Here is an opinion which no doubt shocked King George, and our eloquent reviewer, with the same deep horror:

"Of more worth is one honest man to society, and in the sight of God, than all the crowned ruffians that ever lived."

With regard to the oft-repeated watch-word of American admirers of England-"Great Britain is the Mother country,"-thus speaks Common

Sense:

"But Britain is the parent country, say some. Then the more shame upon her conduct. Even brutes do not devour their young, nor savages make war upon their families; wherefore, the assertion, if true, turns to her reproach; but it happens not to be true, or only partly so, and the phrase parent or mother country hath been jesuitically adopted by the king and his parasites, with a low papistical design of gaining an unfair bias on the credulous weakness of our minds. Europe, and not England, is the parent. country of America. This new world hath been the asylum for the persecuted lovers of civil and religious liberty from every part of Europe. Hither have they fled, not from the tender embraces, but from the cruelty of the monster; and it is so far true of England, that the same tyranny which drove the first emigrants from home, pursues their descendants still."

Speaking to those persons who still advocated a reconciliation with England:

"But if you say, you can still pass the violations over, then I ask, hath your house been burnt? Hath your property been destroyed before your face? Are your wife and children destitute of a bed to lie on, or bread to live on? Have you lost a parent or a child by their hands, and yourself the ruined and wretched survivor? If you have not, then are you not a judge of those who have. But if you have, and can still shake hands with the murderers, then are you unworthy the name of husband, father, friend, or lover, and whatever may be your rank or title in life, you have the heart of a coward, and the spirit of a sycophant."

Again:

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 inextinguishable feelings, for good and wise purposes. They are the guardians of his image in our hearts, and 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 haunted around 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."

This rude author of Common Sense had some idea of our resources; hear him in his iron-handed style:

"In almost every article of defence we abound. Hemp flourishes even to rankness, so that we need not want cordage. Our iron is superior to that of other countries. Our small arms equal to any in the world. Cannon we can cast at pleasure. Saltpetre and gunpowder we are every day producing. Our knowledge is hourly improving. Resolution is our inherent character, and courage hath never yet forsaken us. Therefore, what is it we want? Why is it that we hesitate? From Britain we can expect nothing but ruin. If she is once admitted to the government of America again, this continent will not be worth living in. Jealousies will be always arising, insurrections will be constantly happening; and who will go forth to quell them? Who will venture his life to reduce to own countrymen to a foreign obedience? The difference between Pennsylvania and Connecticut, respecting some unlocated lands, shows the insignificance of a British government, and fully proves that nothing but continental authority can regulate continental matters."

One passage more, in order to prove the puerility of the work:

"We have it in our power to begin the world over again. A situation, similar to the present, hath not happened since the days of Noah until now. The birthday of a new world is at hand, and a race of men, perhaps as numerous as all Europe contains, are to receive their portion of freedom from the events of a few months. The reflection is awful-and in this point of view, how trifling, how ridiculous, do the little paltry cavilings, of a few weak or interested men appear, when weighed against the business of a world."

Here is a specimen of Paine's advice to great men. It was originally applied to Sir William Howe, but will eminently suit our reviewer:

war.

"But how, sir, shall we dispose of you? The invention of a statuary is exhausted, and Sir William is yet unprovided with a monument. America is anxious to bestow her funeral favors upon you, and wishes to do it in a manner that shall distinguish you from all the deceased heroes of the last The Egyptian method of embalming is not known to the present age, and hieroglyphical pageantry hath outlived the science of decyphering it. Some other method, therefore, must be thought of to immortalize the new knight of the windmill and post. Sir William, thanks to his stars, is not oppressed with very delicate ideas. He has no ambition of being wrapped up and handed about in myrrh, aloes and cassia. Less expensive odors will suffice; and it fortunately happens, that the simple genius of America hath discovered the art of preserving bodies, and embellishing them too, with much greater frugality than the ancients. In balmage, sir, of humble tar, you will be as secure as Pharoah, and in a hieroglyphic of feathers, rival in finery all the mummies of Egypt."

