The first, it is well known, vacated his fellowship, and left himself pennyless, rather than subscribe to the _Thirty-nine Articles_, from which there is no doubt he conscientiously dissented; and when asked to subscribe his belief in the notorious Shakspeare _forgery_ of the Irelands, his reply was, "I subscribe to no articles of faith." When Paley was solicited to sign his name to the supplication of the petitioning clergy, for _relief from subscription_, he has the credit of replying, he "_could not afford to keep a conscience_," a saying that many have cherished to the prejudice of that great man's memory, but which it is more than probable he said in his dry, humorous manner, without suspicion it would be remembered at all, and merely to rid himself of some importunate applicant. Paley, it is well known, notwithstanding the conclusions to which some interested writers have come, was strongly and conscientiously attached to the doctrines and constitution of the Established Church; and it was impossible but that, with his fine common-sense perception, he must have been well aware, that no _Established Church_, such as is that of England, could long exist as such, _if not fenced round by articles of faith_. And here I am reminded of an ANECDOTE OF THE GREAT LORD BURLEIGH AND THE DISSENTERS OF HIS DAY. He was once very much pressed by a body of Divines, says Collins, in his Life, to make some _alteration in the Liturgy_, upon which he desired them to go into the next room by themselves, and bring in their _unanimous opinion on the disputed points_. But they very soon returned _without being able to agree_. "Why, gentlemen," said he, "how can you expect that I should alter my point in dispute, when you, who must be more competent to judge, from your situation, than I can possibly be, cannot agree among yourselves in what manner you would have me alter it." OTHER SAYINGS OF THIS GREAT MAN Were, that he would "never truste anie man not of sounde religion; for he that is false to God, can never be true to man." Parents, he said, were to be blamed for "the unthrifty looseness of youth," who made them men seven years too soon, and when they "had but children's judgments." "Warre is the curse, and peace the blessinge of a countrie;" and "a realme," he said, "gaineth more by one year's peace, than by tenne years' warre." "That nation," he would observe, "was happye where the king would take counsell and follow it." With such a sage minister, it is not surprising that Elizabeth was the greatest princess that ever lived, nor that she gave such wise laws to Cambridge, whose Chancellor he was. PORSON'S PROGRESS IN KNOWLEDGE.