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the heavy black clouds of adversity, before it acquired sufficient strength to burst its boundary; and as the streaming lightning is more or less vivid in proportion to the density or lightness of the clouds which encompass it, so it has generally proved that the powers of a fine imagination have been more or less brilliant, in proportion to the poverty or plenty by which the possessor was surrounded. The enlivening wit of Congreve, the melting scenes of Otway, the rural tenderness and pathetic simplicity of Goldsmith, and the dignified ease and elegance of Thomson, would have been unknown to us, if these luminaries in the hemisphere of literature had been born in a state of affluence; for though the men might have lived with much more comfort to themselves than they did, it is very probable that the easy couch and plentiful board would have destroyed the inspiration which gave birth to their finest productions.

But to our author. He had by this time seen enough of the world to despise its follies, and he had witnessed too many of the bad effects of misgovernment in his native country to feel any affection for them, when directed against the country of which he was about to become a citizen. Dr. Franklin could not therefore have selected a man more likely to repay his kindness in vindicating the cause of the people, by whom he was deputed ambassador to England. Our author sailed from this country [England] toward the end of the year 1774, and arrived at Philadelphia about two months afterward."

We have thus briefly brought Mr. Paine to the close of the first period of his life; a period of no important interest to the public; and only valuable as qualifying him for the other periods, which belonged wholly to the public. His good sense was the work of nature; his acquired knowledge, whether of books or men, was the effect of study and observation; but to these was added experience, the result of accident; but admirably adapted to fit him for his future tasks, of which he could have no conception. We have seen him necessarily a mechanic, a sailor, a tradesman, an exciseman, a storekeeper, and a teacher, acquainted with London, and different sections of Great Britain; intimate with the corruptions and revenue of the country from his connexion with the excise; an author, a politician, and associating with various classes in the community; with a habit for observation and original thinking, and thus qualified to address a whole

LEAVES ENGLAND.

29 people on the subject of liberty. His father a quaker, his mother of the established church, and his wife and her friends dissenters, he could have but little religious prejudice. While accident, however painful to himself, which sent him. to this country, unencumbered with either wife, family, or fortune, contributed highly to render him devoted to the people among whom he was about to reside, during their arduous struggle in support of liberty.

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PART II.

FROM MR. PAINE'S ARRIVAL IN AMERICA TO THE END OF THE WAR
OF INDEPENDENCE.

MR. PAINE having resolved to leave England, brought letters of recommendation from Dr. Franklin, then on an embassy from a northern state to the British government in London. Mr. Paine left England in the autumn of 1774, and arrived at [Philadelphia in the latter part of the same year; and not in 1772, as Dr. Rush states. Sherwin correctly says:

"From this period to the day of his death, the abilities of Paine never lay dormant. Very shortly after his arrival in Philadelphia, he became acquainted with Mr. Aitkin, a respectable bookseller of that town. In January, 1775, Mr. Aitkin commenced the publication of the Pennsylvania Magazine, of which Paine became the editor. Many of the pieces in this publication are truly elegant. In these, as in most of his other writings, he is singularly happy in clothing an original boldness of thought with a peculiar beauty of diction. The article in which he treats of the hidden riches of the earth, and the diligence with which we ought to search after them, is a fine specimen of this rare combination. The well-known song on the death of General Wolfe, appeared in an early number of this magazine; and it is unquestionably one of the most beautiful productions of the sort in the English language. The ideas would have done honor to any of the poets of old, and the poetry is an example of the most polished versification. As this little piece is still much admired, even by those who disapprove of its author's political and religious notions, I here insert it, as transcribed from an original copy:

SONG ON THE DEATH OF GENERAL WOLFE.

'In a mouldering cave, where the wretched retreat,
Britannia sat wasted with care:

She mourned for her Wolfe, and exclaimed against fate,
And gave herself up to despair.

The walls of her cell she had sculptured around

With the feats of her favorite son,

And even the dust, as it lay on the ground,

Was engraved with some deeds he had done.

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LINES ON THE DEATH OF WOLFE.

