The first English printer was indicted and convicted (1797) for publishing blasphemy, and other publishers were fined and imprisoned as late as 1819. In the United States also, to which Paine returned in 1797, the work was ill received: it practically destroyed his popularity. He died June 8, 1809, and was buried on his farm at New Rochelle. In 1819 his remains were disinterred by William Cobbett and taken to England. Cobbett's intention of celebrating a second funeral and making of it a great Radical demonstration was never carried out; in 1836 Paine's bones passed, with Cobbett's other effects, into the hands of a receiver in bankruptcy; and they are understood to be now scattered through England, held as curiosities or relics.]

The best collection of Paine's writings, of which only the most important have been mentioned, is that edited by Moncure D. Conway (four vols., G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1894-96). Conway has also written the best life of Paine (two vols., G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1892).

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"WHERE liberty is, there is my country," said Benjamin Frank"Where liberty is not, there is mine," was Thomas Paine's reply. In their cosmopolitan spirit, as in the radical character of their liberalism, both of these men were fair representatives of the rationalistic eighteenth century; but Paine had the crusading instinct besides, and this carried him into enterprises of which his cannier and more cautious friend would have been incapable. was as a volunteer of the world," and not as a man having a stake in play, that Paine, as soon as he reached America, espoused the anti-British cause. It was as a friend of freedom that he threw himself, to his own harm, into the central and fiercest whirl of the French Revolution. It was as a knight-errant in the cause of liberty that he plunged into the last and most disastrous of his adventures, his attack upon orthodox Christianity; for it seemed to him that men bound by any faith less elastic than his own were victims of the worst of tyrannies, bondsmen not only in their actions but in their thoughts.

There was nothing especially novel in Paine's message to his contemporaries. His political ideals-popular sovereignty, equal rights, representative government-had been the commonplaces of advanced Whig theory since the days of the English Commonwealth; and in their French adaptations these theories had become familiar to Europe. In his Rights of Man he advocated also the limitation of governmental power by a written constitution; but this idea had been formulated in England in 1647, had

been kept alive in the American colonies during the charter disputes, and had been embodied in the state constitutions at the very beginning of the Revolution. Paine's religious views were scarcely more original; they were substantially those of the English deists, tinged with Quakerism of the more radical school. It is always a long way, however, from the formulation of theories to their general acceptance, and such acceptance does not necessarily imply an immediate change of practice. In his political writings Paine did as much as any man, and perhaps more than any other man, to popularize the dogmas of Locke and Rousseau and to facilitate their embodiment in governmental institutions. His religious propaganda was less successful, and the hostility it aroused has done much to obscure his political services.

Other political writers may have exercised a deeper and more enduring influence, but few have had in their own day a larger public. Of his Common Sense one hundred and twenty thousand copies were sold within three months, and Conway estimates its total sale at home and abroad, in the original and in translations, at half a million copies. The first part of the Rights of Man, in spite of the fact that English opinion was hostile to Paine's conclusions, found more than forty thousand purchasers in Great Britain, and this without the advertisement which prosecution gave afterwards to the completed work. Ten years after its completion, Paine claimed that its total circulation, in English and in translations, had exceeded four hundred thousand. The popularity of these tracts was partly owing to their timeliness, but mainly to their almost perfect adaptation to their purpose. Paine knew men. He knew what arguments would appeal to them, and how these arguments should be put. He had in high degree the faculty of lucid statement and of pat illustration. He could coin phrases and even epigrams, and he was too wise to lessen their value by coining too many. He knew that epigrammatic writing is fatiguing reading, and that to appeal to the plain people a writer should be known as a man of sense and not as a wit. Of humor Paine was wholly destitute. A man of humor cannot be a professional agitator.

The eighteenth century pamphleteer was the immediate forerunner of the nineteenth century journalist, and Paine's best work

is rather journalism than literature. Such work is in its nature transitory. Paine's Age of Reason is to-day even more antiquated than are the particular phases of faith which at the time especially invited his attack; for the fashion of scepticism has changed far more than has the form of Christian belief. In his political writings there is more of permanent interest. We have grown sceptical to-day about laws of nature, and we doubt the finality of political dogmas; but we recognize that Paine's political philosophy was better adapted than ours to a revolutionary crisis, and we cannot deny that it has left deep traces on our national habits of thought. Paine's political writings are a part of our history; and students of our history will always find it advisable to read them.

