ugh in him for one volume at least. His career was wonderful,
even for the age of miraculous events he lived in. In America, he was a
Revolutionary hero of the first rank, who carried letters in his pocket
from George Washington, thanking him for his services. And he managed
besides to write his radical name in large letters in the History of
England and of France. As a mere literary workman, his productions
deserve notice. In mechanics, he invented and put up the first iron
bridge of large span in England; the boldness of the attempt still
excites the admiration of engineers. He may urge, too, another claim
to our attention. In the legion of "most remarkable men" these United
States have produced or imported, only three have achieved infamy:
Arnold, Burr, and Paine. What are Paine's titles to belong to this trio
of disreputables? Only these three: he wrote the "Age of Reason"; was a
Democrat, perhaps an unusually dirty one; and drank more brandy than was
good for him. The "Age of Reason" is a shallow deistical essay, in which
the author's opinions are set forth, it is true, in a most offensive and
irreverent style. As Dr. Hopkins wrote of Ethan Allen,--

"One hand was clenched to batter noses,
While t'other scrawled 'gainst Paul and Moses."

But who reads it now? On the other hand, no one who has studied Paine's
career can deny his honesty and his disinterestedness; and every
unprejudiced reader of his works must admit not merely his great ability
in urging his opinions, but that he sincerely believed all he wrote. Let
us, then, try to forget the carbuncled nose, the snuffy waistcoat, the
unorthodox sneer. We should wipe out his later years, cut his life short
at 1796, and take Paine when he wrote "Common Sense," Paine when he
lounged at the White Bear in Piccadilly, talking over with Horne Tooke
the answer to Mr. Burke's "Reflections," and Paine, when, as "foreign
benefactor of the species," he took his seat in the famous French
Convention.

It would repay some capable author to dig him up, wash him, and show him
to the world as he was. A biography of him would embrace the history of
the struggle which established the new theory of politics in government.
He is the representative man of Democracy in both hemispheres,--a good
subject in the hands of a competent artist; and the time has arrived, we
think, when justice may be done him. As a general rule, it is yet too
soon to write the History of the United States