Nuts to crack; or Quips, quirks, anecdote and facete of Oxford and Cambridge ScholarsGooch, Richard
History
Nuts to crack; or Quips, quirks, anecdote and facete of Oxford and Cambridge Scholars
Gooch, Richard
University of Cambridge -- Anecdotes; University of Oxford -- Anecdotes
In his composition, and some time after the Bishop of Durham so
honourably and unsolicited presented him to the valuable living of
Bishop Wearmouth, dining with his lordship in company with an aged
divine, the latter observed in conversation, "that although he had
been married about forty years, he had never had the slightest
difference with his wife." The prelate was pleased at so rare an
instance of connubial felicity, and was about to compliment his guest
thereon, when Paley, with an arch "_Quid?_" observed, "Don't you think
it must have been very flat, my Lord?"
A RULE OF HIS.
A writer, recording his _on dits_, in the New Monthly Magazine, says,
in Paley's own words, he made it a rule never to buy a book that he
wanted to read but once. In more than one respect,
HE WAS UNLIKE DR. PARR.
The latter had a great admiration for the _canonical dress_ of his
order, and freely censured the practice of clergymen not generally
appearing in it. When on a visit to his friend, the celebrated Mr.
Roscoe, at that gentleman's residence near Liverpool, Parr used to
ride through the village in full costume, including his famous wig, to
the no small amusement of the rustics, and chagrin of his companion,
the present amiable and learned Thomas Roscoe, originator and editor
of "The Landscape Annual," &c. Paley wore a white wig, and a coat cut
in the close court style: but could never be brought to patronise, at
least in the country, that becoming part of the dress of a dignitary
of the church, a _cassock_, which he used to call a black apron, such
as the master tailors wear in Durham.
HE WAS NEVER A GOOD HORSEMAN.
"When I followed my father," he says, "on a pony of my own, on my
first journey to Cambridge, I fell off seven times. My father, on
hearing a thump, would turn his head half aside, and say, 'Take care
of thy money, lad!'" This defect he never overcame: for when advanced
in years, he acknowledged he was still so bad a horseman, "that if any
man on horseback were to come near me when I am riding," he would say,
"I should certainly have a fall; company would take off my attention,
and I have need of all I can command to manage my horse, the quietest
creature that ever lived; one that, at Carlisle, used to be covered
with children from the ears to the tail."
HIS TWO OR THREE REASONS FOR EXCHANGING LIVINGS.
Meadly, his biographer, relates, that when asked why he had exchanged
his living of Dalston for Stanwix? he frankly replied, "Sir, I have
two or three reasons for taking Stanwix in exchange: first, it saved
me double housekeeping, as Stanwix was within twenty minutes' walk of
my house in Carlisle; secondly, it was 50_l._ a-year more in value;
and, thirdly, I began to find my stock of sermons coming over again
too fast." He was
A DISCIPLE OF IZAAK WALTON,
And carried his passion for angling so far, that when Romney took his
portrait, he would be taken with a rod and line in his hand.
HIS WAY WHEN HE WANTED TO WRITE.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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