TH OM A S PA IN E .

S U P P L E M E N T TO “ T H E L I T E R A R Y G U I D E ,” O C T O B E R , 18 94 .

I n the pages of modern history it would be difficult, if not impossible, to find a more striking instance of how a man’s life, opinions, and work can be systematically falsified and misrepresented than that afforded by the subject of these two volumes.* For well nigh a century the world has been content with a picture of Paine such as represented that great man in a most undesirable light. Atheist, blasphemer, drunkard, profligate, are but a few of the epithets which most persons have been wont to hurl at him ; and the biographies, scanty in their details, full of loose and unauthenticated facts, and often the work of persons who possessed no sort of regard for Paine’s reputation, gave support to the general opinion which obtained in respect of him. It was not until two years ago, eighty-three years after Paine’s death, that the world was given the true story of Paine’s life and work, and it is to the many years of personal research which Mr. Conway devoted to the task that we owe the existence of one of the most fascinating w'orks in the whole range of biographical literature. Having proposed to himself to write a critical and impartial history of the man and his career, Mr. Conway discovered the vast Paine literature, whicn, however interesting as a shadow measuring him who cast it, contained conventionalised effigies of the man as evolved by friend and foe in their long struggle. In his laborious work of searching out the real Paine he found a general appreciation of its importance, and out of the mass of material which he accumulated we have presented to us a perfect picture of the man who first wrote the words, “ The United States of America who declared that “ any system of religion that has anything in it that shocks the mind of a child cannot be a true system j” who had the whole world for his country, and doing good to his fellowman as his creed.

p a i n e ’s h i r t h a n d e a r l y d a y s .

Born at Thetford in 1737, of Quaker parents, Paine passed the early years of his life amid surroundings which, to one of his precocious temperament, were the very reverse o f inspiring. We look in vain, says his biographer, for anything that can be described as true boyhood in Paine; and there are various indications that, in one way and another, Thetford and Quakerism together managed to make the early years of their famous son miserable. But had there been no Quakerism there had been no Thomas Paine; and Paine’s own consciousness of this, remarks Mr. Conway, finds full recognition in his works. Vet Paine says : “ Though I reverence the philanthropy, I cannot help smiling at the conceit, that if the taste of a Quaker had been consulted at the creation, what a silent and drab-coloured creation it would have been 1 Not a flower would have blossomed its gaieties, not a bird been permitted to sing.” Leaving school at the age of thirteen, he was employed by his father in making stays. To this work he stuck for nearly five years, at the end of which time, seized with a longing for adventure, he went to sea on a privateer. Of this new life

* “ The Life “ f Thom s Paine; with a History of his Literary, P o l it ic a l , ami Religious Career in America, France, anil England." By M o n cu re Daniel Conway. (Putnam’s Sons, London and New York.)

he soon had enough, and, after employment at the trade of stay-making, to which he turned for a few years, we find him, from 1762 to 1765, in the service of the Excise. In the years 1766 and 1767 Paine is living in London, starving himself on a few pounds a year which he received for teaching in schools at Goodman’s Fields and Kensington.

P A IN E AS a P R EA CH E R .

It was at this period that he desired to become an ordained preacher of the Church of England ; but it appears that, as he was only an English scholar, he could not obtain the necessary recommendation as a proper candidate for ordination. Without regular orders, however, he is reported to have preached in Moorfields, and elsewhere in England, “ as he was urged by his necessities, or dictated by his spirit.” It is droll, says Mr. Conway, to think that the Church of England should ever have had an offer of Paine’s services.

P A IN E AND T H E E X C IS E .

On May 15th, 1767, Paine was appointed excise officer at Grampound, Cornwall, “ but prayed leave to wait another vacancy.” On Ju ly 19th, in the following year, he was appointed officer at Lewes. Here he appears to have been conventionally patriotic, and was regarded as the Lewes laureate. He wrote an election song for the Whig candidate at New Shoreham, for which he received three pounds ; and he composed a song on the death of General Wolfe, which, when published some years later, was set to music, and enjoyed considerable popularity. In Lewes, as his friend Rickman tells us, Paine lived several years in habits of intimacy with a very respectable, sensible, and convivial set of acquaintances, who were entertained with his witty sallies and informed by his more serious conversations.

In politics Paine was at this time a Whig. He was tenacious in his opinions, which were bold, acute, and independent, and which he maintained with ardour, elegance, and argument. Mr. Conway thinks that it was probably to amuse the club at the White Hart, an ancient tavern in Lewes, of which Paine was a member, that he wrote his humorous poems. Paine soon rose to be chief among the excisemen of the district; and when they needed a spokesman at the time, being united in an appeal to Parliament to raise their salaries, a sum of money was raised to prosecute the matter, and confided to Paine. In 1772 he prepared the document, which was published in the following year, and in a clear and complete manner he set forth the plea for the excisemen. He passed the whole of the winter of 1772-3 trying to influence members of Parliament and others in favour of his cause, and one of the results of his pamphlet on the subject was to secure him an acquaintance with Oliver Goldsmith. In 1774 Paine was dismissed from the Excise, and, after a period of domestic trouble, culminating in the sale of his effects at I .ewes, we find him penniless in London. How he managed to live during the few months’ residence in London is not recorded.