:--"Paley had brought me, for one of the questions he meant for his act, _Æternitas pænarum contradicit Divinis Attributis_! The Eternity of Hell Torments contrary to the Divine Attributes. I had accepted it. A few days afterwards he came to me in a great fright, saying, that the master of his college, Dr. Thomas, Dean of Ely, insisted on his not keeping on such a question. I readily permitted him to change it, and told him that, if it would lessen his master's apprehensions, he might put a '_non_' before '_contradicit_;' making the question, The Eternity of Hell Torments _not_ contrary to the Divine _Attributes_: and he did so." In the following month of January he was senior wrangler. HE WAS NOT FOND OF CLASSICAL STUDIES, And used to declare he could read no Latin author with pleasure but Virgil: yet when the members' prize was awarded to him for a _Latin_ prose essay, in 1765, which he had illustrated with _English_ notes, he was, strange enough, though his disregard of the classics was well known, suspected of being the author of the _Latin only_. The reverse was probably nearer the truth. It is notorious that HE WAS NOT SKILLED IN PROSODY; And when, in 1795, he proceeded to D.D., after being made Sub-Dean of Lincoln, he, in the delivery of his _Clerum_, pronounced prof[)u]gus prof[=u]gus, which gave some Cambridge wag occasion to fire at him the following epigram:-- "Italiam fato _profugus_, Lavinaque venit Litora; * * * * * Errat Virgilius, forte _profugus_ erat." He had A SPICE OF CUTTING HUMOUR