Proverbs are said to be but half-truths, but 'give a dog a bad name
and hang him' is a saying almost as veracious as it is felicitous; and
to no one can it possibly be applied with greater force than to Thomas
Paine, the rebellious staymaker, the bankrupt tobacconist, the amazing
author of _Common-sense_, _The Rights of Man_, and _The Age of Reason_.
Until quite recently Tom Paine lay without the pale of toleration. No
circle of liberality was constructed wide enough to include him. Even
the scouted Unitarian scouted Thomas. He was 'the infamous Paine,'
'the vulgar atheist.' Whenever mentioned in pious discourse it was but
to be waved on one side as thus: 'No one of my hearers is likely to be
led astray by the scurrilous blasphemies of Paine.'
I can well remember when an asserted intimacy with the writings of
Paine marked a man from his fellows and invested him in children's
minds with a horrid fascination. The writings themselves were only to
be seen in bookshops of evil reputation, and, when hastily turned over
with furtive glances, proved to be printed in small type and on
villainous paper. For a boy to have bought them and taken them inside
a decent home would have been to run the risk of fierce wrath in this
life and the threat of it in the next. If ever there was a hung dog,
his name was Tom Paine.
But History is, as we know, for ever revising her records. None of her
judgments are final. A life of Thomas Paine, in two portly and
well-printed volumes, with gilt tops, wide margins, spare leaves at
the end, and all the other signs and tokens of literary
respectability, has lately appeared. No President, no Prime
Minister--nay, no Bishop or Moderator--need hope to have his memoirs
printed in better style than are these of Thomas Paine, by Mr. Moncure
D. Conway. Were any additional proof required of the complete
resuscitation of Paine's reputation, it might be found in the fact
that his life _is_ in two volumes, though it would have been far
better told in one.
Mr. Conway believes implicitly in Paine--not merely in his virtue and
intelligence, but that he was a truly great man, who played a great
part in human affairs. He will no more admit that Paine was a
busybody, inflated with conceit and with a strong dash of insolence,
than he will that Thomas was a drunkard. That Paine's speech was
undoubtedly plain and his nose undeniably red is as far as Mr. Conway
will go. If we are to follow the biographer the whole way, we must not
only unhang the dog, but give him sepulture amongst the sceptred
Sovereigns who rule us from their urns.
Thomas Paine was born at Thetford, in Norfolk, in January, 1737, and
sailed for America in 1774, then being thirty-seven years of age. Up
to this date he was a rank failure. His trade was staymaking, but he
had tried his hand at many things. He was twice an Excise officer, but
was twice dismissed the service, the first time for falsely
pretending to have made certain inspections which, in fact, he had not
made, and the second time for carrying on business in an excisable
article--tobacco, to wit--without the leave of the Board. Paine had
married the tobacconist's business, but neither the marriage nor the
business prospered; the second was sold by auction, and the first
terminated by mutual consent.
Mr. Conway labours over these early days of his hero very much, but he
can make nothing of them. Paine was an Excise officer at Lewes, where,
so Mr. Conway reminds us, 'seven centuries before Paine opened his
office in Lewes, came Harold's son, possibly to take charge of the
Excise as established by Edward the Confessor, just deceased.' This
device of biographers is a little stale. The Confessor was guiltless
of the Excise.
Paine's going to America was due to Benjamin Franklin, who made
Paine's acquaintance in London, and, having the wit to see his
ability, recommended him 'as a clerk or assistant-tutor in a school or
assistant-surveyor.' Thus armed, Paine made his appearance in
Philadelphia, where he at once obtained employment as editor of an
intended periodical called the _Pennsylvanian Magazine or American
Museum_, the first number of which appeared in January, 1775. Never
was anything luckier. Paine was, without knowing it, a born
journalist. His capacity for writing on the spur of the moment was
endless, and his delight in doing so boundless. He had no difficulty
for 'copy', though in those days contributors were few. He needed no
contributors. He was 'Atlanticus'; he was 'Vox Populi'; he was
'Aesop.' The unsigned articles were also mostly his. Having at last,
after many adventures and false starts, found his vocation, Paine
stuck to it. He spent the rest of his days with a pen in his hand,
scribbling his advice and obtruding his counsel on men and nations.
Both were usually of excellent quality.
Paine was also happy in the moment of his arrival in America. The War
of Independence was imminent, and in April, 1775, occurred 'the
massacre of Lexington.' The Colonists were angry, but puzzled. They
hardly knew what they wanted. They lacked a definite opinion to
entertain and a cry to asseverate. Paine had no doubts. He hated
British institutions with all the hatred of a civil servant who has
had 'the sack.'
In January, 1776, he published his pamphlet _Common-sense_, which must
be ranked with the most famous pamphlets ever written. It is difficult
to wade through now, but even _The Conduct of the Allies_ is not easy
reading, and yet between Paine and Swift there is a great gulf fixed.
The keynote of _Common-sense_ was separation once and for ever, and
the establishment of a great Republic of the West. It hit between wind
and water, had a great sale, and made its author a personage and, in
his own opinion, a divinity.
Paine now became the penman of the rebels. His series of manifestoes,
entitled _The Crisis_, were widely read and carried healing on their
wings, and in 1777 he was elected Secretary to the Committee of
Foreign Affairs. Charles Lamb once declared that Rousseau was a good
enough Jesus Christ for the French, and he was capable of declaring
Tom Paine a good enough Milton for the Yankees. However that may be,
Paine was an indefatigable and useful public servant. He was a bad
gauger for King George, but he was an admirable scribe for a
revolution conducted on constitutional principles.
