on the author's part in the formal but not
ungraceful prose of her time, neither unduly Johnsonian nor in any way
slipshod. But it may perhaps be conceded that, but for the interest of
the subject, they would not be of much importance.

The most distinguished members of the Jacobin school, from the literary
point of view, were Thomas Paine and William Godwin. Paine was only a
literary man by accident. He was born at Thetford on 29th January 1737,
in the rank of small tradesman, and subsequently became a custom-house
officer. But he lost his place for debt and dubious conduct in 1774, and
found a more congenial home in America, where he defended the rebellion
of the Colonies in a pamphlet entitled _Common Sense_. His new
compatriots rewarded him pretty handsomely, and after about a dozen
years he returned to Europe, visiting England, which, however, he left
again very shortly (it is said owing to the persuasion of Blake), just
in time to escape arrest. He had already made friends in France, and his
publication of _The Rights of Man_ (1791-92), in answer to Burke's
attack on the Revolution, made him enormously popular in that country.
He was made a French citizen, and elected by the Pas de Calais to the
Convention. His part here was not discreditable. He opposed the King's
execution, and, being expelled the Convention and imprisoned by the
Jacobins, wrote his other notorious work, _The Age of Reason_ (1794-95),
in which he maintained the Deist position against both Atheism and
Christianity. He recovered his liberty and his seat, and was rather a
favourite with Napoleon. In 1802 he went back to America, and died there
(a confirmed drunkard it is said and denied) seven years later. A few
years later still, Cobbett, in one of his sillier moods, brought
Paine's bones back to England, which did not in the least want them.

The coarse and violent expression, as well as the unpopular matter, of
Paine's works may have led to his being rather unfairly treated in the
hot fights of the Revolutionary period; but the attempts which have
recently been made to whitewash him are a mere mistake of reaction, or
paradox, or pure stupidity. The charges which used to be brought against
his moral character matter little; for neither side in these days had,
or in any days has, a monopoly of loose or of holy living. But two facts
will always remain: first, that Paine attacked subjects which all
require calm, and some of them reverent, treatment