The sire of the gods, from his crystalline throne,
Beheld the disconsolate dame,

And, moved with her tears, he sent Mercury down,
And these were the tidings that came:
"Britannia, forbear, not a sigh or a tear,

For thy Wolfe, so deservedly loved;

Your tears shall be changed into triumphs of joy,
For thy Wolfe is not dead, but removed.

The sons of the east, the proud giants of old,
Have crept from their darksome abodes,

And this is the news, as in heaven it was told,
They were marching to war with the gods."
A council was held in the chambers of Jove,
And this was their final decree,

That Wolfe should be called to the armies above,
And the charge was intrusted to me.

To the plains of Quebec with the orders I flew,

He begged for a moment's delay;

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He cried, Oh forbear, let me victory hear,

And then thy commands I'll obey.'

With a darksome thick film I encompassed his eyes,

And bore him away in an urn;

Lest the fondness he bore to his own native shore
Should induce him again to return."'

31

In addition to the above, he wrote several other articles for the Pennsylvania Magazine, of considerable literary merit. These principally consist of a letter to the publisher on the utility of magazines in general; 'Useful and Entertaining Hints on the Internal Riches of the Colonies;' 'Reflections on the Death of Lord Clive;' and 'New Anecdotes of Alexander the Great.' The 'Reflections on the Death of Lord Clive,' I have not seen, though I have been at considerable pains to procure them; but I have been informed that they contain much originality of thought, and that they caused the work to be sought after with great avidity. He likewise wrote for the same publication an elegant little piece in the form of a poetical dialogue, between a snowdrop and a critic, in which the former is made to describe the variety and pleasure intended to be conveyed to the public through the medium of the new work, in opposition to the cavilling objections of the latter. These productions are already in the possession of the public, and they serve to show the versatility of our author's disposition."

Dr. Rush, of Philadelphia, and formerly a member of that congress which declared these states independent, in his letter to Cheetham, says that Paine came to this country with the design of opening a school for the instruction of young ladies in branches of literature not then generally taught. Paine's introduction to Mr. Aitkin appears to have been through Dr. Franklin's recommendations. There Dr. Rush met him; and afterward, being excited by an article in one of Mr. Aitkin's

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papers on the subject of the African slavery, he sought his acquaintance. And in that letter ascribes to himself suggesting to Paine the subject of his "Common Sense," and the title. That letter, though highly favorable to Paine, is certainly egotistical, which renders this suggestion doubtful; especially as the object of Cheetham in getting that letter written to him, as well as others from different persons, was obviously to pare off, if possible, any part of Paine's reputation. Dr. Rush was clearly incorrect in one of his dates; and distinctly marks his prejudice in conclusively stating, that he declined to see Paine on his last return to this country, on account of the principles avowed in his "Age of Reason." This observation, though intended by Dr. Rush to exalt himself at the expense of Mr. Paine, and as such is published by Cheetham, is, in fact, highly important. It satisfactorily accounts for many of Paine's early sycophants deserting him, without any dereliction of personal worth on his part.

Mr. Paine's acquaintance with Dr. Franklin; the object of his coming to this country (to introduce a higher scale of education than that in use); his first employment (engaged or hired to edit a new magazine, and other periodicals published by Aitkin); the success and reputation of those publications, and his acquaintance with Dr. Rush as a consequence of his reputation; the very idea of Dr. Rush suggesting to Mr. Paine the subject of a pamphlet to act on the people, whether true or false, together with the circumstances just noted, mark Mr. Paine as then possessing literary attainments in an eminent degree; and ought to have preserved him against the vulgar abuse with which so many of the clergy and his theological opponents have assailed him. This attack on his literary character, successful in an extraordinary degree, depended on the suppression of his works; the presumption of the ignorance of those works by the body of the party addressed; and on the assumption of the power of the clergy to prevent those works being read. It is remarkable, that Cheetham, dishonest in his purposes, and, comparatively with Paine, of small abilities, and very prejudiced and ignorant, makes also this charge, while he himself furnishes the most satisfactory proofs to the contrary. In Cheetham's life

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