Do you not think that these passages indicate a work of some particular merit? The Reviewer continues his critical excursion in this style:

"He next wrote the "Crisis," a series of papers, sixteen in number; and designed as popular appeals. They bore the signature of " Common Sense." The first words of the first number, written two days before the battle of Trenton, have become part of our household words :-"These are the times that try men's souls." Yet, it is manifest that with all Paine's aptitude at coining popular phrases, there was no spring of true eloquence

in him. And when he wrote under immediate and outward pressure, and without an opportunity of revision and slow elaboration, no matter how great the occasion or intense the excitement-he wrote feebly and impotently. The fourth paper dated the day after the battle of Brandy wine is given as an instance.'

These remarks made in the face of day, in the Nineteenth Century, can only be answered with a sentence of Thomas Paine : "There is dignity in the warm passions of a whig, which is never to be found in the cold malice of a Tory. In the one nature is only heated-in the other she is poisoned."

We must admit that the lecturer has the best right to think meanly of Paine, for as we see by this sentence, Paine had but an inferior opinion of the party to which our critical friend appertains.

You will perceive that he gives this short article, published the day after the battle of the Brandywine, as an instance of impotence in style.

This impotent essay, written in the fear of British occupation amid the palpitations of popular panic, comprises this weak line:

"We fight not to enslave, but to set a country free, and to make room upon the earth for honest men to live in."

"There was no spring of true eloquence in him!" Pity poor Tom Paine! The fountain of his thoughts did not flow from the marble portals of a bank-chartered to rob by wholesale-nor from the miasmatic corridors of a Criminal Court. "There was no spring of true eloquence in him!" Weep for Tom Paine! Had he but wielded a green bag, and written letters on the eve of a popular election, kindly offering to pay for a handsome majority, there might have been a spring of true eloquence in his breast, but as the case stands in history, he was but an Author and Poor!

Our rich, and of course virtuous reviewer, thus disposes of a work which Washington and La Fayette did not hesitate to honor with their names on the dedication page:

"It was not long before he began to write again; and in rapid succession, a batch of revolutionary pamphlets were published. Among them was the "Rights of Man," in reply to Mr. Burke's "Reflections ;" and though the reader of the present day may smile at the contrast, it is idle to deny that Paine made an impression in Great Britain. His grotesque and often vigorous phrases told on the excited mind of the populace.

"A batch of revolutionary pamphlets!" Singular felicity of phrase! Take all the addresses issued by Conventions in 1775, all the papers penned by Jefferson or Henry, all the eloquent appeals impressed with the power of Adams or the weight of Washington's name, and you have not a selection of the noblest gems of patriotism and literature, but a― batch of revolutionary pamphlets!'

Our lecturer's morality and patriotism all must admire. To slander the childless dead is no sin. To write Common Sense, and awake a Nation into a sense of their rights, is merely to pena diatribe.' To defend the

rights of man against the elegant sycophant of royalty, Edmund Burke, who thought the carcass of monarchy was beautiful because he flung flowers upon its festering pollution, and concealed the worms upon its brow with the mushroom blossoms of metaphor, is not to do a noble deed, but simply to write one of a batch of revolutionary pamphlets."

But it seems the fellow's" grotesque and vigorous phrases told on the excited mind of the populace." Yes: so the grotesque and vigorous phrases of Samuel Adams told on the excited mind of the populace, who in Boston Harbor disguised as Indians, drowned a cargo of British tea.

Here is one of the grotesque and vigorous phrases of Thomas Paine, selected at random from the Rights of Man:

"If systems of government can be introduced less expensive, and more productive of general happiness, than those which have existed, all attempts to oppose their progress will in the end prove fruitless. Reason, like time, will make its own way, and prejudice will fall in the combat with interest. If universal peace, harmony, civilization and commerce are ever to be the happy lot of man, it cannot be accomplished but by a revolution in the present system of governments. All the monarchical governments are inilitary. War is their trade, plunder and revenue their objects. While such governments continue, peace has not the absolute security of a day. What is the history of all monarchical governments but a disgustful picture of human wretchedness, and the accidental respite of a few years repose? Wearied with war, and tired of human butchery, they sat down to rest and called it peace. This certainly is not the condition that heaven intended for man; and if this be monarchy, well might monarchy be reckoned among the sins of the Jews.

