an epithet of abuse or a nickname. He is
an excellent hand at invention in that way, and has 'damnable iteration'
in him. What could be better than his pestering Erskine year after year
with his second title of Baron Clackmannan? He is rather too fond of
_the Sons and Daughters of Corruption_. Paine affected to reduce things
to first principles, to announce self-evident truths. Cobbett troubles
himself about little but the details and local circumstances. The first
appeared to have made up his mind beforehand to certain opinions, and to
try to find the most compendious and pointed expressions for them: his
successor appears to have no clue, no fixed or leading principles, nor
ever to have thought on a question till he sits down to write about it;
but then there seems no end of his matters of fact and raw materials,
which are brought out in all their strength and sharpness from not
having been squared or frittered down or vamped up to suit a theory--he
goes on with his descriptions and illustrations as if he would never
come to a stop; they have all the force of novelty with all the
familiarity of old acquaintance; his knowledge grows out of the subject,
and his style is that of a man who has an absolute intuition of what
he is talking about, and never thinks of anything else. He deals in
premises and speaks to evidence--the coming to a conclusion and summing
up (which was Paine's _forte_) lies in a smaller compass. The one could
not compose an elementary treatise on politics to become a manual for
the popular reader, nor could the other in all probability have kept
up a weekly journal for the same number of years with the same spirit,
interest, and untired perseverance. Paine's writings are a sort of
introduction to political arithmetic on a new plan: Cobbett keeps
a day-book, and makes an entry at full of all the occurrences and
troublesome questions that start up throughout the year. Cobbett, with
vast industry, vast information, and the utmost power of making what he
says intelligible, never seems to get at the beginning or come to
the end of any question: Paine in a few short sentences seems by his
peremptory manner 'to clear it from all controversy, past, present, and
to come.' Paine takes a bird's-eye view of things. Cobbett sticks
close to them, inspects the component parts, and keeps fast hold of the
smallest advantages they afford him. Or, if I might here be indulged
in a pastoral allusion, Paine tries to enclose