To follow his history through the war would be tedious. What
Washington and Jefferson really thought of him we shall never know.
He was never mercenary, but his pride was wounded that so little
recognition of his astounding services was forthcoming. The
ingratitude of Kings was a commonplace; the ingratitude of peoples an
unpleasing novelty. But Washington bestirred himself at last, and
Paine was voted an estate of 277 acres, more or less, and a sum of
money. This was in 1784.
Three years afterwards Thomas visited England, where he kept good
company and was very usefully employed engineering, for which
excellent pursuit he would appear to have had great natural aptitude.
Blackfriars Bridge had just tumbled down, and it was Paine's laudable
ambition to build its successor in iron. But the Bastille fell down as
well as Blackfriars Bridge, and was too much for Paine. As Mr. Conway
beautifully puts it: 'But again the Cause arose before him; he must
part from all--patent interests, literary leisure, fine society--and
take the hand of Liberty undowered, but as yet unstained. He must beat
his bridge-iron into a key that shall unlock the British Bastille,
whose walls he sees steadily closing around the people.' 'Miching
mallecho--this means mischief;' and so it proved.
Burke is responsible for the _Rights of Man_. This splendid
sentimentalist published his _Reflections on the Revolution in France_
in November, 1790. Paine immediately sat down in the Angel, Islington,
and began his reply. He was not unqualified to answer Burke; he had
fought a good fight between the years 1775 and 1784. Mr. Conway has
some ground for his epigram, 'where Burke had dabbled, Paine had
dived.' There is nothing in the _Rights of Man_ which would now
frighten, though some of its expressions might still shock, a
lady-in-waiting; but to profess Republicanism in 1791 was no joke, and
the book was proclaimed and Paine prosecuted. Acting upon the advice
of William Blake (the truly sublime), Paine escaped to France, where
he was elected by three departments to a seat in the Convention, and
in that Convention he sat from September, 1792, to December, 1793,
when he was found quarters in the Luxembourg Prison.
This invitation to foreigners to take part in the conduct of the
French Revolution was surely one of the oddest things that ever
happened, but Paine thought it natural enough so far, at least, as he
was concerned. He could not speak a word of French, and all his
harangues had to be translated and read to the Convention by a
secretary, whilst Thomas stood smirking in the Tribune. His behaviour
throughout was most creditable to him. He acted with the Girondists,
and strongly opposed and voted against the murder of the King. His
notion of a revolution was one by pamphlet, and he shrank from deeds
of blood. His whole position was false and ridiculous. He really
counted for nothing. The members of the Convention grew tired of his
doctrinaire harangues, which, in fact, bored them not a little; but
they respected his enthusiasm and the part he had played in America,
whither they would gladly he had returned. Who put him in prison is a
mystery. Mr. Conway thinks it was the American Minister in Paris,
Gouverneur Morris. He escaped the guillotine, and was set free after
ten months' confinement.
All this time Washington had not moved a finger in behalf of the
author of _Common-sense_ and _The Crisis_. Amongst Paine's papers this
epigram was found:
'ADVICE TO THE STATUARY WHO IS TO EXECUTE THE
STATUE OF WASHINGTON.
Take from the mine the coldest, hardest stone;
It needs no fashion--it is Washington.
But if you chisel, let the stroke be rude,
And on his heart engrave--"Ingratitude."'
This is hard hitting.
So far we have only had the Republican Paine, the outlaw Paine; the
atheist Paine has not appeared. He did so in the _Age of Reason_,
first published in 1794-1795. The object of this book was religious.
Paine was a vehement believer in God and in the Divine government of
the world, but he was not, to put it mildly, a Bible Christian. Nobody
now is ever likely to read the _Age of Reason_ for instruction or
amusement. Who now reads even Mr. Greg's _Creed of Christendom_, which
is in effect, though not in substance, the same kind of book? Paine
was a coarse writer, without refinement of nature, and he used brutal
expressions and hurled his vulgar words about in a manner certain to
displease. Still, despite it all, the _Age of Reason_ is a religious
book, though a singularly unattractive one.
Paine remained in France advocating all kinds of things, including a
descent on England, the abduction of the Royal Family, and a Free
Constitution. Napoleon sought him out, and assured him that he
(Napoleon) slept with the _Rights of Man_ under his pillow. Paine
believed him.
In 1802 Paine returned to America, after fifteen years' absence.
'Thou stricken friend of man,' exclaims Mr. Conway in a fine passage,
'who hast appealed from the God of Wrath to the God of Humanity, see
in the distance that Maryland coast which early voyagers called
Avalon, and sing again your song when first stepping on that shore
twenty-seven years ago.'
The rest of Paine's life was spent in America without distinction or
much happiness. He continued writing to the last, and died bravely on
the morning of June 8, 1809.
The Americans did not appreciate Paine's theology, and in 1819 allowed
Cobbett to carry the bones of the author of _Common-sense_ to England,
where--'as rare things will,' so, at least, Mr. Browning sings--they
vanished. Nobody knows what has become of them.
As a writer Paine has no merits of a lasting character, but he had a
marvellous journalistic knack for inventing names and headings. He is
believed to have concocted the two phrases 'The United States of
America' and 'The Religion of Humanity.' Considering how little he had
read, his discourses on the theory of government are wonderful, and
his views generally were almost invariably liberal, sensible, and
humane. What ruined him was an intolerable self-conceit, which led him
to believe that his own productions superseded those of other men. He
knew off by heart, and was fond of repeating, his own _Common-sense_
and the _Rights of Man_. He was destitute of the spirit of research,
and was wholly without one shred of humility. He was an oddity, a
character, but he never took the first step towards becoming a great
man.