Doubtless the reader of the present day, will smile at the contrast between Mr. Burke's reflections and Thomas Paine's Rights of Man. Burke was an elegant gentleman in a court dress, with a nosegay in his buttonhole. Paine but a man, with the garb of a freeman upon his form. Burke with his pretty figures and dainty words, wept for the French King and cried his eyes out of their sockets for Marie Antoinette. Paine the vulgar fellow, reserved his tears for the hundred millions of France, who had been ground into powder by this king and his predecessors in iniquity, for the women, the poor women of that enslaved land, who for ages had been made the tool of a tyrant's lust or the victims of his power. Burke reminds us of a spectator of a barbarous murder, who instead of defending the prostrate woman from the knife of the assassin, coolly takes paper and pencil from his pocket and begins a sketch of the scene, exclaiming as the blood. streams from the victim's throat-"What a striking picture!" Paine is merely an honest member of the "populace," for while Burke makes his picture, he springs at the murderer's throat, and rescues the bleeding woman from his knife.

Meanwhile our lecturer stands quietly by, and smiles at the contrast' between the elegant Burke and the vulgar Paine.

We might crowd our pages with illustrations of Thomas Paine's power.

We might suffer him to speak for himself, in his clear-thoughted, irontongued style. And yet whole pages, extracted from his works, stamped with genius and glittering with beauties, bear no more comparison to the full volume of his intellect, than a drop to the ocean, or to use an imperfect comparison--than the instinctive malignity of a hyena, to the coldblooded malice of our Reviewer.

They have been more read, more quoted, more copied, than any political papers ever written. We hazard nothing, when we state, that our ablest statesmen, for the last fifty years, have freely used the pages of Paine, in their best papers, in some instances without a word of credit. Such phrases as "These are the times that try men's souls," have become republican scripture in every American heart.

You will be surprised, reader, after perusing these passages, at the hardihood of our lecturer, who with all his love of truth, prepers Burke to Paine, King George to Washington, the applause of an aristocratic audience to the good opinion of the populace.

You will be somewhat indignant withal; while the strong throb of honest anger, if the bite of a reptile can excite anger-swells your bosom, you will be induced to ask this Reviewer- Could you not be a man for once in your life? Scorned by the living, could you not leave the dead alone? Were there not other graves to desecrate, other skulls on which to vent your venom. Nay! Why, in your ferocious appetite for dead men's bones, you did not dis-inter a Traitor of the Revolution, who has come down to our time, baptised in a miserable glory?'

But these words would have been lost on the Violator of the Grave. He wished to build a character for religion and morality. Paine was the author of a deistical work; Paine died childless. The Grave-Violator beheld this glorious opportunity! He could abuse the deistical author, and slander the childless dead! His reputation as a defender of religion would be established; he, the coiner of falsehoods as base as a Malay's steel, would be quoted as a-Christian !

Christianity was to be indebted for a character to him, who in sober charity, had none to spare.

But he overshot his mark. While he dealt a just rebuke to the Infidel, he should have spared the Patriot. While he took the last years of Paine's life, and held them up to the laughter of the cold and heartless crowd, he should have stepped lightly over his Revolutionary career. For in the sound of his voice, there was an old man, who remembered Thomas Paine, writing his Crisis, in 1776, and tracking his bloody footsteps in the snow, while a certain officer of the Continental army, was basely bargaining with the enemy and hungering to be bought.

While he struck his coward's blow upon the dead man's skull, he should have heard the whisper of prudence-"Take care! There are other dead than Thomas Paine! There are other traitors than Benedict Arnold!”