MUNROE SMITH

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GOVERNMENT AND FREEDOM

BUT where, say some, is the King of America? I'll tell you, friend, he reigns above, and doth not make havoc of mankind like the Royal Brute of Great Britain. Yet that we may not appear to be defective even in earthly honours, let a day be solemnly set apart for proclaiming the Charter; let it be brought forth placed on the Divine Law, the Word of God; let a crown be placed thereon, by which the world may know, that so far as we approve of monarchy, that in America the law is king. For as in absolute governments the King is law, so in free countries the law ought to be king; and there ought to be no other. But lest any ill use should afterwards arise, let the Crown at the conclusion of the ceremony be demolished, and scattered among the people whose right it is.

A government of our own is our natural right: and when a man seriously reflects on the precariousness of human affairs, he will become convinced, that it is infinitely wiser and safer, to form a constitution of our own in a cool deliberate manner, while we have it in our power, than to trust such an interesting event to time and chance. If we omit it now, some Massanello1 may hereafter arise, who, laying hold of popular disquietudes, may collect together the desperate and the discontented, and by assuming to themselves the powers of government, finally sweep away the liberties of the Continent like a deluge. Should the government of America return again into the hands of Britain, the tottering situation of things will be a temptation for some desperate adventurer to try his fortune; and in such case, what relief can Britain give? Ere she could hear the news, the fatal business might be done; and ourselves suffering like the wretched Britons under the oppression of the Conqueror. Ye that oppose independance now, ye know not what ye do: : ye are opening a door to eternal tyranny, by keeping vacant the seat of government. There are thousands and tens of

1 Thomas Anello, otherwise Massanello, a fisherman of Naples, who after spiriting up his countrymen in the public market-place, against the oppression of the Spaniards, to whom the place was then subject, prompted them to revolt, and in the space of a day became King. -Author's Note.

thousands, who would think it glorious to expel from the Continent, that barbarous and hellish power, which hath stirred up the Indians and the Negroes to destroy us; the cruelty hath a double guilt, it is dealing brutally by us, and treacherously by them.

To talk of friendship with those in whom our reason forbids us to have faith, and our affections wounded thro' a thousand pores instruct us to detest, is madness and folly. Every day wears out the little remains of kindred between us and them; and can there be any reason to hope, that as the relationship expires, the affection will encrease, or that we shall agree better when we have ten times more and greater concerns to quarrel over than ever?

Ye that tell us of harmony and reconciliation, can ye restore to us the time that is past? Can ye give to prostitution its former innocence? neither can ye reconcile Britain and America. The last cord now is broken, the people of England are presenting addresses against us. There are injuries which nature cannot forgive; she would cease to be nature if she did. As well can the lover forgive the ravisher of his mistress, as the Continent forgive the murders of Britain. The Almighty hath implanted in us these unextinguishable feelings for good and wise purposes. They are the Guardians of his Image in our hearts. They distinguish us from the herd of common animals. The social compact would dissolve, and justice be extirpated from the earth, or have only a casual existence were we callous to the touches of affection. The robber and the murderer would often escape unpunished, did not the injuries which our tempers sustain, provoke us into justice.

O! ye that love mankind! Ye that dare oppose not only the tyranny but the tyrant, stand forth! Every spot of the old world is overrun with oppression. Freedom hath been hunted round the Globe. Asia and Africa have long expelled her. Europe regards her like a stranger, and England hath given her warning to depart. O! receive the fugitive, and prepare in time an asylum for mankind.

[From Common Sense: Addressed to the Inhabitants of America, on the following Interesting Subjects, viz.: I. Of the Origin and Design of Government in General; with Concise Remarks on the English Constitution. II. Of Monarchy and Hereditary Succession. III. Thoughts on the Present State of American Affairs. IV. Of the Present Ability of America; with some